The Fatal Glass of Beer

Much to the consternation of the Turkish secular establishment (is that anything like our liberal establishment?), the Turkish government, now completely under the control of the Muslim party, is allowing Muslim women to wear head scarves in universities (equivalent to the hijab). Liberal opinion in the West is of course hailing this as a triumph of democracy over the autocracy of the secularists, likening it to Jewish boys wearing yarmulkes, or Sikhs wearing turbans, to a public school in the US. Some things to consider on this argument:

• Jews and Sikhs are tiny minorities in Western countries; the possibility that their wearing religious symbols to class will be the foot-in-the door in imposing their religions on others is nil.
• US liberals are obsessed with stamping out all Judeo-Christian religious symbols in American public schools, to ensure secularism (in the interest of "diversity", naturally, they don't have any objections to the "other" displaying their religious or cultural symbols; to the contrary, they encourage such displays). But for the Turkish secularists, of course, it would be "undemocratic" to deny the Muslim majority the right to flaunt Islam in a Muslim MAJORITY (90% of the population) country, in order to safeguard strict secularism and the right of minorities not to be stigmatized. A double standard there?
• Just maybe, the Turkish secularists, through a long and painful history, know something that western liberals do not: That Islam is an aggressive, "conquering", religion and that Muslim believers, in an overwhelmingly Muslim country, will not stop at this first "request" for indulgence of their religion. Indeed, this would be The Fatal Glass of Beer that you must never give an alcoholic.

Islam is a religion for addicts. Don’t give them that first drink... not in Turkey... and NOT IN AMERICA!

Dee-lightful, Dee-licious, Dee-lovely

To all you liberals outraged at the behavior of Hillary (Lurleen) and Bill Clinton:

Be kind to the Clintons. How did you expect them to behave? Their will to win would impress Nietzsche himself; they are relentless and ruthless and have always been so. You closed your eyes (to go along with your closed minds), held your noses and supported them against their bogeyman “right-wing conspiracy” at all costs to the truth and to your principles. Now you are stuck with them. “As ye sow, so shall ye reap”

When they win the nomination (and they WILL), you will have to sing their praises and defend them all over again. After all, you wouldn't be supporting the Republican nominee whomever he is, right?

The NY Times editorial staff made the "pragmatic" (cynical?) decision to support the Clintons now because they didn't want to have to eat their words later. Surely, like you, they would prefer the more exotic Mr. Obama (all that multiculturalism in one neat package!).

How delightful to watch you all squirm this way.

Muslim Women Behind Wall of Silence in Germany

On the NPR report about Muslim women in Germany, shut up at home with no real connection to their "adopted" country. The report very blithely says things like: "This is women who are physically living in Germany, but psychologically living in another culture, which is looking for gender apartheid." ... "Polls show that only one-third of Muslims in Germany want to integrate."..."German authorities worry about the rise in the number of uneducated, imported brides and grooms from Turkey, who arrive through both arranged and forced marriages. The interior ministry says that nearly half a million spouses have been imported since the 1980s. Tens of thousands continue to arrive every year." Well duhhhhh. Not one of these "German authorities" seems to ask "Why are we letting them in here?" ....."Of what value are these people to our society?" ... "why?....why?...why?"

Instead there is a lot of very polite, barely discernible, hand wringing, as in "Europeans are starting to question the notion of multiculturalism, which can lead to separate, parallel societies and a large Muslim underclass." Starting to question? When will they reach for the answer, one wonders? When all of Europe has been reduced to the social level of Anatolian villages or North African casbahs?

Instead of resolving the questions, we get truly outrageous things like this: "... a Frankfurt judge rejected a Muslim woman's request for a fast-track divorce. The woman said her husband beat her, but the judge ruled that the Koran sanctions such physical abuse." and "...Schools are increasingly granting Muslim parents' demands that their daughters not take part in sports, sex education and field trips." In other words, the problems are being compounded by the "multicultural" imperative. Enlightened Germans, indeed.

An the women? "... Islamic preachers are filling the void."..."The Muslim institutions, they see these problems...They say, 'If you become again religious or get back to your roots and your religious beliefs, then everything will become better.' And that's why we have this movement, religious institutions are becoming bigger and stronger."

Germans have fallen deeper into the trap of multi-cultural nonsense because of their barbaric racial history. However, there is such a thing as being too sensitive. The murdered Jews of Europe were eager to be assimilated, wanting only to be part of the larger European society. Their tragic history and the Germans' horrific treatment of them has no bearing on Europe's new "guests".

Barack's Little Sister

Interviewed in today's NY Times magazine, Maya Soetoro-Ng Obama's half-sister says he has been a Christian for the last 20 years. She does not say, nor is she asked, what he was before that. If he was a Muslim, he would be considered an apostate and subject to being put to death under Islamic law. How is THAT going to improve our "image" in the Muslim world?

The interviewer discusses their mother "Your mom was what used to be called a freethinker". As described, she seems to have been more of a nut (and a bit of a slut, too apparently): "She would wake us up in the middle of the night to go look at the moon. When I was a teenager, this was a source of great frustration because I wanted to sleep." and "He elected to make a choice, whereas Mom sort of wandered through the world collecting treasures."

Just the "face" America needs to project to the world. The final triumph of the 60's counter-culture?

A Cutting Tradition

Quote of the day from the NY Times article about circumcising young girls in Indonesia: "“These mothers believe they are doing something good for their children,” Guarenti, a native of Italy, told me. “For our culture that is not easily understandable. To judge them harshly is to isolate them. You cannot make change that way.”" This is the problem with "progressive", multi-cultural thinking in a nut-shell. Isolation and expressions of disgust are exactly what is needed. Indulging "them" is not any way to make them see how barbaric their ideas are.

JUDGEMENT is the mark of advanced civilizations. Some things are inherently RIGHT and other thing are inherently WRONG

What on earth are these people doing here?

AP story: "Ex-lawmaker charged in terror conspiracy" tells about an ex-congressman acting as a front for an Islamic "charitable" organization that was financing terrorists from Columbia MO, USA. The story never addresses the most obvious question: What on earth are these people doing here? In the middle of the country. NOT in the big cities where immigrants usually go for "ethnic comfort".

In fact, the most likely reason that they end up in this little town in the middle of Missouri is that Columbia is a college town and these people got there, probably, as students coming in under our generous, if misguided, visa policies. It would not be surprising at all if, in fact, their presence here was subsidized by the US Government. All part of our pathetic efforts to make them like us - and to be like us. WRONG.

All the so-called security measures that are being undertaken are just expensive waste if we continue to allow these people (AKA Muslims) to come into this country, as students, refugees and immigrants, and be allowed to stay here and roam about at will.

When will America understand? Security is not about gadgets and processes, but about removing dangerous people from our midst.

Donna Brazile For President

When it comes to the presidency, we need to get all the "firsts" out of the way as quickly as possible, so we can then actually look at the merits of the individual candidates without being overly preoccupied with the identity debate.

To clear the decks quickly, we need to nominate and elect Donna Brazile president in 2008. She is a triple threat: female; black; lesbian. No issues of ideology, experience and competence need be considered. Let us do this for harmony, inclusion and to satisfy the longing of each of the groups to have their identity affirmed. The only problem, of course, is that identity politics is a self-perpetuating enterprise; no matter how many groups are "included", we can be sure that other identities will sprout up and demand that they be included in the political spoils system. Does anyone know of a prominent trans-gendered paraplegic who would be interested in public office? You've got four (or maybe eight) years to gain the public recognition required to be considered for the presidency.

Democrats: Racists or Sexists?

What a delicious dilemma for the liberal Democrats. If they nominate Barack Hussein Obama then they are sexists for dissing Hillary (“Lurleen”) Rodham Clinton - or they are racists for selecting her and rejecting him. Political correctness and “right thinking” are so hard, aren’t they? Especially when there are competing claims by “victim” groups.

Poor John Edwards, stuck in his middle-aged maleness and whiteness; a reformed red neck trying all the old southern populist themes, but without the racism (loses something there, doesn’t it?). Some people have NO Luck. In 2004 he gets beaten by a privileged white guy, a supercilious twit, the epitomey of the white liberal establishment, who looked down on his reformed red neck running mate. And now - THIS. All the liberal chickens coming home to roost - all at once. Poor guy is the only true, old fashioned, big labor, New Deal Democrat left in the race and HE is being dissed by everyone. Big Labor used to be the backbone of the Democratic Party, but they’ve lost out to the more glamorous “other” in the affections of liberals. Edwards needs to seriously investigate his South Carolina roots; if he is lucky, he may discover that he is related by blood to Al Sharpton. After all, if Strom Thurmond can find some redemption that way, so can Edwards. With all that inter-marrying down South, he might hit the daily double and turn out to be related to both, thus gaining national liberal sympathy and also get an in with the red neck rear guard.

All three Democratic candidates have glommed on to the theme of “change”. But, of course, in economic policy, change for them all is “back to the future”; back to the glory days to complete the unfinished agendas of the New Deal and the Great Society. Their signature domestic issue is government mandated health care (in one form or another) which has been on the liberals’ plate since at least the Truman administration. As for their foreign policy ideas, think Wallace, Stevenson, McGovern; updates of Roosevelt and Truman, perhaps, but certainly not improvement on them. It is so outrageous that no interviewer, in the all the hours and hours of blather that have been dumped on the American public, has asked specifically what NEW THINKING any of these three are proposing to implement for this country. Perhaps if they were made to be more explicit in how they envision “changing” American society, especially on social issues, the public may begin to comprehend the liberal social rubbish that they (especially Obama and Clinton) would espouse. Someone really needs to ask all three of them: “where’s the beef?”

The “Battle of the Giant Victims” will be great entertainment for the conservatives (and hopefully the rest of the country), but whoever of the two is nominated could have horrendous consequences for this country, IF they are elected President.

Keeping both of them out of the White House (will it still be called that if Hussein is elected?) is THE crucial task for conservatives over the next eleven months.

Khalil Gibran - Arab Culture?

In another classic example of liberal disingenuousness, NYC named its school to propagate Arab (i.e., Islamic) "culture" the Khalil Gibran International Academy.

Khalil Gibran was a Lebanese Christian who was also a great admirer of `Abdu'l-Bahá, the founder of the Bahá'í faith, both hardly beloved by Arabs or Muslims in general (see, for example, Iran). His family fled from Lebanon in 1895 for economic reasons and also as part of the early Christian exit from the Levant in the 1890's . For the multi-cultural propagandists, however, it would have been imperative to have a "clean Arab" front for this "progressive" enterprise, so enter poor old Khalil. It would be unlikely that the school would delve very deeply into his writings, as they were heavily infused with a Messianic (i.e., Christian) message. Wouldn't do to remind everyone that the Christians have been extensively "cleansed" from the Muslim Levant. How embarrassing that would be.

After failing to install the hijab-wearing Yemenite "Debbie" Almontaser as the Principal (something about “Intifada NYC,” which resulted in some very red faces in the liberal Nomenklatura in New York), they've settled on a possibly even worse choice, an Arabist named Holly Anne Reichert who has spent a large part of her professional life in service to the Arabs, lusting after knowledge - and God knows what else.

"The Suicide of Reason"

The NY Times has outdone itself this time. The whole book review this week is about Islam. As one would expect from the "knowledge elite", most of the books are apologias and benign explanations of that evil faith. Naturally, the most apologetic and understanding are by western writers and reviewers (oh those leftist Brits).

One is definitely not and is totally in line with what this blog has always said. The book is called “The Suicide of Reason” by Lee Harris; it is reviewed by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and it is dead on. The author is very pessimistic, Ms Ali is not; she has faith (probably misplaced) in western resilience. Most resonant quote from the book: “While we in America are drugging our alpha boys with Ritalin, the Muslims are doing everything in their power to encourage their alpha boys to be tough, aggressive and ruthless.”

Obama For President (Of Kenya)

With all the present turmoil about the presidential elections in Kenya and the constant blather by the Left about Obama's superior qualities, it seems he can be of infinitely more use to world peace and tranquility if he were to become president of his fatherland rather than his motherland.

All his wonderful personal qualities and his rhetoric about "moving on beyond our differences" would do wonders to heal the Kikuyu / Luo divide.

His talents are as wasted in America as his presence is suspect.

Abused Muslim Women in U.S. Gain Advocates

The liberal project to "normalize" Islam in America is relentless. Article in today's NY Times about violence by Muslim men against their wives asserts "it's not Islam's fault". The the rest of the article shows that, in fact, it IS.

All the rationale for mistreatment of women is in the Koran and in Arab "culture". Of course, even "enlightened" Muslims feel that they can't speak up about the mistreatment of Muslim women in public because it would reflect badly on Muslims in the US.

"What did the Prophet Mohammad do and how did he do it?" is apparently the counter argument. It seems that there is no actual proof that he ever beat up any of his many wives. So the big point for Muslim "advocates" for battered Muslim women to make to "peaceful" Muslim men is: "If the Prophet (peace be upon him) didn't smack his wives around, you shouldn't either" . Whooopeee

Immigration and the NY Times

The NY Times is obsessed with the issue of immigration and, of course, it has a point of view which is, naturally, in support of permissiveness; i.e., the positions generally held by the Democratic presidential candidates. To the liberal media, epitomized by the NY Times, no contrary (i.e., Republican strict enforcement approach) can be considered acceptable or "realistic". Principle is not in the lexicon of liberals. The simple principle that no one should be rewarded for illegal (should be CRIMINAL) acts against the US and its people is simply too judgemental, especially if the perpetrator is considered to be a "victim" (in this case of economic exploitation in their native countries) or is "of color" (inherently entitled to the status of victim).

No acceptable immigration policy can include any form of forgiveness of the original sin. Supercilious liberals cynically set bogus "conditions" ("learn English, pay a fine") to try to fool the American public that what they are proposing is not a sham way to achieve their goal: let all these fugitives into the country with little consequence to them.

As the Times points out, 40% of the people who are here illegally did not come over the Mexican border, but came as visitors and simply stayed. The ease of entering this country and simply staying is a direct consequence of opening the gates during the 60's and after. These people are/should be easily identifiable and traceable and must be expeditiously expelled. They must all leave; no ifs, ands or buts.

As for the over-the-border crowd, they cannot be given a free pass either. The most cynical rationale given by the advocates of amnesty is that "you can't deport them all": a) It would be a logistical nightmare; and b) ("Its 's all about the children", again) you would be breaking up families of these hardworking law abiding (??) people - including cruelly separating them from their American-born (US citizen) children - who just want to provide for their families (apparently providing was NOT on their minds when they had the children in the first place).

By the logic of the 1st argument, any crime that is widely practiced, where you cannot assure that ALL perpetrators will be prosecuted, should not be a crime at all. At what point does this logic apply? If we reach a certain percentage of unsolved murders, should we stop prosecuting all murders? Since drug laws are widely ignored and probably only a small fraction of dealers and users are ever apprehended, should we legalize all drug commerce and usage? Any drive on an American highway, makes obvious the fact that only a very small number of speeders are ever caught and punished; should we decriminalize speeding, no matter the consequences? Obviously ridiculous.

To remove the ambiguity about border-jumping, it needs to be made a felony. It is as much of a violation of the law as any other crime. Law enforcement agencies (yes, even in the states) must be charged with apprehending any illegal alien and turning him over to the immigration authorities. The fear of punishment and subsequent expulsion from the US must be ever looming.

As for the 2nd argument, two answers: a) There is absolutely no law of man or god that says all family unification must happen in the US, and only in the US. Since these hard working people are so concerned about the welfare of their families, they should take all the family with them when they are deported; b) The provision, interpreted to be in the Constitution, that anyone born in the US is automatically a citizen (originally put in to the Constitution to automatically naturalize all the freed slaves after the Civil War) obviously needs amendment or re-interpretation. How can it be logically asserted that someone who is here illegally can grant citizenship-by-birth to another person? Again, obviously ridiculous.

Another assertion is that we need the no-education immigrants to do jobs that "Americans don't want to do". This is self-perpetuating, nonsensical logic. Historically, if a particular type of job had no takers in the USA, it was resolved in one of three ways: a) It was automated out of existence (probably the greatest driver for industrial automation in US history); b) It was upgraded (improved tooling, working conditions and remuneration); c) It was exported to low wage countries. Obviously, there will be some jobs that can't be dealt with by any of the these methods, the most obvious example being seasonal agricultural labor. These types of jobs are perfectly suited to a limited guest-worker program. Workers (not their families) would be brought in for the season, treated decently and fairly, then returned home on very short-duration programs. In the corporate world, this happens all the time with "long-commuting" professional workers who usually go home every few weeks and then return to the job. Not rocket science.

As for legal immigration, the laws need to be changed to provide the US with needed talent and people of education and character. The first priority is to drastically limit the pull-migration of "family re-unification". We need to take in a very limited number of people annually (certainly less that 500,000 people per year) concentrating on two criteria: a) Educated, self-sufficient individuals and their immediate families (professionals, as needed; well-off people who can invest; definitely NOT clergy of any faith); b) People who can easily assimilate into the United States as it presently exists. NO multi-cultural drivel; NO people with dual allegiances
(think Muslims). Preference needs now to be given (recruitment, if necessary) to people from Europe (yes, WHITES) to help restore, somewhat, America's ethnic balance. Special preference should be given to people from Eastern Europe who were shut out by the National Origins Act, then were under Soviet control and could not take advantage of the opportunity when immigration was opened up in the 60's; since they were not "in line" in the early years of open immigration, there is no population base from which to take advantage of pull-migration to get into the US now. They are generally educated and would be swiftly assimilated into US society. Also, they are resented when they try to migrate within Europe (Europeans seem to prefer to torture themselves with Muslim migrants, coming in legally or illegally, or as refugees).

Also, the laws need to be tightened, and Federal judges need to be restrained, when it comes to granting refugee status. The implications of some of the "positive" rulings by judges in asylum cases would easily make most of the 3rd world population eligible for asylum under one pretext or other: persecuted women and homosexuals from the Muslim world and Africa; abortion policies in China; strife everywhere. The international asylum regimes must be changed to emphasise "cultural compatibility" as a criteria for granting asylum to large population groups; there are at least 55 Muslim majority countries to which an Islamic "dissident" could go. Surely he/she can find, within that group, a "compatible" form of Islam, without having to contaminate the rest of the world.