Why Do One-In-Five American Voters Now Believe Osama Bin Laden Is Still Alive?

May 16 2011 Published by under 2010 Elections

Over at the LA Times , Andrew Malcolm asks, “ Why do one-in-five American voters now believe Osama bin Laden is still alive? “ This incredulity phenomenon is a curious creation of a high-speed global media so full of unverified and unverifiable information floating about, combined with a modern cynicism about political leaders masquerading as voter wisdom. After so many lies and misleading claims by politicians over the decades since the Kennedy assassination and its conspiracy theories (“I am not a crook” “I did not have sex with that woman”), the safest way to look wise and experienced these days is to dismiss virtually any public official’s statement as a talking point and/or lie. The widespread arrival of television some 60 years ago and more recently online video has trained people to expect some kind of visual confirmation of virtually any news, either live or shortly after. Its absence almost surely spawns doubts. President Obama watched the raid live via satellite and has seen the photos. Because he himself was convinced of Bin Laden’s death, the president deemed providing visual — albeit allegedly gruesome — photographic proof to any doubting fellow Americans was unnecessary. The people could take his word for it. …Operating in a longtime one-party city like Chicago, Democratic politicians do not often feel beholden to explaining themselves to the obedient public. So, the lesson this president from there obviously drew from his unnecessary birth certificate-sealing confrontation was to do it again with the Bin Laden photos. Number one, there’s a lot of truth to the “cynicism” angle Malcolm discusses. The thinking for a lot of people who buy into conspiracy theories works basically like so: Have you seen how the President from the other party behaves? He’s a rotten, lying son-of-a-b*tch! He’s capable of anything! Therefore, it’s as likely as not that he’s really the one responsible for X, Y, and Z. I mean, I don’t know FOR SURE that he did it, but he’s a bad guy and I wouldn’t put anything past him! Then, after they conclude that he’s responsible because he’s such a bad guy, they go out and find evidence to support their contention. That may sound like a poorly thought out, backwards way to think, but it’s actually very common. In fact, you probably do it yourself in certain areas without realizing it. Think about sports fans, parents talking about their children, or a discussion with your boss about whether you deserve a raise or not. See? More common than you thought. But, some people take it to an extreme — which brings us to the second factor, one discussed rather crudely in the South Park episode, “Mystery of the Urinal Deuce.” Continue reading at Right Wing News . FOR APPROVAL: Answering The Question: Why Do One-In-Five American Voters Now Believe Osama Bin Laden Is Still Alive? X Inbox X Reply Jenn Q. Public to David show details 5:19 PM (35 minutes ago) Hawkins excerpt: Over at the LA Times , Andrew Malcolm asks, “ Why do one-in-five American voters now believe Osama bin Laden is still alive? “ This incredulity phenomenon is a curious creation of a high-speed global media so full of unverified and unverifiable information floating about, combined with a modern cynicism about political leaders masquerading as voter wisdom. After so many lies and misleading claims by politicians over the decades since the Kennedy assassination and its conspiracy theories (“I am not a crook” “I did not have sex with that woman”), the safest way to look wise and experienced these days is to dismiss virtually any public official’s statement as a talking point and/or lie. The widespread arrival of television some 60 years ago and more recently online video has trained people to expect some kind of visual confirmation of virtually any news, either live or shortly after. Its absence almost surely spawns doubts. President Obama watched the raid live via satellite and has seen the photos. Because he himself was convinced of Bin Laden’s death, the president deemed providing visual — albeit allegedly gruesome — photographic proof to any doubting fellow Americans was unnecessary. The people could take his word for it. …Operating in a longtime one-party city like Chicago, Democratic politicians do not often feel beholden to explaining themselves to the obedient public. So, the lesson this president from there obviously drew from his unnecessary birth certificate-sealing confrontation was to do it again with the Bin Laden photos. Number one, there’s a lot of truth to the “cynicism” angle Malcolm discusses. The thinking for a lot of people who buy into conspiracy theories works basically like so: Have you seen how the President from the other party behaves? He’s a rotten, lying son-of-a-b*tch! He’s capable of anything! Therefore, it’s as likely as not that he’s really the one responsible for X, Y, and Z. I mean, I don’t know FOR SURE that he did it, but he’s a bad guy and I wouldn’t put anything past him! Then, after they conclude that he’s responsible because he’s such a bad guy, they go out and find evidence to support their contention. That may sound like a poorly thought out, backwards way to think, but it’s actually very common. In fact, you probably do it yourself in certain areas without realizing it. Think about sports fans, parents talking about their children, or a discussion with your boss about whether you deserve a raise or not. See? More common than you thought. But, some people take it to an extreme — which brings us to the second factor, one discussed rather crudely in the South Park episode, “Mystery of the Urinal Deuce.” Continue reading at Right Wing News . Reply Forward Reply by chat to David Reply David Swindle to me show details 5:47 PM (6 minutes ago) approved. – Show quoted text – – David Swindle Associate Editor – FrontPage Magazine Managing Editor – NewsReal Blog http://twitter.com/DaveSwindle “Yet there are moments when the walls of the mind grow thin; when nothing is unabsorbed, and I could fancy that we might blow so vast a bubble that the sun might set and rise in it and we might take the blue of midday and the black of midnight and be cast off and escape from here and now.” — The Waves by Virginia Woolf Reply Forward Reply by chat to David

See the original post here:
Why Do One-In-Five American Voters Now Believe Osama Bin Laden Is Still Alive?

No responses yet

Escape from New York: Young Taxpayers Flee Economic Ruin

May 16 2011 Published by under 2010 Elections

Young workers, the lifeblood of any economy, are set to flee New York in droves . A new Marist College poll shows that 36% of New Yorkers under the age of 30 are planning to leave New York within the next five years – and more than a quarter of all adults are planning to bolt the Empire State. The New York City suburbs, with their high property values and taxes, are leading the exodus, the poll found. Of those preparing to leave, 62% cite economic reasons like cost of living, taxes – and a lack of jobs. This should surprise no one. People work to provide for themselves and otherwise pursue happiness. When fiscal policies and regulation create an environment hostile to that objective, people are going to leave. That is, if they are allowed. The ability to vote with your feet is an essential check on state and local government. But it requires maintaining a clearly defined federalism, with strict division of powers between each level of government. New Yorkers have somewhere to flee to, because the jurisdictions of state and local government are inherently limited. It should be obvious, but the point is often lost in our national policy debates. Before Obamacare , Massachusetts had Romneycare. Minnesota has a number of state-run healthcare programs. Several states in the union have dabbled in various socialist ventures. Yet the national outcry against such policies, seen most prominently in the Tea Party, is a relatively recent development. Why? Because nationalizing such policies removes exodus as a viable protest of last resort, raising the stakes of debate and backing dissenters into a corner. You can move from Minnesota to Texas with relative ease. Relocating to another country is much more difficult. That’s a large part of the reason our political discourse is so polarized, because we’ve adopted a one-size-fits-all approach to public policy whereby minorities are railroaded by the national majority. Instead, we ought to return to the libertarian live-and-let-live approach which the Founders enabled through clearly divided power. Doing so will require bold statesmen in state and local government, willing to reject funds from on high when strings are attached. There is no better guarantor of liberty than divided power. A national government which dictates the policies of each state cannot be held in check. States free to compete for the best and brightest, even if run by dyed-in-the-wool leftists, will eventually be forced to reverse course by the inevitable consequences of their horrible policies. To get business and young workers back, they will have to lower taxes, reduce regulation, and compete to become the freest and thus most attractive state in the union.

Continue reading here:
Escape from New York: Young Taxpayers Flee Economic Ruin

No responses yet

The ‘Nakba’ Day Protests and the Impossibility of Peace

May 16 2011 Published by under 2010 Elections

The events of “Naqba Day” are just one, very small proof that real peace is impossible. Not “difficult.” Not “painful.” Truly, 100% impossible. What were the thousands of protesters from Syria, Lebanon and Gaza demanding? Their demands are simple: the “right to return.” They want Israel to allow millions of Arabs of Palestinian descent to flood the country and turn it into another Arab state. This demand has been absolute and unyielding for 63 years. Never has any Arab leader publicly renounced this demand. Never have the Palestinian Arabs accepted any compromise on the matter. Today, right now,  the PLO demands this so-called” right” in unambiguous terms. There is no need here to mention that there is no such right enshrined in international law, or how easy it is to prove that Arab leaders have used this “demand” as a smokescreen to their real desire to destroy Israel, or the hypocrisy of Palestinian Arab leaders, today, who do not want even those who used to live on land they now control to “return.” All those points are true and can be proven at another time. The point here is that this demand is completely at odds with Israel’s continued existence. One cannot have it both ways: either the Arabs come and destroy Israel, or Israel is allowed to exist and they never “return.”  There is no possible compromise. If Israel would allow, say, 200,000 Arabs to immigrate to the country, it would not pacify the rest of them, and the demand in the rest of the Arab world would not subside. On the contrary, it would intensify. For 63 years, the Arab world has held its Palestinian brethren hostage to the idea that they would one day “return.” It has been their ace in the hole–they have purposefully kept millions of people in stateless misery just to score political pressure against Israel. Even with Hamas controlling Gaza, not a finger has been lifted to dismantle the “refugee” camps there. The entire “refugee” issue is kept alive artificially by a combination of Arab scheming, UN condonation and Western fear to tell the truth to the millions of people who are being treated cruelly by those who pretend to champion their cause. In the framework of Arab-Israeli peace, there is no solution to the problem. The West has assumed for decades that the solution will ultimately take the form of partial Israeli acquiescence, monetary compensation, and Arab nations stepping up to naturalize most of their Palestinian Arab prisoners. The only problem is that there has been zero indication that any of that would be accepted by the Arab world. On the contrary: when speaking amongst themselves, the issue is framed as something that can never be compromised on . Even today, the Lebanese political party that is most admired in the West for its part in the Cedar Revolution has reiterated that it  will never accept naturalization for the Arabs of Palestinian descent who have lived in Lebanon for generations. If there is anything that unites the Arab world, and which would cause a firestorm of hate if it was challenged by the West, it is the so-called “right of return.” The Arab League “peace plan” that some hopeful Westerners interpreted as being flexible on the topic was not flexible at all, as it invoked UNGA resolution 194 as the basis for solving the problem–and the Arab world has been unanimous in how it interprets that resolution. The mythical “return” is not compatible with Israel existing as anything other than another Arab-majority state. Which means that one side wants Israel to be destroyed demographically, as a demand, as long as Palestinian Arabs continue to demand that they “return.” The fake keys you see waved at demonstrations show how generations of brainwashing has made turned that demand non-negotiable. The West fervently believes that a compromise is not only possible, but necessary–and that it must be imposed if the parties cannot agree. But a unilateral solution is no solution at all, and it would not pacify those that demand return as long as it is not 100%. Which means that a unilateral peace is not peace. The West also believes that the Arab world acts in a Western way; that if an impartial arbitrator decides on a compromise then both parties would accept it and move on. This is also a dangerous myth–one side will not stop until they win and the other side loses, completely. There is no solution. The conflict will go on for generations, as long as Israel continues to exist. Compromise on Israel’s part does not strengthen her political posture for more than a few years, but the Arab side is in this game for centuries, if needed. If the West is really, truly committed to the idea that Israel is a just cause and deserves to exist in peace and security, it must realize that this peace will not come about by forcing Israel to do things that will never pacify her enemies. Right now, Israel exists in relative peace and security. This is because Israel has not been fooled into accepting a comprehensive solution that it knows does not exist. Instead of solving the conflict, Israel is managing the conflict. This has been not only successful for Israel but also for the Arab groups that have cooperated–willingly or not. Because Israel has engaged in conflict  management rather than conflict  resolution , the West Bank Arabs are more prosperous–and have more autonomy–than they have in their history. Even the residents of Gaza reap the benefit of Hamas being forced to limit terror attacks. The Syrian border, up until this week, has been calm, and so has the Lebanese border. Conflict management has created a better peace than anyone can ever hope for with a “comprehensive solution.” The solution, then, is not a solution in the Western sense of everybody being happy (or equally unhappy) and moving on. The only solution is the perpetual management of the conflict. Sometimes one side will break the unwritten rules and the equilibrium will be knocked out of whack, and sometimes circumstances will change forcing the methods of conflict management to be changed as well. But it is critical for well-meaning Americans and Europeans to understand that, short of one side utterly destroying the other, there will never be a “peace” in the sense that everyone yearns for. In this case, more than ever, the perfect is the enemy of the good. And pushing a illusory peace will have far worse results than the status quo. For everyone.

Read the rest here:
The ‘Nakba’ Day Protests and the Impossibility of Peace

No responses yet

The New Egypt a Leftist Paradise: Hottie Young Brides in Hijab and the Sanctioned Slaughter of Christians That Marry Muslims

May 14 2011 Published by under 2010 Elections

They called it ugly man’s paradise. In parts of the Muslim world you will find unattractive and usually older foreign white men married to beautiful, young Muslim women. All they have to do to get the family’s approval is convert to Islam.  Now that may sound tough, but it’s easier than you think. The ugly Caucasian must merely make a declaration of faith which Muslims call the Shahada. In Indonesia, where I have traveled, the Shahada is often simply stating, “There is no God but Allah, and Mohammad is his prophet.”  Say it, pretend you mean it, and voila you are Muslim and can marry that young hotty in the hijab. Most people don’t have a problem with some non-believing Euro-trash fake converting to Islam for marriage purposes. But when the marriage involves a real Christian and a Muslim (or two Christians where people believe one wants to convert to Islam), the picture changes. Suddenly you are talking fire bombing churches and Muslims killing Christians. Such a violent reaction took place this past weekend in Egypt, offering us yet another example of the error in thinking Mubarak was the only problem in that country. The news coverage has varied, but we know that last Saturday Muslims attacked and firebombed two churches in Cairo, Egypt and at least twelve people were killed while hundreds were injured. Reports say that an ultraconservative Muslim group known as Salafists attacked one of the churches because they believed a Christian woman who was married to a Muslim man was being held hostage. The local Muslims believed (for some unknown reason) that the Christian woman decided to convert to Islam, so the Christians had kidnapped her to stop her from doing so. No evidence has been offered by the Salafists to back up their story. It is common in many parts of the Muslim world for people to spread lies as a reason to kill more Christians. Anyone who follows such news has read how Muslims have accused Christians of burning Korans, saying offensive things about Mohammad (like he was a child rapist – oh wait, that’s true) or not wearing Muslim attire as reasons to burn buildings, beat or even kill women. Well, add mixed marriages to the list of excuses to act out in terror against non-Muslims. A Washington Post editorial summarized this Islamic worldwide problem well: Pressure on Christian minorities, violent and otherwise, has been a chronic feature of the Arab and Muslim political landscape in recent years. In Pakistan, gunmen murdered two high-profile opponents of laws that impose the death penalty for insulting Islam; one victim was a Christian, the other the son of a Muslim father and a Christian mother. Iraq was home to more than 1 million Christians before the 2003 U.S. invasion; roughly half have fled, largely because of radical Islamist attacks. This Saturday’s attacks were fierce and frightening. This is not the first time since Mubarak was booted that we have seen Islamic violence against Christians.  Just last March I reported on another church burning where Muslims killed Christians just outside of Cairo.  Witnesses claimed during that attack that the military did not help the Christians and may have even been part of the violence. Some have said the same thing about last week’s violence. My son attends this church. How can we ever feel safe?  This is religious strife facilitated by the army and police. Let’s just face the truth. – Nashaat Boshra Clearly the Left was wrong about what Egypt would be post-Mubarak. But there is another lesson the Left needs to learn: the spread of Sharia means the spread of at least a thread of ultraconservative Islamists who will find any reason to bring violence towards non-Muslims, especially Christians. Egypt is not alone in such activity. Find me one dominant Muslim nation where this activity doesn’t take place. They may be ugly man’s paradise, but for the rest of us, these places are just plain nightmares.

No responses yet

The Left: “American Idol” is Brainwashing Our Kids!

May 13 2011 Published by under 2010 Elections

A left-wing “children’s advocacy” group known as the “Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood” is committed to ridding the airwaves of any hint of children’s advertising in order to protect their malleable minds from corporate greed. That includes banning certain advertising on “American Idol.” Sorry, Randy Jackson, Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler. You will just have to get rid of those cups emblazoned with the logo of that demon of American capitalism – Coca Cola – from your judging table. Like all true progressive groups, the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood does not trust the decisions of individuals – in this case, the parents – to decide what their children should watch or buy. Government must step in to prohibit all marketing that can possibly be seen or heard by children. This group has gone so far as to lobby the Federal Trade Commission to extend the ban that already exists on product placement on children’s television to include prime time programs, such as American Idol, that are not covered by the ban and are watched by millions of children In addition to going after “American Idol” and Coca Cola, the Coalition Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood has targeted American icons ranging from Disney to Ronald McDonald. Susan Linn, co-founder and director of the Coalition, makes no bones about her anti-capitalism philosophy. She contends that corporations are inherently bad in their attempt to use advertising to manipulate children’s minds for profits. In her view, even when companies contribute to education projects, they do so only for the purpose of ensnaring the kids into becoming consumers. And corporate messaging of any type to children is wrong, she says, not only for the kids today who are becoming the victims of the “commercialization of childhood,” but also because it contributes, I kid you not, to global warming : the same generation of children that is being encouraged to prioritize wealth, consumption, and possessions is the same generation that, if current trends continue, will need to drastically reduce its consumption patterns so as to prevent further global climate disruption, habitat loss, and species extinction. As readers of Solutions well know, each of these environmental problems is due in part to people’s consumption behaviors, and particularly to over-consumption on the part of people living in the Western world. Ms. Linn believes that only the government can protect our kids. She points to the examples of other countries : The United States regulates marketing to children less than most industrialized democracies. In the Canadian province of Quebec, marketing to children under 13 is banned on television. And in Norway and Sweden, it’s banned to children under the age of 12. In Greece, you can’t advertise toys until after 10 p.m. Greece as a role model? I don’t think so. Beyond prohibiting all marketing to children, Ms. Linn advocates mandating that companies use profits from advertising on their adult programming to provide quality educational children’s programming. And she wants to expand tax-payer funded public broadcasting . No wonder. There would be more money to manipulate our kids’ minds in a far Left direction. The Coalition Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood’s latest target is the children’s publishing company, Scholastic Inc. In an editorial today , the New York Times praised the “children’s advocacy” group for challenging Scholastic ‘s sinful decision to take some ‘dirty’ coal money from the American Coal Foundation in producing a fourth-grade lesson packet called “the United States of Energy.” The sin was that the lesson plan supposedly provided a “one-sided” view of coal usage, talking about its benefits but omitting its detriments. The Times doesn’t bother to mention that the lesson packet’s large U.S. map includes icons for coal, nuclear, hydroelectric, oil, wind, natural gas, and solar energy. And on the website page for  Scholastic ‘s “United States of Energy” lesson plan there is a clearly marked link to a “Celebrate Earth Day” page which contains lessons and activities to “help promote environmental awareness for Earth Day and throughout the year.” There is a further link from the “Celebrate Earth Day” page to a kids’ activism site based on the book The Down-to-Earth-Guide to Global Warming . Who was the co-author for that particular Scholastic project? Laurie David, a global warming activist and the producer of Al Gore’s propaganda-filled “An Inconvenient Truth. ” Scholastic is clearly providing teaching materials covering all dimensions of the energy and environmental issues, incorporating contributions from the Al Gore school of global warming theology as well as from energy industry sources. Teaching critical thinking involves teaching children how to  analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information gathered from multiple sources to arrive at reasoned conclusions based on factual evidence. But the far left group Coalition Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, supported by the left-wing New York Times , wants only its anti-American capitalism messages heard by our children. And no more Coca Cola logos on “American Idol!” Joseph Klein is the author of a recent book entitled Lethal Engagement: Barack Hussein Obama, the United Nations and Radical Islam .

Read more from the original source:
The Left: “American Idol” is Brainwashing Our Kids!

No responses yet

The Peace Corps at 50: What’s a Little Rape, Murder, and Brutalization of Women Between Friends?

May 13 2011 Published by under 2010 Elections, Congress, Senate

Deborah Gardner, Peace Corps Volunteer, Murdered in Tonga That great lefty favorite, the Peace Corps, just had a 50th birthday! You can tell, because it’s demanding presents. The Lefties who totally love conscience-salving stints in third world countries rejoiced and then swiftly returned to their soy lattes and organic arugula. Senator Harry Reid issued a breathless, sycophantic statement in which he, being Harry Reid, couldn’t resist making things up, pouting and petulantly trying to cling to funding. I’m deeply discouraged that Republicans have proposed slashing significant funding for a program that trains workers for a 21 st century global economy, builds good will around the world and promotes public service. Instead of reducing the effectiveness of a highly cost-effective program, we should cut government spending in a smart, responsible way that targets waste and excess while keeping our economy growing. Of course, he had nothing to say in response to charges that perhaps the Peace Corps isn’t so peaceful. At least not for the women who were raped – and then blamed for being raped – during their stints in the corps.  No ado was made about the House hearing on Wednesday investigating the same, or the legislation proposed by Congressman Poe (R-TX) that would require some Peace Corps oversight. In fact, the New York Times reported that Democrats wished to, as always, sweep such things under the rug in fear that their precious funding might be lost: [W]hether such a bill would pass Congress is unclear. Representative Niki Tsongas, Democrat of Massachusetts, is co-sponsoring Mr. Poe’s bill, but other Democrats are skittish about it. They worry that the legislation, and Wednesday’s hearing, might be used to undermine the Peace Corps — the legacy of a Democratic president — and cut its funding. Hey, what’s a little rape, with the added insult of victim blaming , as long as we keep our sweet, sweet funding? You know what I am skittish about, Democrats? Funding an organization wherein women are raped, assaulted and even murdered; 1,000 women have been sexually assaulted while in the Peace Corps in the past decade alone. And 23 Peace Corps volunteers have been murdered since its creation. This isn’t new, either. Peace Corps volunteer Deborah Gardner lost her life in Tonga in 1976 . Deborah Gardner was murdered by fellow Peace Corps worker Dennis Priven, who turned himself in. After stabbing her – 22 times – to death. The Peace Corps reaction? Try to cover it up: “Even after everyone knew it was Dennis, already that effort by the Peace Corps to put the blame somewhere else. And to make things go away,” says [author Phil] Weiss. “That impulse has seized the Peace Corps within moments of Deb’s death.” As revolting as that is, they went one further. The Peace Corps hired, and paid for , the best defense attorney available in Tonga. Priven was found not guilty and the Peace Corps quietly shuffled him back to the United States. Where he lived freely, for decades. Working for the government . No, really: Weiss says Priven has led a small, anonymous life since then. He’s divorced, and he recently retired after working for decades for the U.S. government. “Twelve years after Deb’s death, he was working for Social Security,” says Weiss. “And ultimately was their top computer guy in the Brooklyn office. Kate Puzey was 24 years old when she was brutally murdered, her throat slit, while working for the Peace Corps in 2009. Her concerns about a fellow employee were ignored, and then the subject of an attempted cover-up after her death. Jessica Smochek was gang-raped in Bangladesh in 2004 .  This is how the Peace Corps gave her aid afterward: not only medical malpractice, but they blamed her. For being gang-raped (emphasis mine): Peace Corps medical officer refused to give her a proper physical examination. Instead, the medic confiscated the former English teacher’s cellphone so that she could not alert her fellow volunteers and instructed her to tell anyone who asked about her sudden departure from the program that she was returning to the U.S. to get her wisdom teeth out. When Smochek arrived in Washington, D.C., a Peace Corps official asked her to write down everything she had done to provoke the attack. “Shortly after I left, the country director — who never attempted to contact me after I was raped — called a meeting of several women in my former volunteer group and told them, without my permission, what had happened to me,” she said. “Then, he told them that rape was a woman’s fault and that I had caused what happened to me by being out alone after 5:00 PM. As for the other women in the group, who had been very vocal about being constantly stalked and afraid, he threatened them with administrative separation.” Jessica was one of the courageous women who testified before Congress on Wednesday. You know, that same Congress that contains members more concerned with loss of funding than actual women and the violent crimes committed against them.

Read more:
The Peace Corps at 50: What’s a Little Rape, Murder, and Brutalization of Women Between Friends?

No responses yet

At UCLA the Campus Left and MSA Skip David Horowitz’s Speech

May 13 2011 Published by under 2010 Elections

There was reason for anxiety right before David Horowitz’s speech began Wednesday night in Moore Hall at UCLA. What manner of disruptions and demonstrations might be planned by campus leftists and Muslim Students Association officers? From my vantage point in the front of the hall I observed several students come in with t-shirts featuring leftist art work. It was anyone’s guess whether an attempt would be made to embarrass David (perhaps with a pie or some other projectile) or merely physically intimidate  him and the others who had come to hear his speech. Past experience had revealed the common tactics of the campus Left. A demonstration might not occur until midway through the speech. Perhaps at 15 minutes in a whole row of students would stand up and turn their back to David as a sign of their unwillingness to consider his facts and arguments. Or maybe David would get the same treatment that Ambassador Michael Oren received , where MSA members scattered throughout the audience would just randomly pop up throughout the speech with outbursts and have to be removed by security. This is what the Left has transformed the university into over the past 40 years as it’s pursued the Gramscian plot of “seizing the means of cultural production.” The low tone of debate at most college campuses now is WORSE than what one sees between screaming pundits on MSNBC and Fox News. This was one of David’s chief laments in his speech. Universities should be modeling how intellectual discourse should take place. We should be sitting together as friends and challenging one another’s positions and scrutinizing the other’s facts. Instead the Left has created a toxic environment in which to hear a conservative speaker one must sit on edge the whole time. But as David’s speech got going no campus Stalinism manifested. I counted approximately five or six walk outs at varying times throughout the speech but none were done with any fanfare indicating that leaving the room was supposed to be a statement. For all anyone knew some people should have skipped the venti mocha frappuchinno before the speech to avoid having to go to the restroom. ( Video shot by Donald Douglas who you can see on the right in the image at the top of this post, more to come soon including David’s complete speech) David touched on many themes he’s talked about in the past few years: the lack of intellectual diversity on campus, the professorial community’s silence in condemning the hatefulness of campuses’ “Israel Apartheid” walls, the Jewish community’s disturbing reaction to our Palestinian Wall of Lies campaign, and the attacks one receives for stating basic facts about the history of the Middle East. (Israel was not founded on stolen Arab land. For centuries before Israel existed the region named “Palestine” by the Romans was ruled by the Turks.) Given how smoothly David’s speech went, it was anyone’s guess what would happen once the questions began.  The first was a reasonable challenge to David to clarify his position on freedom of speech. A respectful question from a UCLA student. Throughout his speech David had been critical of two different occurrences. First, he explained that during the Palestinian Wall of Lies campaign the Freedom Center had sought to place advertisements in school papers listing the various anti-Israel lies we were fighting. David explained how editors had often denied our ads on the grounds that they were offensive to religious and ethnic groups. David would ask what needed to be changed in the ad only to rarely get specific answers in return. David also spent much of his speech debunking some of the lies commonly propagated on the “Israel Apartheid” walls. He spoke passionately about how terrible it was that no other group on campus was subjected to the kind of attack as Jewish students having to walk by the “Israel Apartheid” walls in the quad every day for a week at a time. The student above asked David to explain his position. If he was objecting to his own censorship was he calling on universities to now censor the speech of the MSA students with their “Apartheid Wall”? David said, “That’s a good question” before explaining that he wasn’t calling on “Israel Apartheid” walls to be banned or for pro-Hamas activists to be silenced. Instead his challenge was primarily to administrators and professors to properly assert themselves as the intellectual mentors to students. Professors should be standing up for civility and intellectual standards and saying that this is not appropriate for a university. The purpose of the modern university is to equip students with the tools to be able to make arguments and analyze the world — not to train them in the tactics of political warfare and to launch activist campaigns. This response is in the same mode as the Academic Freedom campaign that has been one of the Freedom Center’s key issues over the past decade. A common misinterpretation (wholly fueled by a deceitful, union-backed, Academic Left) when David has challenged certain professors and promoted the Academic Bill of Rights has been that he wants to create some kind of mechanism to police speech. The smear circulated is that David wants to force profs to shut up. That’s not the case at all. Instead, he wants the professional , non-indoctrinating professors to assert the proper academic standards. Note to campus progressives: ex-leftists tend to have very little faith that passing a new law is the effective way to solve any given problem. A Tea Partier asks about fighting Shariah Law. This question from the gentlemen in the picture above was an encouraging sign. He identified himself as a Tea Party activist and wanted David’s advice on encouraging others in his movement to also take up the issue of Sharia. I’ve been thinking for many months now that one thing we’re going to see more and more of in the coming years is a greater fusion between Tea Partiers, the Anti-Jihad movement, and Pro-Israel activists. What so many in the mainstream media and the Left don’t understand about the Tea Party is that it’s primarily a movement that has developed in reaction to a particular threat to our freedom — our growing government and its accompanying budget deficits. Tea Party activists don’t have a central vision of what the federal government should do. (There are many different ideas.) Instead, they’re unified by the shared commitment that we need to have a government period and that certain steps need to be pursued to prevent us from being swallowed up in debt. Those newly energized into political awareness by the Tea Party are inclined to have the same reaction to the threat of global Jihad once they learn the facts on this issue too. And after awareness of the threat of Shariah comes then Israel’s role as the front line in this battle follows. Three students from the African-American students organization on campus challenge David to explain his comments on successes in the black community. Chances are when I’m debating with a leftist and the subject of my boss comes up it will be very easy to predict which specific talking points they use. It’s not difficult to know what happens when campus progressives find out that a conservative students group is bringing in David Horowitz to speak. Self-righteous young activists google David’s name and find collections of out-of-context quotes and general characterizations of him as a racist or racial provocateur or Klansman. One of the favorite proofs of David Horowitz The Political Demon Who Students Should Not Listen To is a campaign the Freedom Center engaged in a decade ago. In Uncivil Wars: The Controversy Over Reparations for Slavery David describes his attempt to place ads in college newspapers arguing why reparations for descendants of slavery 140 years after the fact was a racist idea and bad for blacks. The three student activists above challenged David on a particular comment from one of his writings (they likely only read the quote itself and not the entire piece it was from) which claimed that the black people on the earth with the greatest quality of life and levels of freedom and equality were those living in the United States. Citing the poor conditions in inner city schools, the three students wanted David to explain his definitions and how the inequality between predominantly black and white schools could be justified. Honestly, these three young women are admirable examples of civility and respect compared to the leftists David has encountered on campuses before. They didn’t call him any names and they engaged in a constructive back and forth. So David did not respond to them with the combative tone which he usually needs to employ when on campus. Instead the side of him more on display in his books The End of Time and A Cracking of the Heart emerged. He agreed with the young women’s assessment of inner city schools as inadequate. He asks the girl in the yellow sweatshirt above if she voted for Democrats. She said she did. Then David pointed out the fact that all of the inner city schools that were destroying black and Latino children were run by Democratic political machines — LA, New York City, Denver, Chicago, all of the inner cities. If blacks want to improve the education for their children then they need to stop being so devoted to a Democratic Party that fails to help them. It was then that one of the African-American students demanded to know what the conservative solution was to the problem. David had a concrete answer for them: vouchers for every child in America so that parents can be responsible for making sure their kid can go to a high quality school. The question and answer session ends peacefully and David gets to have more extensive discussion with students. In the end it was an odd event. David got up and made many of his usual arguments about Academia, the Left, anti-Semitism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And NO ONE challenged or disputed him on ANY of these issues. In other words: campus progressives and the MSA forfeited the round to the conservatives and Israel supporters. Instead the only challenge that David got was on a completely unrelated issue from activism he engaged in ten years ago. Does this mean that the campus Left is losing some its bite? Is it realizing that in the age of YouTube and a half dozen videocameras at speeches that it’s no longer as easy to cause disturbances and get away with it? Probably not but one can always dream. In another few weeks David will be speaking at UC Santa Barbara and there’s already plenty of arguing . Will the Unholy Alliance stay home again and let the open-minded, tolerant students have a chance to engage in some constructive dialogue for ONCE in their college careers? That’s up to the Santa Barbara faculty. Students can only get away with disruptions and demonstrations because such acts are condoned by the profs and administrators who are supposed to be teaching them. Will college leaders take up the challenge to model civil intellectual behavior? Probably not but one can always dream.

Here is the original post:
At UCLA the Campus Left and MSA Skip David Horowitz’s Speech

No responses yet

“This Makes You as Bad as Bolsheviks!” A Leftist Writer Embarrasses Himself After Being Rejected from Contributing to NewsReal Blog

May 12 2011 Published by under 2010 Elections, Congress

In the mind of progressives it's OK to compare being rejected from a blog to murdering millions of people. One of my bad habits that I’m still working to overcome from my days on the Left is being too open-minded. I still want to give people the benefit of the doubt when they express interest in participating in the publication. In the past this has bitten me from time to time as deviants and narcissistic self-promoters have wormed their way into publishing posts only to eventually reveal their true colors. Still, I at least remain willing to listen to people who might not agree with all of our positions who still want to help out in the fights. If someone wants to write in defense of Israel but they hold socialist views on health care then I’m inclined to let them stand with us in defense of the Jewish state. I just won’t publish their writings promoting crackpot economics. That’s kind of what I was hoping for when someone identifying as possessing “the viewpoint of the left” wanted to write for us. On April 26 my co-editors Jenn Q. Public and Michael van der Galien and I received this inquiry from NRB ‘s contact form from “Allen James Burnham” (I’d wager probably his real name given his level of earnestness): To whom it may concern, I would like to blog about what I have put in the subject line of this message. I of course understand that this is a right wing blog, but it would be hardly a free and democratic blog in a free and democratic society if the viewpoint of the left were not incorporated. Or not even so much the left as the perspective of someone who was a Soldier for five years and has been an Official for forty two years. In any case the moment nobody engages with what the other side thinks, the country ceases to be a democracy. I responded back and included an attachment with our standard application that we use to learn about the views and writing histories of those who want to write for us: Dear Allen, Thank you for your interest. Attached is an application for you to fill out to tell us more about what you’d like to write about at our publication. A few notes of clarification: 1. We are not a “right wing blog.” We are a liberal publication, as the philosophy is defined here:  http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/guideDesc.asp?catid=102&type=issue 2. The viewpoint of the Left is incorporated at NewsReal Blog. Most of our posts are dedicated to rebutting leftist viewpoints. Also, leftists are perfectly welcome to respond in the comments section provided. We are also perfectly happy to publish posts by leftists who dissent from the predominant views in their movement. There certainly are some leftists who are willing to stand up for Israel’s right to exist (Congressman Anthony Weiner comes to mind) and there are others who will speak honestly about the threat of radical Islam (Christopher Hitchens and Bill Maher and some other secularist leftists are examples.) Leftists with these approaches can find a home at our publication to join the fight on these issues. 3. The country is not a democracy. We are a constitutional republic ruled by law, not a democracy ruled by the tyranny of the majority. James Madison warned of the totalitarianism of democracy in Federalist #10: “From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.”  http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa10.htm Thank you for your service to our nation. -David Allen replied back and included a completed application: I recognize point 2 but I would debate aspects of 3 with you and deny 1. Here is the relevant information. I am sorry that I don’t have more writing samples but I don’t think inter-staff papers from DoL would be of much interest and I don’t like to release papers unless I am told to. Habit picked up from working 34 years as a DoD official. Thank you for your time and attention. I looked through the application. This in particular jumped out: I am for heavily regulated Capitalism, State Capitalism, a welfare State, the deathpenalty, the withdrawal of US forces from all foreign bases, an increase in FederalIncome Tax for the top 1% to 45 or even 50%, as well as the minimal amount of PrivateSector participation in Government. Alright. So he wasn’t going to be a liberal hawk and he wasn’t any friend of the free market. I didn’t bother to respond to the application. Then on May 2 I got a follow up from Allen: Dear Mr. Swindle I sent in my blogging application form for your examination I have not received confirmation as to whether or not I have been accepted. If a decision has been made I would very much like to know what exactly it was. Please get back to me at your earliest possible convenience Yours Sincerely, Allen Burnham I responded quickly (I recall at the time being swamped with other more urgent NRB tasks): I don’t see how it’s possible for you to contribute to the publication when you disagree with everything that we’re trying to accomplish. He decided to play dumb in his response to me: In what way am I against the publication, a detailed explanation with quotes would be welcome. I am not against free speech, the United States, or the right of the citizen to choose. What could I possibly harm or undermine? I quoted the above passage from his application back to him and then said, We do not support the welfare state, increasing taxes, “State Capitalism” or the withdrawal of US forces from all foreign bases. Your economic and foreign policy views run counter to the publication. There are plenty of leftist blogs and publications where you can submit pieces on those causes. His response to this was a delight: Mr. Swindle, I am aware of this, but Salon has right wing writers on it, I see no reason why your blog should not have an author writing from a left wing perspective. After all, as I said, there is no debate if only one side is talking. Are you really admitting to me that conservatives desire a dictatorship? Are you telling me you will not tolerate any dissenting views? That you have contempt for our constitution? our way of life? Are you telling me that? If so, I would remind you that this makes you as bad as Bolsheviks. You will not countenance the idea that there is any rectitude in the ideas of your opponents. You will not hear them out, and you will do your utmost to see that those ideas are repressed. If that is so, then you are un-American. Bear that in mind. The world is never all one way, and that is something the Founding Fathers left room for, a country where man could fully explore the intellectual horizons of his consciousness, do you intend to restrict that consciousness? Read your Orwell and then tell me seriously that you are fundamentally different from Oceania’s ruling Party. In other words, a publication that doesn’t publish the views opposite of its editorial line is a “dictatorship” run by those who have “contempt for our constitution” and are thus “as bad as Bolsheviks” and “un-American.” Those of us who spend all day reading and listening to leftist media, who make no effort to try and shut down progressive publications “will not hear them out” and will do our “utmost to see that those ideas are repressed.” This is the insane paranoia the Left has in its heart for conservatives who believe in property rights. NewsReal Blog is the property of the David Horowitz Freedom Center. It’s not a neighborhood sandbox where any stray progressive cat is entitled to relieve  himself. I’ve read Salon almost every day for years now. It’s a publication that no longer strives to offer regular conservative views as it once did long ago. A Socratic responses was appropriate, ignoring all of Allen’s dumb hyperboles: Who are Salon’s conservative writers? Deep down I kind of knew that he was going to give a response this braindead: David Horowitz, and a number of individuals on Open Salon are conservatives. Mr. Horowitz actually contributes regularly to the magazine. Had this guy been living under a political rock the past decade? Did he still think that Bush was president and we were debating WMDs? I decided to dip my response in the jar of sarcasm that I keep in the bottom right drawer of my desk: Does he now? Goodness, I must be an idiot totally in the dark about what my boss and mentor is doing with his time. How “regularly” do his columns appear at Salon.com these days? I was under the impression that Salon hadn’t printed an original column from him since 2002 and has only reprinted 2 of his FrontPage columns in recent years — both of which cautioned conservatives early in Obama’s presidency to give him a chance.  http://www.salon.com/author/david_horowitz/index.html I was also under the impression that OpenSalon was a service similar to WordPress and Blogger where anyone could start a blog. I still await your examples of the conservatives who allegedly get to present their ideas from Salon’s platform. I still laugh out loud when I reread his answer to me. This is the height of bigotry — a leftist demanding the conservative movement operate by standards higher than what he holds his own movement to. Because I won’t let him use NRB as his litter box he saw fit to compare me to every totalitarian he could think of. Now that I reveal that his beloved Salon operates by the same principles, they’re of course spared from a similar excoriation: Yes that is true, and so what if Open Salon is open to all. Blogs are blogs, even if there is a platform it is only fair that there is at least some dissent from the line prescribed by it. Besides I would not exactly be contributing an article every week, compared to what normally goes on, as with Horowitz, and he should get back to writing more on Salon, I would be but a drop in the bucket. Unless, and if you believe truly in your own arguments you cannot possibly think this is true, your point of view is so totally wrong my writing of articles would undermine what your blog aims to do, the very presence of my ideas on the blog as articles should energize discussion and make your arguments sharper. Besides even if, as you claim, Liberals monopolize their blogs there is no reason you should not perform to higher standards than them. So unless you really think that your arguments are shoddy and easily undermined, and that you really have better arguments and morals than leftists, you will allow me to write articles and publish them on your blog. At this point a #facepalm seems to be the appropriate physical response. Here’s the written response to go along with it: You don’t really understand the political world. When a political publication publishes an article it’s telling its readers that it agrees with the ideas presented. That’s why Salon, The Nation, Media Matters, Mother Jones, Think Progress, etc. etc. don’t publish conservative articles — and why we (and National Review, The Weekly Standard, Breitbart’s Big blogs, etc.) don’t publish leftist articles. Political publications aren’t general interest newspapers or magazines that publish a wide range of opinions because they’re trying to make a product that a broad range of people will buy. They publish because they’re pursuing particular activist agendas. If you want to disagree with an article then that’s what the comments section is for. As long as you don’t violate our terms and conditions then you can dissent all you want. (And if you made a good argument then perhaps I’d excerpt your comment in a post and respond to it.) But apparently we’re still “Bolsheviks” even though we allow this. And if you couldn’t tell from the lack of conservative views at Salon the past 8 years, they’re not interested in publishing David anymore. Salon wouldn’t even get back to me when I offered them a book review of David’s recent book A Cracking of the Heart , which tells the story of the life of his progressive daughter Sarah. No leftist publication had any interest in celebrating the life of a progressive who campaigned for Obama like Sarah. If you’re concerned about “Bolshevik” attitudes why don’t you work on pulling out the log from your own movement’s eye before going after the splinter in ours. Why not get a leftist publication to have a debate with us? Both publications could print both sides in the context of a debate. Unfortunately you’re going to get nothing but crickets in response. The Left is not interested in debating the Right, they’re interested in obliterating it — which is why we’re smeared as bigoted, sexist, homophobic, racist, warmongering, greedy imperialists. Our motives and character are always maligned, our arguments and facts never actually addressed. Go ahead and try and find a single leftist that has tried to seriously rebut  Radical Son, The Politics of Bad Faith , Uncivil Wars, Unholy Alliance or any of David’s other books. I’ve spent years looking and have found NOTHING. Now of course his true motivations came out. He just wanted to argue: You know what, you are right, I do not understand the Political world. That’s why for all my working life I have served the US Government and the American people. By the way, in fairness you do allow comments, but the Bolsheviks also had Democratic Centralism, which allowed for inside debate, but ultimately once it was established, all had to toe the Party line. As for Salon not publishing Mr. Horowitz, that is something you should complain to them about. You want to complain to them about it, with moral righteousness, you can have me published and say in truth and honesty “See, we publish a genuine leftist on our blog, please reciprocate. I am not familiar with David Horowitz’s books. You do have a log in your movement Mr. Swindle, you do. Ann Coulter and her eliminationist rhetoric. If you want I could provide examples. Gordon Liddy telling listeners on his program how to assasinate myself and my co-workers (federal workers). As for greedy imperialists, see Saipan, racist see Jack Abramoff and the comments he made about his clients while accusing good men and women who were trying to get rid of what amounted to a GULAG on American soil of racism. Warmongering, oh my god, I was an official in DoD during the lead up to Iraq and I can tell you all about that for a very long time. A movement that is dedicated to enriching the few and impoverishing the many, of course people will aim to be rid of it or marginalize it to insignificance. Take a good look in the mirror, if you are a good person, if you are committed to human dignity, social justice, and the American way of life, you will not like much what you see that you have been supporting. Furthermore I do not support the Democratic Party, I am an independent. Regards and with hopes for continued debate, Allen James Burnham Do you see that? “If you are a good person” then you can’t be part of the conservative movement. That’s the mentality of the Left. It’s kind of a non-starter for any constructive discussion. Reminder: the Left hates you and everything you stand for. Alright, so he wanted a debate, I might as well give it to him. Here’s a tactic I regularly use when talking or emailing with leftists: ask them what conservative books they’ve read (usually the answer will be zero.) If it isn’t then talk with them about the book they claim to have read: Can you name any books by conservative authors that you’ve read? Allen answered: Sure Jonah Goldberg’s “Liberal Facism” and “Trickle Up Poverty” by Michael Savage. I decided to go with the book that was sitting on my bookshelf in my office. And what did you think of Jonah’s book? I haven’t read it yet but it’s on the to-do list. (I’ve read many books already about the history of the Left.) Should I bother with reading it? His answer (which I’m sure you can predict and which doesn’t even suggest that he actually read the book as he claimed): I believe it is fundamentally flawed, but some of the things he says about Liberals are funny. I incidentally do not own it, I borrowed it from my local library. His argument that Fascism is a product of Liberalism, because it too claims to be about “a third way” I do not think stands up to proper scrutiny. There also seem to be contradictory voices in his head about issues, such as accusing Liberalism of being Dictatorial and nasty at the same time at being such because it is nannying to people, which comes off as cloying. However the fundamental paradoxes, I do not think, are addressed properly. How could Liberal FDR be a Fascist, when he was the one really eager to get people into World War II and the fact that Roosevelt was more anti-business than either Mussolini or Hitler and was in power because he had been put into office by the American people. Oh this was an easy one. I just grabbed the book off the shelf and threw a choice quote in his face. His reaction says everything about the temperament of a committed leftist: I have the book right here in my office (we get a lot of books sent to us at the Freedom Center.) Here’s page 122, the chapter on FDR: “But the New Deal was a product of the impulses and ideas of its era. And those ideas and impulses are impossible to separate from the fascist moment in Western civilization. According to Harold Ickes, FDR’s interior secretary and one of the most important architects of the New Deal, Roosevelt himself privately acknowledged that “what we were doing in this country were some of the things that were being done in Russia and even some of the things that were being done under Hitler in Germany. But were were doing them in an orderly way.”” So my answer to your last question: well, FDR himself admitted that aspects of the New Deal were economically fascistic. Did you not read the quote here where FDR admits this? Or did you forget it? And how is the argument fundamentally flawed when FDR himself compared his policies to fascism? Of course Allen is unable to actually respond to the facts or my questions and just continues his monologue: I think it is unfair to compare Government initiatives undertaken by FDR and his people in order to keep the economy going, to policies undertaken by Hitler or even Stalin. For example it would be as if I compared the Stalinist measure of higher wages and better privileges for Politburo members to higher wages for certain managers in the Private or Public Sector. The reasons, more responsibility, greater skill of the individual, are the same for paying higher salaries, but the difference lies in how each regime treated its people and what its vision was. The Nazi idea was warped with only people of certain “race” owning practically everything and women “being kept in their place.” The Soviet regime, less so under Stalin, than under Lenin and those who succeeded Stalin aimed to improve the living standards of its people and those of the world in a number of ways, but because of the inherent flaws of Bolshevism, they made that vision impossible and brutally killed millions of people to try and realize a better future, the overwhelming majority of those deaths were entirely unnecessary. Whereas Roosevelt and his people believed that people, all people, were entitled to a good education, a well paid job and a decent home, yet that need not mean being rich was forbidden. The slogan of the 1965 budget, in this country was, “a mass of prosperity widely shared” with living standards increasing for everybody, with no need to repress dissent or kill millions of people, or exclude anyone from the system. Fascism and Stalinism did exclude enormous swathes of people from the system and both systems trampeled on the right of their citizens to protest, so I would say with confidence that there are enormous differences between Rooseveltian Liberalism and Fascism. Big differences between Rooseveltian Liberalism and Fascism? Sure. But there are also big similarities and a shared heritage that Allen’s brain can’t allow itself to comprehend. When going back and forth with a leftist be sure and focus down onto single issues and keep your opponent on track (a hard task to perform, admittedly.) Usually so-called liberals will try and change the subject as soon as you put up a factual road block. So I steered the discussion back to the damning FDR admission: So you would say that FDR was being unfair (to whom? himself?) when he compared his own policies to Hitler’s and Stalin’s? Or is Jonah Goldberg being unfair by quoting him? Allen’s response is delightful: Yes he was, it was a foolish thing for him to say, and I don’t think, given all else that FDR did, that he can seriously be compared to Hitler. Hitler did not support working people and FDR’s Second Bill of Rights idea was not fascistic. Always confront the Left for wanting to ignore history: So you’re going to deny the historical fact that FDR and his New Deal architects admitted to being influenced by fascism? You’re just going to dismiss this historical fact “as fundamentally flawed”? There’s no comparison to Hitler here, just the historical fact that FDR and his people admitted that they were intellectually influenced by fascism. FDR didn’t kill Jews and he wasn’t an evil man. He just had some bad ideas that were influenced by fascism. I already knew that my debating partner didn’t know what the hell he was talking about but his final response — which I didn’t bother to respond to at this point — proved it: I don’t think that they were influenced by Facsism, the New Deal measures came before what Hitler did. They only way FDR was influenced by Fascism was his desire to see its existence terminated. I think their influences were based on their background, community work, Progressive ideology, and the ideas brought forth by William Jennings Bryan that the Democrats were on the side of working people. Furthermore the New Deal was not a bad idea. I grew up in the aftermath of it, and practically everyone I knew loved it. My father was saved from being unemployed by it, and was able to purchase a house because of the New Deal. The New Deal saved the country and it is sad that we have forgotten the lessons from it. Now tell me, what do you do if you’re arguing with someone and they all of a sudden begin to insist that their morning breakfast sausage can talk to them? What do you do when all of a sudden people descend into a complete fantasy land? What do you do when you’re playing soccer with someone and they keep grabbing the ball with their hands and carrying it? Games don’t work when the rules are perpetually shredded. This is why the Left cannot truly be “reformed” and does not actually want to compromise. Do not forget that we are in a state of Permanent Political War whether you want to acknowledge it or not. The Left is making a political war on America. We can either accept this and assume a war mentality against them — aggressively expose and confront their ideas and institutions — or we can be mowed down by them. Eventually we won’t have the luxury of getting to make the choice on this question.

Originally posted here:
“This Makes You as Bad as Bolsheviks!” A Leftist Writer Embarrasses Himself After Being Rejected from Contributing to NewsReal Blog

No responses yet

« Newer posts Older posts »