Meanwhile, Democrat leaders want to have it both ways. Some say we should withdraw from Iraq. Others demand that we add many more troops, while simultaneously complaining about the enormity of the federal deficit (despite the recent good news on this front, by the way).
Democrats condemn the president for “nation building” and intermeddling, yet insist we micromanage the Iraqi constitutional drafting process to ensure American-type civil rights for women (which, of course, is laudable). Along with the press they shamelessly prop up and exploit a grieving mother to serve as a sympathetic vehicle to carry their inane conspiratorial charges against the president with total disregard for how that demoralizes our troops and undermines our cause.
Tag: liberty
“[T]he States can best govern our home concerns and the general government our foreign ones. I wish, therefore…never to see all offices transferred to Washington, where, further withdrawn from the eyes of the people, they may more secretly be bought and sold at market.” –Thomas Jefferson
The term you’re looking for here is “rolling over in his grave.”
Ben Shapiro takes aim at the anti-war mouth-foamers on the left.
Tolerating intolerance, goodhearted people are beginning to see, does not necessarily produce tolerance in turn.
[…]
Multiculturalism is based on the lie that all cultures are morally equal. In practice, that soon degenerates to: All cultures are morally equal, except ours, which is worse. But all cultures are not equal in respecting representative government, guaranteed liberties and the rule of law. And those things arose not simultaneously and in all cultures, but in certain specific times and places — mostly in Britain and America, but also in various parts of Europe.
In America, as in Britain, multiculturalism has become the fashion in large swathes of our society. So the Founding Fathers are presented only as slaveholders, World War II is limited to the internment of Japanese-Americans and the bombing of Hiroshima. Slavery is identified with America, though it has existed in every society and the antislavery movement arose first among English-speaking evangelical Christians.
But most Americans know there is something special about our cultural heritage. While Harvard and Brown are replacing scholars of the founding period with those studying other things, book-buyers are snapping up first-rate histories of the Founders by David McCullough, Joseph Ellis and Ron Chernow.
Mutilculturalist intellectuals do not think our kind of society is worth defending. But millions here and increasing numbers in Britain and other countries know better.
I will admit to a slight bias in favor of the flat tax, as proposed by Steve Forbes, though I haven’t yet read his new book. In the above-linked column, Forbes makes compelling arguments on why a flat tax would be be a better overhaul versus the national sales tax proposed by Neal Boortz and Congressman John Linder. I recently bought the latters’ book, and will start it soon. I’ll have to get a copy of Flat Tax Revolution for a thorough comparison, because at any rate, something has to be done to fix our tax code mess.
This is why you cannot give in to terrorist demands. This is why it is pointless to “try to understand why” those who commit horrific acts of violence against innocents to further a religio-political agenda do so.
Hamas vows to continue fight
In a show of force, Hamas founders and political leaders appeared Saturday on a stage together for the first time in 10 years to tell the Palestinian people that the militant group’s armed struggle will go on after Israel’s impending withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
‘Tomorrow Jerusalem,’ Abbas exults
Less than three days after he urged Palestinians to refrain from excessive celebrations over the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Friday presided over a huge celebration in Gaza City where he declared: “Today we are celebrating the liberation of Gaza and the northern West Bank; tomorrow we will celebrate the liberation of Jerusalem.”
The Israeli government acquiesced to the demands of terrorists. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PLO: these are terrorist organizations. They demanded land which was never theirs to begin with–that’s right, the land of “Palestine” has always belonged to some other nation, including Jordan, Syria, and Egypt, so why aren’t the Palestinians sending suicide bombers in to those nations?–through the use of terror. These are not “freedom fighters” or “insurgents,” they are terrorists.
The Israeli government caved, and it got them nothing. The reason is simple: the Palestinians, with the sometimes silent, sometimes vocal, backing of the entire Arab world, want nothing less than the complete and total destruction of Israel. They want all the Jews out of the land, dead or alive, but one could infer preferably dead. They want no Jewish state to exist.
You cannot reason with people like this. You cannot give in to their demands and hope for the best.
You kill them. You achieve total and complete victory, with overwhelming military force. Then you set about dictating the terms of the peace, and you help rebuild. It worked it Japan. It worked in Germany. It will work in Afghanistan and Iraq. It could have worked within the borders of Israel.
“In times of impending calamity and distress; when the liberties of America are imminently endangered by secret machinations and open assaults…it becomes the indispensable duty of [Patriots], with true penitence of heart, and the most reverent devotion, publicly to acknowledge the over ruling providence of God…that we may…through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, obtain his pardon and forgiveness; humbly imploring his assistance to frustrate the cruel purposes of our unnatural enemies…that it may please the Lord of Hosts, the God of Armies, to animate our officers and soldiers with invincible fortitude, to guard and protect them in the day of battle… .” –Proclamation by the Continental Congress, 16 March 1776
I’m certain there is an Anti-Christian Liberty Union lawyer determined to prove the above is a pre-Constitution violation of the Constitution…
Yesterday morning, my lovely bride dropped me off at the C terminal of DFW International. I entered, and made my way to the seats by the door. I proceeded to divest myself of all metallic objects, putting them in the side pocket of my carry-on, the only piece of luggage I had. I wore a t-shirt, cargo shorts, and sandals, my outfit designed to minimize my setting off the metal detector.
I then proceeded to the self-serve kiosks to get my boarding pass. As noted, I had reserved the ticket on Wednesday night. I was able to pay for it Thursday morning before leaving the house, but didn’t get the confirmation e-mail before we needed to get on the road. My credit card couldn’t be read by the kiosk, so I proceeded to the service desk to see a ticket agent.
Surprisingly, there was no line, and after navigating the maze of crowd-control stanchions, I walked right up to the next available agent. I showed him my driver’s license, explained the kiosk wasn’t reading my credit card, and I needed my boarding pass. He noted the kiosks seemed to do that quite a bit, punched up my flight info, printed the boarding pass, and off I went to yield myself to a full body cavity search.
Shockingly, I did not set off the metal detector. Apparently, this is now a bad thing. I was asked to step in to the next line inside the security area, and the TSA agent requested my boarding pass, which I handed over. He then informed me I had been flagged “for additional security procedures.” Of course I was, I remarked.
After all, I had booked a one-way ticket to the party capital of the South–if not the entire United States–the night before, and paid for it that morning. Would it not be tragic if I managed to get past the flight attendants, any number of large, American males who wouldn’t allow the aircraft they’re on to be hijacked, the hijack-proof door mandated by the airlines since 9/11, and the two flight crew members, hijack the MD-80, and crash it in to Bourbon Street? Where would the populace spend their hard-earned money to travel to so they could get just as liquored up as they could at home? Perhaps worse yet, what if I flew the plane in to the SuperDome, denying the Saints a venue in which to lose to any number of possible opponents? Can you tell I so miss living there? Note to the flying populace: the code for additional security checks is apparently “SSSS” and is noted in the upper left and lower right of your airport-printed boarding pass.
The TSA agent asked me to point out my bag coming off the x-ray conveyor, which I did, and he handed me off to another agent. Agent #2 walked me up to the GE EntryScan, a device slightly larger and taller than a phone booth. Upon entering, you stand on the footprints, and four separate air jets blast a squirt of air on you. You stand there for a few seconds until you see the green lights, declaring your person explosive- and hazardous powder-free, and you’re free to step forward, and out of the booth. Agent #2 then asked me to have a seat while he searched my bag.
I slurped down the last of my Chick-Fil-A sweet tea, which was all that was left of my breakfast, and we made idle chat while he dug through the bag and ran the testing-for-explosives wand around. He noted the thinline NIV copy of the Bible that goes with me when I travel–usually in my computer backpack, which I did not have this time–remarking, “Good book. I’m in the process of reading it completely through for the ninth time.” A couple of minutes later, he was finished, after checking my iPod and Canon S500. He repacked the bag nearly exactly as he found it, zipped up the three compartments, and handed it over, thanking me for my patience.
This was by far the most pleasant “additional security screening” I’ve endured to date.
My gate was just across the way from the security checkpoint, so I settled in to a chair, reached in to the right-side cargo pocket of my shorts, and pulled out my mobile phone. Yep, I had forgotten to take it out, and it had not set off the metal detector.
So much for airport security.
This about says it all:
I’ll let everyone know the result when I return on Friday.
I felt “The Patriot Perspective” from today’s Federalist Patriot (PDF file) was worth reprinting.