On the Right Side

2003-04-17T07:37:00.000-04:00

WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?!? Blogger has not been operating very well lately. My posts have not been posted lately. Sorry for the delay. In any case, I'm sure that the anti-war crowd will be happy to note that is has won over someone. Well, sort of.

2003-04-10T06:46:00.000-04:00

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "We have seen their kind before. They're the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions, by abandoning every value except the will to power, they follow in the path of fascism, Nazism and totalitarianism.

And they will follow that path all the way to where it ends in history's unmarked grave of discarded lies."

-George Walker Bush, September 20th, 2001

2003-04-07T05:25:00.000-04:00

"WE JUST WANT FREEDOM": Read this. The quote says it all I think.

2003-04-06T12:10:00.000-04:00

WHAT DO WE HAVE HERE: A good, well thought colum from the New York Times! And it's about how liberal professors are fearing political opposition from...wait for it...conservative students! The same certainly applies to my school as well and I can attest to this as evidenced by articles such as this.

2003-04-02T07:35:00.000-05:00

WHY SELF-INTEREST PROVES THAT THE UN IS A SHAM: I think this diagram explains it.

2003-04-02T07:34:00.000-05:00

SADDAM ISN'T DEAD: He's just been busy blogging.

2003-04-01T12:12:00.000-05:00

THANKS FOR PLAYING: If this story is in fact true, then we have some early entries for the 2003 Darwin Awards.

2003-03-31T15:36:00.000-05:00

"IT'S NO FUN BEING SADDAM HUSSEIN THESE DAYS": You can say that again.

2003-03-31T10:09:00.000-05:00

"SADDAM AND ME": I thought this was pretty funny.

The film, "Saddam and Me," will capture Mr. Moore's misadventures and witty banter as he attempts to ask the Iraqi president to ban personal ownership of firearms.

"Every nation that allows individuals to own guns will eventually wind up like Iraq," said Mr. Moore. "The gun culture encourages violence. Most Iraqis own personal firearms, and look what's happening over there. Children are dying. It's just like Columbine."

Heh.

2003-03-26T18:38:00.000-05:00

THE VIEW FROM WITHIN: In the meantime, check on Salam Pax, an Iraqi dissident's blog from an unknown location in Iraq. He has been unable to post lately, but continue to check in.

2003-03-26T18:36:00.000-05:00

MY THOUGHTS: Overall, I think the war is going well. Perhaps those of us who favored military action in Iraq were too idealist. There is dancing in the streets but it is limited. In fact, there is a lot of anger in Baghdad now and understandably so. An errant missile has apparently struck a Baghdad marketplace, killing 14 civilians. Iraqi TV is propagandizing this to the fullest extent and going as far as saying the US are now targeting civilians. Naturally, some are buying it. Here is a report with a claim by the Pentagon that it has not fired any weapons near that region. Could it have been Saddam? I am more inclined to believe it was an errant bombing, but Saddam is capable of such a feat.

Nevertheless, it is clear that we are not as welcome as we would have hoped. This can be attributed to several reasons:
1) We are bombing them. Nobody likes to be bombed, and countries that are bombed are going to be angry at those who bombed them.
2) Delay of humanitarian aid. Quite simply, we are going to have to win over the Iraqi people's trust. And humanitarian aid has been delayed by resistance in Southern cities and the recent sandstorms in Iraq.
3) Civilian casualties. While this was expected, it will nonetheless cause anger among the local population unless the coalition can prove it is on their side.
4) Skepticism. We have let the Iraqis down before. We have not come to their aid when they have resisted before. We must do so now.
5) Secret police. This is an often overlooked fact. I saw an interview on TV today with an Iraqi man who was asked whether he could do without Saddam. Despite the presence of Western journalists around him, he was apprehensive of saying anything about the regime. We have seen pictures of Iraqis celebrating with coalition forces, but this has only occurred after the coalition forces have completely secured the area.

I am worried and excited at the same time. I see prospects of success and welcoming of US troops among some civilians and I see growing resentment to the US among others. I think when it is all said and done, this war will be viewed as a liberation. I could be wrong, but it is my gut instinct. Effectively this war has turned into a PR campaign and we are losing it so far. And yet, there are still signs of glee at the sight of coalition forces. In any case, we must deliver aid ASAP and win the people's hearts and minds.

2003-03-26T18:01:00.000-05:00

ONE COOL DUDE: The man in the middle of this picture is my British politics professor, Mike Fosdal. As you can obviously tell, he is the man. And no, I am not one of the other people in the picture.

2003-03-26T09:34:00.000-05:00

A FISKING: It's been a long time coming but here's my fisking of Marc Malon, a fellow university student at American University.

It has begun. The moment that we all saw coming months ago. As I write this, the United States is at war.

I knew this was going to happen. I knew that the administration wasn't serious about diplomacy, and that this was what Bush wanted to do all along. I knew all along--so I thought I was prepared to handle the horrible news. I was wrong.

Yes Marc, in fact this administration cared so little about diplomacy that it went to the United Nations, passed a unanimous Resolution 1441 by a vote of 15-0, calling for full and immediate disarmament of Iraq. It did not call for inspectors to play detective and it did not beg for Saddam to destroy weapons such as his Al-Samoud missiles. It called for full and immediate disarmament, nothing more and nothing less. Saddam failed to do so. And France decided that it didn't really care. Do you think that maybe, just maybe, that might have a little something to do with the billions of dollars in oil contracts France has with Iraq? With the weapons that France has sold Saddam in the past? France was so diplomatic at the UN that it even vehemently stated it would veto any 17th resolution (commonly called a "second resolution" in the press these days) before it had even read it! Diplomacy failed indeed. And I blame France.

I knew I wouldn't be happy when we went, but I never expected it to hit me this hard emotionally. While I am angry and I do feel betrayed somewhat, what I feel now is worse than that. Its the feeling of a broken heart.

Boo fuckin' hoo.

At 10:15 pm on Wednesday, March 19, I watched the President address the nation. He said exactly what I expected him to say. And everything I had been thinking about and arguing about for the past several months seemed to be for nothing. What was the point to all of this?

That your argument had no point.

Let's take a look at what Bush had to say.

He mentioned in his address that we enter this fight reluctantly. While this may be true of many American citizens and many of our troops, I doubt that it is true with our president. This is a man who scorns diplomacy and any action short of a military strike. He is concerned with power politics, and believes he is perfectly justified in acting quickly and unilaterally. He was even reluctant to get support from Congress, and he has refused to for his final decision to attack. He thinks that every American and world citizen should accept his doctrine with no questions asked, and that anyone who dares to speak up is "against us."

Let's dissect the lies here. First, this is not a unilateral strike. Not, not, NOT unilateral. Britain is fighting alongside the US troops. Austrailia is doing the same. That is at the very minimum a trilateral action. Then consider that over 40 countries are contributing in some way or another to the coalition. I think it's therefore quite obvious to any non ignorant person that this strike is in fact, multilateral. But let's not let facts get in the way of Marc's argument. Onward.

The Senate approved the resolution to go to war quite resolutely. If it went to the Senate again, I would expect it to be a nearly unanimous vote this time around.

As for those "who dare to speak up", I don't remember at any point Bush claiming that they were "against us". He claimed that states harbouring terrorists must either discontinue from doing so or they would be "against us" in his 2002 State of the Union Address. That has nothing to do with dissenters of this war. A more appropriate quote regarding those "who dare to speak up" is Bush's more recent quote: "There are some who believe that Saddam Hussein isn't a threat to world peace. I respectfully disagree." Hardly threatening if you ask me.

Bush also seems to think that once we remove Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi people will suddenly be free. If only this were true--if it were, all we would have to do is assassinate every tyrant and the whole world would be free! But sadly, its not true.

Finally Marc is on to something.

History tells us that positive change does not occur from the top down. Think about it--this is a nation that has never known true democracy. It doesn't exist for them. Do you think that by simply removing one single tyrant from power that immediately Iraq will become a progressive democracy? It takes a lot more than that. Positive change occurs from the bottom up. It occurs when the dream of democracy becomes a reasonable goal in the eyes of the average Iraqi citizen and THEY rise up. No Iraqi citizen would dare do that now.

But they could if we take over.

Once again, Marc is wrong. Anyone noticing a trend here? Northern Kurdistan is already a flourishing democracy, protected from Saddam by coalition enforcement of the Northern fly zones. The region has known democracy, and has witnessed a successful democracy, one that is minus Saddam. Will a democracy throughout all of Iraq be easy? No, but it is possible. The Kurds of Northern Iraq are proof of it.

I believe the US Military will see more casualties after the war is won than before. Because after we take over, and we support a new authoritarian government (one that hopefully won't include institutional rape), there will be many uprisings. And do you know who has an advantage in that situation? Fundamentalists terrorists similar to al Qaeda. That would pose a true threat to America, and more so to Iraq's neighbors.

No doubt that democracy will not be easy. No one ever claimed that. And while it is true that the US has supported authoritarian governments in the past (Saddam for instance), the United Nations and (gasp!), the United States are committed to nation building following a post-Saddam Iraq. Nation building that will go a long way in spreading democracy throughout all of Iraq, and not just its Northern hemisphere.

Once Saddam feels as though he will lose, he will want to take whoever he can with him. He will burn his oil fields, giving us a nice ecological crisis to deal with. He will then use whatever biological and chemical weapons he has, mainly on the Kurds. He'll launch missiles at Israel and other nearby nations. Once he's cornered there is no telling what horrible things he is capable of.

Perhaps Saddam will use biological or chemical weapons. This would assume he has them in the first place. If he does in fact have these weapons, that is a significant reason for striking Iraq, to prevent the proliferation of these weapons. So far, Saddam has done almost none of what Marc has mentioned, except to burn 9 oil fields out of his collection of nearly 500 (ironic considering he swore he would never burn oil fields on national TV only weeks earlier). These oil field fires have been put out and are now under coalition control.

And of course, there are the Kurds. There are many constants in life: we need to breathe, we need to eat, gravity rules the Earth, and the Kurds always get screwed over. When Saddam committed his worst atrocities against them in the 80s, he was our ally. And the Reagan administration helped to suppress inquiry into the attacks. Thanks to our help after the first Gulf War, they are in a better place now then they had been in a long time. And that security is threatened once again. What can they do? Where can they go? Saddam is brutal to them, Turkey is brutal to them, and Iran hasn't been much better. They are a long-suffering group of people with no country, and this war will make them refugees once again.

Indeed the Kurds have been screwed over countless times. So should we simply forget about them as Marc seems to suggest, or help them? I will quote Tony Blair when he said today, "This time we will not let you down".

My gut has guided me against this war, and so has my mind. But all of these arguments I have made feel futile now. Not the arguments themselves, but the act of arguing.

I am 20 years old, and a sophomore at AU. Since coming to DC from a town of 20,000 on the coast of Maine, I have witnessed 9/11 and its aftershocks, seen our mail get shut down for weeks due to anthrax, heard all of the helicopters fly overhead, and lived near where a sniper was killing random people. After awhile, I became somewhat desensitized, along with many others. When confronted with such horrible events, sometimes humor is the only way to stay sane. I figured that was how I would handle us going to war.

But I was wrong. No matter how hard I try, I am scared. I am angry that my president wouldn't even consider other options, and the opinions of others. But the anger has turned over to sadness.

One thing that we need to remember is that people fighting on both sides are not simply the good guys and the bad guys. Everyone fighting is a living, breathing human being. Every person killed was a brother, a sister, a husband, a lover, a friend....every person killed meant something to someone else. And for every person killed there is someone mourning his or her death.

Morally equivalizing American soldiers with those who fight alongside Saddam Hussein, a man whose atrocities are well documented and hence do not need to be repeated here, is quite simply - disgusting.

War, whether one agrees with it or not, is a sad affair. I've talked to countless people who have relatives and friends in the armed forces right now, and they are worried. I'm worried for them. No joke seems funny anymore. No college assignment feels meaningful when our fellow friends and family are risking their lives.

These are somber times, and to laugh or toast champagne when we start the bombing isn't only ridiculous, its shameful. I have run the gamut of emotions on this...

If you oppose this war, than it is your duty as a world citizen to voice that opposition. It is vital not to allow yourselves to be cowed by the voices of those who wish to silence you. It is important that you do not allow yourself to feel helpless, as easy and understandable as it would be. Stand up, be counted, and speak your mind because it is YOUR mind to use as you will. Even if Bush isn't listening, your voice matters. It always matters. Take these current events and learn from them.

First off, no one, I repeat, no one is trying to silence you. Let us be thankful that we live in a country where we can repeat ad nauseum such asinine rhetoric as "Bush = Hitler!" in front of the White House and walk home untouched 5 minutes later. These freedoms are worth defending.

It is also vital that we stick together, regardless of differing opinions. In a time when so many people are frightened, friends and family take on a whole new meaning. We are each others' support group, we provide each other shoulders to cry on. Take this time to sit back and appreciate your loved ones. Talk together, laugh together, live together.

Because in these tough times we need to appreciate every bit of life we have, and we can't allow ourselves to waste a second of it.

I am agnostic, and therefore do not have a belief about the spiritual realm. But tonight I am offering up a prayer, just in case there is some power that is listening. I pray for our soldiers and their families. I pray for the Iraqi citizens. I pray that one day a just peace will rule the land, and that war will be seen as unnecessary, and useless.

War has solved nothing except: ending slavery, ending fascism, ending Nazism, and ending communism. But I also hope for the day when war will be considered unnecessary and useless as well. Ending the totalitarian regime of Saddam is hopefully the begginning of this outcome.

I pray for my family, my friends, and the soul of the human race.

I am an agnostic as well. But I will do the same.

2003-03-26T08:37:00.000-05:00

CUTE BUT STUPID: Here's a report on the recent "die-in" (their words, not mine) at my school, American University.

“The time has come to stand up for what we believe in. We hope that [students] will carry in your hearts the images of what war means,” said Elizabeth Falcon, one of the principle organizers of AU Against the War.

Funny but I don't remember any pro-libertation advocates claiming there would be no casualties in this war. Unfortunately, the whole anti-war argument seems to be comprised of asinine rhetoric, i.e. "No Blood for Oiiiiiiiiiiil!!!", or obvious statements such as "War is bad", of which you will find no disagreement from me or any of my pro-liberation colleagues. I'm willing to bet my life savings that half these people have no idea that many Iraqis want war as long as it means removing Saddam Hussein from power.

2003-03-26T08:30:00.000-05:00

THANKS...I THINK: I see my hits are up quite a bit lately, many coming from Yahoo or Google searches for "Michael Moore booed", regarding his recent comments at the Oscars. As Glenn would say: "Heh".

2003-03-26T08:25:00.000-05:00

MINE SWEEPERS: I've heard reports on the news of coalition forces using dolphins to clear mines out of the water through their use of sonar. That actually makes a lot of sense but this is just weird.

2003-03-24T10:08:00.000-05:00

WHY YOU ARE WRONG MICHAEL: Straight from the mouth of a "human shield": "I was a naive fool to be a human shield for Saddam" (bold words mine)

We on the bus felt that we were sympathetic to the views of the Iraqi civilians, even though we didn't actually know any. The group was less interested in standing up for their rights than protesting against the US and UK governments.

I was shocked when I first met a pro-war Iraqi in Baghdad - a taxi driver taking me back to my hotel late at night. I explained that I was American and said, as we shields always did, "Bush bad, war bad, Iraq good". He looked at me with an expression of incredulity.

As he realised I was serious, he slowed down and started to speak in broken English about the evils of Saddam's regime. Until then I had only heard the President spoken of with respect, but now this guy was telling me how all of Iraq's oil money went into Saddam's pocket and that if you opposed him politically he would kill your whole family.

It scared the hell out of me. First I was thinking that maybe it was the secret police trying to trick me but later I got the impression that he wanted me to help him escape. I felt so bad. I told him: "Listen, I am just a schmuck from the United States, I am not with the UN, I'm not with the CIA - I just can't help you."

Of course I had read reports that Iraqis hated Saddam Hussein, but this was the real thing. Someone had explained it to me face to face. I told a few journalists who I knew. They said that this sort of thing often happened - spontaneous, emotional, and secretive outbursts imploring visitors to free them from Saddam's tyrannical Iraq.

I became increasingly concerned about the way the Iraqi regime was restricting the movement of the shields, so a few days later I left Baghdad for Jordan by taxi with five others. Once over the border we felt comfortable enough to ask our driver what he felt about the regime and the threat of an aerial bombardment.

"Don't you listen to Powell on Voice of America radio?" he said. "Of course the Americans don't want to bomb civilians. They want to bomb government and Saddam's palaces. We want America to bomb Saddam."

2003-03-24T10:04:00.000-05:00

ASSHOLE ALERT: Guess who was at the Oscars promoting himself as the godfather of justice and morality as he always tends to do? That's right! Michael Moore! And the self-righteous asshole got booed on stage!

2003-03-24T09:58:00.000-05:00

SPRING BREAK: I have been away for the past week on spring break in Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium. This would explain my lack of posts lately. I will probably limit my commentary on the war as my views in the past speak for themselves. In any case, I hope that even those who are against the war support our troops even as they protest.

2003-03-14T08:56:00.000-05:00

HOLLYWOOD HYPOCRISY: Supporting a war just isn't as "hip" as it used to be according to Janeane Garofalo.

Indeed, in 1999 singer Judy Collins--best known for her soulful renditions of antiwar songs--actually sang at a White House gala at the very moment that U.S. and NATO bombs were flattening parts of Belgrade--accidentally destroying the Chinese Embassy in the process.

Similarly, singer Sheryl Crow is appalled by George Bush's moves against Iraq, but she had no problem with Bill Clinton's intervention in the Balkans. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the singer accompanied Hillary Clinton on a USO tour to entertain U.S. troops in Bosnia. "Once over there, I felt extremely patriotic," Ms. Crow told a reporter that year. "Here are these people, from 18-year-olds to military veterans, enduring real duress for the cause of peace. I don't ever want to play for a regular audience again, only military folks who are starving for music." Ms. Crow hasn't been seen around any military bases lately.

Some celebrities are at least honest about their hypocrisy. Comedian Janeane Garofalo was blunt in explaining why Hollywood types didn't protest any of Mr. Clinton's military ventures: "It wasn't very hip."

Unbelievable. I didn't know this was a popularity contest.

2003-03-14T08:37:00.000-05:00

THE NY TIMES AGREES WITH ME!: William Safire has an article (in the NY Times!) that basically claims the same things I do in my earlier post today.
Yet another reason why the United Nations is completely stupid.

2003-03-14T08:28:00.000-05:00

PETA BEING PETA AGAIN: Apparently eating meat is akin to a second Holocaust according to the Nazi-like organization that is PETA. Here's a protest worth joining to show PETA how much you think they suck.

2003-03-14T08:17:00.000-05:00

IS FRANCE HIDING SOMETHING?: Steven Den Beste has opined on this subject before.

One more and the most important: suppose that the records also show that during the 1990's companies in France or Germany (or both) actively and deliberately broke the sanctions and sold equipment and supplies to Iraq which helped it to create these things, and that the governments of Germany and France knew and approved of this and actively helped. That's the biggest and most speculative suppose.

On that I can't place a probability; there's no way of knowing right now whether this happened, or whether such records will be found. But I don't consider the possibility of this to be vanishingly small. I think the chance is decent that some such illegal sales to Iraq took place, but I can't say how likely it is that the governments there actively approved of it, or at least deliberately ignored it (which is bad enough). That's the wild card.

Those who know me know that I am the last person to suggest any conspiracy theories. But one has to wonder about the intentions of the French when they veto a very fair and legitimate "test" resolution from the British government before Iraq!

While I certainly respect the opinions of intelligent anti-war protestors (although I have found few), the veto of the 6 tests for proof of full disarmament are extremely fair and still allow for a peaceful resolution of this conflict. Why then is France vetoing any UN resolution that might lead to war? Unfortunately, I am unable to find a copy online of the 6 tests established by the British government to prove full disarmament. In any case, they are all legitimate concerns and place the burden on Saddam to prove that he has been disarmed fully.

At a briefing for European and Arabic journalists, a British official called the French position "extreme" and "completely unreasonable." He added, "I don't think anyone is under the illusion that if you inject into the diplomatic bloodstream a strategic, in-principle veto it's going to make things very difficult. You are poisoning the system."

He added, "The French rejected our tests before the Iraqis. Enough said."

2003-03-13T13:04:00.000-05:00

WHAT POLITICAL STEREOTYPE ARE YOU?: No surprise here for me.

Libertarian - You believe that the main use for
government is for some people to lord it over
others at their expense. You maintain that the
government should be as small as possible, and
that civil liberties, "victimless
crimes", and gun ownership should be basic
rights. You probably are OK with capitalism.
Your historical role model is Thomas Jefferson.

Which political sterotype are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

2003-03-11T06:34:00.000-05:00

THIS IS MY SCHOOL: Ok, so I knew my school was very liberal. But I didn't think it was downright stupid. Hardball came to American University last week and some idiots in the crowd decided to use the tired old slogan "No blood for oil!" to interrupt the show. Thankfully, Chris Matthews established some order.

”All four of you line up or up shut up,” he began, in inviting the demonstrators to express a policy position and question the senators. After several exchanges with student Maggie Holden, Matthews allowed the senators to respond to her anti-war remarks before cutting to a commercial break about a minute later. Though the four women were not forced to leave after their outburst they were told that no further demonstrations would be allowed, AU and MSNBC officials said later that they voluntarily decided to leave anyhow.

Thanks to these dipshits, I can guarantee that Hardball or any other televised show will not be coming to AU anymore. Somehow I don't these these people care.

2003-03-11T06:29:00.000-05:00

ANOTHER BLAME AMERICA FIRST RETARD: Oh look. Yet another moronic novelist/playwright has joined the chorus of "artists" whose careers have gone down the shitter and hence have decided to bash America in order to gain publicity. This time, it's Tom Robbins. I haven't heard of him either.

Novelist Tom Robbins, in contrast, is so violently opposed to what he calls America’s “pimple-faced arrogance” that he yearns to see us get our “butts kicked.”

And these idiots wonder why people write books called "Why the Left Hates America". I've seen it many times before. These self-righteous assholes will proclaim that such a claim is "ridiculous" or that "their dissent is everything that America stands for." And yet dissent seems to entail America getting it's "butt kicked". In other words, he wants American soldiers to die. Not Saddam. Not his Iraqi Republican Guard. American soldiers.

Free speech is highly honorable. Self-righteous attempts to gain publicity so you can sell more books makes you a downright asshole.

2003-03-11T06:20:00.000-05:00

SICK AND PISSED OFF: I've been quite sick and quite annoyed with my immune systemthe last couple of days so please consider this when I post my comments today.

2003-03-05T09:52:00.000-05:00

IS EUROPE FREE RIDING OFF AMERICA?: Stuart Taylor thinks so. He also thinks anti-Americanism is just dumb. I'd have to agree.

Take the views of many anti-war Europeans that Iraq should not be invaded but "contained." By whom? France? Germany? Belgium? They could not contain the two-bit Serbian tyrant, Slobodan Milosevic. And they have been no help -- indeed, they have been a great hindrance -- in containing Iraq. They want the U.S. to do it, through a costly, draining, long-term commitment of American forces. At the same time, they bash the U.S. for the military pressure and economic sanctions -- "starving Iraqi babies" -- that undergird containment.

The ignorance and hypocrisy of the European free-riders is perhaps best illustrated by their clamoring that Bush is bent on a greed-driven "war for oil." But Bush could get a lot more cheap oil, a lot sooner, by joining the long-standing French-Russian push to lift the sanctions on Iraqi exports than by spending vast sums and betting his presidency on an invasion and occupation of Iraq. No American leader would dream of invading but for Saddam's persistence in seeking weapons of mass destruction. If Bush's goal were to grab an oil-rich colony for his corporate buddies, Venezuela would be a much easier target.

It's true that the vast oil reserves in and near Iraq help drive U.S. policy -- but not in a way that justifies European or Arab sneers. It is oil that brings Saddam enough money to buy and build weapons of mass destruction. And the regional hegemony he seeks would enable him to raise prices to extortionate levels. Every other nation in the world has at least as strong an interest as the United States does in denying Saddam such a stranglehold on the global economy.

The tidal wave of anti-Americanism has multiple wellsprings, of course. Critics are understandably resentful of the Bush administration's arrogant demeanor; its disdain for international institutions, agreements, and diplomatic niceties; and its unqualified support of Israel's Ariel Sharon and his expansionist settlement polices. And they're understandably attached to a U.N.-centered vision of international law that has worked well enough in Western Europe -- ever since America liberated and rebuilt the place -- but is useless against terrorists and rogue regimes with weapons of mass destruction. Mix in German pacifism; Russian insecurity; French ego and cynicism; Arab self-pity, paranoia, and envy; and near-universal resentment of the world's only superpower.

But underlying them all is the implicit calculation that the safest course for European nations (and others) is to obstruct American policies while free riding on American power. This calculation rests on two assumptions that may prove to be catastrophically wrong. The first is that as long as Paris and Berlin appease the Arab world and Europe's own militant Muslims, it will be New York and Washington -- not Paris or Berlin -- that are targeted for destruction by any weapons of mass destruction that jihadists obtain from Iraq or other rogue regimes. The second is that Europe need not share in the costs and risks of keeping rogue regimes in check, because Uncle Sam will do it for them.

Read the whole thing as they say.

2003-03-05T09:45:00.000-05:00

MAKE LOVE AND WAR: Or as Asparagirl says, "F*ck for Freedom!"

2003-03-04T07:39:00.000-05:00

SIGN UP: If you, like I, are tired of Michael Moore's attempts to throw out ridiculous rhetoric disguised as "documentaries" and "facts", then sign this Michael Moore Accountability petition, and let this egomaniac know how you feel.

2003-03-04T07:36:00.000-05:00

THANKS MICHAEL MOORE: Thanks to Mikey, French students will have the pleasure" of viewing Bowling for Columbine in schools. And get this, it's mandatory. And yes, like you my sensible readers, I have no idea what Bowling for Columbine has to do with France except to feed into the anti-Americanism that is already prevalent there. And you can thank Michael Moore who is making a good chunk of change off the whole endeavour! Thanks Mikey!

2003-03-04T07:30:00.000-05:00

ANTI-IDIOTARIAN CARTOONISTS: Anti-idiotarian cartoonists Cox and Forcum have their own blog up now with some of the funniest cartoons you'll ever lay eyes on. Ok, so maybe I'm exaggerating but they are very good. Check it out.

2003-03-03T08:37:00.000-05:00

FISKING EDWARD SAID: E. Nough has this ridiculously good fisking of "intellectual" Jew-hater Edward Said. This might be the best Fisking I've seen yet, a must read folks.

2003-03-03T06:05:00.000-05:00

HUMAN SHIELDS CHICKEN OUT: This is absolutely hysterical.

Not everyone was upset by the latest turn in events. Ken O'Keefe, 33, the founder of the human shields movement who served as a US marine during the Gulf war, had always planned to protect Iraqi "installations" should bombs rain down on the capital.

During the journey, the heavily-tattooed O'Keefe, who earned the title "black Ken" on account of his penchant for the colour and outlook on life, had alienated his companions who felt he had developed both a death wish and a messiah complex. Prone to tantrums and mood swings, his credibility had not been helped by the fact that he had, for much of the journey, been accompanied by his mother, Pat.

Hahahahahahahaha.

And this too:

While the group visibly "radicalised" once in Iraq, Godfrey remained charming and affable. One afternoon, Sue Darling posted an angry message on the Andalus hotel noticeboard: "Can whoever stole my bag of nuts, sultanas and dried bananas, please return them. They are my emergency rations". Godfrey scrawled below: "Sue, I can let you have some of my prunes. If it would help."

How old are these people again?

2003-03-03T06:02:00.000-05:00

SORRY FOR THE LIGHT POSTING: I was on a class trip to Ireland from Wednesday until late last night. I visited the Blarney Stone (which I kissed) and Killarney (a beautiful rural town) and finally Dublin (also very nice). In Dublin we visited the world famous Guiness Brewery and receided a free pint so needless to say, good times were had by all.

I'm not a big fan of Guiness though. Tastes way too much like bad coffee to me. Nevertheless, beer is beer or so they say.

2003-02-25T18:38:00.000-05:00

RUSH TO WAR???: Juan Paxety explains that we're not waiting for a 2nd UN resolution. We're waiting for a 19th UN resolution.

And yet somehow we are "rushing" to war. Unbelievable.

2003-02-25T08:37:00.000-05:00

MAYBE IF THEY SAY IT ENOUGH, IT WILL BE TRUE: Peter Ferrara explains, yet again, why it's NOT about oil.

I'm guessing most "peace protestors" won't care about these inconvenient facts.

2003-02-21T07:43:00.000-05:00

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "By all reports it was 6 million (anti-war marchers) WORLDWIDE. 5 times as many people watched Joe Millionaire in the U.S. Hell, more people watched the second half of WWE Raw than protested the war, but does that merit international headlines?"
- JimK

I guess Stone Cold Steve Austin is just more interesting.

2003-02-21T07:26:00.000-05:00

AGAINST WAR BUT LACKING ALTERNATIVES: Lee Harris explains why the anti-war folks are not being taken seriously.

If you oppose war, then fine. That's great. No one wants war. However, what truly irks me and many of the people that are for the war is that anti-war protestors always try to appear morally superior to those who support military action in Iraq because they're "for peace" and we're apparently not. Quite frankly, that's just stupid. Everyone is for peace! But if you don't support war, then what do you suggest we do? Ask this of any anti-war protestor and they will come up with nothing.

2003-02-21T07:17:00.000-05:00

AS MUCH AS I DON'T LIKE THE FRENCH RIGHT NOW...: This is just stupid.

2003-02-21T07:10:00.000-05:00

USEFUL IDIOTS: The Washington Post has the story on how the "peace" protestors are playing right into Saddam's hands and making him less likely to comply with UN resolutions. One has to wonder why none of the "peace" protestors didn't carry around signs such as "Saddam, please disarm to avoid war" or "Saddam, step down!". Instead, we were fed with several helpings of "Bush = Hitler" or "Down with the USA!" and the ever so lovely "Don't bomb Iraq, bomb Israel!".

And people wonder why I'm for the war now...

(Link via Glenn)

2003-02-19T06:54:00.000-05:00

FISK BEING FISK: This guy just doesn't "get it", does he? Robert Fisk is now insulting all Arabs who didn't attend the anti-war protests. Now surely there are many Arabs who are against the war, but does Fisk even consider why so many Arabs were not at the protests?

Could anything be more pathetic than the Arab demonstration against war? A million Britons marched in London, more than half a million Spaniards in Madrid; 200,000 in Paris and New York. And Cairo? Well, just 600 Egyptians turned up in their capital to protest at America's forthcoming invasion of brotherly Iraq – surrounded by 3,000 security police. By way of contrast – brave contrast – 2,000 Israelis protested in Tel Aviv against the war.

What on earth is it with the Arabs? Of all people, they – and they alone – are likely to suffer in this American invasion of their homeland. They – and they alone – have the will and the ability to understand that this US military adventure is intended – as Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, frankly declared last week – to change the map of the Middle East.

Oh. My. Fucking. God. Hey Robert, did you ever consider that perhaps many of the Arabs absent from the protests, particularly Iraqi exiles who didn't even bother to show up at all, are not protesting the war because they want the United States and a "coalition of the willing" to bomb the shit out of Iraq as you would say? Maybe, just maybe, they want Saddam to go? Did that even cross your god-damned head? You are quite frankly the stupidest man alive and make Michael Moore look like a Rhodes scholar by comparison. And yes, I hope you're reading this.

2003-02-19T06:45:00.000-05:00

DEMOCRATS LOSING THE "BLACK VOTE": It looks like it's all but over. The Democrats are now losing the tradionally Democrat "black vote".

No word on whether Al Sharpton will call all libertarians and Republicans "racist" for the thousandth time as of yet.

2003-02-19T06:27:00.000-05:00

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY SNOWATHON: And since I haven't reported on anything at American University in a while, take a look at some of the snow the school has been getting while I've been away!

2003-02-19T06:13:00.000-05:00

"SHUT UP!": John McCain, a man I would have voted for in 2000, recently was on the Sean Hannity radio show. He had two very simple words for our former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton: "Shut up!".

McCain is right considering that Clinton is the reason that North Korea has nukes right now and Carter couldn't find his way out of a paper bag these days.

No word if Michael Moore will claim that the "warmongers" are attempting to crush dissent as of yet.

2003-02-19T06:06:00.000-05:00

BET ON REALITY: Mark Steyn eloquently displays what many (notice I didn't say all) of the anti-war demonstrators are thinking and just how stupid they sound. According to him, the "curtain will come down on the peaceniks":

Hitler's problem was that he was over-invested in ideology. He'd invented a universal theory -- the wickedness of the international Jewish conspiracy -- and he persisted in fitting every square peg of cold hard reality into that theory's round hole. Thus, Churchill must be a "puppet of Jewry." As a general rule, when it's reality versus delusion, bet on reality. That held true in the Cold War. Moral equivalists like Harold Pinter insisted that America and the Soviet Union were both equally bad. But the traffic across the Berlin Wall was all one way. East German guards were not unduly overworked trying to keep people from getting in. The Eastern bloc collapsed because it was a lie, and the alternative wasn't.

Well, the Soviet Union's gone now so Pinter no longer has to observe the pox-on-both-their-houses niceties. Addressing the demonstrators on Saturday, he declared that the U.S. is "a country run by a bunch of criminals ... with Tony Blair as a hired Christian thug."

Got that? It's not Saddam who's the thug, it's Tony. It's not the Baathist killers from Tikrit who are the bunch of criminals, it's the Republican Party. It's not the million-man murderer of Baghdad who's the new Hitler, it's George W. Bush. It's not the Iraqi one-party state with its government-controlled media that "crushes dissent," it's the White House. It's not the Wahhabis who are the fundamentalists, it's Bush, Blair and the other Christians. It's not Osama bin Laden who's the terrorist, it's American foreign policy. Supporting the continued enslavement of the Iraqi people is "pacifist," but it's "racist" for America to disagree with the UN, even though it's Colin Powell and Condi Rice doing the disagreeing and the fellows they're disagreeing with are a bunch of white guys from Europe.

The new Universal Theory, to which 99% of Saturday's speakers and placards enthusiastically subscribed, is that, whatever the problem, American imperialist cowboy aggression is to blame. In fact, it's not so different from the old Universal Theory, in that the international Zionist conspiracy is assumed to be behind the scenes controlling the cowboys: Bush is a "puppet of Jewry," just like Churchill was -- notwithstanding the fact that America's Jews voted overwhelmingly for Gore. But, if you believe that the first non-imperialist great power in modern history is the source of all the world's woes, then logic is irrelevant. "It's all about oil"? Yes, for the French, whose stake in Iraqi oil is far more of a determining factor than America's ever has been or will be. "America created Saddam"? No, not really, the French and Germans and Russians have sold him far more stuff, and Paris built him that reactor which would have made him a nuclear power by now, if the Israelis hadn't destroyed it in the Eighties.

But, as Colin Powell and Jack Straw have surely learned by now, there's no real point doing the patient line-by-line rebuttal: Nobody's interested in French oil contracts or German arms sales or even Saddamite corpse tallies because it doesn't fit into the Universal Theory which insists that everything can be explained by the Evil of America. On the other hand, the indestructible belief that "over 4,000" civilians were killed by U.S. bombs in Afghanistan is impervious to scientific evidence because it accords perfectly with the Universal Theory.

Bet on reality.

2003-02-13T08:55:00.000-05:00

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Our quote of the day comes from this article regarding France and Germany. Tom DeLay, House Majority Leader had this to say:

DeLay is trying a more personal approach. "I was at a celebration of India's Independence Day," he told reporters, "and a Frenchman came walking up to me and started talking to me about Iraq, and it was obvious we were not going to agree. And I said, 'Wait a minute. Do you speak German?' And he looked at me kind of funny and said, 'No, I don't speak German.' And I said, 'You're welcome,' turned around and walked off."

I bet he's still trying to figure that one out.

2003-02-12T14:11:00.000-05:00

ON AN UNFORTUNATE NOTE: According to the local BBC, some anti-war protestors are calling the government's stationing of military troops at Heathrow airport, in response to terrorists threats to airplanes, "propaganda", to justify going to war with Iraq.

Some people are just:

Really. Fucking. Stupid.

2003-02-12T14:08:00.000-05:00

SEX, DRUGS, AND...LIBERTARIANISM?: Susan Lee has an awesome article of how libertarian principles are slowly creeping into the America psyche.

Yes, we're taking over. And there's no stopping it.

Seriously though, I think she summed it up nicely here:

One can imagine, though, how discouraged F.A. Hayek must have felt in 1944 when he sat down to write "The Road to Serfdom." Now, few doubt that Hayek has won and that the economic argument has been settled in favor of free markets. What remains is the battle over politics and culture. One down, two to go.

I think one day we'll see a much more socially liberal, economically conservative population. I would consider myself a "South Park" Republican, or a socially liberal Republican/libertarian. But I'm not the only one. You see it every day with some of the best conservative commentators. With Sean Hannity talking about sex (gasp!)on his radio show or Pejman talking about Grand Theft Auto (whoa!), one of the most violent video games ever made, in a favorable light, free market advocates have certainly come a long way. And we'll all be better because of it.

2003-02-11T04:28:00.000-05:00

NOBEL ECONOMISTS BLAST BUSH PLAN: Apparently there are many economists who are not too happy with Bush's tax cut plan.

Personally, I think Bush has done a terrible job lately on the fiscal side of things. He better start focusing a little more on domestic economics if he doesn't want to go the way of his father.

2003-02-11T04:26:00.000-05:00

"DUDE, YER' GETTING BUSTED!": The Dell Kid is getting arrested on drug charges.

It's officially the end of the world.

2003-02-07T11:29:00.000-05:00

ANTI-SEMITISM WATCH: Josh Kraushaar found this incredibly racist article found in the student newspaper Daily Illini and the response, or lack thereof, by the school's administration:

Current news from England tells us about discovery of a home stile lab producing potent ricine poison. Since this poison can be manufactured in every home, it constitutes the most serious threat ever. The President should act immediately to deal with this threat. First, separate Jews from all government advisory positions and give them one year fully paid sabbatical. No matter what sort of allegiance they have sworn to the United States, their true Jewish hearts are with Israeli, not American, interests. Secondly, the President should create a Palestinian state within 60 days. Only a free sovereign Palestine will stop poison cooking "homemakers."

Jewish ability to promote their desires, disguised, as being in the interest of the American people, one day will evaporate. Then the Jews might face another Holocaust. The Jews must be mad. The United States has given them a foundation for unprecedented world-wide influence and power but they are prepared to squander it all, for no apparent reason, oppressing Palestinians. Currently Jews have persuaded Americans to lure Iraqi scientists for interviews outside Iraq. Israeli security is prepared to assassinate these scientists.

I'm speechless.

2003-02-07T11:27:00.000-05:00

MY LETTER TO MICHAEL: While perusing Michael Moore's site, he is apparently still convinced this is a war for oil. So I decided to email the idiot and ask him some very direct questions. Here's what I wrote:

Michael,

Why are you so convinced this is a war for oil? You have not the slightest bit of evidence to back this up, and yet you constantly repeat it. If you really believe this is a war for oil, please answer the following questions, and perhaps consider posting them on your website.

1. Only 5 percent of the world's oil comes from Iraq. If this war were really about oil, why aren't we "murdering children" as you would say, in Venezuela, where a much greater percentage of the world's oil comes from?

2. Why didn't we take control of Iraq's oil fields in 1991 after the Gulf War? We had complete control over their oil fields then and yet we left the country and it's oil reserves in the hands of the Iraqi government. Why didn't we just steal all their oil and take control of their oil reserves right then and there?

3. If oil is our main interest in the region and the only reason we are dealing with Iraq, why don't we just completely lift the UN sanctions and trade with Iraq freely? That way we could have much greater access to their oil at a cheaper cost. There would be a greater supply of oil and prices would fall. Why don't we just trade freely with Iraq if it's a "war for oil"?

I challenge you to answer these questions.

Trust me, I've no fan of Bush. I would consider myself a libertarian. But this is NOT a partisan issue. You have tried to make it one. It seems like only you and your far-left Socialist Green friends believe any of the garbage you write these days.

So I'll repeat again. I challenge you to answer my questions.

Stop making this a partisan issue.

Phil Kahn
AU Libertarians
American University

I'll certainly post his response if he has one for me. But somehow I doubt the weasal will even consider it.

By the way, it does seem a little odd that his forums have been down for weeks now, after he was tarnished with several instances of bad press in January, doesn't it? He has been known to make his words disappear every now and then, hasn't he?

2003-02-07T10:45:00.000-05:00

WHY I HATE PETA: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is one of the dumbest, most Nazi like (in terms of obsession) organizations in the United States. There are several reports of PETA supporting "terrorist" type attacks against the food industry and others who, *gasp!*, have the audacity to eat meat. But they have now sunk to a new low:

``If you have the opportunity,'' Newkirk beseeched Arafat, ``will you please add to your burdens my request that you appeal to all those who listen to you to leave the animals out of this conflict?'' In other words, Newkirk seems to be begging the Palestinians not to stop the slaughter, but rather to find a different delivery system for their bombs.

Appalling.

Perhaps Ms. Newkirk would prefer that the Palestinians used suicide bombers instead of burros. Oh, that's right, they usually do.

Lisa Lange, PETA's vice president of communications, told me yesterday that Newkirk's letter was written after their offices had been bombarded with calls from PETA members who had learned of the donkey bomb.

Lange said it's PETA's philosophy that human cruelty often begins with animal cruelty.

The Washington Post this week asked Ms. Newkirk if she had ``considered asking Arafat to persuade those who listen to him to stop blowing up people as well'' as animals.

Her response should be required reading for all would-be members of PETA:

``It's not my business to inject myself into human wars,'' Newkirk told the Post.

How does one respond to such moral ambiguity?

How about a body count of human bodies?

In January 2003 -- the month in which the donkey died -- 21 Israelis and eight foreign nationals were killed by terrorists in Israel, and 127 others were injured.

Yet PETA weeps for the ass.

Radio talk show host Tony Macrini got it right when he remarked recently that ``PETA'' was an acronym for ``People Embarrassing the Tidewater Area.''

One can only hope that Newkirk left off her Norfolk return address on that asinine letter to Arafat.

In other words, it's ok to kill Jews, as long as you don't involve donkeys in the act.

I think I'm going to go club a baby seal right about now.

2003-02-07T09:21:00.000-05:00

HUH?: The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission opposes military action against Iraq. Fair enough. I'm not sure why a Gay and Lesbian Organization feels the need to opine on the war, considering it has absolutely nothing to do with the group's mission statement, but they are certainly entitled to their opinion.

But as Andrew Sullivan points out, why is this International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission actively supporting regimes which murder people for simply being gay. While America must rescind its stupid, and way too traditional Defense of Marriage
Act, shouldn't it be supporting the US if it supports gay human rights?

Better, in other words, for gay people in, say, Afghanistan to be punished by being crushed under rocks than to be liberated by the evil of America. These gay activists are simply depraved.

Exactly.

2003-02-06T12:34:00.000-05:00

THIS MAKES MORE SENSE: One of Instapundit's readers is making a bit more sense.

I really like the statement that we need "a united response from the Community of Democracies". Community of Democracies (COD). Got a ring to it, eh. How about abandonding the U.N. and creating COD. No more fascists heading human rights committees. Bye bye Syria, China, Iraq and all you other fascist pigs. We have a new club and if you want to join, you must change your ways and we can show you how. Good plan, don't you think?

Well certainly makes a lot more sense that allowing Libya to head the UN Human Rights Commission.

2003-02-06T12:32:00.000-05:00

MORE UN BASHING: And then there's this from James Lileks.

"Granted. But how can we possibly go to war without the approval of the United Nations?"

Perhaps you mean that we need the moral imprimatur of this august and esteemed body. You'd have a better point if the United Nations was moral, august or esteemed. On the contrary: The United Nations is a dim hive of self-interested parties engaged in endless parliamentary mummery, united by a consensual delusion that all nations are equal.

So you have the bitterly risible sight of Libya chairing the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, which is akin to giving Kid Rock control over the New York Philharmonic. You have the 2003 disarmament conference rotating its presidency among a group of states that includes Iran and Iraq. (Perhaps next year the agricultural planning conference will be held in Pyongyang.) You have the shameful performance of the peacekeepers in Srebrenica, looking away while thousands were slaughtered. You have the sex-for-food scandal at U.N. refugee camps in Africa -- if it happened at an American frat house, it would be national news for a week.

And you have small, telling scenes like the one that transpired in Baghdad recently. A man thrust himself into a U.N. inspector's car and begged for sanctuary. The U.N. official pretended to study his papers while the poor man pleaded for his life. The Iraqi guards took the man away, and if what we know about Iraqi prisons is even half right, we can only hope they killed the man as soon as he was out of camera range.

Imagine you are running in fear from Iraqi thugs, and you see a U.N. car, and a U.S. convoy. To which would you run?

"Yes, yes, it's not perfect. But don't we need U.N. approval?"

No. But if it makes you feel better to know that China graciously allowed the United States to act in its own self-interest, pretend that they did. Picture an unelected communist bureaucrat giving Bush permission to move some carriers toward the Gulf. Feel better?

The word you're looking for is "oui."

Ouch.

2003-02-06T12:12:00.000-05:00

ADIOS: Mark Steyn agrees. The UN is dead.

Unless it starts enforcing its own resolutions.

2003-02-06T11:41:00.000-05:00

COMPARE AND CONTRAST: With that said, compare and contrast the opinions of the New York Times and the Washington Post. The Times has been making numerous concessions lately and yet Harold Raines and his band of merry men have too much ego to admit when they might, just might, be wrong.

The logic is troubling if not incredibly stupid. It is similar to the logic used by some Security Council members. If Iraq defied inspectors and then lied about doing so, then how are more inspections going to help? According to Resolution 1441, it is the job of Iraq to showcase his weapons and voluntarily disarm. It is not the job of the UN inspectors to play detective and find them. Iraq has failed to meet the simple requirements placed on it and must now face the consequences. If the UN fails to act, then the United States and its multilateral allies (yes, it is a multilateral coalition now) will.

And the United Nations will be irrelevant.

2003-02-06T11:36:00.000-05:00

COUNT ME IN: After hearing Colin Powell's "compelling evidence", count me in on the war. It is clear that UN must do something or risk being irrelevant. What is the point of enacting resolutions if they are not going to be enforced? If there truly is any "international law" as so many people wish to believe, then it must come from the United Nations and it must come through the use of force. There are, after all, no international policeman around to "arrest" Sadam Hussein. It is clear that he is not going to step down, so he must be removed from power, by any means necessary.

Including military force.

2003-02-05T10:52:00.000-05:00

WELCOME BACK: Sorry for the lack of updates lately. Posting wil be light while I'm in London. In any case, I thought this was pretty funny.

2003-02-01T11:06:00.000-05:00

DEMOCRATS TRYING TO BAN WATER GUNS? Yep you heard right. Read the story. Luckily the Libertarian party is there to the rescue.

Next on the agenda for Democrats: Banning fun.

2003-01-30T13:52:00.000-05:00

ATTACK ON THE RAVE ACT: Dave Kopel explains why the RAVE Act is misguided and stupid. I don't think Kopel is being completely fair though. There are many conservatives who are in favor of the Act as well.

So what's next? Does our government ban dancing completely? How about bagels with opium seeds? That's a drug addiction waiting to happen!

2003-01-30T13:44:00.000-05:00

MEDIA BIAS WATCH: Glenn Reynolds and cohorts are taking shots at media bias and a "unilateral" France.

2003-01-29T14:02:00.000-05:00

SAY IT AIN'T SO: Colin Powell, child pornography aficionado?

Despite denying such claims as a smear campaign, former UN weapons inspectors Scott Ritter was accused of a child pornography scandal in which he arranged to meet with a young girl in an Internet chat room. And since being initially extremely hawkish, we know Ritter has done a complete 180 on the issue on war with Iraq.

And we know that the usually dovish Colin Powell has done a complete 180 on Iraq as well, becoming one of the leading hawks in the administration. Could our good friend Colin be hiding something?!? Perish the thought...

Note: I'm joking. Please don't spread this to an Iraqi newspaper or something. Charles Johnson has had way too many problems with that sort of thing.

2003-01-29T13:48:00.000-05:00

HOW DEMOCRATS ARE THE ANTI-CHOICE PARTY: This article, by David Boaz, hits the nail right on the head.

Former House Democratic leader Richard A. Gephardt acknowledged a change of heart on the abortion issue: "I came to realize that the question of choice is to be answered not by the state but by the individual."

With language like that, Gephardt could run for the Libertarian Party nomination. But what question of choice--other than abortion--does Gephardt think should be answered "not by the state but by the individual"? Like Kerry, he opposes Social Security choice, school choice, and the right of individuals to choose what drugs they will use, either for medical or recreational purposes. He voted to deny gays and lesbians the right to marry the person they choose.

Too many people these days think "choice" only refers to abortion. I'd like to hear a presidential candidate say, "I believe in a woman's right to choose. I believe in a woman's right to choose whether to have a child. I believe in a woman's right to choose any job someone will hire her for. I believe in a woman's right to choose to own a gun. I believe in a woman's right to choose the school she thinks is best for her child, public or private. I believe in a woman's right to choose what kinds of art she will spend her money on, even if she prefers Madonna or Randy Travis and Congress wants to give her money to Robert Mapplethorpe or Luciano Pavarotti. I believe in a woman's right to choose to drive a cab, even if she doesn't have a license. I believe in a woman's right to choose the employees she wants for her business, even if they don't fit some government quota. I believe in a woman's right to choose the drugs she prefers for recreation, whether she chooses Coors or cocaine. I believe in a woman's right to choose how to spend all of her hard-earned money, without giving half of it to the government."

I share the exact same view and have shared it with some liberal friends of mine in the past. While I don't consider myself to be pro-life per se, the argument by the pro-lifers certainly makes a lot of sense. Well certainly a lot more sense than saying people shouldn't be allowed to choose what school they wish to attend, where their retirement money goes, who their company should hire, how they choose to defend themselves etc. simply because a bunch of incompetent bureaucrats in Washington know what's good for them.

2003-01-24T10:56:00.000-05:00

FOREIGN POLICY UPDATE: In a stunning change of White House foreign policy, the United States has decided to "not have enemies" following the insightful comments of singer Sheryl Crow.

2003-01-24T08:13:00.000-05:00

NO BLOOD FOR OIL: Thomas Lippman correctly refutes why this is not a war for oil.

The only issue at hand is whether Saddam Hussein is a threat to the Western world. As of now, I would argue no, but he is certainly not complying with UN resolutions and even threatened by death any Iraqi scientists who spoke with the UN outside of Iraq about their past weapons programs.

Very suspicious, no?

2003-01-24T08:10:00.000-05:00

"OLD EUROPE" RESPONDS: And they're not happy.

But it's still hilarious.

2003-01-23T08:23:00.000-05:00

COMPLETELY BLATANTLY INSULTING YET NONETHELESS HILARIOUS QUOTE OF THE DAY: "They're just old Europe."
-Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, on how he feels about Germany and France not supporting any military action in Iraq.

Ouch.

2003-01-23T08:17:00.000-05:00

UNASSUMING BUT HILARIOUS QUOTE OF THE DAY: "As far as we're concerned, war always means failure."
- Jacques Chirac, President of France, on why he is not willing to support a military campaign in Iraq.

How true. War certainly means failure and defeat if you're the French.

2003-01-23T08:13:00.000-05:00

INSPIRATIONAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: "With my family, I felt I needed to make it," he says. "No matter what else was happening, every time I stepped on the court, I just did whatever I wanted to do."
- Amare Stoudemire, forward on Phoenix Suns, after being asked how he motivated himself to become the top rookie player in the NBA despite never attending a semester of college and having a family history of drug problems and jail sentences.

2003-01-22T06:52:00.000-05:00

THE STUPIDITY OF SOME OF THE ANTI-WAR LEFT: I'll repeat, I am against the war myself until there is substantial proof that Saddam Hussein is a true threat to the United States. However, with that said, I will never march in an anti-war protest with some far Left whackos because they're well...just so damn stupid. Rachel Lucas explains it better than I can:

It's one thing to be averse to war and to question the president. It's a different planet altogether to hysterically compare Bush to Hitler and proclaim that Iraq has anything resembling "elections." Remember, if you vote against Saddam, you just might get killed. And it is good to have debate - but these protests, my friend, resemble debate about as much as dog shit resembles a glass of champagne.

I'd say that's about right.

2003-01-22T06:43:00.000-05:00

A NEW SUPER BOWL: This is hilarious. And shows how stupid affirmative action really is.

Which reminds me of a question a friend posed to me. Why don't we have Jewish affirmative action in the NBA?!? Jews have been oppressed from basketball since day one!

2003-01-22T06:26:00.000-05:00

FRANCE NOT HELPING OUT: Is anyone else surprised by this news?

After all, France has never been supportive of anything the US does and seems to have a visceral hatred of it. While war should certainly be the last option, Andrew Sullivan illustriously explains how a UN veto of a war on Iraq essentially makes the United Nations null and void:

Is this the League of Nations? The answer, I regret to say, is yes. If France, Germany and China succeed in ensuring that the war to disarm Saddam doesn't have the sanction of the United Nations, then the U.N. is effectively dead as a viable international body. It will be shown to be palpably uninterested in ensuring that its own resolutions are enforced. Am I exaggerating? I wish I were. But it seems to me that our European allies' current position is one of spectacular intellectual dishonesty. They declare that the U.N. inspectors merely need more time. How much more time? They don't say. There is no deadline. There is never any deadline. Eleven more months, perhaps? They key premise to this argument is that they are satisfied so far by Saddam's compliance. So let's recap: vast gaps in his declaration to the U.N., discovered plans for a nuclear capacity, chemical warheads found that are unaccounted for, no real interviewing of scientists by U.N. officials. But the French are just pleased as punch. Do they have any proposals to make such inspections actually work? A vast increase in the number of inspectors, perhaps? Nope. Do they intend to support the military pressure on Saddam with their own troops? Nope. Germany has specifically disavowed such a course of action - ever. I'm left with the impression that they don't want to do anything serious, but they don't want anyone else to do anything serious either. Paris and Berlin know full well that the chances of the inspectors actually finding what Saddam has spent so much effort concealing is next to zero. And they also know that by delaying the potential war until the autumn, they will help keep the U.S. economy depressed (investment being crippled by uncertainty) and help the growing appeasement movement gain more strength. By then, war will become an even greater political risk for London and Washington, which is, of course, part of the Europeans' plan. Schroder and Chirac want regime change - in Washington and London, not Baghdad. And they are using every ounce of their diplomatic influence to achieve that. You see? They can get off their butts now and again, if they need to. The time is surely coming, alas, when the U.S. and the U.K. will have to acknowledge that these European powers are now de facto allies of Saddam. Because they sure as hell aren't ours.

He's right. After all, what is the point of making resolutions if they are not going to be enforced. The United Nations is quickly becoming nothing more than a mouthpiece and proving once again that "international law" seems to be a figment of the imagination.

2003-01-18T07:46:00.000-05:00

THE MORALITY OF LIBERTY: An excellent article from LP News on the "morality" of the libertarian movement.

What do Americans want from politicians?

Surprise: They want moral values, says a survey taken before the 2002
elections.

According to a Greenberg, Quinlin, Rosner Research, Inc. poll (July 9-
14, 2002), 16% of Americans said "moral values" would be among the
most important issues they considered when voting for Congressional
candidates.

To put that in context, more Americans say moral values are a
defining issue than say taxes are important (12%), or federal
spending (9%), or the environment (8%), or crime and illegal drugs
(7%).

In a related question, 11% said moral values should be a top priority
for Congress and the president.

The poll results are somewhat ambiguous, since they don't make a
distinction between Americans who want politicians who are moral
(the "impeach-Bill-Clinton" crowd), and those who want politicians to
impose morality on others (the "run-Pat-Buchanan-run" crowd).

In fact, voters probably want a bit of both.

Americans look at government, and they see politicians tarred by
scandal -- from Richard Nixon caught not being a crook with the
Watergate burglars to Bill Clinton caught not having sexual relations
with "that woman."

And they see a nation beset by social problems -- crime, teenage
pregnancies, broken homes, intergenerational welfare, school
shootings, drug abuse, corporate malfeasance, and "vulgar" pop
culture.

What do those problems have in common? They're caused by a breakdown
of what many Americans see as traditional moral values: Decency,
chastity, honesty, commitment, and hard work. Americans yearn for a
simpler, more decent time, when crack was something that happened to
your windshield, XXX was a winning strategy in tic-tac-toe, and
Eminem was a candy.

So it's not surprising that 11% say moral values should be
a "priority" for Congress and the president. It's not surprising that
Americans see morality as a political issue.

Despite this, Libertarian candidates have been curiously silent on
the subject. As a result, some critics have charged that Libertarians
don't care about morality. Or, pointing to Libertarian positions on
abortion, pornography, and drugs, they charge that Libertarians are
immoral libertines.

Joseph Farah, editor of WorldNetDaily.com, echoed this all-too-common
assessment when he wrote on June 18, 2002: "Libertarians fail to
understand the moral dimension so critical to self-government. Too
few [Libertarians] comprehend a laissez faire society can only be
built in a culture of morality, righteousness, and compassion. A
libertarian society devoid of God and a biblical world view would
quickly deteriorate into chaos and violence."

Farah is wrong; most Libertarians do understand the moral dimension
of liberty. They embrace "morality, righteousness, and compassion."
And they certainly don't want a nation beset with "chaos and
violence."

But Libertarians view morality differently than Farah -- and
differently than most liberals and conservatives.

"Many libertarians are Œsocially conservative' in the sense that they
believe in traditional moral values like monogamy and two-parent
families," noted the introductory libertarian website,
Libertarian.org.

"But a libertarian believes that moral values must be freely chosen.
If someone else doesn't agree with your morality, you may avoid them,
argue with them, or verbally condemn them, but you should not
physically control them."

In other words, Libertarians see morality as intensely personal or
religious -- and outside the scope of government. That's one reason
why so many Libertarian candidates have been reluctant to talk about
morality.

And Libertarians pride themselves on being tolerant, so they are
loathe to impose their views of morality on others.

However, since many Americans see morality and government as
intertwined, it may be time for Libertarians to end their
squeamishness -- and start using the "M" word in campaigns.

In fact, it's past time for Libertarians to proudly extoll the link
between morality and freedom. Here are some points they can make:

* Giving the government the power to impose morality is dangerous.

Getting politicians to impose your vision of morality has a seductive
allure -- but it is a fool's game, argued 1996 and 2000 LP
presidential candidate Harry Browne in The Great Libertarian Offer.

"When a politician promises to raise moral standards, it's easy to
think he's referring to the moral standards in which you believe,"
wrote Browne. "You think you've found someone who's going to use the
force of government to impose your moral values on others.

"But when government acts, the values imposed won't be yours and they
won't be mine. Moral values will be set by whoever has the most
political power -- people like Teddy Kennedy or Newt Gingrich."

That's a sobering point. Consider:

If conservatives control the levers of power, we face increased
censorship, new laws against gays and lesbians, an escalation of the
War on Drugs, and mandatory prayer in schools -- all in the name
of "Christian" morality.

Conservatives want to use government to make sure you're not bad.

If liberals gain power, we face mandatory racial sensitivity
training, greater redistribution of wealth, more anti-hate crime laws
(read: "thought crimes"), and more affirmative action programs -- all
in the name of "compassionate" morality. Liberals want to use
government to make you good.

The moral agendas of liberals and conservatives are quite different.
But they have one thing in common: They both know what's best for you.

In his 1996 book, Moral Politics, George Lakoff wrote that
conservatives hold a "Strict Father Model" view of government.
Liberals, he writes, have a "Nurturant Parent Model."

But in both models, government is the parent. You are the child.

That could be why Rev. Robert A. Sirico of the Acton Institute wrote
that Americans make a serious mistake when they "suppose that virtue
is something that can be enacted by politicians and implemented by
bureaucrats."

Sirico is right. When government dictates morality, your morality is
at the mercy of whatever amoral gang is in power that day.

* There is a profound difference between individual morality and
politicians who use the power of government to do "moral" things.

Former LP Executive Director Steve Dasbach touched on this in a 1997
press release commemorating the death of Mother Teresa.

"The life of Mother Teresa was a rebuke to everything politicians
stand for," he said. "Mother Teresa reached into our hearts -- while
politicians reach into our wallets."

The difference is even more clear, said Dasbach, when you compare the
typical politician to the Nobel Peace Prize-winning nun.

"Mother Teresa kissed the hands of dying lepers, she slept on a thin
mattress, and she picked maggots from the wounds of Calcutta's
homeless," he said. "By contrast, politicians make speeches in the
air-conditioned luxury of the Capitol Building, they attend $5,000-a-
plate dinners, and they spend other people's money on political
causes that will get them re-elected."

Maybe, speculated Dasbach, "that's why politicians are held in such
contempt, while Mother Teresa was revered by millions of people."

And maybe that's why Jimmy Carter gained far more respect when he
wielded a hammer for Habitat for Humanity than when he wielded the
gavel of power as president of the United States.

Individual morality is about investing your time, spending your
money, and demonstrating your values. Government "morality" is about
casting a vote, spending other people's money, and posing for a photo-
op. It's not the same.

* Many government programs subvert morality -- usually by undermining
personal responsibility.

In his 1996 essay, "The Rise of Government and the Decline of
Morality," James A. Dorn of the Cato Institute argued that government
has "weakened the nation's moral fabric."

The most obvious signs of that decay, he wrote, "are the prevalence
of out-of-wedlock births, the breakup of families, the amorality of
public education, and the eruption of criminal activity. But there
are other signs as well: the decline in civility [and] the lack of
integrity in both public and private life.

"One cannot blame government for all of society's ills, but there is
no doubt that legislation over the past 50 years has had a negative
impact on virtue. Individuals lose their moral bearing when they
become dependent on welfare, when they are rewarded for having
children out of wedlock, and when they are not held accountable for
their actions."

In the past, when government was much smaller, "family and social
bonds were strong, and civil society flourished in numerous fraternal
and religious organizations," wrote Dorn.

Today, after the government has spent over $5 billion on welfare
programs, "Self-reliance has given way to dependence and a loss of
respect for persons and property," he wrote. "Virtue and civil
society have suffered."

What's the solution?

"If we want to help the disadvantaged, we do not do so by making
poverty pay, by restricting markets, by prohibiting school choice, by
discouraging thrift, or by sending the message that the principal
function of government is to take care of us," wrote Dorn. "Rather,
we do so by eliminating social engineering and welfare, by
cultivating free markets, and by returning to our moral heritage."

* Ultimately, liberty and self-responsibility are the only way to
promote a truly moral nation.

Laws can't make people moral.

"In the arena of peaceful behavior, morality and compassion mean
nothing when they are the product of force," argued Jacob G.
Hornberger of the Future of Freedom Foundation. "They are meaningful
only in the context of voluntary, willing choices of individuals."

Exactly, agreed Harry Browne. "Only free people have an incentive to
be virtuous," he wrote. "Only people who bear the consequences of
their own acts will care about those consequences.

"A free society rewards virtue and punishes irresponsibility.
Government does just the opposite. We need to do only one thing to
induce people to act more responsibly: Set them free."

According to the polls, Americans want politicians to do something
about morality. Libertarians can respond with a simple equation:
Freedom plus self-responsibility equals morality.

It's not a perfect formula. Some people will always make immoral
decisions. The free market will still produce products that some find
offensive. And Republican and Democratic politicians will continue to
wallow in scandal.

But without freedom, there will never be morality.

Civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, "Hate cannot
drive out hate; only love can do that."

Similarly, government force cannot drive out immorality; only freedom
and self-responsibility can do that.

"Morality" as many Americans know it as, has only eroded since the expansion of government. Only the erosion of government will people truly take responsibility for their own actions. And with responsibility comes "morality".

2003-01-18T07:43:00.000-05:00

BROADCASTING FROM LONDON: I'm here in London and must say it's a beautiful city. I haven't experienced any "culture shock" yet but it certainly is different. As promised, I will posting and updating the site whenever possible when I'm not out and about in the city.

2003-01-14T17:21:00.000-05:00

LONDON: Many will ask, "Phil! Why did you post so damn much today?!?" Here's why. I am unfortunately (for you, not me of course), departing to London to study abroad this semester as of tomorrow. And in doing so, my posting will be light there. Internet cafes ain't cheap ya know! However, please continue to visit the page and have a great spring to all of my core readers!

Both of you.

2003-01-14T17:16:00.000-05:00

BOMB TEXAS!: Here is one of the finest Victor Davis Hanson pieces I've ever read. It's long but worth reading every word. Here Hanson explains the roots of anti-Americanism:

Eschewing any reference to truths of this kind, adherents of postmodernist relativism assess morality instead by the sole criterion of power: Those without it deserve the ethical high ground by virtue of their very status as underdogs; those with it, at least if they are Westerners, and especially if they are Americans, are ipso facto oppressors. Israel could give over the entire West Bank, suffer 10,000 dead from suicide bombers, and apologize formally for its existence, and it would still be despised by American and European intellectuals for being what it is--Western, prosperous, confident, and successful amid a sea of abject self-induced failure.

One is bound to point out that as a way of organizing reality, this deterministic view of the world suffers from certain fatal defects, primarily an easy susceptibility to self-contradiction. Thus, a roguish Augusto Pinochet, who executed thousands in the name of "law and order" in Chile, is regarded as an incarnation of the devil purely by dint of his purportedly close association with the United States, while a roguish and anti-American Castro, who butchered tens of thousands in the name of "social justice" in Cuba, is courted by congressmen and ex-presidents even as Hollywood celebrities festooned with AIDS ribbons sedulously ignore the thousands of HIV-positive Cubans languishing in his camps. Kofi Annan gushes, Chamberlain-like, of Saddam Hussein, "He's a man I can do business with," while the ghosts of thousands slain by the Iraqi tyrant, many of them at his own hand, flutter nearby; for this, the soft-spoken internationalist is lionized.

Few have exploited the contradictions of this amoral morality as deftly as Jimmy Carter, who can parlay with some of the world's most odious dictators and still garner praise for "reaching out" to the disadvantaged and the oppressed. As president, Mr. Carter evidently was incapable of doing much of anything at all when tens of thousands of Ethiopians were being butchered; but as chief executive emeritus, he has managed to abet the criminal regime of North Korea in its determination to fabricate nuclear bombs and lately, having been rewarded with the Nobel Peace Prize for peace, has brazenly attempted to thwart a sitting president's efforts to save the world from the Iraqi madman.

And perhaps most interestingly of all, Hanson describes the mindset of many of the anti-American crowd:

Among some of our new aristocrats, the realization has dawned that their own good fortune is not shared world-wide, and must therefore exist at the expense of others, if not of the planet itself.

This hurts terribly, at least in theory. It sends some of them to their fax machines, from where they dispatch anguished letters to the New York Times about the plight of distant populations. It prompts others, more principled and more honorable, to work in soup kitchens, give money to impoverished school districts, and help out less fortunate friends and family. But local charity is unheralded and also expensive, in terms of both time and money. Far easier for most to exhibit concern by signing an ostentatious petition against Israel or to assemble in Central Park: public demonstrations that cost nothing but seemingly meet the need to show to peers that one is generous, fair, caring and compassionate.

As if that were not hypocrisy enough, those who protest against global warming, against shedding blood for oil, or against the logging of the world's forests are no less likely than the rest of us to drive SUVs, walk on hardwood floors and lounge on redwood decks. Try asking someone awash in a sea of materialism to match word with deed and actually disconnect from the opulence that is purportedly killing the world and its inhabitants. Celebrity critics of corporate capitalism neither redistribute their wealth nor separate themselves from their multinational recording companies, film studios, and publication houses--or even insist on lower fees so that the oppressed might enjoy cheaper tickets at the multiplex. Jessica Lange and Alec Baldwin so hate George W. Bush that they threaten to leave our shores--promises, promises.

I commented on this phenomenon in a previous post, "The Susan Sontags Among Us". Many of those who hate America keep threatening to leave it...and yet they don't. I know why. It's because their rights are guranteed here and because the money's good.

2003-01-14T17:05:00.000-05:00

EU NOT HELPING OUT: This comes as no surprise. After all, when was the last time Europe, besides our great ally Great Britain, did something right for a change?

2003-01-14T17:03:00.000-05:00

THE STUPIDITY OF THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT: I tend to be on the fence with the war on Iraq. There is certainly strong evidence that Saddam does have the ubiquitous "weapons of mass destructions" and that he either needs to disarm or be forced to disarm. We know he had biological and chemical agents in 1998, as reported by UNSCOM. We know he has fostered terrorism by rewarding suicide bombers against our ally Israel. We know he has not complied with UN resolutions and perhaps it's time we started enforcing them. We know he hasn't let Iraqi scientists speak with UN officials about their weapons programs. If he's got nothing to hide, then why not let his scientists speak to UN officials? One can also make the case that we must prevent Saddam from gaining weapons because North Korea now has the ball in their court after Clinton appeased them in 1994 with his ridiculous appeasement proposal. If history has taught us anything, it is this: Never appease a tyrant.

However, the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank I greatly admire has 10 good reasons why we should not go to war. These are the issues that should be debated. Unfortunately the anti-war movement has been inundated with idiots. Sheryl Crow recently posited recently at the American Music Awards:

"I think war is based in greed and there are huge karmic retributions that will follow. I think war is never the answer to solving any problems. The best way to solve problems is to not have enemies."

War has never solved anything? Tell that to the 6 million Jews that died in the Holacaust.

And maybe after we stop having enemies and we're all friends, we can all drink hot choclate together and play with puppies and rabbits. One begins to wonder if Ms. Crow and some of her posh Hollywood friends have even heard of North Korea and Iraq.

2003-01-14T16:40:00.000-05:00

DIVERSITY DOES EXIST: However, despite my previous post, diversity does exist. It does not, however, need to be shoved down our throats. An interesting study has found that traditionally white cities are rapidly integrating minorities, not because they were forced to, but simply because there was incentive for minorities to move to these cities.

And which of these cities is integrating most rapidly? Milwaukee, Wiscounsin! Why is this not a coincidence to me? Simple. Milwaukee was the first city to have instituted the voucher program, or "school choice" program. Now that many minority families have been given the opportunity to use their own money to choose a school that is best for their children, rather than a government bureaucrat forcing them to attend their local government, err, "public" school, diversity has been achieved.

And it wasn't forced diversity either.

2003-01-14T16:32:00.000-05:00

NAZI-LIKE TOLERANCE: I found this force fed "diversity" on The Best Page in the Universe, a website I highly recommend which exposes all holier than thou organizations like PETA for the hypocrites that they are. This Nazi-like force fed appreciation of "diversity" is flat out stupid.

This kind of forced diversity was also hilariously parodied in South Park, in which the kids were sent to a Nazi like "Tolerance Camp" where "intolerance will not be tolerated" after they were disgusted by their teacher shoving a gerbil up his "partner's" ass (you can't make this stuff up). I highly recommend seeing the episode for those who have not yet done so. It only exposes the true hypocrisy of this "diversity" liberal agenda, because liberals will never tolerate all individuals, only the ones they see as "victims". When was the last time you saw a liberal sticking up for smokers or gun owners? You don't, because they don't like smokers or gun owners.

2003-01-13T01:22:00.000-05:00

Confronting Yankee-phobia on the Left will be Tony
Blair's toughest task yet

Tony Blair appears to have set himself his toughest task yet.
Neither reforming public services nor maintaining economic
stability compares in difficulty to the mission he took on
yesterday. For a Labour politician to confront anti-Americanism
is to set himself up in opposition to the dominant ideology of the
contemporary Left.

Knocking America off its superpower pedestal has long
supplanted taking control of the commanding heights of the
economy as the idea which holds the Left together. Forget
Clause Four. That was a dead red letter. It’s opposition to Uncle
Sam which is the glue in the Left coalition, the brew which
puts fire into bien-pensant bellies, the opium of radical
intellectuals. And the crack in Osama bin Laden’s pipe.

Anti-Americanism provides the drumbeat for the protesters
who march at every significant left-wing rally. Whether the
protest is nominally against war, global capitalism or
environmental degradation, the real enemy is Washington.
Every significant Left intellectual, from Harold Pinter through
Dario Fo to Gore Vidal and Noam Chomsky has made criticism
of the American imperium his defining belief. But
Yankee-phobia now extends far beyond the protest march and
the academy.

The German Social Democrats and Greens put opposition to US
foreign policy at the heart of their, successful, re-election
strategy last autumn. The Liberal Democrats here have made
criticism of US policy towards Iraq the single biggest dividing
line between themselves and the Blair Government.

The cultural popularity of anti-Americanism, particularly among
Britain’s intelligentsia, is striking. The surprise publishing hit of
last year was Why do people hate America? by Ziauddin
Sardar and Merryl Wyn Davies, a work which set out to
reassure readers that hatred of America was more than a
rising sentiment, it was a moral duty. The top of the UK
bestseller list is Michael Moore’s Stupid White Men, a furious
polemic against US foreign, domestic and economic policy by
one of its own citizens.

The widespread prevalence of anti-Americanism, the cachet
accorded to its advocates, the reflexive sniggering triggered
by any favourable mention of America’s President, all make
opposition to this trend unpopular. But vitally necessary. For
Yankee-phobia is, at heart, a dark thing, a prejudice with ugly
antecedents which creates unholy alliances. And, like all
prejudices, it thrives on myths which will end up only serving
evil ends.

It is a myth that America is a trigger-happy cowboy state
over-eager to throw its weight around, a myth that America
seeks to use its undoubted military power to establish an
exploitative empire, and a myth that America thrives by
impoverishing and oppressing other nations.

A trigger-happy starter of wars and provoker of enemies? The
truth is that the US has been painstakingly slow to involve itself
in foreign conflicts. It hung back from involvement in Bosnia
and Kosovo until it was clear that Europe could not manage
alone. It refrained from dealing properly with al-Qaeda when
that network attacked US embassies in 1998 and, even after
9/11, it waited until a huge international coalition had been
assembled before striking back. In Iraq, it refrained from
finishing off President Saddam Hussein in 1991 out of
deference to its Arab allies. And with North Korea, it has
practised diplomacy in the face of nuclear provocation since
1994, out of respect for its regional allies. Even now, in dealing
with the dangers posed by Iraq and North Korea, the diplomatic
route is followed out of deference to others.

An imperial exploiter? The truth is that America seeks to
disentangle itself from anything which smacks of neocolonial
occupation. It is anxious to bring the boys back home from the
Balkans and Afghanistan. The real criticism of weight is that
the US should do more on the ground to help failed states
rebuild, as it did in Japan and Germany after the Second World
War.

Which takes us to the myth of America the locust state, the
predator on the poorest nations of the Earth. The truth, as the
US writer Charles Krauthammer has pointed out, is that
America’s influence for good in suffering states is directly
measurable in three very different examples. After the Second
World War three devastated nations were divided. In each
case one part of a culturally unified nation fell under America’s
political influence. And in each case — South Korea versus
North, West Germany as against East, Taiwan as opposed to
Communist China — the territory which took the American path
enjoyed greater freedom and prosperity.

Why then do the myths of America the Hateful take such
powerful hold? Because anti-Americanism provides a useful
emotional function which goes beyond logic and reaches deep
into the darker recesses of the European soul. In centuries
past those on the Left who wished to personalise their hatred
of capitalism, who sought to make it emotionally resonant by
fastening an envious political passion on to a blameless
scapegoat people, embraced anti-Semitism. It was the
socialism of fools. Which is what anti-Americanism is now.

It should not therefore be surprising that those on the populist
Right who share the Left’s antipathy towards the US are
those, like the Austrian Freedom Party or the French National
Front, who are heirs of anti-Semitic traditions. Nor should it be
remarkable that the other tie which binds these allies of new
Left and old Right together, the thread linking those such as
George Galloway and Jörg Haider, is their hostility to Israel.

Both America and Israel were founded by peoples who were
refugees from prejudice in Europe. Europe’s tragedy is that
prejudice has been given new life, in antipathy to both those
states.

2003-01-13T01:19:00.000-05:00

EVIL MICROSOFT: For some reason, my web browser decided to stop working for the last couple of days, and I have no idea why. I was able to download Netscape and use it as a web browser. However, I am unable to link any stories on Blogger for some reason unbeknownst (spelling?) to me.

I want to throw this computer out the window.

2003-01-11T00:54:00.000-05:00

THE SUSAN SONTAGS AMONG US: There's an excellent book out there called Why the Left Hates America. This is not to say that all liberals hate America, as this assertion would simply be ridiculous. However, there are a select few on the looney left, the Susan Sontags, the Noam Chomskys, the Rage Against the Machines who simply don't "get it", that the book describes to a tee.

I remember seeing an interview with Susan Sarandon who is the epitome of the hate-America first crowd. She denied hating America and exclaimed that such a comment was ludicrous. Perhaps this is true, but since most of the people in this crowd are highly successful millionaires, one begins to wonder if the only reason they like America is because it pays them the big bucks.

Andrew Sullivan managed to find an interview with Susan Sontag, who expresses her deep dislike of America and its apparent extremist "consumerism".

So with all due respect to Ms. Sontag, get the fuck out of here if you don't like it. We won't miss you. Not even a little.

2003-01-10T04:04:00.000-05:00

UNITED STATES OF TIGGER???: Steven Den Beste explains why the United States won't stop bouncing, much to the disappointment of the far Left.

Though none of them actually rejoiced about the death and destruction which was involved, there were a lot of people in Europe and even in America who secretly were glad that we were attacked in September of 2001. They viewed the US as something of a renegade, full of itself, even cocky. They hoped that the attack would deflate the American ego, make Americans feel vulnerable and alone, and cause America to realize that it needed to join in with the various international post-national political initiatives that it seemed to steadfastly refuse to support, such as the Kyoto accords and formation of the International Criminal Court. The leftist Poohs Rabbits hoped that the American Tigger would become less bouncy.

Such people then watched with rising horror as the opposite took place. Americans came to care even less about world opinion, and came to feel not only more confidence but also a rising determination to do what was necessary even if it had to be done without any assistance from anyone else and even if everyone else opposed it. Tigger steadfastly refused to be debounced.

As always, Steven has a great way with words.

2003-01-10T01:04:00.000-05:00

THE ROOT CAUSES: What causes violence in America? Michael Moore argued it is our fascination with guns and our media instilling fear into citizens. Actually, I would argue it's people blaming others and not holding themselves accountable for their own failures. Here's a great story over at The Capitalist Chicks (a really entertaining site I recommend) of people who play the blame game, in some of the dumbest and most PC of situations..

2003-01-09T17:32:00.000-05:00

RACE AND SPORTS: My esteemed roomate, Josh Kraushaar has a great piece on how coaches and managers are hired in sports. And he shows how it has nothing to do with race.

Instead of attacking the system of hiring as racist, why can't we step back and applaud Herman Edwards (the African American coach of the Jets) for a job well done? On that note, who really cares if Edwards is black or white? Shouldn't he be considered a great coach who happens to be black, rather than a great black coach?

2003-01-09T01:21:00.000-05:00

PEACE THROUGH FORCE: Blast Ariel Sharon all you want for his harsh policies against the Palestinians, but it appears that he was right all along. This entire article demonstrates why peace through force works but here are some of my favorite quotes:

Mahmoud Abbas, the No. 2 Palestinian leader after Yasser Arafat, concedes "it was a mistake to use arms . . . and to carry out attacks inside Israel." Abdel Razzak al-Yahya, the so-called interior minister, denounces suicide bombings against Israel as "murders for no reason," demands an end to "all forms of Palestinian violence" and wants it replaced it with civil resistance. Bethlehem Mayor Hanna Nasser finds that the use of arms did no good and insists that the Palestinian struggle "has to be a peaceful one."

So now the Palestinians are admitting that the homicide bombings were a mistake and want to achieve peace. Imagine that!

* Fear of retribution: On occasion, prospective suicide bombers have turned themselves in, or were turned in by their parents, out of fear that the family house would be destroyed in retaliation.

This is most interesting of all. There were many who claimed that destroying the houses of the families of bombers was "collective punishment". At one point, I agreed. However, after it had become painfully obvious that many mothers of the bombers supported their children's "matrydom operations", it was clear that they were part of the crime. And since the tactic was designed only a deterrent effect, it was not harming any innocent people. The tactic has apparently worked, at least about as well as one could hope, given the hate filled propaganda that the Palestinians are fed each day by their leaders.

Peace through force works. When will they Left ever understand this? Why do they constantly opt to appease terrorists, just as Clinton did with North Korea in 1994?

2003-01-07T18:14:00.000-05:00

UGH PART DEUX: And here's more from the swine's editor, who is filling in for Michael since Moore is too busy pissing off people in London.

Here is quite possibly the most disgusting thing I've ever read. It's Michael's latest "Mike's Message":

Your mail to us over the past few months has been both powerful and moving (we're getting between a million and two million hits a day on our website). I'd like to share one letter we received from a teacher near Buffalo. Here it is:

"I want to tell you about what has proven to be one of the most rewarding experiences in my 30-year career as a public school teacher.

"I teach in a small town just south of Buffalo. After viewing 'Bowling for Columbine' with my husband, I decided that I simply had to take my Honors English class to see it. Watching it with them was an experience I'll never forget ? one of those crystal moments in teaching that all teachers long for. They cried openly during several scenes, especially the scene with 'What a Wonderful World' playing in the background. They gasped collectively at the statistics on gun related murders in the U.S. versus other countries. They cheered when you and the Columbine survivors succeeded in having ammunition taken off the shelves at K-Mart. And, by the end, they hated Charlton Heston and booed when they heard 'from my cold, dead hands' for the second time. They were especially impressed with the Marilyn Manson interview and were surprised at his eloquence and intelligence. As one student said, 'I guess you really can't tell what a person is like just by appearances.' And that is a mouthful for a high school kid! "I have no doubt that even the most conservative among them will rethink their positions on gun control, war, 'President' Bush, and the atrocities suffered by so many at the hands of our government. They were especially impressed by the idea that it is fear that runs the engine of capitalism -- something that had never occurred to them before. You have helped to create better citizens. You have helped to create better human beings. Yours truly, J.M., English Teacher, Angola, NY"

It goes without saying that this person is slightly deluded. "Fear is the engine that runs capitalism"? So in other words, everything we buy is because we are fearful of something??? Only a Michael Moore fan would believe this.

But all idiotic Michael Moore rants aside, what was most disgusting was this woman's comment about Charlton Heston.

"And, by the end, they hated Charlton Heston and booed when they heard 'from my cold, dead hands' for the second time....You have helped to create better human beings. "

So this woman is proud that she just convinced a bunch of kids to hate someone? And Michael's editor thought this post represented the best feedback he had received on the Bowling for Columbine film? I thought liberals were supposed to be tolerant of other people, not trying to convince kids to hate people. Well I guess tolerance only applies when it's people that liberals like. Of course these kids will never know that Charlton Heston was one of the leading advocates for the civil rights movement, and has fought to maintain Constitutional rights his whole life. This doesn't matter to liberals, because they only want to demonize any dissidents as evil.

2003-01-07T17:55:00.000-05:00

UGH: Will someone please tell Michael Moore to shut up? Look what the elitist asshole is up to now.

I took my son to see Michael Moore live at the Roundhouse, in north London, before Christmas. The US radical and author of the best-selling book Stupid White Men was (mostly) clever, funny, angry, sharp, iconoclastic and sceptical about the lies and humbug processed by the US government and big business. Sure there were some flunked bits – you expect that, the troughs are part of the adventure, an evening with a well-worn rebel.

What we did not expect was to feel so enraged at one point that we almost walked out. It was when Moore went into a rant about how the passengers on the planes on 11 September were scaredy-cats because they were mostly white. If the passengers had included black men, he claimed, those killers, with their puny bodies and unimpressive small knives, would have been crushed by the dudes, who as we all know take no disrespect from anybody. God save us from such stupid white men, especially now, when in the US and the UK, black people's lives are being ripped to shreds by drugs, lawlessness, fear and frightful violence plus the endless circle of racism, exclusion and incarceration. This is not awesome, Mr Moore; it is a calamity, for descendants of slaves unimaginably more so.

Wow, so if only there were more black people on the plane, September 11th would have never occurred. You know, those belligerant black people who can stand down anyone and are used to crime being committed or something. As opposed to cowardly white people who are too rich or something to face down someone holding a weapon to their throat. And Michael claims Republicans or conservatives are racist.

Pardon my French but, Oh My Fucking God!

2003-01-07T17:50:00.000-05:00

WHY PENN GOT DUPED: So now we know why Sean Penn got duped by the Iraqi government: It was sponsored by radical leftists with ties to radical Islam.

Berkeley professor Norman Solomon, president of the Institute for Public Accuracy and Penn’s handler for the occasion summarized Penn’s mission: "[Penn’s] visit could inspire many Americans from various walks of life to explore how they can impede the momentum toward war, whether in Baghdad or at home in the United States." Impeding Saddam’s capacity for mass murder is clearly a lower priority for Solomon and the IPA. Penn offered his "thanks to Norman Solomon and the Institute for Public Accuracy for facilitating my visit."

U.S. taxpayers also facilitated the visit. Enjoying tax exemption as an IRS 501c(3) charitable organization, the left-wing Institute for Public Accuracy Institute operates the inaptly named www.accuracy.org and describes itself "as a consortium for an abundance of diverse expertise" that "widen[s] the bounds of media discussion" on current events and coverage of the news. IPA actually promotes an anti-American, anti-capitalist, and anti-Israeli agenda. Veteran leftists and Marxist ideas dominate IPA, which also has deep ties to radical Arab activists.

Yes, so that's right. Taxpayers helped to pay for the visit. In any case, the agenda of those who sponspored the visit helps to understand why Penn is so clueless. But it doesn't excuse it.

2003-01-06T03:20:00.000-05:00

TWO TOWERS: And on a random note, I saw Two Towers the other day with a friend of mine and we were both falling asleep during the movie because it was so bad. So anyone want to tell me why it is currently ranked number 12 of all time on Internet Movie Database? And it was recently as high as number 9 just last week.

I don't get. I really don't get it. If someone wants to explain what was so great about the movie, my guestbook is at the bottom of the page.

2003-01-06T03:16:00.000-05:00

HITTING THE NAIL ON THE HEAD: This piece says it perfectly, gun control doesn't work.

The gangs on Birmingham's streets instinctively understand this. They know, even if the Government doesn't, that the Blairite "total" ban, which sounds so butch and macho when you do your soundbite on the telly, is a cop-out: it makes the general population the target, not the criminals. And once that happens it's always easier to hassle the cranky farmer with the unlicensed shotgun than the Yardies with the Uzis. When you disarm the citizenry, when you prosecute them for being so foolish as to believe they have a right to self-defence, when you issue warnings that they should "walk on by" if they happen to see a burglary or rape in progress, the main beneficiaries will obviously be the criminals.

2002-12-28T01:03:00.000-05:00

MICHAEL MOORE THINKS YOU'RE STUPID: Don't believe me? Check it out. And yet millions of his followers love him to death. But what they don't realize is that he's talking about them too.

2002-12-28T01:02:00.000-05:00

BASEBALL ECONOMICS: Here's an excellent story on baseball economics, Yankees style. It explains why the collective bargaining agreement was a good idea for baseball, despite the fact that it is somewhat pseudo-socialism. However, baseball is different from business. The point of business is to make it non-competitive, each business trying to drive others out of the market. The point of baseball should be to make it competitive. What is the point of going to games if you know one team is going to win before the game even starts?

It's like pitting Microsoft versus Bubba's Software Company. A no brainer.

2002-12-27T23:29:00.000-05:00

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AND SEMANTICS: Here's an article clearly showing that almost all Americans, including minorities, are against affirmative action. At least, once they realize what it entails.

Of the 1,709 adults surveyed, 5 percent said "race or ethnicity should be a factor," 3 percent said "don't know," and 92 percent said "should be based strictly on merit and qualifications other than race/ethnicity."

More surprising, of the 323 African-American respondents, 12 percent said "race or ethnicity should be a factor," 2 percent said "don't know," and 86 percent said "should be based strictly on merit and qualifications other than race/ethnicity."

That's right: By a ratio of 7-to-1, black respondents in this poll rejected racial preferences. (The ratio was 12-to-1 among both Hispanic and Asian respondents.) To be sure, other poll results have been less dramatic; and the phrase "affirmative action" usually elicits a very positive response from black poll respondents and a mixed response from whites.

But despite its wide currency, "affirmative action" is a misleading phrase, because most Americans interpret it as including aggressive anti-discrimination measures, recruitment and outreach efforts, and preferences for poor people to promote genuine equality of opportunity -- policies that are in fact supported by almost all opponents of racial preferences. And all, or almost all, fairly worded polls show that between one-third and two-thirds of African-Americans -- and lopsided majorities of all Americans -- have long opposed racial preferences of the kind that are under attack from conservatives.

Personally, I'd be insulted if I was only accepted to a program because it had to be "dumbed down", and that's why, aside from the fact that it is a racist policy, I'm against affirmative action. But that makes me a racist according to some delusional Democrats, hellbent on playing the race card.

2002-12-27T23:21:00.000-05:00

BUSY TIMES: Sorry for the lack of posting lately. Busy times at the Kahn residence and surely they will continue. Meanwhile, please continue to check the site for occasional updates!

2002-12-22T02:03:00.000-05:00

WHY WE FIGHT: Victor Davis Hanson has a wonderful story on why we fight and why we must come out on top.