What are the lessons? Privately, the hardest leftist knows that millions of Mexican nationals or Muslims want to enter the U.S. But then why that is so is never voiced. Does anyone simply tell the truth? The combination of private property, free markets, transparency, personal freedom, limited government, meritocracy, and a singular constitution makes life here good. And rather than appreciate such an exceptional system, much less defend the idea of it, we beat each other up that we are mere mortals, not gods, and, my God, we can find a supposed misdemeanor here amid rampant felonies abroad.
This is the most tolerant society in the world, the most multiracial and richest in religious diversity — and the most critical of its exceptional tolerance and the most lax in pointing out the intolerance of the least diverse and liberal.
It is market capitalism, unfettered meritocracy, and individual initiative within a free society that create the wealth for Al Gore to live in Montecito (indeed to create a Montecito in the first place), or for Michelle to jet to Marbella, or for John Kerry to buy a $7 million yacht. We know that, but our failure to occasionally express such a truth, coupled with a constant race/class/gender critique of American society, results in an insidious demoralization among the educated and bewilderment among the half- and uneducated.
In short, the great enigma of our postmodern age is how American society grew so wealthy and free to create so many residents that became so angry at the conditions that have made them so privileged — and how so many millions abroad fled the intolerance and poverty of their home country, and yet on arrival almost magically romanticize the very conditions in the abstract that they would never live under again in the concrete.
A final thought: given what we know of collectivism now and in the past, government in places like Mexico or Syria, multiculturalism in nations as diverse as the Balkans and central Africa, and the role of religion in most locales of the Middle East, how exactly could critics of the U.S. gain the security to protest, the capital to travel, and the freedom to criticize should the system that they find so lacking erode or even disappear?
The income for a Rangel or Geithner to hide on their taxes, the leisure to visit Martha’s Vineyard, and the tolerance to break a federal immigration law or offend the majority — all that had to come from somewhere.
From time to time, we should pay homage to that somewhere — and those in the graveyards who created it.
A quick correction: 4th paragraph, parentheses:
You meant to say, “(to visit Mecca as a non-MUSLIM is a suicidal act)”.
Dr. Hanson:
Any ideas about solutions to the problems you have so well, eloquently and repeatedly identified?
You’d have my vote in 2012. But first, you’d have to become a candidate for the presidency.
“Does anyone simply tell the truth?— the combination of private property, free-markets, transparency, personal freedom, limited government, meritocracy and a singular constitution makes life here good. And rather than appreciate such an exceptional system, much less defend the idea of it, we beat each other up that we are mere mortals not gods…”
Tolerance, when there is no reasonable alternative, may be justified on grounds of prudence. In all other situations, it is cowardice or evil. If you refuse to stand for your own beliefs or people against others, it is cowardice. If you refuse to fight evil, but rather to tolerate it, this is evil in itself. Of course, in the case of Mohammedans, where you are facing declared enemies of Christian Europe for 13 centuries, and evil 7th-century crap-bags as well, it is both cowardice and evil.
You ask exactly the right question to Dr VDH re solut ions. He, however, avoids to provide answers as to any specific solutions. Too bad as I’m sure he could list many short and long term ideas to be employed by us readers and supporters.
I’m more mystified by vdh’s reluctance to confront the issue head-on than by what he calls an “enigma”.
It’s as much of an enigma as Hitler was an enigma. Why wasn’t that mass murderer satisfied by the Sudetenland, or Austria or Czechoslovakia?
Mr. Hanson, your knowledge and expertise make me look like a nursery schooler, but I can help you with this one.
They are NEVER satisfied. Not while you draw a breath they can’t control. If you can grow a grape that they can’t take from you at will, then it’s not enough. Stop trying to make sense of their actions from the rationale of a free man who sees that freedom has increased the wealth of the world by tenfold what it was in 1775. None of that matters to them. What matters is their power over your life. It’s that simple.
And it’s not worth debating. As far as I’m concerned, the science is settled. They are gangsters, Huns, barbarians and sadists. I don’t care what they call themselves….Muslims, progressives, communists, climate scientists, John Kerry, European Socialists, Marxists, the ruling class, statists, or baby oil. They are our enemy. They are bent on controlling our every breath, and all of these actions are probes to see where our weaknesses are and what we will tolerate or not. Because they know that the hands of our fathers conquered a continent; our mother’s grit and guile stopped the fascists and their communist twins. They want to pin a finger down here, a toe there, get under our skin in this place and irritate us there. But they don’t want a confrontation. Oh no. Obama doesn’t want it. The Islamic fascists don’t want it. Putin doesn’t want it and the chicoms don’t want it.
Because they know what Americans do when we are aroused.
Mr. Hanson, what we need is a leader. We have some warming up, but not one fully ready yet for the pressure cooker. You sir might be that person or one of many. You would certainly shoot to the lead in intelligence, powers of observation, and the ability to describe the problem. Step up, dear sir, but without the coy hints and unanswered questions. Say it like we all know it is.
Hanson deliberately uses words like “enigma and “paradox” because he wants to illuminate the absurdity, the irony of a current situation.
A Pakistani will scramble like a rat to escape Pakistan. But at his family dinner table in London, England or Rancho Cucamonga, California, he wants his children to idealize the corrupt, backward culture he escaped.
He and his immigrant friends drink tea and smoke cigarettes in their lush California backyards and complain that America isn’t enough like the corrupt, backward culture they fled. They will lament that their children don’t value the corrupt, backward culture their immigration rescued them from.
And it will never occur to him that the lifestyle he affords his family in the west would be utterly impossible in the corrupt backward culture of his homeland. That is an enigma, a paradox and an irony that cannot be explained.
My reaction after reading this one by Dr. Hanson is similar to yours. At this point in time its really a no-brainer. The Left want control over others. They’re indifferent and egocentric, what matters is any means possible for power. As long as they get it they don’t worry about freedom except the freedom for others in disapproval of their ambitions. They would be content with totalitarianism as long as they partook of the fruits of the elite.
Bravo! Amen!
(except the part about warming up leaders — no one there)
You have just identified the first ‘menu’ item on the program, “What matters is their power over your life”.
Drill down as far as one can go, and back up again, et voila, we’re back at the same starting point.
As for Herr Hanson for el presidente, spare the man. He’s too good for that messy arena ;-) Dr. Hanson is the custodian of truth and insights, for however accurate he may be (VERY!), but I would argue it’s a different language and skill to speak to a few hundred million. If it weren’t, this site would crash with activity daily. I’m sad to say it doesn’t.
If one considers Ronald Reagan, he had an excellent combination of skills to be highly effective as President. In addition to a great sense of humour, and his values of course, the years of experience as an actor gave him the ability to project himself appropriately to a mass audience. That skill alone, I would guess, isn’t one that Dr. Hanson has developed (unless he’s doing a little acting on the side – tell us you are VDH!).
David Sheedy:
“but I would argue it’s a different language and skill to speak to a few hundred million.”
The point is, that kind of thinking is what brings us the ilk of William jefferson Clinton, Jimmy Carter and Barack Hussein Obama.
On a platform before serious people, Dr. Hanson has nerves of steel. He is exactly the kind of person this nation so desperately needs in the big White House in Washington. He can explain complex things so that even thick headed people can sometimes understand.
Hey, CGW, don’t shoot the messenger here. Oprah and the View aren’t for me either. They do have a massive following.
And, by the way, that kind of thinking is how Ronald Reagan won the Presidency.
As long as you reject the need to develop the ability to speak to large audiences, it doesn’t matter if you have the greatest ideas in the world, you will fail in the delivery and gaining the following. That’s just a fact.
I’ve never had the pleasure to see Dr. H speak in public, or how he carries himself, which is why I’m hoping he’s doing some acting on the side ;-), to add to his ability to lecture and speak publicly. Without question, he would be an exceptionally capable President, and I would suspect, a remarkable leader of the country. I’m Canadian, but I’d find a way to get down there and vote for him. Heck, if Mexican’s can vote in your country, I’m going to see if I can’t punch a few chads myself for Dr. H.
We know the end game is distasteful and inevitable. Time is spent in search of the alternative perhaps less obvious, less painful.
proreason:
Thank you for so eloquently stating what I was just thinking.
And Dr. Hanson, please consider what proreason is saying.
ST
proreason:
You have my eternal gratitude for making the point that this country needs a LEADER and there is not one in sight.
Perhaps the message will begin to resonate before Fox News makes the decision for us as to whom the conservative candidate for the presidency will be in 2012 and dispatch conservative voters off in twenty different directions. In unity there is potential strength, divided we’ll surely continue the fall.
Whom shoud he or she be? Let the discussion begin, sooner rather than later.
Victor Davis Hanson
General David Patreus
Mitt Romney, chopped liver after O’reilly and Brit Hume brand him a cultist
Newt Gingrich, He’ll hunt with anyone, even Bill Clinton
Sarah Palin, media madness to follow, search and destroy
Goofy McCain again, you know he’s a hero, right?
Mike Huckleberry, with bible and guitar
Fred Thompson, rerun the Fred and Jerri show
Jeb Bush, yep, one more in the bush
Rudy Giuliani, never turns his back on a political deal
Haley Barbour, good ol’ boy, RNC deal maker
Rick Santorum, yeah, me too, why not take a shot?
Arnold the terminator, he simply refuses to show his birth certificate, natural born problem goes away
Mitch Daniels, lightweight leader and counter of beans
The list goes on and on but I’m sure you get my point. We need a presidential candidate from outside of the political cesspool that Washington DC has become. A real honest to goodness patriotic American who is willing to serve but does not aspire to rule the little people as a member of the Ruling Class.
My sincere thanks proreason, for sharing your reasoning. May the light of hope continue to burn.
CGW said: “We need a presidential candidate from outside of the political cesspool that Washington DC has become.”
There is one: RON PAUL.
Proreason, you have been on quite the reality roll lately, cutting through the smoke and crashing the mirrors of deception.
Let us not forget to acknowledge “social justice” as the polite way to steal based on an invented morality.
Excellent reply sir (or madam)!
With all the talking about the trial and tribulations we euphemistically refer to as “politics” or “the game”, I got to thinking about all our various differences in opinion when, underlying it all is the pretty basic personal belief in all of us that, separately or together, aren’t we really all trying to make the world a better place? It’s like a proof in calculus: it’s not really the end result or “answer” that’s most important, it’s how you got the answer. But missing from the discussion, the “elephant in the room” (sorry – it’s you party’s mascot) is that none of us, on whichever side of the issue we’re on, has acknowledged what the (in my opinion) real obstruction is to such a solution. Many people are stupid. They are stupefied and terrified.
When you get down to it, there really are only two groups of people left. Those with wisdom and those without. I don’t care if you’re William F. Buckley, George Will, Jesse Jackson, or Che Chevara, while they offer both good and ridiculous solutions to various problems plaguing our country, commentators left, right, center, and on nearby galaxy clusters will not admit what anybody who watches “news” by now knows: there’s lots and lots of dopes out there. And that’s not the worst aspect of it. Those who are wise are stunned, shunned, and stupefied by the lack of reasoning and the repetition of the script by those who aren’t right and not even close. And the terror has rendered the reasoned inert. They stand and seek inclusion in a world that perpetuates and thrives on exclusion. They’ve turned their cheeks so often that they now use their emptied hands to locate their mouths. They were taught to tolerate those who would taunt, that justice and wisdom eventually rule the day.
And the ones who cannot reason – yet were deemed reasonable by various opportunists and snakes in the grass – now behave unreasonably and they taunt the taut. Yet they’ve struck out so many times that they’ve bloodied their hands. So they pocket their emptied fists. Now no one has an open hand and no one offers an idea that isn;t meant to stir up a big pile of shit. Hell, they wouldn’t even point to the exit if you were in a theater and it caught fire!
Not only are some people too stupid to get it, everyone is too selfish to give it. And neither will give in. They’ve got nothing left to give and they’ve decide to quit and give out.
And the wise are stupefied because they know it could have been more. It could have been better and it isn’t. So they’ve given up. Unfortunately, there are more stupid people than smart people. Think about a normalized distribution, with 100 being the average IQ. I don’t think a 100 IQ is particularly intelligent, and there are around a third of the people now who have an IQ lower than that. And below even that is the teabaggers.
The USA now has a large population of uneducated, illiterate, growing exponentially, who cannot understand or speak the national language. Who know nor care anything about the principles and the law of the nation, thanks to the public education propagandists during the past half-century.
And that’s just the Congressmen, Senators and Judges. Putty in the hands of the glamourous – often just as illiterate and uneducated – celebrities of TV “News”.
It comes down in this “Democracy” to that bumper-sticker I saw proudly proclaiming “my vote cancels your vote”
The enigma of which Dr. Hanson speaks is, I believe, the darkest and most evil aspect of human nature – the will to power. At its worst, it is the desire to harm others, and to do so without consequence. Those driven by the will to power act without conscience or moral restraint of any kind. This has been the hallmark of the last 150 years or so – a uniquely modern expression of our dark side. Those who act in this manner are animated by ideas, and those ideas have a pedigree.
Ghandi sought power, and he moved a nation of 1 billion. Was that a dark moment?
Power for the sake of power, with no underlying purpose of betterment is I believe your point. But power occurred when Churchill found a way to bring America together with them, to defeat Hitler. Reagan, Thatcher and Pope John Paul II, as a triumvirate, generated the power to transform oppressed nations all over Eastern Europe, and allow for the average citizen of those countries to have an opportunity to achieve that they hadn’t known.
The word can have different meanings, but I would suggest it’s a necessary ingredient to shape policy and ignite communities and nations.
Well said!
Our founders had a devotion to freedom and a willingness to share that with the rest of the world. A nation that welcomes those who have nothing and yet after arriving scorn us for our lack of inclusiveness because we expect them to melt into our pot. That we welcome zealots whose religious beliefs abhor everything we represent many of whom only desire to conquer us from within. I don’t think what we tolerate is what our forefathers had in mind. I doubt that they intended for us to lay down and die helpless just to prove how open minded we are.
And therein lies the area from which the debate is intentionally muddied and vicious ad hominem is deployed amongst the indulgent types who have a high need to be ‘right’, at the expense of anything useful in conversation and dialogue.
The line between acceptance and tolerance, and the human need for affiliation, familiarity and tradition is the space where the progressives launch their scuds and rocket filled vitriol.
An effective counter offensive here, is to take out that position. Gran Torino put the spotlight on this ridiculous and counter productive perspective. A massive invasion needs to follow to expose those skating through life by arbitraging their political existence at the expense of taking others down as intolerant and myopic.
This perspective is classic case of projection by progressives. This position needs to be called out, exposed, and shut down.
“Anonymous
And therein lies the area…”
This is my post, accidentally put up as ‘Anonymous’.
Perhaps the only good thing to come from the last nineteen months of Obama/Pelosi/Reid rule is an examination of virtually every aspect of the Leftist creed as applied to America in the real world at ground level, and in some cases at gut level. The push back against this nonsense – their nonsense – has been principled but fierce. The only problem has been ascertaining whether it’s the intrinsic inanity of Leftist beliefs that has caused the backlash, or more the ineptitude of the useless idiots who proposed to shove their adoption down our throats. With Obama opening his mouth on the Cordoba Mosque project I vote the latter. Not even Jimmy Carter was this stupid. And that’s saying a lot.
Well said TLM. Couldn’t agree more.
The current POTUS makes the former (as in JC) look able and insightful.
Yeah, agreed wholeheartedly. I’ve said for quite awhile that Hussein may end up doing this country a great service after all, by exposing the left in all their ugly, naked ambition and drive for power. Their policies can no longer be implemented by guerrilla tactics. They are completely in the open now. A target-rich environment.
Would we allow a Japanese Shinto shrine to be dedicated on December 7th to be built next to Pearl Harbor? Though allowing such would demonstrate our generous religious tolerance, it would also show our lack of respect for those who gave their lives and for their families. It would not be appropriate.
And so it is for the Mosque in New York.
We might make an exception on that happy day when we are, as you mentioned, allowed to build a church and synagogue in Mecca. Until then, “No way, imam baby!”
Precisely. We demand total reciprocity with and throughout the Muslim world for non-Muslim Civilization, culture and religions before we extend one more welcome to Islam in America. I want nothing less than a Christian Cathedral in Mecca.
Dr. Hanson:
As a veteran, I particularly appreciate your final sentence. As a thinking American, I appreciate the rest.
Leftists seem to believe that they are somehow magically immune to the idealized world they so earnestly and recklessly seek to create. Perhaps the problem is merely hubris. They think so highly of themselves and their ideas that they cannot imagine that a world created by them and their fellow leftists could possibly be anything but a worker’s paradise where dogs and cats live in peace and everyone would like to give the world a Coke and teach it so sing in perfect harmony. History is not kind to socialism and its conceits, to the tune of 100 million murders in the last century, but this bothers them not at all.
Perhaps its merely their unshakeable belief that whatever the problem, real or imagined, more and bigger and more powerful government is the answer. From this single belief flows all manner of mischief such as the rejection of equality of opportunity in favor of equality of outcome, and of course the necessity of taking money from those they deem unworthy to redistribute it to the favored victim groups of the moment. And of course, the belief that there exists in America an unlimited supply of money, hoarded by the evil rich and bankers and Wall Street and doctors and small businessmen making more than $250,000 a year, or is it $200,000 a year, or what’s the cutoff this week? So if only we can raise taxes enough on those who don’t deserve their money, all will be well. Even within our borders, democrat controlled worker’s paradises like California, Michigan, Chicago, New Jersey and Detroit, to name but a few, put the lie to all of these and more leftist articles of faith, but for the good of all, these examples must be ignored. Margaret Thatcher observed that the trouble with socialism is that you always run out of other people’s money. Most contemporary American leftists probably have no idea who she is and of her pivotal role in securing western civilization here and abroad.
Perhaps they feel that their great concern for their fellow man (currently favored victim groups, of course) and for social justice and diversity and redistributive justice and green jobs and a sustainable society render them beloved among nations, and that their rhetoric about these lofty goals will earn universal favor, support and cooperation. History is not kind to such silly ideas. Imagine the shock of the three “hikers,” reportedly social justice/peace types, who have been imprisoned in Iran for about a year when they spouted off about their good, leftist intentions and desires for solidarity with their Iranian comrades, only to find themselves in third world prison conditions. Reality is uniformly cruel to utopian thinking.
But perhaps the problem is that only in America are such silly ideas allowed not only to grow, but to flower. Too many Americans have been raised with every convenience available. Even our “poor” live in luxury unimaginable to the poor in the rest of the world. Certain old, outdated ideas apply here. We really do not appreciate that for which we don’t have to work. When we never have to compete and are told how wonderful we are, we tend to believe it and as a result, we’re unprepared for the real world. When all that matters are the scores on mandatory, high stakes tests, real learning is disparaged and abandoned. When fewer and fewer of us feel the need to sign a blank check, up to and including our lives, to the military due to technological advancement, our society begins to believe that defending freedom is something someone else does, and certainly not my kind of people. Why, our Homeland Security Secretary even thinks returning veterans are national security threats!
Are we really, as a people, spoiled? Concerned only with our own immediate pleasures? Are we really incapable of recognizing deadly threats, not only to our nation, but to our very lives? Is taking care of us someone else’s job? Have our expectations of our political leaders fallen so low that we’re willing to settle for people with almost no qualifications, almost no experience, almost no character and who lie only 90% of the time as opposed to people who have no qualifications, no experience, no character or evil character and who lie whenever their lips are moving? Do we really believe that we can fix being broke by spending money we don’t have? Do we believe that we can improve health care by raising its cost, reducing its availability, and following the horrifically failed socialist model? We’ll get a glimpse of the answer in November, but America’s last hope for survival may well be the presidential election in 2012.
I’m praying that we’re better than that, and that we will be better than that, much better. If not, we really are doomed and it’s all just a matter of time before America resembles Detroit where Michigan’s governor believes that she’s done a great job and prosperity is just around the corner.
Mike McD, excellent comment.
I heard an expression recently, that none of us get out of this world alive. If we accept that, then until that ultimate moment, how can we optimize our existence everyday.
It appears most have done very little in reflecting on how to go about our lives in that manner, and what that means in our daily choices and direction.
So, does that make your post alarmist, or an alarm bell – I’ve felt it’s the latter, and that there really isn’t any middle ground.
Mike,
Thank you for your sober accounting of the current state of affairs. I wish I had your command of the facts and the eloquence with which to relate them. Thank you for your service in uniform.
My progressing impression of the liberal ideology arrived at a conclusion during the campaign of 2008. The Left would win election to the White House, and would solidify its hold on the Congress. The Left would do so not because of a electoral backlash against the policies and predilections of George W. Bush, but for Hope and Change. This movement away from ideas and proposal, and toward derangement lead me to believe that The Left had become unhinged. I still believe the enraged electorate was fooled, and will, in somber penence, stay home in 2010. I pray they will still feel guilty in 2012.
However, my view of The Left’s leadership has developed toward PROREASON’s view. Their appetite for control of my every movement, especially movement toward production, is insatiable. Socialism is a streetcar with no brakes, in line with no tracks. In 2012, we must elect a strict constitutionalist with the mettle, charisma, and courage to “stand athwart history and yell ‘stop’.” Does such a patriot today exist?
But, who?
No to Gingrich, Bush, Huckegee, Thompson just isn’t serious, Daniels, Pawlenty, McCain, especially Rommney, Ahnold?…..pleaeeeeeese. et.al.
Yes to David Petreaus, but he’s not running, supposedly. I would support Sarah Palin, but the media circus would be well, unbelievable. Then again, a Palin candidacy would probably finish off the LSM and probably sink MSNBC.
Nothing excites on my radar other than a Paul Ryan.
I’ve quoted this before, but it sums it up:
“He was born on third base, but goes through life thinking he hit a triple”.
This hypercriticism of America, the effort to demonize & invent a false narrative, to re-write history, the deliberate misrepresentation & distortion of everything ”American” – this is exactly what has been done to Israel by the Left & their Islamic allies. The same twisted logic, the same BS Orwellian rhetoric, it’s all the same.
The managers of the endowment fund for Harvard University just sold all holdings in Israeli companies. No reason given and none required. Divestment is a political statement, not a business decision. Harvard has gone all in on the Leftist/anti-Israeli false narrative.
The point you make is well understood by conservatives. The Left, the Islamists and even so-called moderate Muslims do not accept Israel’s right to exist. That is the central issue and one we can no longer ignore. It’s not rhetoric designed to rile up the masses — brain dead Ivy League students here and the illiterate Arab street over there. It’s a Leftist/Islamist goal they believe is achievable. And it will lead to war.
Given the Harvard Corporation’s record on investments the past three years, I would say this is a signal to buy Israel. More here:
http://abriefhistory.org/?p=978
Terry, how do we combat this false dialogue and language assault?
I know there’s no easy way, and Dr. H’s semi weekly posts and the comments of so many, are what suggest to me that there’s opposition to these distortions that are sold as truths, and one way.
But does anyone know of any other approach? Is the November election, writing, and speaking out the only method?
Israel and other allies absolute existence is in jeopardy, imo, in the meantime. I do believe the consequences are that serious.
David Sheedy.
You’d have to ask George Orwell. More seriously, the very language we speak has been hijacked & somehow, we need to reclaim it. Words now mean the opposite of what they meant a few decades ago. That’s part of the problem.
Seemingly, there has been a great cultural shift, an attitudinal shift, that has removed rhetoric from a grounding in reality.
Terry, if there’s something short term, it’s needed, but the only solution I’m able to envision takes a long period of time for the reason’s you mentioned, particularly the attitudinal shifts.
That said, if technology can be considered some part of the enabling factor that has lead to the degradation of dialogue, or more accurately stated on one of these posts, ‘monologue’, can it be used to reverse the trend, and restore the language or build it back up to regain meaning? … just a thought to put out there…
Yes Terry, excellent comment. There are efforts afoot to delegitimize America as a sovereign country. From illegal immigration to throwing our natural diversity in our face as perverse “proof” that we’re not a real nation or something. Efforts to try American military personnel for “war crimes” in foreign courts, with this notion aided and abetted by our very own current Justice Department. Ourageous and despicable. You are correct: America is the new Israel and Americans are the new Jews.
Personally, I consider that comparison a badge of honor.
What you call an enigma is a neurosis induced in tolerant prosperous western nations by the purveyors of Political Correctness and “progressive collectivism”. Kind, generous, prosperous people are easily made to feel guilty about being kind, generous and prosperous. I’m an immigrant from a lower economic stratum, so I don’t feel guilty about being part of the wonders of North America – just thankful. Two weeks after I arrived in N. America I felt like I was home. I see oil, electricity and all our natural resources as gifts from nature, not as things to feel ashamed of. Our opportunities in Canada for each individual and our prairie-wide personal horizons are astonishing. I am deeply satisfied to see my kids have better prospects than I did and to see them already doing better than I could at their age.
The silliness that you so accurately describe is just an invitation to play “silly buggers”. I refuse to play – I don’t have that neurosis. Millions of other people do have the neurosis and have created big trouble for the rest of us – so we have the situation that is spooking you. I don’t know if the silliness can be overcome but please keep writing so brilliantly about it all. Maybe everyone in N. America needs to revert to “immigrant mode” – the kind that settles here and concentrates on where they are going to, not where they came from.
‘Centralcanadian’ to Western – I appreciate your post, and hope there are more like you in all of Canada, and America too.
I was very fortunate to be dealt a great hand when I arrived in this world last millennium – in tact and loving family, hard working Father, Mother who has the ‘care’ gene that she can’t stop being Mother and now Grandmother, and never had to go without (except for what I wasn’t allowed to have, lol). But, it truly is every person’s responsibility and calling, no matter what situation one was born into, to make this world a better place for the next.
It’s inspiring to hear your storey, and even moreso, your perspective of appreciation today, that it increases my mindfulness of my own good fortune, and to ensure that I apply myself the way you have for my own kids and everyone, to contribute to making our country a better place. And obviously, the same applies for the betterment of our neighbours to the south (yes, we spell it with a ‘u’) who we are blessed to be so close to, geographically, and in every way.
VDH draws some interesting conclusions:
“In short, the great enigma of our postmodern age is how American society grew so wealthy and free to create so many residents that became so angry at the conditions that have made them so privileged…..”
-Is is an enigma that many choose to understand how this wealth we have was established? It brings to mind General Smedley Butler and his book “War is a Racket”, who had 1st hand experience with the workings of American Capitalism co-mingled with our military might. Why is it so enigmatic, Dr. Hanson to see this part of our history? Or should we brush it under the rug and focus only on the heroes you’d select for us?
“And rather than appreciate such an exceptional system, much less defend the idea of it, we beat each other up that we are mere mortals, not gods, and, my God, we can find a supposed misdemeanor here amid rampant felonies abroad.”
-Oh I appreciate our exceptional system so much, that I swore an oath to defend that constitution. But is it a mere misdemeanor to overthrow rightfully elected governments to install our own sycophant? Did I beat myself up after reading Dee Brown’s “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee”? -Yes, on this point you are correct Dr. Hanson.
Typical liberal false dilemma: EITHER we beat ourselves up because of all the terrible things we did to the freakin’ Indians OR we sweep all our moral transgressions under the rug and pretend to be saints.
Leftists throw this argument out there WHENEVER anyone suggests that we try to appreciate our country or wonders why THEY seem incapable of doing so. They believe we must have our collective nose rubbed in our historical mess 24/7, otherwise we’ll all turn into Nazis or something. I suppose it gives them satisfaction – feeling like they are the “conscience of the nation,” the watchdogs of humanity, the only force that stands between evil America and its potential victims. They’re “on the right side of history.”
Please spare us. Reality is morally complicated. History is morally complicated. OK, we get it. Now can we got on with our lives, please?
“Leftists throw this argument out there WHENEVER anyone suggests that we try to appreciate our country or wonders why THEY seem incapable of doing so.”-Bugs
-If we are to truly appreciate this country, we have to acknowledge our failings. Understanding the factors that led to this nation’s wealth does not mean we can’t appreciate our country. Is it enough to say we’re number 1? It is an arrogant person that resists humility. Acting superior keeps us from actually being number 1.
“History is morally complicated.”
-So is life. We’ve all made mistakes in our past. Are we better people if we hide our faults? There’s no need to wallow in the mire, but pause before being pompous.
@David W. Walters
Why do you only hold your own government to this high standard?
You are the very same enigma VDH is talking about. Please point to a text anywhere anytime written by yourself, where non western governments are held to your high standard…. Or any standard for that matter.
JL asks:
“Why do you only hold your own government to this high standard?”
-Why do you use “only” in your question. Are you so sure I don’t harbor resentment towards other nations? You’d be jumping to conclusions. But if we are to be number 1 as VDH likes to remind us, we need to be mindful of all the facets of this nation’s greatness.
Ridiculous comment. People like you bandy about the moral equivalency baloney and demand that Americans apologize for our past “mistakes.” I’ll believe your hand-wringing when you list the good things that America has done – both for our own citizens and the rest of the world – and compare that list with the supposedly bad things that people like Howard Zinn blather about. On balance, America is the most moral, open, and fair society that the world has ever seen – and which you (like other fools) will never acknowledge.
mikemcdaniel #7,
I think we are spoiled and becoming more so with each new generation. I was relatively poor as a child, so anything I got that was above bare necessity level was the result of a visible sacrifice by my parents or others. Clothes and bedroom curtains were sewn by my mother, who wasn’t sitting in front of the TV. I had a little playhouse that was rebuilt from a milkhouse torn down and disgarded by a farmer my father knew. There was a very tight link between my possessions and the attention, effort, and love of my family. The importance of that link is not sufficiently recognized today, but without it, it is is harder for people to appreciate what we owe to others, be they ancestors who cleared fields and opened tiny shops, soldiers who protected our lives and freedoms, people like Edison who dreamed big, or the garbage collector who just picked up a bin full of my trash. I still have some of the things given to me as a child. They are easily replaceable today, but their meaning to me is not.
vb, Thanks for your post. It triggers a thought for me to be more appreciative of the values in life taught by my family too, and to ensure that I live up to those for my kids.
Your family may not have had much money when you were young, but you weren’t poor. Your attitude is rich in the values that seem so rare in our world today; and what’s even more admirable is the importance and clarity of how much these matter in your life. There’s something in your thoughts for everyone.
dear vb,
you certainly have a point, but might I suggest that self-flagellation is misspent effort at this point in time.
Our culture and country has been subverted in a professional and organized manner. Many of the sins you bewail have been created by the 24x7x365 subversives as one phase of their effort to undermine the only force they fear.
We shouldn’t ignore our own faults but it is far better to focus on the real enemies: radical Islam (obsessing in the shallows for centuries), the Ruling Class (nothing is enough for them), communists (probe, open a wound, retreat, reset), and Obama (bride of the triumpherate of Islam, Marxism and the Ruling Class)
Obama said during the dinner: We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth.
This is not true. The US is shaped by European settlers, predominantly Anglo Saxons and their culture, their values and their language. (please see ‘Who are we?’ from Samuel Huntington). Up till the sixties the US was multi- ethnic but mono cultural country. After the sixties Multiculturalism become en vogue, though not yet at the Presidential level.
There are many unfortunate aspects of Obama’s presidency; the most unfortunate might be his multiculturalism in our current age. Clinton was also a Multiculturalist, but America position in the world was unrivaled then. It didn’t immediately weaken the US.
It really doesn’t have to be binary does it. The pendulum has swung excessively to one end of the continuum and the truth rarely exists in the outliers. Let’s hope some sense can be made to celebrate the values of our culture and traditions, while appreciating others in the world around us.
Having lived and worked in Saudi Arabia, I can tell you the discrimination is systemic: there is a ring road 50 miles from Mecca. You can go North or South, no problem.
Go East, toward Mecca, and there’s a checkpoint.
If you can’t prove you’re Muslim, don’t go there.
To be sure, if you snuck into Mecca and were discovered, it would be dangerous, but probably not from the authorities. They wouldn’t get there in time.
As with the BANNING of NON Muslims visiting Mecca and Bibles, Churches , Crosses and literature in the whole Country of Saudi Arabia . Islam is built on HYPOCRISY. Consider RAMADAN for example we are told that this is the FASTING month but look closer during Ramadan Muslims must not eat or drink between SUNRISE and SUNSET not an actual TIME period but actual SUN movement . So far so good and there are complicated tables produced in all Islamic countries showing EXACTLY when sunrise is and sunset is.
All very well if like MOST Muslims and Mohammad you live near the Equator But what if you are a Muslim at the North or South Poles or regions getting close to there where it can be either perpetual day or perpetual night. You see Mohammad ( for it was he not the imaginary Allah his sock puppet INVENTION) did not know the world was round and that there were Poles (an amazing thing for the so called CREATOR not to know you must admit) . Modern day Muslim scholars jump through religious intellectual hoops trying to reconcile this illogical contradictory idiocy.
But here is where the REAL HYPOCRISY trips in . Muslims get up before DAWN and gorge themselves they then gorge themselves at sunset and beyond. Trust me I know I am married to one. So its not FASTING its just DEFERRED eating. Unlike Christian Lent where you ACTUALLY give something up for 40 days. Saudi Arabia has OBESITY programmes AFTER Ramadan so Muslims can get rid of the weight they GAIN when so called FASTING.
The sad FACT is that most Muslims eat MORE during Ramadan than they do normally then the HYPOCRITES call it fasting and want to be praised for their religious fervour.
I think that it’s stunning that Obama always feels compelled to lecture us on “tolerance” and being “sensitive” to the demands of minorities in this country. Yet he never takes the time to examine what the ramifications are to all the people who are forced to display this tolerance and sensitivity.
Want to build a mosque right near Ground Zero? Hey, no problem, because you either agree to it or you’re trying to deny people their constitutional rights (I’d really also like to know how many people praying in this mosque are legitimate American citizens, but that’s another story). Want to just walk across our southern border and come into this country illegally? No problem, because if you don’t agree to that then you’re obviously a racist. Didn’t think those police officers acted “stupidly” in Boston? Well of course they did, and if you don’t agree then you’re one of them and a racist too. Don’t agree with gay marriage? You’d better, or else be called a homophobe or intolerent by this White House.
Seems that the only world view that counts in this White House is what Obama thinks and nobody else. We’re all supposed to just shut up and be grateful for all the government aid massa Obama is doling out to us poor dumb white folk on this plantation we now call America. A few more years of Obamanomics and it really will feel like living on a plantation, since the only job will be a government job and the only paycheck will be a government paycheck. Keep the poor folk dependent on the White House and they will always do what the White House says, right? Maybe, just maybe, Obama’s view of the world does NOT match the one most of us have “out here” in what liberals call “flyover” country. We’ll see in November if that’s true or not.
Why location, specifically 45 Park Place, is the issue:
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/12/08/nyregion/MOSQUE_SS_6.html
“Parts of a landing gear from one of the planes that hit the World Trade Center on 9/11 broke through the roof and two floors. The Burlington Coat Factory had not yet opened, and employees were having breakfast in the basement. No one there was injured.”
Photo: Kukiko Mitani
[I do not understand why reporters and bloggers never mention this fact about 45 Park Place. THIS is why Rauf wanted the building, and why 9/11 firefighter and survivor Timothy Brown had taken up the stalled landmarking case from 1989. ]
Seeing this photo, and the satellite photo taken on 9/23/2001 posted at wiki (URL below) is what made me start seeing 45 Park Place as a 9/11 survivor and part of Ground Zero.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_Trade_Center_Site_9-23-01_with_Cordoba_House_location.jpg
mikemcdaniel: great comment. I agree 100%. Regarding the last paragraph: I am almost tending toward optimism. I think Obama’s mosque moment may be giving the less politically-involved cause for pause and more honest reassessment.
Terry, Eilat – Israel: But this time, we’re on to them.
When I read an article that uses phrases such as “I don’t think the founding fathers…” makes me doubt what follows. Mayor Bloomberg,a republican, and President Obama,a democrat,both argue for the law and tolerance. Lesser leaders will simply snipe from the trees.
Point of clarification:
Obama and Bloomberg ARE our “lesser leaders”.
Bloomburg, n., see RINO.
I cannot fathom electing a psychotic control freak like Bloomberg then again, I can’t fathom Daley, in Chicago.
…and I was born and raised there.
And you forgot to add that monkeys are known to fly out of your ass.
It is obvious that the Obama is a hater and a divider. He takes every controversial issue and divides it into the good, liberal left wing democrats, and the evil his conservative opposition. He is good at whipping up the hate and hysteria against anyone who dares to critize his Marxist agenda.
And here is the logic of the idiots that follow Obama. Do these people even have a brain? Can they think? Is there any logic in their heads?
I used to think liberals were somewhat smart if just a little misguided but had the ability to think logically – not any more!!!
That is an interesting link – it’s on the daily kos – you’ve been forewarned! Just goes to show you – you never know what you’ll find on MSNBC!
These idiots on the left have no real brain power and idiots like kos seems to have less than the morons he feeds.
Did any of these fools realize that the city of Philadelphia is run by LIBERALS? Yet all their venom and anger is directed at the ones least responsible – conservatives!
Unbelievable.
Then there is a poster that complains about Colorado Springs Co not passing a TRIPLING of the property taxes which caused a chain reaction that led to many city services being shut down or curtailed – and who did this moron blame it on? Of course – conservatives. Last time I checked most if not all of Colorado is very liberal – and Colorado Springs is especially liberal. I wonder where these morons think money comes from?
And they walk among us! Scary isn’t it?
K.T. – thanks for the warning. I’m going to avoid Colorado. Sounds like a frightening part of the world!
If they could tax idiocy, Colorado would be the one state posting a surplus from the sounds of it…lol
You make a good point with respect to Philadelphia, but I think you might be mistaken about Colorado Springs. In the state of Colorado, Denver is liberal, Boulder is very far left, and many of the resort communities are also quite liberal, but Colorado Springs is actually rather conservative, and is home to a large conservative Christian community. Maybe it has changed since I last checked, but that is the reputation that the Colorado Springs area has had for at least 15 or 20 years now.
Those people are seriously deranged. Liberalism is a mentally transmitted disease.
I think that what we are bemoaning is the wussification of America. Yes we are a nation of tolerant people, but we were completely intolerant of anything that looked like BS, smelled like BS, and tasted like BS when it was crammed down your throat. Nowadays we’re so afraid of hurting somebodys feelings that we’ll tolerate just about anything, and it really tee’s me off! A idiots right to drop F bombs all over the sidewalk in front of your wife and children trumps your right to haul off and punch the foul mouthed lout in the mouth! Can you imagine Wyatt Earp agonizing over the louts right to free speech? No way! He’d b-slap the idiot and run him face first into a wall, and that’s how you encourage moral behavior, by making the alternative too damn painfull to consider. As the philosopher once said, get all the rope in Texas and find a big oak tree …
I think the mosk should be built. Its a beautiful structure and its symbolic meaning is really important. Why wouldnt we allow Muslims the same equal rights we all share in this great country? Isn’t freedom or religion part of our bill of rights or something? I love the muslim people. Just because their are a few bad eggs in a basket doesn’t mean that the entire crate smells bad. C’mon people, lets show the world that we can embrace the diversity we built this country on. Muslims are our friends. They believe in God, just the way my Jewish and Christian brothers and sisters do. I for one do not wish to puke on our first amendment right to freedom of religion! C’mon people! Rights for all.
The dhimmification (big word – you may want to look that up) of America continues!
I suppose these words will be wasted on such a ‘tolerant’ individual such as yourself but try to keep up with the concept of what I’m going to tell you. Look around the world – every place that islam has enjoyed victories over their enemies they’ve built mosques – NYC is no exception.
Any questions?
I say no – not only no but HELL NO!
I have NO tolerance for the intolerant – and that is what islam is – intolerant.
I think just about everybody agrees with this sentiment. If the Muslims funding and supporting this mosque were truly moderates then I would be all for having them build whatever, where ever. However it looks like there are several key individuals to the development and funding of this mosque that seem to be more closely associated to the, “few bad eggs in a basket.” As has been often noted, you can tell how a Muslim really feels just by asking them if they will denounce Hamas as a terror organization. Any of them that stutter or stumble about with excuses are hiding their true feelings about non-believers and the West. Furthermore, there are a number of moderate Muslims who are standing up and denouncing the decision to build the Mosque at this location. Because they know and understand how it is in bad taste. Moderate Muslims get that this mosque will not foster dialogue and tolerance but instead fan the flames of resentment towards Muslims and further encourage INtolerance.
mika: ARE YOU NUTS? Or just off your medication?
I’m certain that “mika” is joking. After all, look at all the hints he’s dropping that he’s kidding — like the faux poor grammar and the deliberate mispellings. He’s deliberately writing like an inattentive high school kid to spoof the dopey tools who actually believe what he’s satirizing. Right “mika?”
Okay, let’s think about that symbolism a minute.
A Muslim mosque is proposed a few blocks from Ground Zero, a location made holy by the deaths of 2700 people whose only fault was showing up for work that Tuesday morning. People who were taken too soon from their work, their families, their friends, and all of us by 19 Muslim men. Those Muslim jihadis were funded and supported by many, many more Muslims living in hellholes called Riyadh, Sanaa, Karachi, and Kabul. The Mosque Imam himself has a troubled history and ties.
In our headlong race to demonstrate how accepting we are of everything Islam, the religion of peace, we now refer to the 9-11 attacks as a man-made disaster, terrorism has become a global contingency operation, and terrorists are misguided freedom fighters. I submit we are quickly losing our way.
A majority of Muslims are decent, hardworking, kind people. A mosque is as much of a sense of shelter and protection as it is for Christians who go to church. I weep for the souls lost on 9/11 as much if not more than you do but I just cant allow the actions of 19 insane religious zealotrys to justify the civil rights of millions of law obiding Muslims. Its just not right. Its wrong, and you really do need to get over it or at least come to terms within it. ‘m’
I have no problem at all with the moderate followers of Islam. But until we can distinguish them from the radical nuts who fly planes into buildings, suit up their children in back-to-school bomb apparel, murder their daughters for being “too Westernized”, and claim 9-11 blame lies with the US, I say we play it safe and be a little skeptical.
From the perspective of good taste, can you see the US proposing to build a cathedral next to Hiroshima’s Gokoku Shrine? Sending the Declaration of Independence on a road tour of Great Britain?
mika:
You need to hone your satirization skills more. You need to give subtle hints that you’re not serious, that you’re joking.
For instance, instead of saying:
A majority of Muslims are decent, hardworking, kind people. A mosque is as much of a sense of shelter and protection as it is for Christians who go to church. I weep for the souls lost on 9/11 as much if not more than you do but I just cant allow the actions of 19 insane religious zealotrys (zealotrys?)
You should try:
A majority of Muslims are decent, hardworking, kind people. A mosque is as much of a sense of shelter and protection as it is for Christians who go to OGAHDABOOGEDAH the souls lost on 9/11 as much if not more than you do but I just cant allow the actions of 19 insane religious zealots
See the difference? This way people will laugh with you instead of at you.
You’re welcome. Anytime. Don’t mention it. Please.
There is no quarrel with law-abiding members of any group. The quarrel will always lie with the those who do not abide by any law or rules of international conduct (as we saw on September 11).
But there are doubts over the reason for this construction, both the positioning and timing. You may argue NYC needs a new mosque; fine, allow the faithful to build it in Brooklyn or in Harlem or wherever. But to place it so close is an act of extraordinary insensitivity. The west is not soothed by gestures like this. Nor is it soothed by those who promote others at the cost of America and freedom.
The illegal immigrants, those who come to take and not give, the ones who plot to destroy and demoralise while living among so many opportunities is indeed a puzzle.
You Mika are able to defend the ‘rights’ of Muslims. It is not so if you were a non-Muslim in a Muslim country. Buddhist or Christian or Wiccan and certainly not Jew. if there is no outreach there, how can there me here? because we are ‘better’ and more ‘spiritual’ and more ‘humane’. Or just more naive? But in time, many believe, the problem will be solved should America become a Muslim country. One with perhaps not much room for those who aren’t.
Just wanting people to be nice to each other is fine, but not enough on its own, sadly. Not without some gesture from others, some thought of us.
Except when they are not… then they are blood thirsty murderers. Sorry pal. Don’t make me sort you out. You have to do that on your own.
Yes, just today I noticed a newspaper headline announcing the sentencing of two people who were planning to kill military and prominent people. Two attractive white young people were pictured and I wondered why they would want to wantonly kill. As I read further there it was–the man was converted to Islam a dozen years ago. What a wonderful religion of peace!!!
If my generation is “narcissistic” then would this present “attitude” not be expected? From “do your own thing…to sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll” we have our dear “political correctness” from these little babies who will continue to “grow up” even as their dead corpses are placed into a coffin or an oven!
The problem will be, hell it already is…what they will leave behind as they follow nature’s dictates.
Another good reason for religion…prayers for a better day.
You have put your finger on the true “genius motive” of the Liberals. Under their policies and administration Mexico will build a fence to keep US citizens – seeking safety and prosperity – out of Mexico.
This is the “logic-tight” compartment in the mind of all US-hating Libs:
Why should a terrible country like the US even need border control? Certainly the abuses foisted upon the poor by this “MEAN COUNTRY” would act as an effective deterrent to anyone thinking about coming here.
There is no logic involving border control. Liberals will not lift a finger because they WANT our country to be wiped out – culturally at least – to pay for all the terrible things we’ve done. Whatever we get, we deserve.
There IS an enigma as there was in Germany in the 1930s, and throughout Europe later. HOW the Congress, Court and Executive of the US government were allowed free rein to do their damndest.
It was not secret for the past half-century, with the exception of 1980 – 1988 that the USA is directed by persons who did not know, OR “did not care about the Constitution”, the foundation, the bedrock of the nation
they direct.
And NOW this Chief Executive is doing HIS damndest to display, to the huzzahs and tub-thumping of the elephants in the china shops of Congress, Court, education, media, entertainment, foreign governments and hostile nations, HIS contempt for that document. That document he deemed “defective” and “flawed”, ye tto get the power to “do his damndest” swore oath to UPHOLD and DEFEND.
The natural evolution of moral and social disdain for
fidelity to freely taken oath (no compulsion here)in human transactions, as modelled particularly by the “Stars” and their fans of the Party of Hope and Change, who named themselves democrats and liberals.
The disdain initiated and developed by the “best and the brightest” of that generation which came to “maturity” in the 1960s and knows itself as the most intelligent, the best educated and the most compassionate (on your dime) that ever existed. And is now at the controls of the engine of the nation.
The ENIGMA is WHY many citizens who exerted their right to vote selected this man who, with his wife, during the campaign trashed the nation and her people he was so desperate to lead. AS IN PIED PIPER.
Speaking of BS and Orwellian rhetoric: The Washington Times recently featured an editorial pointing out fallacies in BO’s Ramadaan speech. Although there are 20 or so good comments following, go past those and read the ones about Muslims’ contributions to America, and the praise supposedly given to them by American presidents and others in history (such as Ben Franklin!)
It is obvious that this is no off-the-top-of-the-head response. There has been a whole history written now (or REwritten), full of “facts,” anecdotes and vignettes “proving” that Muslims were here from the 7th century on and helped found and form America. I’m sure this will end up in middle school history books within 5 years, quoted by CAIR and BHO, and soon taken as truth.
This is vomit-inducing material. Read at: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/aug/12/obamas-islamic-america/ (You do need to read through several factual comments by infidel alliance before you get to those featuring the rewrite of American history.)
Beware: Coming to a school toward you.
Hey, I’ve got an idea. We’ve still got some tanks in the Middle East, don’t we? Why don’t we have them amble over to the Arabian Peninsula, drive straight down the road to Mecca, and guard a construction battalion there while it builds a Christian cathedral? Of course, that cathedral would have to be protected forever after by men with guns, wouldn’t it? And anyone who dared to pray in it would have taken his life into his hands. All the same, isn’t it an intriguing thought?
No, I’m not seriously advocating that course of action. But does anyone here doubt that it would take the application of overwhelming armed force to bring about the construction of a cathedral in Mecca? Or that it would become the focus of overwhelming Arabic hatred and propaganda, regardless of how good it might look or how inoffensive its communicants might be? Considering that it’s literally against the law to practice Christianity in Saudi Arabia, or to bring a Bible across its borders — considering that the possible consequences include gang rape and death by torture — how is it that we speak of “tolerance” in discussing the Saudi-funded construction of a mosque on land over which the deeds of fifteen Saudi Muslims sprinkled the ashes of 2700 innocent martyrs?
We speak of a culture that seeks to subjugate the entire world, and has succeeded in infiltrating a culture that merely wants to live in peace, freedom, and prosperity. “Intolerant” isn’t a strong enough word for the Arab/Islamic culture. It is both savage and totalitarian, by design. And it has no place in these United States.
Quarantine or genocide. There are no other options.
I agree with you totally. We need to quarantine Islam until it can be eradicated through persuasion. It is an evil about which our leaders dare not speak. I cannot support genocide yet though.
There is no enigma. There is however a PC strangle hold on the necks of those who know the truth.
Terry, Eilat-Israel: Who is the single biggest sub-group of “Americans” who trash the state of Israel, agree with the left that Isreal is the villan, and use their money, influence, fame, and position to help the left seek the destruction of both Isreal and America? What religion is George Soros? Who is Axelrod? Who is Emmanuel? How many in Congress, of this group, belong to the progressive/socialist caucus?
The biggest cheerleaders for the Islamic center Schumer, Addler, (Wasserman-Schulz-out of state supporter), and Bloomberg all have one thing in common.
The single largest American sub-group that has found security, privilege, and safety here in America and are the biggest cheerleaders for Marxism/collectivism/statism have one thing in common with the cheerleaders for the Islamic center.
Those who arrive at our shores and, “…magically romanticize the very conditions in the abstract that they would never live under again in the concrete,” are told to do this by the Chomsky’s, Zinn’s and Alinsky’s who inform the politicians, social workers and state burearcrats to tell the newly arrived to hate America. This breeds more voters and power for one group and more government leeches from these people. What do these informants have in common with the other America hating sub-group?
The real enigma is why does this sub-group support the left who paradoxically has nothing but contempt for this very same sub-group. Is everything that is wrong with our society today the fault of this one sub-group? No! But this sub-group supports those who do hate America and wish to see it destroyed. And would the voices of the fringe left have the same ability to shape America were it not for this one sub-group?
Until we can finally assign blame and take remedial action, all the rhetoric by VDH and others is moot.
Mr. Hanson there is no enegma and you know it. Please be a little bit more direct next time . This is not NRO where you are more cautious in your opinions.This site is red meat.
By and large, humans are nuts.
True Tao. Few vary from the filtered history provided them and almost none accept the absolute proven success of generous application of pork fat to the immediate problems at hand.
Conundrum indeed! Why would anyone that has recognized a single proud example of elected or appointed governments defense or twisted denial of openly railroaded support legislation for continued destructive pharmaceutical, financial, educational, and communications future ever believe that an autumn vote harvest will be a cornucopia of government healing. Recognizing the wild cards that have been shuffled into their tarot deck should convince all to expect more of the same in November. The party owned media pot beginning to call the kettle black may be synonymous with rats leaving a sinking ship but a well established proud judicial bulwark may delay any favorable outcome long enough for the maggots to morph into the pupa stage of the blow flies that they are. Hope for the best but plan for the worst.
Dr. Hanson,
IMHO allow me to add several thoughts.
In 2002 Lester Thurow (former dean MIT Sloane School of Business) pointed out that many public voices were heard demonizing the globalization of economies. His point: They weren’t against globalization, per se, they were against capitalism. So we have a national monologue led by people who despise the system that permits them to lead a life people in other cultures can only fantasize about (Michael Moore, Danny Glover, Sean Penn and Barbra Streisand are poster children for this loathing).
Secondly, we are as open and transparent a culture as has ever existed on the face of the earth. Every culture has its warts, but in the U.S., our warts are the low-hanging fruit which constantly captures the attention of the chattering classs mentioned above. You have already pointed out the lack of criticism directed at China. As just another example, where were the human rights organizations, so concerned about the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo, when Sadam Hussein gassed 3,000 Kurds, in a govt sponsored slaughter that rivals 9/11?
Ultimately, I think what this demonstrates is the kind of detachment from reality that the Obama presidency personifies. We have an elite governing class which directs a national monologue (I can’t in good conscience call it a dialogue), both of which are detached from the reality of this country.
I think that judging the spirit and attitude of this country by citing that national monologue is like judging the depth of a pond by looking at its surface. The November mid-term elections will be a good barometer as to whether the ruling class is detached from or representative of the current spirit of this country.
T, very good points, particularly the comments from Thurow.
The only valid criticism of globalization and freer trade is the dysfunctional immigration policies of most countries. In Canada, if you’re not arriving claiming “refugee status”, you need not apply. The other end of the spectrum is that the company your are contracting with has significant resources to process a work visa and other documents necessary to be mobile.
My hope is that in Canada and the U.S., that governments amp up the effort and get immigration policy to the top of the agenda, apply the resources and mostly, to get it right. Not only is it necessary to optimize the labour force and talent pool of a country, but it’s necessary to be able to prevent the abuses and influx of undesirables, maintain a prosperous demographic base, and frankly, to be able to process and allow in, those who are truly refugees.
In case any of you were doubting what needed to happen, please listen to this great spiritual adviser
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=184935
Thanks for the link … could BarryO be any more stunned than in the position he’s taking on this issue. Is he ignorant, or is this just treasonous!?
The national game of collective navel gazing the libs/progressives have foisted on the US – at least with those dimwitted enough to play along for fear of appearing ‘mean’ – or ‘insensitive’ or (gasp) racist needs to be redirected back at them. If there is anything they hate it is the idea of being thought of as intolerant or unkind – no compassion – no heart.
I use the term ‘libs’ and ‘progressives’ loosely – it should be socialists – or maybe communists?
Remember when a liberal would vehemently disagree with what you might have said – but would defend to the death your right to say it? Now all they wish to do is shut up you and I and everyone who disagree with them and they will go to extremes to do just that. I for one will not sit down and shut up.
Another fine and well written article Dr. Hanson. I love it when you point out the hypocrisy of the far left. Such a target rich environment too.
Well said K.T.
The “do as I say, not as I do” policy of the left. And with conviction too!
I doubt very much that my idea will solve any problems, but it will keep some people occupied for a while:
1. Gather up all the anti-American Muslims in the U.S., ship them to Mexico.
2. Gather up all the anti-American Mexicans in the U.S., ship them to the Middle East.
3. Sit back and watch the results.
Here’s another *amusing* comparison for discussion:
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/08/if_timothy_mcveigh_had_been_a.html
Russians? Chinese? Why waste their time? Our critics know the Russians and the Chinese are capable of recognizing their enemies and smart enough not to pay any attention to them. Further, critics of either regime have a tendency to short lifespans, and fact not lost on the critics.
Dr. Hanson has once again identified the paradox of Muslim intentions vs. objectives. If we accept the stated intentions are to teach the other’s faith and generate mutual trust, a counter offer may be appropiate. The Muslim source of funds appears to be Saudi based and as such, the City of New York should make the following offer:
A Christian church will be built next to Mecca, funded by Christian church donations worldwide. Following completion and opening to the public, permission will be given to build a mosque of the same height as the Christian church, on their chosen site in New York City.
I suggest the Christian Church be called, “The First Christian Church in Saudi Arabia”.
The key distinction here is between what is legal and constitutionally permitted, and what is the right thing to do. Our tradition of both religious freedom, and property rights means that the muslims do indeed have the right to build their mosque at ground zero. But even if it is legal, it is not right, and we should not be afraid to say so. That is the real liberal lie here. They imply that anybody who publically says the ground zero mosque is wrong, somehow opposes the 1st amendment, and individual property rights.
We have no right to use the government to ban the ground zero mosque, but we have every right to publically state that is is an obsene act of provocation, and that the muslims are wrong to do it.
I think part of the leftist problem here is to them, if something is wrong, then government should be used to stop it, no matter what the constitution says. It is not possible for a leftist to say that something is wrong, but limited government has no power to address it. Thus they can’t say, like we would, that the mosque is constitionally permitted, but wrong, they have to go even further, and somehow try to make it appear to be right as well as legal.
How does that expression go? “Everything not forbidden is mandatory…”
TLM, Harvard sold all its Israeli holdings? It may not be a political statement. I sold my very limited shares in an Israeli pharma firm because I fear a huge counter attack if and when Israel bombs Iran. Love Israel. Hope the attack never happens. Just being prudent.
The managers haven’t give a reason for their decision. It could be they are being prudent, but this smacks of what many universities did to South Africa in the 80′s (I’m not condoning apartheid here. I just don’t think Israel is Afrikaaner South Africa). It seems Harvard sold off their holdings over a very short time period, which sounds more politically motivated.
From Harvard Management Co:
“the Management Company’s most recent S.E.C. filing details changes in holdings, as is routine, but no change in policy. The University has not divested from Israel. Israel was moved from the MSCI, our benchmark in emerging markets, to the EAFE index in May due to its successful growth. Our emerging markets holdings were rebalanced accordingly. We have holdings in developed markets, including Israel, through outside managers in commingled accounts and indexes, which are not reported in the filing in question”.
Much ado about nothing it seems.
You’re right RJ. Mikas post is evidence of. Voxenpopulari, I like the philosphers point. Get ‘er done.
If you’re not already familiar with the Yuri Bezmenov interviews, here are some links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlkPkJInUmU&feature=related
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIFcnctnHsE&feature=related
Yuri Bezmenov was an ex-KGB agent who talked about the ideological subversion of this country. We were taught, in short, to hate ourselves.
I don’t care why these people behave the way they do. Nothing any of us can say or think or do will change their minds, or make them act rationally. The real question here is: What are we going to do about it?
Completely agree, RebeccaH.
Why even wonder about Charles Manson’s motives? Lock people like him up.
I had the exact thought 9/12 immediately after the shock wore off. I told many people that I didn’t care why they did it. It was an unprovoked act of war that had to be punished. And I feel the same way about the Obama administration. He isn’t leading our country, he is taking our country apart. Frankly, I doubt his motives are good, but I don’t really care. Maybe Stallin really was actually going for world peace. What does it matter.
The thugs and criminals have to be stopped, not psychoanalyzed.
I use a broader definition of understanding. I want to know how these guys think so we can better fight against them. I want to know who they try to recruit and how they do it so we can cut off the supply of future terrorists. We try to understand how viruses and bacteria cause disease so we can devise countermeasures. Somehow a very useful word has been wishy washed to mean pity or sympathize with. I think it has to do with our victim culture.
RJ you are so right. Mikas post is evidence of that. Voxenpopulari, I like what the philosopher said.-Get ‘er done!
The methodology of subversion is simple. Find a noble sentiment of the American people then pervert it.
What to take care of old folks? Invent the Social Security Tax.
Feel tolerate and welcoming to foreigners? Open the borders and offer our welfare state to parasites.
Minimize the horrors of war for civilians? Disarm our defenders by limited rules of engagement.
Want free elections? Disenfranchise our troops and remove constraints on illegal voting.
Hope a quick recovery from a recession? Steal billions of dollars and debase our currency.
The list goes on and on.
The American people are going to have to toughen up and become VERY cynical if we are to survive.
For many, the US is not wealthy because Americans and our system of government creates and earns wealth for the many, they believe it is just where the money is.
It is the Marxism in our educational system. We graduate tens of thousands of indoctrinated morons each year. If they go into the private sector they might wake up. If the go into government or journalism they never do.
Yes, these people willingly come here to escape what they came from. But what we see as a freely arrived at decision to come here Mexicans and Muslims regard as a kind of forced resettlement to the US. Both groups may not have hated the US before they came here, but merely suggesting to either one that it was wrong to come here illegally or coming here with a set of un-Americans beliefs would make them inappropriate citizens and the suppressed anger and guilt they have harbored at having left their countries of origin easily finds release in anger at America and Americans.
The key point is that these people feel that they were forced to come here. In the past many people felt the same way and some did not stay either because they could not make it or because they found they did not want to live here. This was a sort of safety valve for immigrants and for us. But times have changed. A hundred and twenty years ago it might have been true that life in the US was not very different from life in many countries. That is not the case now where we get a lot of disgruntled people from countries where life is very different and, as the author has mentioned many times, these people have no intention of returning to any of them.
As the US became a more desirable place to live after 1910 or so we began to restrict immigration here to allow for assimilation. By 1965 the wisdom of our politicians saw fit to change that policy. By the mid-seventies Mexicans agreed with them and the great wave of illegal immigration started in earnest. It is a simple proposition before Americans: we can either go back to the tried and true policy of assimilation or allow people with grudges and outright hostility to this country as it is presently constituted change it in ways that would be detrimental to everyone.
And nitwits like Oliver Stone and Sean Penn rhapsodize about the virtues of Hugo Chavez. Why the hell don’t they just go there and stay there? Maybe on some level they realize they are self-important lying bastards who just want attention, and if they did actually emigrate there they would rue it for the rest of their lives. I have no interest or pity for these idiots, I just wish they’d either shut up or go someplace they like better. The majority of Americans like it fine as it is. America is great IN SPITE OF people like Barack Obama.
FYI, Buck,
Sean Penn is trying to help rebuild the country of Haiti after they experienceD a horrific hurricane earlier this year. I don’t think that he or Barack Obama are going to give up on helping humans survive and thrive, irregardless of borders, we really ARE ONE WORLD!
OK, mika! MUCH better!
See, everyone knows that Haiti suffered an EARTHQUAKE! Not a hurricane!
See this is what I mean about humore technique. Now people will know you’re just pulling their legs and you don’t mean a single word and you’re just spoofing the mindless drivel of the lefty limpdicks.
Keep working at it mika, and soon you’ll be a regular Dave Barry.
“humore?”
Hey mika, did you just hack my comment? Very funny, guy!
VDH:
“…Barack Obama tried to obfuscate all that by demonizing opponents as awful sorts of un-Americans without tolerance of religious diversity…”
Obama has gone from contextualizing issues to pathetic dissembling in strawman arguments. No one ever seriously proposed a legal challenge to the mosque, or claimed they had no “right” to build there, as he strongly implied in his statements at the iftar dinner. He corrected himself the next day, then waffled again the following day. First he obfuscates on a serious moral question, then he votes present to clarify his stance on the issue. Who could possibly believe this fraud’s statements on anything.
Every civilization decays through over-civilization; the factors of decadence–luxury, skepticism, weariness, and superstition–are constant. The civilization of one epoch becomes the manure of the next–
Cyril Connolly
…how so many millions abroad fled the intolerance and poverty of their home country, and yet on arrival almost magically romanticize the very conditions in the abstract that they would never live under again in the concrete.
They want to enjoy the wealth created by an advanced culture without parting from their own primitive cultural beliefs. They don’t really want to live here. They just want to enjoy the wealth, while pretending to still live at home. The welfare state allows them to do so, as does the fact that we do not hold them to rules we hold ourselves to. Among even the more intelligent and successful Third World immigrants (Chinese, Indians, Arabs) cheating, corruption, ethnic chauvinism, and skirting society’s moral rules is endemic. Ethnic chauvinism? Visit an Indian wedding in Topeka and Boise and see how many white people you can count.
Nowadays the government is too litigious and overly protective of minorities to allow traditional measures of social approbation to occur. Yes, we live in that rare time when government may have actually become too effective, in some ways, for society’s own good. In the past if an unbearable member of a minority came into a store, the shopowner would quickly eject him. Today he has to worry about getting sued.
Surely Barack Obama knew the issue was one of decorum and taste and reverence, and surely Barack Obama tried to obfuscate all that by demonizing opponents as awful sorts of un-Americans without tolerance of religious diversity (revisit the clingers riff of 2008).
Maybe not. Given all the golfing, lavish entertaining at the WH, vacations and so forth, Mr. and Mrs. Obama, just might be clueless in the decorum and taste area.
It’s funny as hell to hear Obama reference our “founding principles” and “private property” relative to this mosque.
Generally, he doesn’t have much use for those types of ideas.
All kinds of proponents of socialsm travel about the world, stay in 5-star hotels, live large off the fruits of capitalism while giving speeches bashing capitalism (Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein come to mind).
They should be laughed out of the room.
I believe in tolerance. I truly do.
I believe in the freedom of religion. With all my heart.
I believe in building bridges of friendship to all mankind, without hesitation or reservation.
I believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt.
I believe in extending a hand in friendship rather than a slap in anger or revenge.
I believe in defending the rights to every countryman of mine, given under the Constitution and our laws.
I believe in keeping this nation the leader in every aspect of human achievement, economic, political, moral, ethical, athletic, musical, arts, sciences and many others.
In order to advance those ideals and stand behind American exceptionalism , I first must love her with all my heart.
I secondly, must protect her from those who mean to harm her.
Third, it is imperative that I recognize charlatans and con men, snake oil salesmen and fakirs who merely want to strip her of her treasures, her beauty, her kindness and her majesty under false pretenses.
Let’s examine the context in which it is alleged that this Imam wishes to build a mosque to bridge an understanding between cultures.
A)The site suggested for this “bridge” is essentially over the rubble and remains, where his side of the equation…took out their anger and frustration with our side of the equation by hijacking commercial airplanes filled with our countrymen and slammed them into buildings filled with our countrymen.
The “benefit of the doubt” that this Imam seeks, is one that asks us to believe that the site was chosen, not as a victor in a conquest, standing on the ashes of his enemies, but as a sort of “let’s be friends” and “heal this location”.
2) Well and good. How would one go about asking permission to build such a place? If we are interested in opening a dialogue…where is the dialogue?
If we are interested in reaching out a hand in friendship, where is the hand?
If we are interested in building a rapport, where is the empathy, the outreach to the community, the expression of grief at the dastardly acts, the loss of innocent life, the admission of the how wrong it was?
Where are the speeches to their side, asking for all to condemn the violence and murder?
Where is the request that we all work to construct this together and the invitation for our side to come inside and visit?
We don’t see this. Instead, we see the demands that “rights” to occupy this space over the rubble and ashes be enforced .
We see a history of the promoters of this edifice, to be quite contrary to peace and bridge building. Quite a bit of evidence of support of the ongoing hostilities and calls for the destruction of Israel as well.
A history of building monuments to conquests and victories.
There is no proven need for additional mosques, or that the existing ones do not service the Muslim community adequately. A $100 million is quite a bit to spend on a “bridge” that didn’t seek to extend to our side of the expanse.
The issue then becomes, if it is really and truly not a bridge at all, but instead a monument to religious victory over us, should the “right” to build upon the ashes and rubble of our losses trump the ugly intent?
Leftists, including this administration and their followers suggest that it does.
We must trumpet our tolerance by allowing the celebration of the murders of our countrymen.
Some on the left suggest that doing that very thing is precisely akin to allowing the Nazi Party to march in Skokie, past the homes and sad faces of Holocaust survivors and their families.
Allowing them to march in Skokie, a deliberately provocative act, celebrates our tolerance by allowing them to celebrate their intolerance.
But, this is different. They are wrong. This was an act of war committed on our soil. And a PERMANENT recruiting base for our sworn enemies, placed on the involuntary graves of our innocents, is not an act of tolerance, it is an act of submission and surrender.
Muslims worldwide ululated and passed out candy at the moment of their deaths. I knew two girls in those buildings who worked for Marsh. That act of celebration was cruel and inhuman.
I have weighed and measured this situation and find not one thing that suggests someone wishes to build a bridge that extends a hand in friendship to our side. It is a farce. My tolerance extends as far as the bridge does.
Worship as you wish, practice any religion that espouses goodness and kindness to others. However, in America we allow for diversity, not by force.
Your request to rub our noses in your victory is denied. Please find another, more suitable place to build any bridges you like. We will be there to extend any hand that comes to us in friendship, but we aren’t buying any snake oil today.
Any Democrat who disagrees…should have the courage to stand by his convictions, from this day until election day. We always will listen to reason. And vote our consciences.
Leftists need to pick a side. On second thought, they already have. They always have. It’s time to vote as though we recognize that fact.
Well said. Add to that, we continue to recover remains of the dead at Ground Zero. It is hallowed ground and should be treated as such. The Muslims pushing this mosque know this and don’t care. No one should demand we tolerate the intolerable, or the intolerant.
cfbleachers:
Thank you. There is great power in truth.
No American president is going to prohibit the building of a Church, Mosque, Temple, or other religious place of worship as long as building and Zoning are met. Thinking otherwise is blind to guarantee’s of the Constitution and American Way of life. President Bush would have done / said pretty much the same President Obama did, its dishonest to believe otherwise.
What should be done is allow the mosque to be approved, as well as strip clubs, BBQ joints, Butcher shops, adult book stores and other wholesome consumer staples in the same neighborhood. Lots of pork, lots of skin, its all good.
When you are tolerant of intolerance. The result will be less tolerance overall. Is that really so complicated to understand?
You are defeating the very thing you are promoting. The end result will be LESS pork and less skin. So it’s NOT all good, okay. If Muslims were in charge there would be NO pork or skin anywhere in sight.
The purpose of the article is not to say that mosques should not be build. But to demand that Muslims show the same tolerance towards other cultures.
“This is the most tolerant society in the world, the most multiracial and richest in religious diversity — and the most critical of its exceptional tolerance and the most lax in pointing out the intolerance of the least diverse and liberal. ”
America’s tolerance fetish derives directly from federal hostile workplace law. The workplace will be tolerant or your company will be sued. To prevent that, you will be Tolerant, or you will be fired.
You know what, I don’t wanna be tolerant. I think stoning women because they have been raped is sick and disgusting. If you believe that, you are an idiot. …. But I can’t say this, because if I do, the hate-filled Tolerance Fascists will get me fired.
Here’s a question for you. If the United States Government had been taken over by a hostile power, how would anything be different? Our current government has violated and undermined fundamental contract law – the very foundation of property rights and of the capitalist system – and taken over American automobile manufacturers and stiffed the bondholders? Major leaders of our government (and it’s supporters in the media) have – in the middle of two wars – publicly and regularly announced that a) the war was lost; b) we had gone to war illegitimately on grounds of enriching our ‘oil buddies’; c) regularly released secret, classified information detailing our efforts to track terrorist threats to us, financial or otherwise and d) accused our soldiers of acting like Nazi’s and the Khmer Rouge? Our government belatedly sends reinforcements to a faltering effort in Afghanistan and then announces to all the world that they will be leaving in a little over a year making the whole exercise somewhat pointless – and worse, encouraging our enemies. Our government takes a health care system that is the envy of the world and completely upends it – without so much as reading the replacement plan – in order to provide ‘coverage’ for…is it 47 million….or 30 million….or 13 million? I can’t keep track – and more importantly, the government can’t either – but at the end everyone will be pulled down to a bare subsistence level of care at an extinction level financial cost far exceeding what it is today. Our government not only refuses to enforce our borders but takes active, punitive action against a state that tries to do it in its stead. Our government welcomes a victory monument being built upon the site of the most heinous and murderous act ever perpetrated on American soil – worse than Pearl Harbor, which surprise attack or not, was waged against military forces capable of defending themselves – not against flight attendants and secretaries and financial advisors armed with nothing but their innocence and good will. I could continue but my question is how and in what ways would a hostile power act any differently than our current government? And let me further define that government because all of the above results come from the efforts of one party, the Democrat Party. The Democratic Party was once populated by honorable, patriotic men – JFK, Hubert Humphrey, Henry ‘Scoop’ Jackson, Sam Nunn, Zell Miller. All those men are gone and the last remaining vestige of honor was driven out of that party when Joe Lieberman as challenged and thrown out – by that same party. So again, I ask the question….
how would any of this be different if we were occupied by a hostile power? The answer is not much of an enigma to me.
” If the United States Government had been taken over by a hostile power, how would anything be different? ”
What do you mean ” if ” ?
This hyper-criticism and intolerance of us will never end until there are no white Christian heterosexual men left in any position of power in the United States. This is what is truly despised.
The enigma is that so many of the above are working feverishly to aid and hasten this.
Oh please…
I’m a white Christian conservative male, but I find the attitudes of US conservatives – the violently expressed, ignorant, intolerant, prideful attitudes so often expressed on Pajamas Media – absolutely disgusting.
Hardly a moment goes by someone on this site isn’t calling for the nuclear annihilation of ‘enemy’ societies (that in many cases have done nothing towards you except criticise you), or the removal of rights of Muslims, violent uprising against parties in power you didn’t vote for, and so on.
Repugnant, you’re an embarrassment to conservatives everywhere. Don’t start bleating that you’re victims as well!
America will never become as great as she can be until white, christian, heterosexual men leave power, relinquish their control over other races, and embrace the cultures of the new immigrants populating this land. I will attempt to provide some insight and guidance as to how I view things. An understanding of the true meaning of Jihad as spiritual struggle is essential in understanding Islam from the inside.
Please don’t generalize about 1 Billion Muslims based on what some people did over one thousand years ago.
Such generalizations are the stuff of persecution and genocide. The world has seen enough of that against all peoples.
Its obvious that the elite, male, anglo hierarchy is impotent at this point and juncture. Kindly step aside so that your brown skin brethren may provide insight, courage, and leadership. This will take our country to newer and greater heights.
Oh man, that’s beautiful! You’ve perfectly captured a wonderful caricature. I can even visualize the persona that would most likely be spouting such inanities:
- White male (or even female) age 21-35
- Still an Education major or soon to get teaching credential
- Wears hand braces to correct carpal-tunnel flare-ups
- Definitely vegan
- Believes Michael Moore to be a really brave film maker
- “COEXIST” sticker on car bumper
- Wears that familiar petulant smirk of the perpetually indignant.
Many thanks for that. Keep it up
That is absolutely the most racist thing I have ever read. What a load of crap.
That would be your “humble” opinion Mika, so tell us all, in your immutable non-wisdom, when did skin colour determine “insight, courage, and leadership”.
Recent “hurricanes in Haiti”, and “Muslims are our friends. They believe in God, just the way my Jewish and Christian brothers and sisters do” – last time I checked, Mulims believe in Allah.
How do your posts get ok’d by the moderator!?
You know, if we could all sit down, hold hands, close our eyes and visualize world peace, just think how wonderful and quiet it would be until the looting and shooting starts.
Wow. Now you’re going to give us white, Christian males guidance and insight?
You ask us not to prejudge 1 billion Muslims, yet you prejudge us. This country was founded by “our type”; the institutions that make it the freest, most dynamic society on Earth were established and maintained by people like us. Now you speak as if we should step aside and allow our “brown-skinned brethren” to take their rightful place in what the founders built?! Actually, that DOES give me some insight…into your worldview.
We’ll see how impotent that contingent of white males is this November, clinging to their guns and religion. We’ve already seen the “newer and greater heights” the Obama Apology Tour is taking us to — not that different from the Muslim Jannahs of Peshawar, Riyadh, Beirut, and Mogadishu. Frankly, we don’t want it, and I bet we’ll fight to resist.
Mika: Kindly move to Zimbabwe. Not only will your professor be proud of you parroting what he/she said, but that you, as a white person, will relenquish your station of privilege and go live among the darker skinned brothers and sisters as a sign of your repentence.
Otherwise use your brain for something other than an Etch a Sketch.
Taking your irrational meanderings in order;
1. At this juncture, the “white, male” power structure of the United States is overwhelmingly composed of people who dislike America at least as much as you apparently do. They long for a “multicultural” society which repudiates Western civilization in toto. In fact, they desire a culture run on “feelings”, which is another word for “not bothering to think first”. You should be happy with those in charge now- they are giving you exactly what you are demanding. And there’s an old saying that goes, “be careful of what you wish for, you might just get it.”
2. I am less concerned about the way the Islamic world behaved a millenium ago than I am about the way it is behaving today. Specifically, how it behaved eight years, eleven months, and 27 days ago. Celebrations and dancing in streets as the WTC towers lay in ruins do not exactly reassure me as to the better angels of Islam’s nature. in fact, they make me wonder if Islam, as a culture, has changed or matured in any meaningful way since the time of their conquest of North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula. My professional assessment, as one trained to deal with people who behave aberrantly, is “no”.
3. You seem to believe that “brown” people are somehow inherently better, smarter, and more “fit to rule” than “white” people. Congratulations; you have conclusively proven that irrational beliefs about ethnic groups are not the exclusive property of those you define as “white”.
4. If you are trying to engage in ironic humor, you should stick to your day job.
clear ether
eon
You’re not the most tolerant society in the world. Far from it.
Australians and New Zealanders who visit America regularly find themselves shocked with the disgusting attitudes of Americans to other races and cultures.
Hey skeezix, go home and don’t come back until after you’ve elected your first Aborigine prime minister. We here are intolerant of Obama the politician, not Obama the man. If Obama suddenly converted into the next Ronald Reagan then we would be singing his praises from here to your rather intolerant front step.
You’re probably right, mate.
Except I’ld like to check with a few aboriginis before agreeing. How many of them are in the ANZ parliaments or CEO’s of corporations down there, or the elected leader of one of those countries?
Just based on your swift and true comment, I’m guessing there must be a ton, right mate?
I regularly find myself shocked at the disgusting visitors from Australia and New Zealand who are allowed to visit this country and be seen in public in broad daylight just as if they were decent, presentable people. A nation that will tolerate that will tolerate anything.
You can have your societal Stockholm Syndrome, Watson. Americans tolerate that which is tolerable. That most certainly does not include an ideology that seeks to subjugate the entire world. Learn a little about what you allow yourself an opinion on and you might find your mind opening.
Is that the same Austrailia that until the 1970s totally banned any non whites from migrating to Austrailia?
Really? So this claim is based on what research? Does some polling organization snare those deplaning from Quantas flights just returned from LAX or JFK?
In short, the great enigma of our postmodern age is how American society grew so wealthy and free to create so many residents that became so angry at the conditions that have made them so privileged…
My understanding is that Joseph Schumpeter, the eminent economist with whom the phrase “creative destruction” is associated, predicted that the very success of capitalism would breed a class of intellectuals that would destroy it. That process seems well underway and IMHO our enigma is how to contain or reverse it. (The Chinese may have found a solution–at the expense of democratic values and human rights.)
#54 Marcus touched on my thoughts. Yes, many of us are spoiled, by having a security we never worked for, which has never been threatened. But a key, to me, is the rejection of authority, in rejecting the Christian faith that was part & parcel of our foundation (and upon which our personal security used to rest). I’m not saying one God is better than another, I’m saying to reject the authority of God leaves us humans with the authority. The left rejects the God pertinent to our culture. Other “Gods” are OK, because they don’t have authority over us.
So the responsibility to define the “perfect” devolves upon them, and because they believe society is perfectible, BY THEM, they try to change society. They make excuses for and try to redefine human nature, reach for impossible ideals, and contradict their own ideals daily in trying to achieve them. They endow their heroes with godlike traits, after which the cult is crushed when he falls short.
Egotistical grandiosity is not new, very old historically, and very dangerous.
Has anyone else noticed that now that we can see and listen to Sarah Palin we begin to understand why the left is so terrified of her? She has shown more guts and intelligence and most important honesty about our current situation than any of the other candidates who might step forward in 2012. I say, that she is like Joan of Arc. What I mean by that is that she is showing those among us who are willing to fight that yes, we can win and that if necessary,she is willing to lead us.
To a certain segment of Americans, the factors that make this country what it is, are simply background noise. It’s there, but it’s below the level of perception.
It’s like electricity. No one even thinks about it, or how much our lives depend upon it, until there’s a blackout.
VDH
the excuses and apologies people have been making for obama are starting to get tired.
obama has done what his mentors …communists / socialist / progressives have said they wanted to do.
obama and his band of merry clowns are and will continue to destroy the individual freedoms that made the USA the beacon to the world. of all the things that make people better it is the right to individual freedom that makes all the difference and that is why all the policies are to undermine that one thing.
it really is the only thing that makes the difference between the USA and Russia or North Korea etc.
To answer the question; because tolerance, like free speech, can be used as a weapon. One can hide behind the words to advance an agenda, free speech becoming libel on occasion but defended on spurious grounds. Tolerance it self becoming quite selective,as we see with the mosque issue, and from the same people who despise Christianity, American liberals.
As Hayek pointed out first you destroy the language, as Lewis Carrol pointed out, “words mean what I want them to mean, no more no less”.
“tolerance is a crime when applied to evil”
-Thomas Mann
There might as well be NO solution. America was the solution three hundred years ago and a couple fat, dumb and happy generations turned into the same swamp our forefathers died to defeat.
The problem is NOT political. It is spiritual. We look at the left and what they do and believe and know that many are evil and the rest deluded to the point of insanity. Christ didn’t deal with insanity. He dealt with demonic possession. The prince of Darkness has this world now firmly in his control and the whirlwind is on the horizon coming our way.
‘The World’ is lost. Always has been. Know The Christ and find the mind to understand actual reality. What is really going on in this life.
Look up for your redemption draws near. Pray for your loved ones in darkness. Perhaps you might manage to salvage a few. Pray that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Forsake your false hope that the next national election will make a darn’s worth of difference. Go ahead and vote. Do the right thing. But this society is way too far gone to turn around. It would take a civil war and conflagration beyond measure or grasp and we are not the folks to accomplish such a thing.
mika,
You fail to understand that the moderate muslims you think are the norm are apostate. Any one of their offspring can be converted into a murderous madman at any time by an imam and a group of like minded killers. The religion is a death cult. It is not to be respected as a ‘world religion’. It is the greatest disease ever inflicted upon the mind of man. It makes Hitler and the nazis appear as childish amateurs.
Mika,
What are you? About 14 and in a lefty private prep school? Or did you get here in a time machine from 1969? I didn’t think even the ‘professional left’ was as daft as you appear to be these days.
Just which type of men and women of color do you aspire to be lead by? Mao the yellow skinned murderer of dozens of millions? Castro the brown skinned little napoleon of Cuba? Mugabe? Idi Amin? (sp?) Pol Pot? Maybe the Zeta gang on our southern border? You might like the mullahs of Iran but then they are pretty pale. Maybe the wahabis of Saudi. They’re much darker.
Mika, men are men. People are the same the world over. Their capacities for murder and mayhem are limitless.
The world you think would be a better place would be total chaos. If you can’t see this you are not looking.
Scot, your comparison of Mika to a 14 year old is disrespectful to kids that age… Mika is not that advanced.
For those who question who I am, I have no problem answering it. Of course I’m a practicing Jew — I’m a Hebrew and an Israeli national! As to what sect I belong to, it is the “sect” that comprises 90% of the Jewish population — the secular “sect”.
I totally respect the Jewish population of New York. But it is very segregated, not just geographically, but from the hearts, thoughts, and minds of Islam. These New Yorkers, for all practical purposes, are people who live in their own bubble, and frankly nobody else in the United States really cares what they think. That includes me. So, again, let me reiterate that, so that even you can understand.
For those who question my views, I believe in freedom. The proposed mosque is a freedom of choice of the people who follow the Muslim faith. As I recall, there is a huge cathedral called St. Patricks in Manhattan, is there not? I don’t recall anyone protesting when that was built, but let another faith try to build their own house of worship, and the you-know-what hits the fan. It’s just like the United States giving aid to Israel, and having to send troops to the Middle East to defend Israel. I might not agree with the war in Afghanistan, but I recognize how the U.S. must help Israel, its long-term partner and ally. I have no right to interfere with America doing charitable deeds, even if I believe it promotes dependence. I am free as an individual to not give to charities, but not free to interfere with others who want to give to those in need. It all adds up if you’re intelligent enough to understand and perceive reality for what it is, and care about truth, justice, freedom, and liberty. C’mon people, give peace a chance.
Lastly, do you even understand the concept of freedom? Or do you think you should be able to decide for others?
Choose life! L’Chaim! Shalom!
Wonderful response to something other than the issue at hand.
Since you are obviously intelligent, it is quite clear that you willfully ignore the real problem.
Moreover, wrapping an argument in the principles of your opponents is deceiptful, not insightful.
I feel sorry for people like you.
Lives wasted.
My post # 64 needs another sentence … or clause. It should read:
… accomplish such a thing and besides, despite what you think, the good guys are vastly outnumbered.