So--not surprisingly--the US Senate cancels scheduled hearings on repealing DADT:
WASHINGTON (AFP) – A planned November hearing by the US Senate Armed Services Committee to consider ending a ban on gays serving openly in the US military will be postponed, a spokeswoman indicated Friday.
"We do not have a date" for the hearing, said the aide, Tara Andringa.
No details on the maneuverings, but I have it confirmed that current Provost and Academic VP of DSU, Dr Harry Williams, has been announced as DSU's next President.
In my (always humble) opinion, the best choice available to them.
Good luck, Dr Williams. I look forward to working with you in your new role.
... which he cast as if given in a speech by President Obama:
1. We have no partner in Afghanistan. The control of the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai hardly extends beyond the embattled capital of Kabul. He himself has just been returned to office in a presidential election in which voting fraud on an almost unimaginably large scale was the order of the day. His administration is believed to have lost all credibility with the Afghan people.
2. Afghanistan floats in a culture of corruption. This includes President Karzai’s administration up to its highest levels and also the warlords who control various areas and, like the Taliban insurgency, are to some degree dependent for their financing on opium, which the country produces in staggering quantities. Afghanistan, in fact, is not only a narco-state, but the leading narco-state on the planet.
3. Despite billions of dollars of American money poured into training the Afghan security forces, the army is notoriously understrength and largely ineffective; the police forces are riddled with corruption and held in contempt by most of the populace.
4. The Taliban insurgency is spreading and gaining support largely because the Karzai regime has been so thoroughly discredited, the Afghan police and courts are so ineffective and corrupt, and reconstruction funds so badly misspent. Under these circumstances, American and NATO forces increasingly look like an army of occupation, and more of them are only likely to solidify this impression.
5. Al-Qaeda is no longer a significant factor in Afghanistan. The best intelligence available to me indicates — and again, whatever their disagreements, all my advisors agree on this — that there may be perhaps 100 al-Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan and another 300 in neighboring Pakistan. As I said in March, our goal has been to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and on this we have, especially recently, been successful. Osama bin Laden, of course, remains at large, and his terrorist organization is still a danger to us, but not a $100 billion-plus danger.
6. Our war in Afghanistan has become the military equivalent of a massive bail-out of a firm determined to fail. Simply to send another 40,000 troops to Afghanistan would, my advisors estimate, cost $40-$54 billion extra dollars; eighty thousand troops, more than $80 billion. Sending more trainers and advisors in an effort to double the size of the Afghan security forces, as many have suggested, would cost another estimated $10 billion a year. These figures are over and above the present projected annual costs of the war — $65 billion — and would ensure that the American people will be spending $100 billion a year or more on this war, probably for years to come. Simply put, this is not money we can afford to squander on a failing war thousands of miles from home.
7. Our all-volunteer military has for years now shouldered the burden of our two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even if we were capable of sending 40,000-80,000 more troops to Afghanistan, they would without question be servicepeople on their second, third, fourth, or even fifth tours of duty. A military, even the best in the world, wears down under this sort of stress and pressure.
... because I think that I might actually have a shot there.
The incumbent has been so ineffective as to be virtually invisible on the issues that matter to Delaware.
He (or she, I could never tell) needs to go.
My platform is simple:
1) I promise to triple the number of jobs created or saved in the district under the current stimulus programs.
2) I promise to double the number of people in the district receiving Medicaid benefits, even if that means providing completely free health insurance to some people now paying for it, just to hit my targets.
3) I am calling for the dsitrict to receive three times as much beach replenishment funding as it received last year.
4) I am not Mike Protack.
5) I am a firm believer in term limits, so I will pledge not to serve any more terms in the House of Representatives that necessary for me to supplement my State retirement with a Federal plan of equal or greater value.
6) Oh, and I'm not Colin Bonini, either.
and, finally:
7) I have a bumper sticker that is not lifted from the Old Testament:
OK, it's tacky, and not really funny (neither were those T-shirts proclaiming that GHW Bush had wished that his wife had had an abortion before the nationa had an abortion for president), but is it really a reason to throw out the Old Testament?
Delawaredem thinks so, first noting that the significance of the Psalm is in Psalm 109:9--the next verse:
“Religious” conservatives have a new slogan that they are putting on bumper stickers and t-shirts.
“Pray for Obama: Psalm 109:8″
What does Psalm 109:8 say?
“Let his days be few; and let another take his office.”
Well, that’s not bad. They are just praying for Obama to be replaced as President. Hey, I wanted Bush gone as President too, through his impeachment for war crimes. But let’s read the next verse that follows Psalm 109:8 which “religious” conservatives all so cleverly leave off the t-shirts and bumper stickers.
“Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.”
So, it is pretty obvious that anyone repeating, wearing, or using this slogan “Pray for Obama: Psalm 109:8″ is actually calling for the President’s death in some form. And they want him to die sooner rather than later.
No, today I will turn my ire against the Old Testament of the Bible, the text that provides these “religious” conservatives with their murderous ideas in the first place. Let me ask you a question.
Has any other book been responsible for more death and destruction over the last 5,000 years that this one?
All sorts of depravity are justified by its text. Slavery, genocide, and murder. To this day, David Anderson opposes homosexuality simply because the Old Testament says it is an abomination. To this day, people use its text to justify their wrongful behavior. Revenge is justified by the Old Testament. Discrimination is justified by the Old Testament. Hatred is justified by the Old Testament.
Have any of you ever read the Old Testament from cover to cover?
So if you believe that Old Testament is still relevant today, you believe in a God that is giant dick, who condones and actually encourages murder, slavery and genocide, who believes that some of His own children that He created in His own image are actually abominations destined for eternal flame. I am content to follow the New Testament and his commandment that we love rather than hate each other. But I suppose if your political ideology rests on hatred, it is useless [sic] to have the Old Testament around.
Yeah, something I did not think about in writing this is the Jewish faith, which is based on the Torah, which is the Old Testament. Indeed, I write this from a perspective of being a New Testament follower.
The difference I think between Jews and Evangelicals is interpretation. Evangelicals take the Old Testament literally. And from my experience with my Jewish friends, the Jewish faith and people do not. Certainly the Jewish faith does not believe in genocide and slavery. Other aspects of the Old Testament that I speak of you will have to address with respect to the Jewish faith.
But I am certainly not intending to invite the destruction of the Jewish people when I say throw out the Old Testament.
1 O God, whom I praise,
do not remain silent,
2 for wicked and deceitful men
have opened their mouths against me;
they have spoken against me with lying tongues.
3 With words of hatred they surround me;
they attack me without cause.
4 In return for my friendship they accuse me,
but I am a man of prayer.
5 They repay me evil for good,
and hatred for my friendship.
6 Appoint [a] an evil man [b] to oppose him;
let an accuser [c] stand at his right hand.
7 When he is tried, let him be found guilty,
and may his prayers condemn him.
8 May his days be few;
may another take his place of leadership.
9 May his children be fatherless
and his wife a widow.
10 May his children be wandering beggars;
may they be driven [d] from their ruined homes.
11 May a creditor seize all he has;
may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.
12 May no one extend kindness to him
or take pity on his fatherless children.
13 May his descendants be cut off,
their names blotted out from the next generation.
14 May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the LORD;
may the sin of his mother never be blotted out.
15 May their sins always remain before the LORD,
that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth.
16 For he never thought of doing a kindness,
but hounded to death the poor
and the needy and the brokenhearted.
17 He loved to pronounce a curse—
may it [e] come on him;
he found no pleasure in blessing—
may it be [f] far from him.
18 He wore cursing as his garment;
it entered into his body like water,
into his bones like oil.
19 May it be like a cloak wrapped about him,
like a belt tied forever around him.
20 May this be the LORD's payment to my accusers,
to those who speak evil of me.
21 But you, O Sovereign LORD,
deal well with me for your name's sake;
out of the goodness of your love, deliver me.
22 For I am poor and needy,
and my heart is wounded within me.
23 I fade away like an evening shadow;
I am shaken off like a locust.
24 My knees give way from fasting;
my body is thin and gaunt.
25 I am an object of scorn to my accusers;
when they see me, they shake their heads.
26 Help me, O LORD my God;
save me in accordance with your love.
27 Let them know that it is your hand,
that you, O LORD, have done it.
28 They may curse, but you will bless;
when they attack they will be put to shame,
but your servant will rejoice.
29 My accusers will be clothed with disgrace
and wrapped in shame as in a cloak.
30 With my mouth I will greatly extol the LORD;
in the great throng I will praise him.
31 For he stands at the right hand of the needy one,
to save his life from those who condemn him.
In his marvelous book, Reflections on the Psalms, C.S. Lewis observed:In some of the Psalms the spirit of hatred which strikes us in the face is like the heat from a furnace mouth. In others the same spirit ceases to be frightful only by becoming (to a modern mind) almost comic in its naivety. Examples can be found all over the Psalter, but perhaps the worst is in 109 (p. 20).
Lewis suspects that it may be best to leave such psalms alone. But then he says that we must face “facts squarely.”The hatred is there — festering, gloating, undisguised — and also we should be wicked if we in any way condoned or approved it, or (worse still) used it to justify similar passions in ourselves (p. 22).
Lewis refers to these psalms as horrible, devilish, cruel, hateful, and evil. He believes that Psalm 109 — and the poetry of its kind in the psalter — should point us back to the evil we carry within and teach us each how to behave with goodness, humility, and love.
The psalm writers clearly have no qualms complaining to God about their pain.
"These are people that believe God cares about their pain and suffering enough that in order to relieve you, God will kill the enemy," she said. "The psalmist isn't just expressing pain, he wants something done about it. The prayer is: `God, kill my enemy.'"
Psalm 109 calls for curses upon the enemy: "May his days be few; may another seize his goods! May his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow! May his children wander about and beg; may they be driven out of the ruins they inhabit! May the creditor seize all that he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his toil! Let there be none to extend kindness to him, nor any to pity his fatherless children!"
In Psalm 58, the writer calls for the enemy to be punished: "The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance; he will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked."
The bad guys are portrayed as deserving of big-time vengeance.
"This is very bellicose literature," Cottrill said. "It's very violent. They are asking God to go kill their enemy."...
She finds them to be starkly different in worldview from the modern religious sensibilities of Jews and Christians.
"Most mainstream religious people do not think of God as a religious warrior," she said. "The psalmists did. To them, God is all-powerful, but God is also very personal, very close. They definitely feel they have access. Sometimes they barter with God, saying, `If I die as a result of this suffering, who is going to praise you?' That's a pretty bold view."
As Peter C. Craigie suggests, these "expressions of vindictiveness and hatred" cannot be "purified" simply because they are in Scripture, and they are the psalmist's "natural reactions" to evil and pain, and "the sentiments are in themselves evil." The sentiments may also be understood as a product of the limited perspective of the psalmist being an OT believer. William L. Holladay points out that the imprecations exhibit "a very different spirit" from the one set forth in the NT, partly because the OT understands the human nature as "the undivided self," and the psalmists are "wrong about the location of evil," not distinguishing the sinner from sin.
It is notoriously difficult to preach on the Psalms. Some think, moreover, that it is inappropriate to try because the Psalms have a different, quite distinct function in the liturgy....
The Psalms are poems of particularity and must not be treated as a generic statement about the human condition. These are the words, tried and tested, by persons in a particular community and pertain only to those persons in that community. At the outset the preacher must resist privatized interpretation.
The ones who speak here are Israelites who carry with them and bring to expression the long experience and the myriad of remembered texts concerning their life with God. The Psalter belongs in the OT and is surrounded by ancient memories of rescue, treasured accounts of miracles and promises from God, durable commands that have been variously honored and violated, and hopes awaiting fruition. The Psalms are “thick” in the sense that all this accumulated poignant reality is present in the utterance of the Psalms; and the preacher must attend to all that thickness.
As Christians, of course, we cannot give our voice to such cursing. Jesus has very clearly told us that we must love our enemies and bless, not curse, those who despitefully use us. But that does not mean the Old Testament curses are bad or without value. In them, if we know what we are looking for, we see outrage at evil in chemical purity and know it as a gift of God. For righteous anger is not sin if we use it as God intended: as fuel for the engine of moral action. Anger only becomes a sin when we do not put it in the gas tank of action, but instead pour it on ourselves and others and set it on fire. Then it consumes us. The use of anger, like the use of gasoline, is not to bathe in it and drink it, but to turn its energy toward pursuing the redemptive, active love of God.
The staggering depravity that provoked the curses of our Jewish ancestors (and our own curses above) deserves cold, implacable hatred. It is the only decent response of a child of God. But our hatred must be directed at the sin, not the sinner.
Nose-spur warning: put down the coffee.
[h/t Kids Prefer Cheese]
There appears to be some sort of basic human compulsion that urges us to (a) amass wealth; (b) build larger and larger, increasingly hierarchical organizations; and (c) control other people's behavior even when said behaviors do not represent a threat to us.
Otherwise I am at a loss to explain the reality of modern society that corporations spend their time attempting to emulate the worst abuses of the State, while simultaneously courting the State to provide them with special status and structural advantages over their smaller competitors.
It intrigues me--and, quite frankly, disappoints me--that many if not most libertarians fail to see the reality that corporations do not represent the free market in action, but actually represent the overt use of anti-competitive State powers to distort the markets in their favor.
Corporate owners enjoy State protection from personal liability for the use of force or fraud.
Corporations enjoy due process rights as artificial persons equal to those guaranteed to US citizens.
Corporations never have to face the issue of inheritance because they are functionally immortal.
Corporations lobby the government for special tax breaks, tax credits, tariff protections, environmental waivers, anti-trust exemptions, and other welfare benefits not available to citizens or small businesses.
Corporations that manage to become "too big to fail" become entitled to life support taken from our tax dollars.
Senior corporate managers enjoy a virtual swinging door relationship with the segments of the government designed to regulate their activity, many moving into and out of those positions [complete with their stock options] every time the White House changes hands.
Corporations often actually lobby for forms of regulation that will suffocate their smaller competition, while being bearable for an organization with hundreds if not thousands of employees.
Corporations willingly accept the role as tax collector/whore for the State.
My point--between the Military/Industrial Complex, the Heatlh Insurance/Pharma Complex, and the other various forms of corporate governance.
Don't get me wrong: I do not favor the idea of simply expanding government regulatory powers in order to have one Leviathan replaced by another.
But at the same time it is important to realize that protecting corporations is far from protecting the free market.
Judge Andrew Napolitano is one of the most passionate, articulate, and unflappable advocates of liberty and limited government around today...
He is the author of 2007's A Nation of Sheep, as well as The Constitution in Exile: How the Federal Government Has Seized Power by Rewriting the Supreme Law of the Land.
Kiss Your Freedoms Goodbye If Health Care Passes
Why we cannot afford to sit out this fight
Andrew Napolitano November 16, 2009
Congress recognizes no limits on its power. It doesn't care about the Constitution, it doesn't care about your inalienable rights. If this health care bill becomes law, America, life as you have known it, freedom as you have exercised it, and privacy as you have enjoyed it will cease to be.Last week the House of Representatives voted on a 2,000 page bill to give the federal government the power to micromanage the health care of every single American. The bill will raise your taxes, steal your freedom, invade your privacy, and ration your health care.
Even the Republicans have introduced their version of Obamacare Lite. It, too, if passed, will compel employers to provide coverage, bribe the states to change their court rules, and tell insurance companies whom to insure.
We do not have two political parties in this country, America. We have one party; called the Big Government Party. The Republican wing likes deficits, war, and assaults on civil liberties. The Democratic wing likes wealth transfer, taxes, and assaults on commercial liberties. Both parties like power; and neither is interested in your freedoms.
Think about it. Government is the negation of freedom. Freedom is your power and ability to follow your own free will and your own conscience. The government wants you to follow the will of some faceless bureaucrat.
When I recently asked Congressman James Clyburn, the third ranking Democrat in the House, to tell me "Where in the Constitution the federal government is authorized to regulate everyone's healthcare," he replied that most of what Congress does is not authorized by the Constitution, but they do it anyway.
There you have it. Congress recognizes no limits on its power. It doesn't care about the Constitution, it doesn't care about your inalienable rights, it doesn't care about the liberties protected by the Bill of Rights, it doesn't even read the laws it writes.
America, this is not an academic issue. If this health care bill becomes law, life as you have known it, freedom as you have exercised it, privacy as you have enjoyed it, will cease to be. When Congress takes away our freedoms, they will be gone forever.
What will you do to prevent this from happening?
We Can't Sit Back and Allow the Loss of Our Freedoms
We elect the government. It works for us. As we watch the Democrats' plans for health care take shape, we can only ask how did our government get so removed, so unbridled, so arrogant that it can tell us how to live our personal lives?
On Saturday November 7, at 11 o’clock in the evening, the House of Representatives voted by a five vote margin to have the federal government manage the health care of every American at a cost of $1 trillion dollars over the next ten years.
For the first time in American history, if this bill becomes law, the Feds will force you to buy insurance you might not want, or may not need, or cannot afford. If you don’t purchase what the government tells you to buy, if you don’t do so when they tell you to do it, and if you don’t buy just what they say is right for you, the government may fine you, prosecute you, and even put you in jail.
Freedom of choice and control over your own body will be lost. The privacy of your communications and medical decision making with your physician will be gone. More of your hard earned dollars will be at the disposal of federal bureaucrats.
It was not supposed to be this way. Evil rarely comes upon us all at once, and liberty is rarely lost in one stroke. It happens gradually, over the years and decades and even centuries. A little stretch here, a cave in there, powers are slowly taken from the states and the people and before you know it, we have one big monster government that recognizes no restraint on its ability to tell us how to live. It claims the power to regulate any activity, tax any behavior, and demand conformity to any standard it chooses.
[Sort of reminds of a certain leftist hive we all know 'round here.]
The Founders did not give us a government like the one we have today. The government they gave us was strictly limited in its scope, guaranteed individual liberty, preserved the free market, and on matters that pertain to our private behavior was supposed to leave us alone.
In the Constitution, the Founders built in checks and balances. If the Congress got out of hand, the states would restrain it. If the states stole liberty or property, the Congress would cure it. If the president tried to become a king, the courts would prevent it.
In the next few weeks, I will be giving a public class on Constitutional Law here on the Fox News Channel, on the Fox Business Network, on Foxnews.com, and on Fox Nation. In anticipation of that, many of you have asked:
What can we do now about the loss of freedom? For starters, we can vote the bums out of their cushy federal offices! We can persuade our state governments to defy the Feds in areas like health care—where the Constitution gives the Feds zero authority.
We can petition our state legislatures to threaten to amend the Constitution to abolish the income tax, return the selection of U.S. senators to state legislatures, and nullify all the laws the Congress has written that are not based in the Constitution.
One thing we can’t do is just sit back and take it.
"Listen! And understand! That government is out there. It can't be bargained with! It can't be reasoned with! It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead!"or this one :
"First they came for the uninsured, but I did nothing because I had insurance..."
"Napolitano is spot-on, and he doesn't even address the meta-political effects of Stalinized health care, namely that this will forever shift the terms of the debate in a way that will turn today's Republicans into today's Democrats (just witness the R's breathless defense of Medicare in the current debate) and will allow the Democrats to move even further left.Once Obamacare proves to be ineffective in controlling costs and delivering services, as it inevitably will, the Left will demand we spread the decay of nationalization to health care's feeder industries. The Blob will spread, and our liberty will die a slow death."
Sometimes it doesn't take paragraphs of analysis to get the point across.
From Politics Daily:
Half a million Americans have served two 12-month tours in Iraq or Afghanistan; 70,000 have served three combat tours; and 20,000 have served five or more deployments, according to Defense Department data.
Soccer-induced fatigue rendered me incapable of producing any posts for nearly two days. No, not me: my daughter's team, the Western Family YMCA Bandits, won the statewide Kohl's Cup Tournament for rec leagues on Sunday, going 4-0-2. My daughter (who would like you all to know that she has not been infected with that libertarian thing) plays goal and allowed exactly zero goals in six games. [The Bandits also won the regular season in their league, due in no small part to her .33 goals against average.]
The weather was wonderful this year, but then--moments after winning--we had to rush out to the Charter School of Wilmington open house [for both of the twins]. This is high-school shopping season in Delaware, where choice and charter combine to produce a cross between selecting a college and a sorority/fraternity rush experience. It's kind of like speed-dating with high-school teachers.
So I've been a bit behind in everything, and--frankly--I'm still exhausted. So here are some quick notes.
If all goes as planned (and the plan changed several times last week), I will make my inaugural appearance in the pages of the News Journal as a member of the Community Advisory Board, with an editorial regarding Delaware State Unversity and the State budget. It will be interesting, because while I don't let it all hang out, there will be several lines to make some insiders (maybe even some Trustees) cringe.
I note with almost filial pride that my old friend of thirty-plus years, Waldo, has at least briefly captured the status of Number One political blog in South Carolina, according to Blognet News. The big swinging bloggers of the Palmetto State (most of whom are GOPers) keep trying to figure out who the hell he is. For them, three absolutely useless clues: F. A. Mignet; people Will Rogers never met; and Six's Circus.
Over at Alphecca, Jeff has the best line of the week, whether you agree with his political prediction or not. Forecasting disaster for the Democrats, he suggests that in 2010, they are going to get stomped like a narc at a biker rally.
The local winner in that category is donviti, at his new digs, The Wage Slave: Big business rules in Delaware and like helpless date rape victims we allow the criminals to continue their deviant behavior year after year after year.
On the other hand, David Anderson has the scariest straight [and I mean that in the most humble, Biblical way] line of the week, referring to the recent Oprah interview of Our Lady of Wasilla: It is Sarah Palin at the top of her game. Sarah has game? No shit? The nicest thing I can think to say about Sarah these days is that she is the Wayne Root of the GOP, but with better legs and plucked eyebrows.
Meanwhile, in my wife's hometown, the University of Rochester (NY) has discovered what may be the key to non-macho-behaving little boys in ... their mothers' urine. Yeah. Uh, seriously.
And on that relatively substance-free note, it's off to bed. Real content tomorrow. Lunch will be free then as well.
As much as I like Jeff, who blogs at Alphecca, he's way off the deep in with this obvious comparison of the Obama administration's initiatives and Hitler's Nazis in Austria and Germany, as presented by Kitty Werthmann in North Dakota.
Werthmann, who lived in Austria during the Nazi regime, delivered a blistering comparison between what happened under the Nazis and what is supposedly happening today under the current administration.
Here are a few excerpts:
Once the Nazis took control, the people no longer voted for government positions anymore; all positions down to the local level were filled by appointment.
In the interest of a supposedly more efficient government, the Nazis decided to centralize all government between Germany and Austria.
Hitler nationalized (socialized) the banks, health care, automobile production, education, and more....
Werthmann said Hitler expanded “equal rights” for women, which resulted in far more women going out into the work force. The government created state-run child care and began molding the minds of children at a very young age.
Austria had private health care prior to the Nazis, and the quality was good. But the government took over the health care system, and when health care became “free” the doctors quickly became overloaded by frivolous use of the system. Surgeries of a more important nature, however, had waiting lists of about 18 months because of all the “hypochondriacs” abusing the system.
Werthmann said that if a doctor prescribed a medicine not on the government-approved list, the government would take the cost of the medicine out of the doctor’s salary.
Welfare became a “huge apparatus,” said Werthmann. Everyone had access to subsidized housing, food stamps, heating subsidies and many other benefits until everyone–regardless of salary–reached the prescribed standard of living.
“That’s called socialism,” she said. Werthmann cited the exchange between Joe the Plumber and Presidential Candidate Obama about “spreading the wealth” as a sign that it’s already begun here.
Austrians were looking to Germany where they saw prosperity and law and order, while they had near anarchy in their own country. With only a border between them, speaking the same language and having a similar culture, they believed the promise of prosperity from Adolf Hitler. Politically in their country, on one side was the National Socialist Party (Nazi) and the other was the Communist Party.
The communists were growing stronger as a party because of their promises, as well. When the country had to decide between Nazis and Communists, most of the people came to the realization they were a country with a Christian background and could not bring themselves to vote for the atheistic communists. Austria voted the Nazi Party in to power.
One of the hallmarks of the current American political discourse is ossification: you can no longer seriously grapple with issues, because to be seen even considering a possible change in thinking is a sign of weakness and betrayal.
The initial responses to my last post on the radicalization of American politics in response to the Fort Hood massacre is a case in point: an anti-abortion proponent jumped right in to essentially disavow the existentance of radicalized anti-abortion groups, implying that I had said there were only radicalized anti-abortion groups.
The comment cites the case of Abby Johnson as a non-violent anti-abortion activist who is being harassed by a Planned Parenthood gag order, leaving out two salient facts made clear with the link provided in the comment: (1) Johnson is not prohibited from protesting, just talking about confidential medical and staff information; and (2) it would be illegal for her to share confidential patient health information in the first place.
Of course there are legitimate anti-abortion groups, but there are also homicidal nutcases out there, with web pages, mailing lists, and apparently plenty of people will call the killing of physicians justifiable homicide.
Likewise, the commenter suggested that the difference between anti-abortion groups and Islam is that identification with Islam is a much greater predictor of violence:
However, the laundry list of people snapping, and murdering or attempting to murder others in the name of radical Islam, happens more frequently with larger, more organized incidents on an almost quarterly basis.
There is documented evidence that radical Islam imams openly advocate the murder of non believers, Americans, and U.S. soldiers. These imams reach hundreds, not a just a handful of followers.
To note: despite Hube's characterization, in the only post I have written about Fort Hood, I described Major Hasan as a lone-wolf terrorist.
By lone wolf I mean that there is currently no evidence that his massacre at Fort Hood was ordered by, directly supported by, or part of the specific agenda of any given group. He attended a radical mosque, he attempted contact with Al Qaeda, he became more overtly radical--but there still seem to be the primary characteristics of a lone wolf about him. Obviously, new data could change that interpretation.
By terrorist I mean that he committed violence for a specific political/religious/ideological reason, at the very least to encourage other Muslims to do so, and to instill a sense of fear in Americans--especially American soldiers--that they can never be safe from retribution. Those are avowedly political objectives for murdering people who have done nothing except belong to a specific population, and that is the classic definition of terrorism.
The fact that his political objectives for murdering people were the furthering of his view of Islam, and the fact that there is a strong congruency between his known views and those espoused by radical Islam make it legitimate to call this an act of radical Islamic terrorism.
The fact that he is possibly also batshit nuts does not invalidate any of the preceding: he was in the legal sense of the word an effective moral actor because his crime was not only premeditated but very carefully planned.
Shorter: the 9/11 hijackers were also batshit nuts, but that doesn't mean they weren't terrorists.
[In fact, batshit nuts may be a terrorist job requirement.]
Having said that, let's think about the Murderer at Fort Hood in tandem with the following cases:
The anti-abortion murderer of Dr George Tiller;
The white supremacist who committed murder at the Holocaust Museum;
The guy in Pittsburgh who murdered several cops because he thought President Obama was going to take his guns.
[You will note that I am not using their names; I spit on all of them by refusing to use their names--the Fort Hood Murderer as well from this point on.]
There is no hard evidence that any of these four killers operated under the direct instructions of a specific group. Did they have relationships--both virtual and personal--with others who shared radicalized views about Islam, abortion, white supremacy, and gun rights? Absolutely.
Were there in all four cases probably indications that we had radicalized and pretty deranged folks out there? You bet.
Now here's the rub:
Were the people who advocate for the causes of radical Islam, radical anti-abortion, radical white supremacy, and radical gun-rights paranoia responsible for their actions?
This is a tough nut for both the Left and the Right because....
If the Right demands that radical Islam [and by extension almost any Muslim] be held accountable for the Fort Hood murderer, then the Right also has to admit a linkage between the radical anti-abortion groups [and by extension all anti-abortion folks] and Dr Tiller's assassin.
But if the Left demands that linkage between the radical anti-abortion groups [and by extension all anti-abortion folks] and Dr Tiller's assassin, then the Left has to admit that radical Islam [and by extension almost any Muslim] should be held accountable for the Fort Hood murderer.
See, you can't have it both ways.
If radicalized speech advocating even theoretical violence is to be held accountable for actual acts of violence by folks who were radicalized but are acting as lone wolf terrorists, then virtually all radicalized speech must be held so accountable, including the radicalized speech of people like Paul Krugman who castigate political opponents as traitors, a word as full of unhidden messages as the description of the GOP as being equivalent to the Taliban.
Likewise, the use of commie is not meant to invoke Karl Marx and a philosophical/political system, but to invoke the image of Stalin and the Great Terror.
The fact is that American political dialogue has become increasingly radicalized in all directions, which I guess is one of the gifts of 9/11. Huh?
Think of it this way: 9/11 forced America into an "us or them" mindset [I'm not saying it wasn't a legitimate response]. The problem is that "us or them" mindsets in foreign policy and world outlook have a way of penetrating into all other areas of your life and discourse.
9/11 shook us to the core: our way of life, some people abruptly realized, could be extinguished. Psychologically speaking, once any threat is identified as that dangerous, all other perceived threats can appear to be equally dangerous, and your political opponents become your ideological oppoonents.
But.... and without having an answer for the world's problems this is as good a place as any to end up....
We are still moral actors and the Murderer of Fort Hood still made a moral choice based on radicalized Islam.
Therefore he is without question all at once an Islamic terrorist, a lone wolf terrorist, and batshit nuts.
Which will satisfy nobody, but if I really cared about that I'd have a larger audience.
I am reminded by the abrupt re-appearance of Pastor Donnie McClurkin, the rabidly anti-gay minister and early Barack Obama supporter, in a series of You-Tube videos chronicling his opinon that gay people are vampires that there is a specific reason why the President does not take any serious action on the issue of civil rights for gay Americans. [We've covered the Obama-McClurkin links here before.]
It's against his religion.
Aside from McClurkin (whose views then-Senator Obama distanced himself from, but whose support he has continued to court and enjoy in a back-channel wa) and anti-gay zealot Rick Warren (to whom the President gave a national platform at his inauguration), there is also the Circle of Five. NYT:
President Obama has been without a pastor or a home church ever since he cut his ties to the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. in the heat of the presidential campaign. But he has quietly cultivated a handful of evangelical pastors for private prayer sessions on the telephone and for discussions on the role of religion in politics.
All are men, two of them white and three black — including the Rev. Otis Moss Jr., a graying lion of the civil rights movement. Two, the entrepreneurial dynamos Bishop T. D. Jakes and the Rev. Kirbyjon H. Caldwell, also served as occasional spiritual advisers to President George W. Bush. Another, the Rev. Jim Wallis, leans left on some issues, like military intervention and poverty programs, but opposes abortion.
None of these pastors are affiliated with the religious right, though several are quite conservative theologically. One of them, the Rev. Joel C. Hunter, the pastor of a conservative megachurch in Florida, was branded a turncoat by some leaders of the Christian right when he began to speak out on the need to stop global warming.
But as a group they can hardly be characterized as part of the religious left either. Most, like Mr. Wallis, do not take traditionally liberal positions on abortion or homosexuality. What most say they share with the president is the conviction that faith is the foundation in the fight against economic inequality and social injustice.
Rev. Jakes refers to homosexuality as “brokenness” and has claimed that he wouldn’t hire a sexually active gay person. But it seems T.D. can’t even keep his own son off the D.L. (down low). His “sexually broken” heir was arrested earlier this year for cruising a Dallas Park in search of gay men.
Wallis, the chief executive of Sojourners, a Christian magazine, holds “traditional” views on homosexuality and abortion, according to the Times article. Although Wallis has taken some affirmative steps on GLBT equality, he prides himself on not being a part of “the religious left.”
Rev. Caldwell has endorsed Metanoia, an ex-gay ministry designed to “help homosexuals understand with God’s help that ‘change [is] possible.” When the GLBT community worked to elect Obama, this is not what we thought he meant when he promised “change.”
Bishop Jakes said he had been tapped for several prayer phone calls — the most recent being when Mr. Obama’s grandmother died in November, two days before the election. “You take turns praying,” said Bishop Jakes, who like the other ministers did not want to divulge details of the calls. “It’s really more about contacting God than each other.”
But, you know what? Individual subdivisions of the Catholic Church are entitled to whatever policy positions they like, as long as they get out of the business of taking the government's money.
From WaPo:
The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn't change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.
Under the bill, headed for a D.C. Council vote next month, religious organizations would not be required to perform or make space available for same-sex weddings. But they would have to obey city laws prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians.
Fearful that they could be forced, among other things, to extend employee benefits to same-sex married couples, church officials said they would have no choice but to abandon their contracts with the city.
| Blogosphere of the Libertarian Left Ring Owner: Thomas Knapp Site: Blogosphere of the Libertarian Left |
||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Get Your Free Web Ring by Bravenet.com |
||||
