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Obama and the left don't seem to understand any number of things about our form of government - such as the what the phrase "rule of law" means or how that democracy thing works. The Obama administration returning to the court of Judge Vinson, who near three weeks ago ruled Obamacare unconstitutional in toto, asking for the court to rule that states have to begin complying with Obamacare anyway. In other words, they are asking Judge Vinson to rule that he didn't mean what he said when he said it. As to how democracy works, you have Wisconsin's Democratic legislators in hiding to prevent the functioning of the state government, and you have the left, from Obama through the DNC, and all labor organizations falling on Wisconsin in an effort to thwart democratic change in that state that is both constitutional and the will of the voters as expressed in the 2010 election.
I would suggest that somebody needs to send these jokers a couple of copies of the Constitution, but I have no doubt whatsoever that it would not make a wit of difference.
Friday, February 18, 2011
There Is Just Something About Our Form Of Government They Don't Seem To Get
Hostage Demands From The Hostages
Republicans, who now control all three legs of Wisconsin's government, have far more than enough votes to pass Gov. Walker's Budget Repair Bill. The only hold-up, the now minority Demorats lawmakers, in an effort to put the brakes on democracy in Wisconsin, have escaped from the state and gone into hiding so that a vote can't occur. And today, we learn that they have issued a list of demands in a phone call to CNN - in essence, they'll come back when Republicans agree to kill the bill. These poeople are surreal.
This just reminds me so much of the scene from Blazing Saddles where Clevon Little extricates himself from trouble by taking himself hostage and demanding the other side put down their weapons. You know we as a nation are in trouble when our democratic process comes to resemble a Mel Brooks movie.
Krauthammer Dissects Obama's WTF Budget
Charles Krauthammer has read the proposed budget and gives us his bill of particulars:
. . . The budget touts a deficit reduction of $1.1 trillion over the next decade.
Where to begin? Even if you buy this number, Obama’s budget adds $7.2 trillion in new debt over that same decade.
But there’s a catch. The administration assumes economic-growth levels higher than private economists and the Congressional Budget Office predict. Without this rosy scenario — using CBO growth estimates — $1.7 trillion of revenue disappears and U.S. debt increases $9 trillion over the next decade. This is almost $1 trillion every year.
Assume you buy the rosy scenario. Of what does this $1.1 trillion in deficit reduction consist? Painful cuts? Think again. It consists of $1.6 trillion in tax hikes, plus an odd $328 billion of some mysterious bipartisan funding for a transportation trust fund (gas taxes, one supposes) — for a grand total of nearly $2 trillion in new taxes.
Classic Obama debt reduction: Add $2 trillion in new taxes, then add another $1 trillion in new spending and, presto, you’ve got $1 trillion of debt reduction. It’s the same kind of mad deficit accounting in Obamacare: It reduces debt by adding $540 billion in new spending, then adding $770 billion in new taxes. Presto: $230 billion of “debt reduction.” . . .
And what of those “painful cuts” Obama is making to programs he really cares about? The catch is that these “cuts” are from a hugely inflated new baseline created by the orgy of spending in Obama’s first two years. These were supposedly catastrophe-averting, anti-Depression emergency measures. But post-recession they remain in place. As a result, discretionary non-defense budget levels today are 24 percent higher than before Obama — 84 percent higher if you add in the stimulus money.
Which is why the supposedly painful cuts yield spending still at stratospheric levels. After all the cuts, Department of Education funding for 2012 remains 35 percent higher than in the last pre-emergency pre-Obama year, 2008. Environmental Protection Agency: 18 percent higher. Department of Energy: 22 percent higher. Consider even the biggest “painful cut” headline of all, the 50 percent cut in fuel subsidies for the poor. Barbaric, is it not? Except for the fact that the subsidies had been doubled from 2008 levels. The draconian cut is nothing but a return to normal pre-recession levels.
Yet all this is penny-ante stuff. The real money is in entitlements. And the real scandal of this budget is that Obama doesn’t touch them. Not Social Security. Not Medicaid. Not Medicare.
What about tax reform, the other major recommendation of the deficit commission? Nothing.
How about just a subset of that — corporate tax reform, on which Republicans have signaled they are eager to collaborate? The formula is simple: Eliminate the loopholes to broaden the tax base, then lower the rates for everyone, promoting both fairness and economic efficiency. What does the Obama budget do? Removes tax breaks — and then keeps the rate at 35 percent, among the highest in the industrialized world (more than twice Canada’s, for example).
Yet for all its gimmicks, this budget leaves the country at decade’s end saddled with publicly held debt triple what Obama inherited.
A more cynical budget is hard to imagine. This one ignores the looming debt crisis, shifts all responsibility for serious budget-cutting to the Republicans — for which Democrats are ready with a two-year, full-artillery demagogic assault — and sets Obama up perfectly for re-election in 2012. . . .
Whatever Obama may be, and I can think of numerous words and phrases to describe him, the words "leader" and "patriot" are not among their number. That is too bad, given his job description.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Change You Can't Have: Obama & The DNC Interfere In Wisconsin Politics
More thugogracy from Obama and the DNC. The voters of Wisconsin spoke in November, asking for a change from Democrat controlled politics in the state that had run up a $3.6 billion tab. Now Obama and the DNC have insinuated themselves into Wisconsin politics, saying that there is some change that voters just shouldn't have, regardless of election results. Specifically, Obama and the DNC want to protect their piggy bank - public sector unions that threaten to bankrupt the state.
To understand just how despicable this federal effort to interfere in Wisconsin state politics is, know that Wisconsin's voters, in November, voted overwhelmingly for Republicans. Going into the 2010 elections, Democrats held the governorship, a 3 seat majority in the Wisconsin State Senate, and a 5 seat majority in the State Assembly. Scott Walker, in his campaign for governor, did not hide how he intended to address the budget shortfall, nor the issue of public sector unions at the heart of Wisconsin's budget woes:
. . . UW political scientist Barry Burden said. “It was part of Walker’s campaign message that he was going to ask state employees to contribute more … and that he was going to tackle unions.”
The voters of Wisconsin responded. By the time the election was over, Republicans had swept the Democrats from power, taking the governor's race, a four seat majority in the state Senate, and a massive 22 seat majority in the State Assembly. The people had spoken.
But that didn't suffice for the state's Democrats. During their 2010 lame duck session, they tried to tie Walker's hands in dealing with unions by approving 17 new union contracts. That effort to circumvent Wisconsin's voters ended only when two Democrats refused to countenance such a despicable act.
When Republicans took office, Gov. Walker proposed a Budget Repair Bill, the terms of which are more fully outlined here. It would require public union employees to contribute to their health and pension benefits, it would cap wage increases to inflation unless approved by a state wide referendum, it would require unions to annually recertify and to collect their own dues. With that restriction, unions could still collectively bargain for wage increases, but benefit increases would be solely within the purview of the state. As far as wages and benefits, this still leaves Wisconsin's public sector employees better off than Wisconsin's average private sector employees.
While Wisconsin state politics is strictly a local affair, anything that threatens public sector unions is a national threat to Obama and the DNC. This from Ben Smith at Politico:
The Democratic National Committee's Organizing for America arm -- the remnant of the 2008 Obama campaign -- is playing an active role in organizing protests against Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's attempt to strip most public employees of collective bargaining rights.
And indeed, if you go to Organizing For America's website at my.barackobama.com, you find:
Organizing for America is mobilizing on the ground in Wisconsin to defend the rights of public employees from an attempt by the governor to take away their right to organize.
Jessie Lidbury, regional field organizer, explains why this is so important:We’ve got a fight on our hands and it’s personal. Over the past few days serious developments have surfaced of Governor Scott Walker presenting a “Budget Repair Bill” that will essentially gut collective bargaining for public employees here in our own backyard of Wisconsin.
Over the next couple days nurses, teachers, snowplow drivers, prison guards, and public servants will be standing together to let Governor Walker, know what is at stake: livelihoods, heath care, our children's education, and the rights of all workers. . . .
Our job as organizers is to take action, and what better way than to help out our friends in the labor community. . . .
And the "action" the left is taking shows the civility for which they are so famous:
This federal level engagement into Wisconsin state politics, between Obama terming the proposed legislation as an "assault" and the DNC's direct action, is outrageous. I would like to see Gov. Walker go the full monty and just outlaw public sector unions in Wisconsin, the way such unions were deemed unlawful for much of our nation's history. Really, that is the only answer this toxin in our society.
As I have written before:
Unions in the public sector are a growth industry with 39% of all state and local public employees belonging to unions. What can possibly justify public sector unions in 2010? This is not the era of sweatshops and 80 hour work weeks. And indeed, today we see public sector union employees earning significantly more than their private sector counterparts.
Public sector unions are particularly insidious. They are not subject to market forces and they have every reason to seek growth of government. This from a 2009 Heritage Foundation article:. . . As Heritage fellow James Sherk reported earlier this year, for the first time in history most union members work for the government, not the private sector. The days when “union member” meant an American working in a steel plant, or coal mine, or auto factory are gone. Today, unions are dependent on government, not the private sector, for their livelihood. Therefore, unions have little interest in private sector job growth. Private sector jobs don’t help fund political campaigns. But government jobs do. The change in incentives has been devastating to American taxpayers. Manhattan Institute senior fellow Steven Malanga explains why:
In the private sector … employers who are too generous with pay and benefits will be punished. In the public sector, however, more union members means more voters. And more voters means more dollars for political campaigns to elect sympathetic politicians who will enact higher taxes to foot the bill for the upward arc of government spending on workers.
This is why you see big labor supporting Obamacare and cap and trade taxes. Private sector job growth does nothing to increase union dues … only the further expansion of government does.
This is public theft on a grand scale. The Democrats are laundering our tax dollars through public sector unions via mandatory union dues from public employees. Bet you didn't realize that you were funding Democratic efforts to keep Obama and the far left in power, did you. At any rate, the Democrats are horrified at the thought that it may soon unravel. In fact, they are far more horrified at that prospect than they are concerned with allowing the Wisconsin voters be heard through their newly elected government. Democracy be damned. Apparently in the world of hope and change, there is some change that is just not acceptable.
Related Posts
- Public Sector Unions: A Toxin, A Crisis & An Opportunity
- Read'n, Writ'n & Unioniz'n
- What, Marx Or Lenin Weren't Available?
- Gov. Chris Christie, What Leadership Looks Like
- California: From Riches To Public Sector Unions To Ruin
- Detroit's Public School System, School Board & Teachers' Union
- Unions & Teachers: The Alpha & Omega
- Living With Public Sector Unions
- Public Sector Unions
- Obama, The Stimulus & Teachers' Unions
- Yet Another Reason Why Public Sector Unions Should Be Done Away With
- Grand Theft Democrat
- Another Win For Teachers Unions, Another Defeat For DC Students
- Reason 10,001 Why Public Sector Unions Need To Be Outlawed
- Public Sector Unions Go To War To Prevent Democratic Change In Wisconsin
Public Sector Unions Going To War In Wisconsin
Update: In an effort to promote democracy, all of Wisconsin's state Democrat legislatures have fled the state to try and shut down any vote on the legislation proposed by Gov. Walker, because, you know, it's not like Wisconsin's election should have any consequences. Just as a reminder, over the past 40 years, per pupil spending for education has more than doubled in real dollars. That has led to zero improvement in reading skills and significant decreases in math and science skills. But we have teachers who have tenure, a system that rewards seniority over merit, teachers' unions whose last priority appears to be quality education, and teachers receiving pay and beneifits that are on a meteoric rise while private citizens, those footing the bill, are moving in the opposite direction. What a deal, we are paying twice as much for significantly less quality. But hey, the unions do pay a tremendous amount of money to keep Democrats in power, so I guess that's something.
Further informatation on this in the form of Drudge-ku:
'Day of Rage' Hits Wisconsin...
25,000 pack Capitol...
VIDEO...
New Gov. takes on State Employees Unions...
Compared to Hitler...
Madison schools, others closed amid call for demonstrations...
1,100 teachers call in 'sick'...
Obama: 'Assault'...
RYAN: 'Like Cairo Moved To Madison'...
PAPER: 'Unions want to overturn election result'...
Obama-founded OFA spearheading effort to defeat...
Police searching for Senate Dems avoiding union vote...
GOP SEN: They got on a bus and left the state!
Protesters, supporters clash in Ohio over union bill...
________________________________________________________
From Michelle Malin on the "civil unrest" in Wisconsin as big Labour is in crisis mode to protect its right to demand tax payers be soaked and its abosolute right to the fiscal involuntary servitude of all Wisconsin public sector employees:
Public employee unions who force state workers to join and force them to fork over dues have a lot of chutzpah posing as freedom-fighters, don’t they?
The letter of the day reprinted below comes from one of those dissenting state workers in Wisconsin, where the SEIU Purple Army and assorted Big Labor enforcers are trying to bring the state to its knees over the brave and necessary fiscal discipline that GOP Gov. Scott Walker has introduced.
The AFL-CIO is digging in its heels. The rent-a-mobs are fully activated and marching on Gov. Walker’s home. Mission: Persuasion of power.
This from Wisconsin's Journal Sentinel:
Unions want to overturn election result
. . . The public-sector union tantrums, meant to make lawmakers wobble, have an inadvertent message for the rest of us: Voters can vote all they want. We can elect a cheapskate governor and a Legislature to match. But come the moment, unions will have the last, loudest word.
They'll have it if takes marches. They'll have it if it takes what amounts to an illegal strike, with so many Madison teachers calling in sick Wednesday that the district closed schools. If it takes showing up for a we-know-where-your-family-is protest on Walker's Wauwatosa lawn while he was at work, the unions are sure they can outshout any election result.
This is exactly why Walker is right to limit the unions' power over government spending.
Walker, remember, is not removing unions' fundamental power to bargain for wages. He is demanding that state workers put 5.8% of their wages toward retirement and that they cover 12.6% of their health care premiums, which would still have them paying more than $100 less a month than the average schmoe. He is also proposing that elected officials determine the shape of employee benefits without having to bargain them, and this as much as the added cost has unions crying "unfair."
They insist this is the end of unionization in government, something to which they have as much right, they say, as anyone else.
But they miss a bedrock difference. Unions in the private sector are a way of organizing private interests, those of employees, against other private interests, those of a company's owners, for economic gain and for protection against unfairness. In government, workers are already protected against unfairness by civil service laws, and Walker has supported expanding those. Economically, government unions pit a private interest, that of employees, against the public's interest, that of taxpayers and voters.
We see the result. Walker's moves are prompted by the state's vast deficit. The alternative, he says, is to lay off thousands. Nonsense, charge the marchers: Just raise taxes. Unions and allies have for years been demanding more sales taxes, new business taxes and higher taxes on other people's incomes, all to keep the state flush and generous. We're taxed enough already, said a voting majority in November. Not yet, insist the unions that have become the largest players in Wisconsin politics precisely to counter any such voter sentiment.
Anyway, union leaders were conceding the pension and health care premiums by this week. They said they knew they'd have to pay more eventually - so when unions in December said such payments were tantamount to slavery, it must have been just maneuvering. Bygones, say unions, as long as Walker leaves them the power to set health benefits via bargaining. Leave that, they say, and it's peace.
Yeah? Recall how we got here. How is it that only in desperation will unions accept a deal that still leaves them better off than everyone else? How did we achieve not just next year's $3.3 billion deficit but the decade of structural deficits before? Easy: It's because labor costs for years have been outstripping taxpayers' capacity. That in turn was caused by officials, elected in a union-dominated political environment, buying labor peace via benefits, where it's harder for voters to see the costs adding up.
If the Legislature takes the 5% and 12% and doesn't reform collective bargaining, the 5% and 12% soon will be won back by unions. Any further savings are out the window. Walker talks of moving to consumer-driven benefits, as many companies have done, to restrain medical costs. That's anathema to unions, who will resist it contract by contract. Without bargaining reform, government costs will have taken only a pause in their ascent.
Union activists in Madison Tuesday spoke apocalyptically of "class war," hinting wildly at general strikes and takeovers of the Capitol. They correctly see their control of the state slipping and must figure that if they bring 13,000 shouting people to Madison, they can overrule the election.
Any worried legislators should keep in mind that Walker drew about five times that many votes in Dane County alone in November.
Public sector unions were illegal in America through 1960 - and for very good reasons, all of which we are seeing today played out in Wisconsin and throughout America. JFK saw the opportunity to enlist public sector workers as part of the Democratic base through unionization. And that is just one more toxic legacy of Democrat politics.
For a fuller explanation of why public sector unions should be outlawed, see:
- Public Sector Unions: A Toxin, A Crisis & An Opportunity
- Read'n, Writ'n & Unioniz'n
- What, Marx Or Lenin Weren't Available?
- Gov. Chris Christie, What Leadership Looks Like
- California: From Riches To Public Sector Unions To Ruin
- Detroit's Public School System, School Board & Teachers' Union
- Unions & Teachers: The Alpha & Omega
- Living With Public Sector Unions
- Public Sector Unions
- Obama, The Stimulus & Teachers' Unions
- Yet Another Reason Why Public Sector Unions Should Be Done Away With
- Grand Theft Democrat
- Another Win For Teachers Unions, Another Defeat For DC Students
- Reason 10,001 Why Public Sector Unions Need To Be Outlawed
Obama's WTF Budget & Fiscal Armageddon - Interest On The National Debt
This from the Washington Post:
Interest payments on the national debt will quadruple in the next decade and every man, woman and child in the United States will be paying more than $2,500 a year to cover for the nation's past profligacy, according to figures in President Obama's new budget plan.
Starting in 2014, net interest payments will surpass the amount spent on education, transportation, energy and all other discretionary programs outside defense. In 2018, they will outstrip Medicare spending. Only the amounts spent on defense and Social Security would remain bigger under the president's plan.
Past profligacy. In 2006, the total budget deficit was $8.5 trillion. Since Pelosi, Reid, and then Obama took control, they have come within striking distance of doubling that debt. And Obama's WTF budget, which does nothing to address entitlements or this looming interest bomb, would lead us to the precipice of ruin. To think that America elected this man in response to a fiscal crisis is going to go down as one of the great ironies in history. To quote Instapundit, in commenting on this article:
AND REMEMBER, THIS IS THE ROSY SCENARIO: . . . Honestly, the past couple of years have shown a degree of criminal irresponsibility on the part of our political class — and particularly of this administration and its Congressional allies — that I wouldn’t have thought possible even a few years ago, cynical as I am. It’s been a perfect storm of greed, shortsightedness, and arrogance.
Really nothing to add to that.
Revolutionary Agitation - It Isn't Just For The Middle East
We are moving to a period when politics no longer matters, when it has no relevance and bears no further analysis. These people are not our people. We have nothing in common with them or they with us.
There is no discussion, there can be no discussion – there is no common ground, nothing we can relate to. We use the same vocabularies but we speak different languages. Our politics have been stolen. The process started a long time ago, and the theft has been incremental. But it is almost complete.
Now, we have to get it back. And this is no longer a question of changing the government, in the hope of getting something new and different, something closer to our way of thinking. That is not going to happen. We need something more fundamental. There is a name for that ... revolution.
Here, there is the hard way and the easy way, the violent way and the peaceful way. We have to continue trying the latter, in order to stave off the former. But either way, let's call a spade a spade. We are no longer interested in politics. We are revolutionaries now.
So sayeth . . . Britain's Dr. North of EU Referendum. The gulf between rank and file Brits and their political leadership seems deep and the problems causing it systemic. Representative democracy is at least one, if not two steps, from the electorate, leaving the nomenklatura free to do such things as transfer the nation's sovereignty to the EU without a promised referendum for the British voters. That was a bloodless coup, and the Brits are paying for it in many ways, from open borders immigration to green policy to fisheries policy, trash refuse and many more. Let's hope there is something the Brits can learn from the Egyptians.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Reason No. 10,001 Why Public Sector Unions Need To Be Outlawed
Wisconsin's new Gov., Scott Walker, is going to do what in his state should be done across the U.S. - break the public sector unions. That has really upset Wisconsin's students, who apparently decided wholly of their own free will to go to the state house and . . . well, after that, they seem unsure.
What utterly low rent bastards these public sector union thugs are. If they were doing anything - ANYTHING - to improve the quality of education across America, I might find the smallest iota of sympathy. Instead, teachers' unions are the single biggest impediment to quality education in America. The only reason they still exist today is because they are the foundation of the Democrat party.
Related Posts:
- Public Sector Unions: A Toxin, A Crisis & An Opportunity
- Read'n, Writ'n & Unioniz'n
- What, Marx Or Lenin Weren't Available?
- Gov. Chris Christie, What Leadership Looks Like
- California: From Riches To Public Sector Unions To Ruin
- Detroit's Public School System, School Board & Teachers' Union
- Unions & Teachers: The Alpha & Omega
- Living With Public Sector Unions
- Public Sector Unions
- Obama, The Stimulus & Teachers' Unions
- Yet Another Reason Why Public Sector Unions Should Be Done Away With
- Grand Theft Democrat
- Another Win For Teachers Unions, Another Defeat For DC Students
- Reason 10,001 Why Public Sector Unions Need To Be Outlawed
Mr. Smith Christie Goes To Washington
You cannot fix these problems without talking about them," he said during a speech at the conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI). "And I look at what's happening in Washington, D.C., right now and I'm worried. I'm worried."
Obama is not talking about entitlements because he is waiting for the Republicans, Christie said, "And our new bold Republicans in the House of Representatives ... are not talking about it because they are waiting for him to talk about it.
"Whatever game that is being played down here, is irresponsible, it's dangerous."Gov. Chris Christie, Speech at AEI, 16 Feb. 2011
Chris Christie came to Washington to speak at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) today and lambasted those on both sides of the aisle for a lack of leadership. Given the fiscal Sword of Damocles hanging over our collective heads and Obama's complete absence of leadership, there is nothing that steadies the resolve at the moment so much as some good Christie porn. Below are the AEI videos posted so far on the speech. I will add more as they become available.
He will never be mistaken for Jimmy Stewart, but his impact on our national psyche promises to be much more far reaching. What will it take to get this guy to run for national office. What is his weakness? For Obama, just put him in front of a mirror. If you want to influence Berlusconi, it apparently takes a 17 year old Moroccan girl. It is much the same apparently for either Bill or Hillary. But for Christie - I don't know, maybe a lifetime supply of meatloaf? C'mon, we need to come up with something.
Watcher's Council
The Watcher's Council holds weekly contests among its members to decide who has written the best post for the week. I am no longer a member of the Council, but I have the honor of being nominated in the non-Council posts. The entries this week are:
Council Submissions
The Noisy Room – Soros, the Youth, High Tech and the Fundamental Change that is Revolution
Joshuapundit -Turkish PM Erdogan Consolidates His Islamist Regime By Purging The Military
Simply Jews – In Doubt About Multiculturalism
GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – L’Etat C’est Moi
VA Right - Ron Paul’s Drug Problem
Snapped Shot – A Medicine Factory, Of Course
Bookworm Room – Obama suffers an empathy failure when it comes to Israel
Right Truth – Lies That Lead to Wars and Death
The Glittering Eye -From Memory
The Colossus of Rhodey–Let’s kill some minorities, even though it makes no economic sense!
The Razor – The Real Problem With Libertarianism
Rhymes With Right – Odd, No Liberals Objected To Political Activity By This Judicial Spouse
Honorable Mentions
The Grouch – Thank You FDA!
The Political Commentator – Lambs Being Led To Slaughter Or…
Non-Council Submissions
Gulag Bound – Top 5 Revolutions Backed by George Soros submitted by The Noisy Room
Melanie Phillips – The Palestine Paper That Got Away submitted by Joshuapundit
Modernity Blog – Chomsky And IHR submitted by Simply Jews
The Best Defense – What can Ike and Lawrence of Arabia teach us about Army personnel policy? submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
Hot Air – Democrats plan to battle GOP to keep Planned Parenthood funding submitted by VA Right
Ace Of Spades HQ – Thank G-d Obama Gave That Cairo Speech, Eh? submitted by Snapped Shot
Wolf Howling – Battles That Changed History: The Battle of Chipyong-ni, Feb. 13-15, 1951 submitted by Bookworm Room
Danger Room – Wired -‘Armed Humanitarians’ Kill People Between Sips of Tea submitted by Right Truth
USNI Blog – HH104, WWATMD… submitted by The Glittering Eye
Project Syndicate – The Poverty of Dictatorship submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey
Ray Gross/American Thinker – Sarah and the San Francisco Poster Wars submitted by The Watcher
Zero Hedge – Jim Quinn – Guest Post: Grapes Of Wrath – 2011 submitted by The Razor
Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion – The Muslim Brotherhood’s Five-Year Plan submitted by The Watcher
Phyllis Chesler – The Steady Erosion of Women’s Rights in Egypt: A Photographic Story submitted by The Watcher
The Barbary Wars - Decatur, Jihad & The Burning of the U.S.S. Philadelphia, Feb. 16, 1804
Art: Edward Moran, The Burning Of The USS Philadelphia
On the night of February 16, 1804, in one of the most daring attacks of the age, Lt. Stephen Decatur, U.S.N., accompanied by a Sicilian pilot, led a force of 70 volunteers into the heavily defended port of Tripoli to burn the U.S.S. Philadelphia. The raid made an immediate hero of Decatur, it encouraged the Tripolitan regent to sue for peace, and it served notice to the world that the newly formed U.S. Navy was a force to be reckoned with. In a larger sense, Decatur's raid marked or was part of several firsts – the first protracted war against our nation by religiously motivated Muslims, our nation's first foreign war, and our first experience with the failure of appeasement.
Background:
Beginning in the late 15th century, the North African Islamic regencies of Tripoli, Tunis and Algiers began sponsoring piracy against Christian nations as a form of jihad. In 1796, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams met with an envoy from Tripoli. Jefferson later reounted:
“. . . [we] ‘took the liberty to make some inquiries concerning the ground of the pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury.’ The ambassador [from the Barbary States] replied that it was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave.” He claimed every one of their guys who was “slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise."
Do note that this doctrine is part of the curriculum being taught in Saudi financed madrassas and schools around the world. As we are all well aware, the Muslim threat to the rest of the world that has existed since 622 A.D. has in no way abated or been blunted with the passing of time, whether it be counted in decades, centuries or millenniums.
For hundreds of years these Muslim Barbary pirates were a scourge on the Christian world. Their main goal was to capture Christians as slaves or to hold for ransom – and this they did on a near industrial scale, not merely attacking passing ships, but also making land raids throughout Europe:
Reports of Barbary raids and kidnappings of those in Italy, Spain, Portugal, England, Ireland, Scotland as far north as Iceland exist from between the 16th to the 19th centuries. It is estimated that between 1 million and 1.25 million Europeans were captured by pirates and sold as slaves during this time period. Famous accounts of Barbary slave raids include a mention in the Diary of Samuel Pepys and a raid on the coastal village of Baltimore, Ireland, during which pirates left with the entire populace of the settlement.
Prior to and during the American Revolution, ships from the America were under English, then later French protection in the Mediterranean. But almost as soon as the Revolution ended - and our protection ceased - Muslim predation on American shipping began. In 1784, Morocco struck first, capturing the Betty, an American frigate, holding her crew for ransom. Not long thereafter Algiers captured two more ships. Morocco and Algiers both demanded ransom and annual tribute, which, in its powerlessness at the time, the U.S. paid. And still the predation did not stop. At one point in Washington's presidency, the U.S. government paid out 20% of its annual budget in ransom of ships and crew to the Muslim Barbary pirates.
During this period, the U.S. began building a sizable navy. Almost as soon as he was inaugurated, Thomas Jefferson put our nation on a war footing with Tripoli when he refused to pay any further tribute. He sent a fleet of warships to Tripoli to deliver the message. They blockaded ports throughout Tripoli and conducted raids. During one blockade, the USS Philadelphia, a 36 gun frigate ran aground on an uncharted reef just outside Tripoli Harbor. The ship was soon captured by the Muslim pirates and moored in the harbor, where it was occupied by pirates, surrounded by several Tripolitan vessels, and within half the range of the shore batteries.
The loss of the USS Philadelphia on 31 Oct. 1803 was a major blow to the war effort, not just because it weakened U.S. forces on site, but because it was a state of the art warship that could have been turned against the U.S. The Commander of the American navy in the Mediterranean considered attempting to retake the Philadelphia, but the defenses were deemed too strong. An alternate plan, put forth by Lt. Stephen Decatur, was to enter the heavily defended harbor by ruse, then board and destroy the Philadelphia, denying it to the enemy.
The Raid:
Lt. Decatur along with a Sicilian pilot and 70 officers and men – all volunteers – boarded a ship recently captured from Tripoli, the ketch Intrepid. Leaving the American fleet’s mooring in Syracuse, Sicily on February 3, they arrived off Tripoli on the 16th. Most of the men were sent below decks and the anchor stowed as the ship entered the harbor. The pilot, Mr. Salvadore, gave the story to guard vessels in the harbor that their ship had lost its anchors in a recent storm and needed to tie up to a nearby vessel for safety. They were directed to the Philadelphia’s position; it was about half-past nine o’clock at night.
The rest of the story was told by Lt. Decatur in a letter to his commanding officer, discussing the operation:
Lieut. Commandant Decatur, Intrepid.
____________________
Lieut. Commandant S. Decatur’s Report to Com. Preble.
On Board the Ketch Intrepid, at Sea ,
February 17, 1804.
Sir:
I have the honor to inform you, that in pursuance to your orders of the 31st ultimo, to proceed with this ketch off the harbor of Tripoli, there to endeavor to effect the destruction of the late United States’ frigate Philadelphia, I arrived there in company with the United States’ brig Syren, lieutenant commandant Stewart, on the 7th, but owing to the badness of the weather, was unable to effect any thing until last evening, when we had a light breeze from the N.E. At 7 o’clock I entered the harbor with the Intrepid, the Syren having gained her station without the harbor, in a situation to support us in our retreat. At half past 9 o’clock, laid her alongside of the Philadelphia, boarded, and after a short contest, carried her. I immediately fired her in the store-rooms, gun-room, cock-pit, and birth-deck, and remained on board until the flames had issued from the spar-deck, hatchways, and ports, and before I had got from alongside, the fire had communicated to the rigging and tops. Previous to our boarding, they had got their tompions out, and hailed several times, but not a gun fired.
The noise occasioned by boarding and contending for possession, although no fire-arms were used, gave a general alarm on shore, and on board their cruisers, which lay about a cable and a half’s length from us, and many boats filled with men lay around, but from whom we received no annoyance. They commenced a fire on us from all their batteries on shore, but with no other effect than one shot passing through our top-gallant sail.The frigate was moored within half-gunshot of the Bashaw’s castle, and of their principal battery-two of their cruisers lay within two cables’ length on the starboard quarter, and their gunboats within half gunshot of the starboard bow. She had all her guns mounted and loaded, which, as they became hot went off. As she lay with her broadside to the town, I have no doubt but some damage has been done by them. Before I got out of the harbor, her cables had burnt off, and she drifted in under the castle, where she was consumed. I can form no judgment as to the number of men on board, but there were twenty killed. A large boat full got off, and many leapt into the sea. We have made one prisoner, and I fear from the number of bad wounds he has received he will not recover, although every assistance and comfort has been given him.
I boarded with sixty men and officers, leaving a guard on board the ketch for her defence, and it is the greatest pleasure I inform you, I had not a man killed in this affair, and but one slightly wounded. Every support that could be given I received from my officers, and as each of their conduct was highly meritorious, I beg leave to enclose you a list of their names. Permit me also, sir, to speak of the brave fellows I have the honor to command, whose coolness and intrepidity was such as I trust will ever characterise the American tars.
It would be injustice in me, were I to pass over the important services rendered by Mr. Salvadore, the pilot, on whose good conduct the success of the enterprise in the greatest degree depended. He gave me entire satisfaction.
I have the honor to be, sir, &c.,
STEPHEN DECATUR.
Decatur became an immediate hero in the U.S., and his notoriety spread world-wide. Perhaps the greatest accolade he received came from one of histories preeminent naval commanders Adm. Horatio Nelson, who is reputed to have called Decatur's raid "the most bold and daring act of the age."
America was under assault by Muslim Barbary pirates for thirty-one years, from 1784 to 1815. Appeasing the religiously motivated pirates who saw non-Muslims as fair game for slavery and aggression, was an utter failure. The First Barbary War, fought from 1801-1805, ended the Tripolitan regent's aggression. But the regents of Algiers and Tunisia soon opted to pick up where the Tripolitans had left off. For a time, the U.S. ignored the renewed piracy as its focus was on the events that led up to and culminated in the War of 1812.
After the War of 1812, the U.S. turned its attention back to the Muslim pirates. The U.S. declared war on Algeria in 1815 and sent a fleet of warships to the Mediterranean under the command of then Commodore Decatur. He was as efficient in command of a fleet as he was in the raid. In a matter of months, he captured Algeria's major warships and forced a treaty and reparations on the Algerian regent. Shortly thereafter, Tunisia likewise capitulated, bringing an end to the war. Decatur would die five years later in a duel.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Obama's Complete Absence Of Leadership
The deficit in perspective:
(H/T American Elephants)
Obama response - A 3.47 trillion WTF budget proposal
Comments:
Krauthammer:
WSJ: "This was supposed to be the moment we were all waiting for. After three years of historic deficits that have added almost $4.5 trillion to the national debt, President Obama was finally going to get serious about fiscal discipline. Instead, what landed on Congress's doorstep on Monday was a White House budget that increases deficits above the spending baseline for the next two years. Hosni Mubarak was more in touch with reality last Thursday night."
Excitable Andy: "[Senators] have to lead, because this president is too weak, too cautious, too beholden to politics over policy to lead. In this budget, in his refusal to do anything concrete to tackle the looming entitlement debt, in his failure to address the generational injustice, in his blithe indifference to the increasing danger of default, he has betrayed those of us who took him to be a serious president prepared to put the good of the country before his short term political interests. Like his State of the Union, this budget is good short term politics but such a massive pile of fiscal bullshit it makes it perfectly clear that Obama is kicking this vital issue down the road. To all those under 30 who worked so hard to get this man elected, know this: he just screwed you over."
Hot Air - Obama's budget "surreal and catastrophic." "On the seminal issue of his time, the long-term fiscal sustainability of the United States, this guy has completely abdicated."
Nice Deb: Obama Says Fiscal Commission “Provides Framework For Conversation” While Rejecting All Of Its Recommendations
Jake Tapper: Obama has proposed a "10-year budget plan that would increase the national debt by $7.2 trillion over 10 years -- $1.1 trillion less than if it weren't implemented. The plan shows that Obama will not take the lead on any aggressive measure to eliminate the nation’s $14 trillion debt . . ."
Instapundit: HOW DEEP ARE THOSE PROPOSED SPENDING CUTS? NOT VERY. “The next time you hear howls of anguish over deep, tough, painful cuts in the federal budget, you might want to ask yourself how you’d feel if you had 7 percent more to spend next year than you did last year.”
And among the accompanying graphics, the one on spending as a percentage of GDP should undercut any claims that Obama is just continuing Bush’s big-spending ways. Bush spent big. Obama is spending disastrously big.
Dana Milbank: "Obama's budget proposal is a remarkably weak and timid document. He proposes to cut only $1.1 trillion from federal deficits over the next decade - a pittance when you consider that the deficit this year alone is in the neighborhood of $1.5 trillion. The president makes no serious attempt at cutting entitlement programs that threaten to drive the government into insolvency."
NRO: "First, there’s the $1.6 trillion deficit. That figure is the same as the entire budget of the United States in FY1998 (FY1986 in real terms, which is interesting considering the tendency to compare Obama with Reagan).
Powerline: "Obama's game is transparent, isn't it? He is playing a game of chicken. He puts forward a series of proposals that he knows are more or less insane; but he also believes that Republicans will come to his rescue. They, not being wholly irresponsible, will come up with plans to reform entitlements--like, for example, the Ryan Roadmap. Ultimately, some combination of those plans will be implemented because the alternative is the collapse, not just of the government of the United States, but of the country itself. But Obama thinks the GOP's reforms will be unpopular, and he will be able to demagogue them, thus having his cake and eating it too. Is that leadership? Of course not. But it is the very essence of Barack Obama."
At best, Obama is a deeply ideological man with almost no grasp of reality. At worst, he is a cynical, manipulative politician willing to put his political interests above the best interests of the nation.
The Future Of Islam II: Geller, Jasser, Hamid & Others
Wahhabi / Salafi Islam and the many schools of Islam it influences are incompatible with modern civilization and are on a violent collision course with all who are not Wahhabi Muslims. Can this dominant strain of Islam be challenged and defeated in the battlefield of ideas? In short, can Islam evolve? That is an existential issue. My own personal belief is that it can but the task is daunting. As discussed in the post below, Pam Geller believes that it cannot and, further, that there are no Muslim reformers who have a "theological leg to stand on." She has previously attacked Dr. Zhudi Jasser, a Muslim reformer, to make her point, and she does so again today. Salafi indoctrination operates through written words and careful coaching. It is enormously seductive. It rapidly changed me into a jihadi. Salafi sacred texts exert a powerful influence on millions of Muslim followers throughout the world, and terrorism is only one symptom of the Salafi disease. Salafi doctrine, which is at the root of the West's confrontation with Islamism, poses an existential threat to us all - including Muslims. Critically, Dr. Hamid believes that evolution of Islam into peaceful modernity is possible theologically, but that the salafi / wabbai establishment violently opposes any such effort: It is unfortunate and disastrous that the theological underpinnings of Salafism are both powerful and prevalent in the approved, traditional Islamic books. These texts teach, moreover, that the Koran's later, more violent passages abrogate its earlier, peaceful ones. This concept, called nasikh wa-l-mansukh, has effectively diminished the influence of the peaceful verses. What the juxtaposition of the videos and Dr. Hamid's quotes tell us is that there is a basis for seeking reform and evolution of Islam, but that it is a daunting task given the Wahhabi / Salafi influence on maddrassas and mosques world wide. That said, Pam Geller has continued her assault on Zhudi Jasser today in the American Thinker, in a piece entitled "Where Are All The Zhudi Jassers." Ms. Geller apparently needs to do a bit more research if she has missed Dr. Hamid and the people he mentions in the quote above. Indeed, it is clear that she knows of Dr. Hamid. I understand that everyone wants moderates or secular Muslims to be the silent majority, and Jasser gives them a much-needed face. But in order for Islam to reform itself, the truth about Islam must be made known by the civilized, and the genocidal, racist aspects of Islamic teaching must be rejected (like Nazism) and those who hold it forced under the weight of international pressure to reform. I concur and, as my three readers can attest, I have been making that argument for years. This is an issue that cries out for free, open and very public debate. But when Geller continues to buttress her argument by delegitimizing Dr. Jasser as the face of all Muslim reformers, that is counterproductive at least, wholly repugnant at best. As I wrote below, either Islam evolves or war on a grand scale is inevitable. If we don't do all we can to assist the former, than we must be prepared for the latter.
To understand the parameters of this existential issue, you must understand the depth of influence Wahhabi / Salafi influence is having world wide, as well as the nature of that influence. While I outlined much about that nature in the post below, these videos do an exceptional job of highlighting both the depth of influence and the toxic nature of Wahhabi Islam.
This first video discusses how madrassas in Britain are being used to plant the seeds of separatism and hatred for non-Muslims in Britain's youth.
Much of the rest of the special deals with how the teachers at British madrassas don't spare the rod. You can find them on Youtube here.
(H/T Daily Gator)
Separatism and a much broader look at Wahhabi/Salafi toxic dogma being spread by Saudi Arabia through Britain and other schools of Islam can be found in this 2008 Channel 4 undercover expose:
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Dr. Tawfiq Hamid is a Muslim reformer Ms. Geller seems to have missed when deciding that Islam is beyond evolution. Dr. Hamid is a Cairo born former terrorist who served under al Qaeda's Ayman al-Zawhahiri. Eventually breaking with the group, Hamid issued the following warning:
Indeed, Salafism robs young Muslims of their soul, it turns Western communities against them, and it can end in civil war as Muslims attempt to implement shari'a in their host countries. A peaceful interpretation of Islam is possible, but the Salafi establishment is currently blocking moderate theological reform. The civilized world ought to recognize the immense danger that Salafi Islam poses; it must become informed, courageous and united if it is to protect both a generation of young Muslims and the rest of humanity from the disastrous consequences of this militant ideology.
When I discussed the implications of the violent passages with a few Sufi clergy, they suggested that one "should be good and peaceful to all mankind" and that "the understanding of the violent verses will be clarified on the day of judgment." These views were not based on rigorous Islamic eschatology, however, or on an objective analysis of the religious books.
They merely embodied a desired perception of Islam. My secular parents offered the same tolerant perspective, insisting that Islam is a religion of peace. But for me both responses were unsatisfactory because they suffered from the same problem - they were not theologically grounded. My difficulty was not resolved, and I continued to live with a complex dilemma.
My crisis of conscience was mostly internal, but I did share some of my doubts with my mother. On one occasion a fellow medical student named Abdul Latif Haseeb started a conversation with me about religion. We discussed whether it was right to kill apostates or stone women to death, as well as whether Muhammad could be considered a pedophile because he married the seven-year-old Aisha. We weighed the merits of declaring war on non-Muslims to spread Islam and agreed that it should be rejected because it is condoned only by supplemental Salafi books rather than by the Koran itself.
Haseeb belonged to a sect known as Koranist, which strictly adhered to the teachings of the Koran but rejected other writings. This opened my eyes. I was impressed that my new friend disagreed with many Salafi teachings. I also realized that Haseeb was not alone in his beliefs; his father and several mutual acquaintances shared the same ideas. They relied on new interpretations of the Koran and spurned the traditional Salafi textbooks.
They accepted and tolerated different views within Islam and, in most circumstances, had a peaceful analysis of the verses.
Haseeb invited me to join the sect, and I accepted his invitation in order to examine the Koranists' ideas more thoroughly. Though not without problems, the sect possessed at least some rigor and was more moderate than Salafism. It provided me with a protected sanctuary that allowed me to keep my identity as a Muslim while giving me the flexibility to reinterpret Koranic verses in a nonviolent way. The group counted among its members the liberal peace activist Mahmoud Mohamed Taha, whom I met on one occasion.
Mahmoud was later murdered in Sudan by exponents of Salafi doctrine for the crime of "apostasy" because his teaching clashed with theirs. I eventually built on the Koranists' ideas in developing a fresh understanding of the Koran that is compatible with the values of human rights and modernity.
By immersing myself in Salafi ideology, I was better able to judge the impact of its violent tenets on the minds of its followers. Among the more appalling notions it supports are the enslavement and rape of female war prisoners and the beating of women to discipline them. It permits polygamy and pedophilia. It refers to Jews as "pigs and monkeys" and exhorts believers to kill them before the end of days: Say: "Shall I tell you who, in the sight of God, deserves a yet worse retribution than these? Those [the Jews] whom God has rejected and whom He has condemned, and whom He has turned into monkeys and pigs because they worshiped the powers of evil: these are yet worse in station, and farther astray from the right path [than the mockers]" (Koran 5:60). Homosexuals are to be killed as well; to cite one of many examples, on July 19, 2000, two gay teenagers were hanged in Iran for no other crime than being gay.
These doctrines are not taken out of context, as many apologists for Islamism argue: They are central to the faith and ethics of millions of Muslims, and are currently being taught as part of the standard curriculum in many Islamic educational systems in the Middle East as well in the West.
Moreover, there is no single approved Islamic textbook that contradicts or provides an alternative to the passages I have cited. It has thus become clear to me that Salafi ideology is what is largely responsible for the so-called "clash of civilizations." Consequently, I have chosen to combat Salafism by exposing it and by providing an alternative, peaceful and theologically rigorous interpretation of the Koran.
My reformist approach naturally challenges well-established Salafi tenets, and leads Muslims who follow Salafi Islam to reject me. Why? I have not altered the Koran itself. My system is simply one of inline commentary, in which dangerous passages are flagged and reinterpreted to be nonviolent. I have added these inline interpretations to key Koranic passages and examples of the commentary are freely and easily available.
For over 15 years I have tried to preach my views in mosques in the Middle East, as well as to my local community in the West, but have faced the unwavering hostility of most Salafi Muslims in both regions. Muslims who live in the West - who insist to outsiders that Islam is a "religion of peace" and who enjoy freedom of expression, which they demand from their Western hosts - have threatened me with murder and arson. I have had to choose between accepting violent Salafi views and being rejected by the overwhelming majority of my fellow Muslims.
Even though radical Islam began to reassert itself in the 1970s, it did not become widely pervasive until quite recently. In the early 1990s many people were intrigued by my ideas, and only a few militants threatened me with violence. One day, after I gave a peaceful Friday sermon, I walked home with a friend. To my surprise, several men ran up and threw stones at us from behind to intimidate me from returning and speaking in their mosques. As time has passed, this violent and threatening behavior has become more common: Dr. Wafa Sultan in the US, Abdul Fatah in Egypt and many others have received and continue to receive death threats. Recently, Dr. Nawal al-Sadawi, a liberal Muslim thinker and women's rights activist, was forced to flee Egypt because of her public statements. Dr. Rashad Khalifa was murdered in the United States after he published his own reinterpretation of the Koran which was less violent than was traditional.
In Egypt, Dr. Faraq Fuddah was shot to death after publishing condemnations of Jihadists. Egyptian Nobel Prize winner Najib Mahfouz was stabbed in the neck for writing his novel, Awlad Haretna, perceived by Salafists as blasphemous. The list goes on. . . .
If Ms. Geller confined herself to Koranic arguments, that would be unobjectionable, and likely indeed to be helpful. If she thinks Jasser is whitewashing some aspects of Islam, then she does us all a service by making that particular argument. And it is notable that, at the conclusion of her post today, she concludes by saying:
Monday, February 14, 2011
The Future of Islam: The King Hearing, Jasser & Geller
Islam is on a collision course with the rest of the world - and indeed, it has been since 622 A.D., when Mohammed made the Hijra from Mecca to Medina, marking the Year 1 in the Islamic Calendar. Many on the left pretend that is not the case, such as Obama, who excuses Muslim aggression by claiming that those who use violence to further the cause of Allah are motivated by a false interpretation of Islam. The precise opposite is true. The violent ones are the true believers in all of the Wahhabi dogma that arises out of a 13th century interpretation of 7th century Islam.
I will grant that there are many schools of Islam, many benign. But over the last half century, the most toxic form of Islam, Wahhabism, has risen to the fore on the back of Saudi petrodollars and is, today, effecting numerous other schools, such as Pakistan's Deobandi school, Turkey's Sufi school and Khomeini's bastardization of twelver Islam and its quietist tradition.
If nothing is done to change the trajectory of Islam, and particularly the Wahhabist wing and those many schools of Islam it has influenced, then at some point in the future, it is inevitable that we will see a resumption of religious wars. These future wars will be fought with modern, and possibly nuclear, weapons, and their cost will most assuredly exceed in blood and gold the sum of all the religious wars fought between Islam and other religions over the last near 1,400 years.
Here are the hard truths about Wahhabi Islam and its ilk that puts it on a collision course with the rest of the world and makes it incompatible with the Western freedoms and modernity:
1. Wahhabi Islam is triumphalist and those who believe in all of its dogma teach and support using violence to spread the faith. They cite to Koranic verse in support thereof. Islam has been the most imperialistic force ever seen in history, spread by the sword and leaving rivers of blood out of Arabia through Egypt, the entire Middle East, all of North Africa, Iran, Portugal, the Indian subcontinent, Sicily, Byzantium (modern day Turkey), Greece, half of Spain, southern France, and throughout south central Europe up to the gates of Vienna, Austria. Our nation's first foreign war - and its longest some-time declared, some-time undeclared war of 31 years - was against religiously motivated Muslims who were attacking American ships in the Mediterranean and enslaving our citizens. Thomas Jefferson, when he asked the ambassador of one of the Islamic regents warring on our nation in 1794 what justified such attacks, was told:
“. . . it was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave.” He claimed every one of their guys who was “slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise."
That is precisely the same doctrine that is part of the curriculum being taught in Saudi financed Wahhabi madrassas and schools around the world to this day. So, to repeat, the Muslim threat to the rest of the world that has existed since 622 A.D. has in no way abated or been blunted with the passing of time, whether it be counted in decades, centuries or millenniums.
2. On a related note, Wahhabi Islam holds that any land once ruled by Muslims must forever be ruled by Muslims. Thus do you see agitation in Spain and, of course, the mindless genocidal hatred of Jews and Israel.
3. Wahhabi Islam is not merely a religion, but a social and political construct that requires its adherents to dominate their state and impose Sharia law, thus putting the ultimate political power of the state in the hands of Muslim clerics. It requires that Christians and Jews be treated as second class citizens, to the extent they are tolerated at all.
4. Wahhabi Islam is enforced by the sword. It is doctrine that anyone who leaves the faith, such as by converting to Christianity, should be put to death. Likewise, anyone who publicly disagrees with Wahhabi doctrine is an apostate who should be killed. And we see blasphemy laws in the Middle East whereby to criticize Islam or Mohammed can bring about a sentence of death.
5. Violence against women and misogyny are hallmarks of Wahhabi Islam. Honor violence and forced marriages, including with girls as young as nine years old, are issues throughout the Muslim world, including Muslim enclaves in Europe and, to a very much lesser extent, in America. Should a Muslim woman date or marry outside of Islam, she is subject to violence, up to and including murder.
6. Wahhabi Islam in particular promotes separatism, seeking to keep Muslims in foreign lands from integrating into Western society.
7. The Wahhabists are involved in a religous cleansing of the Middle East. Christians in Muslim countries are, to perhaps put it too gently, under siege. The Jews have already been near completely expelled from Muslim majority countries in the Middle East, just as they were expelled from what is now called the "Arab Quarter" of Jerusalem in 1948.
8. Should true Sharia law ever be imposed outside of the Middle East, you will likely see a resumption of something that died out three hundred years ago in the West - trials for, and the slaughtering of, people accused of witchcraft. It occurs with regularity in Saudi Arabia and we see it spreading out in all areas where Wahhabism has gained influence.
I don't pretend to know to what degree all of the above come out of the Koran, as opposed to the Sunna, the Hadith, or simply the overlay of 7th century Arabic culture on Islam. That is a question to ask Muslim reformists.
What is clear is that Islam must either evolve or, eventually, it will involve the West in apocalyptic war. Violence in the name of Christianity, for all intents and purposes, died with the end of the religious wars between Protestants and Catholics in the 1600's and the rise of the Enlightenment. Violence perpetrated in the name of Islam has continued virtually uninterrupted since 622 A.D., only taking a lull of sorts when the military power of the West was such that the Islamic world could not directly compete - and even then there has been continuous aggression on the margins, whether from the Barbary Pirates and their enslavement of 1.25 million Christians, the Turks and their slaughter of a Albanian Christians, the Muslim Brotherhood or al Qaeda. All that remains is for Muslims who believe in the doctrines enumerated above to get in a position of perceived military parity with the West and Islam will inevitably resume its imperialist expansion. The attempted annihilation of Israel will likely mark day one.
These are existential issues for the U.S. as well as both the Western and Islamic worlds. And our government, which seems wholly intent on whitewashing Islam, is doing a tremendous and dangerous disservice to us all.
Into the breach has stepped Rep. Peter King. He has proposed hearings as to why "moderate Muslims" are not supporting efforts to combat the radicalization of Muslims in the U.S.:
Over the past few years, numerous hearings have already been conducted on Capitol Hill, in both the House and Senate, looking into domestic Islamist terrorism and ‘radicalization'. Unfortunately, those hearings garnered little attention and few tangible results - because they avoided discussing the root causes. Those hearings instead focused only on "violent extremism" a useless concept addressing a symptom and not the disease. Up to now the combined efforts of the forces of political correctness and Islamist pressure groups have dominated the debate and the lexicon.
Recently, Rep. Peter King (R-NY), the new chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, announced that he intends to hold hearings to address what he describes as the failure of leaders in the American Muslim community to address the problem of the domestic radicalization of Muslims. King told Politico that "the leadership of the [Muslim] community is not geared to cooperation," and that the goal of the hearings will be "to confront the threat of homegrown terrorism and explore the role of Muslim leaders in dealing with it." He has opened the discourse about some imams and other Muslim leaders who have been less than helpful (if not obstructionists) in counterterrorism investigations.
While limited in scope, the hearings seem likely to bring to the fore many of the issues I've enumerated above. Thus it has raised the ire of Islamists and many on the left who do not want to see any hearings go forward that might possibly shine a light on Dark Ages doctrines of Wahhabi Islam. But surprisingly, it has also been dismissed outright by some on the right as useless.
Enter Dr. Zhudi Jasser. He is a devout Muslim, a former U.S. naval officer, a patriot and the President of the American Islamic Forum For Democracy (AIFD). His goal is to see Islam evolve and to remove the political aspects from its doctrine. He has written strongly in support of Rep. King's hearings. For example:
I am the President of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD). The body of our work in this area can be found at our website, YouTube channel, and peppered amongst the work of so many other thinkers among the anti-Islamist, anti-jihadist movement in the United States over the past decade. Our mission at the AIFD is, "to advocate for the preservation of the founding principles of the U.S. Constitution, liberty and freedom, through the separation of mosque and state." Terrorism is only one endpoint, one symptom, of a much more protracted complex process of Muslim radicalization. American Muslim radicalization is a natural endpoint of the separatist ideological continuum of political Islam. We are one of the most prominent American Muslim organizations directly confronting political Islam (Islamism) from within the Muslim consciousness. The AIFD is grounded in the need for honest Muslim reform ending the concept of the Islamic state and getting the theocratic instrument of shariah law out of government and out of the central nature of our Muslim identity. That is the only viable solution to Muslim radicalization both domestically and abroad.
King's proposed hearings finally sound like an important beginning to the sadly unchartered public discourse about these issues. Islamist groups like the Muslim Public Affairs Council have responded to criticisms defensively citing data (possibly exaggerated) that many plots were broken up by Muslims themselves. There are most certainly many American Muslim heroes. But at the end of the day, those anecdotes are just straw men to divert the discussion of the deep internal drivers of growing American Muslim radicalization. Our nation desperately needs a strategy to prevent the undeniable. Now, liberty-loving American Muslim leaders can publicly acknowledge that responsibility and our representatives in Congress can begin to expose and de-legitimize various mechanisms of Islamist facilitation in the United States.
If there is ever going to be an evolution in Islam, then honestly shedding a light upon all of the issues enumerated above is the first step. But those who believe that Islam cannot evolve are, in the words of Dr. Jasser:
. . . declaring an ideological war against one-fourth of the world's population and expecting to neutralize the Islamist threat by asking Muslims to renounce their faith.
Pam Geller, who blogs at Atlas Shrugs, is one who believes that Islam cannont evolve. Fair enough. While I disagree strongly, her's is not an unsupportable position. That said, she has also taken to making personal attacks on Dr. Jasser in an apparent effort to delegitimize him and his message. That is wrong-headed indeed.
Geller recently made a series of personal attacks against Dr. Jasser in an essay at the American Thinker. Dr. Jasser has responded in the same venue with a detailed and documented point by point refutation. I recommend that you read the entire post.
That said, two points that Geller makes deserve special attention. One, she claims that Dr. Jasser is a closet anti-Semite. Two, she claims that his personal interpretation of Islam lacks any theological underpinning, it has no currency among Muslims, and thus his entire effort at reform is useless.
As to the charge of anti-Semitism, Geller refers solely to an interview that she did with Dr. Jasser in 2007 on her blog-talk radio show. Here is how she characterizes that interview in her January 20 piece at American Thinker:
"And when I interviewed Jasser back in 2007, he referred to Israel as occupied territory in the last five minutes of the interview. He blew his cover."
One, such an interpretation of what Jasser said would seem to defy his entire body of work. Beyond that, as Jasser points out, he used the term "occupied territories" during that interview to refer to Gaza and the West Bank, both of which were occupied by Israel from 2000 to 2005. He did so in reference to a question about the use of chidren's shows in those two locales to teach hatred of Jews - something which he unequivocally condemned.
I can speak to this with personal knowledge. I was on the phone to Pam Geller's show during the entirety of her interview with Jasser and for a few minutes thereafter until she signed off. At the conclusion of the interview - which unfortunately is when the transcript ends - she remained talking for a few minutes. During that post-interview time I distinctly recall her raising Dr. Jasser's use of the term "occupied territories" and asking out loud, "what was that about?" I recall wondering at the time why she didn't just ask Dr. Jasser for clarification if she was confused. And as Dr. Jasser points out, she never asked him to clarify what he said before now charging him with being a closeted anti-Semite. She has made the jump from seeing ambiguity in 2007 to today, when she presents to the public the statement as proof positive of Dr. Jasser's anti-Semitism. I don't know whether she is intellectually very slovenly or she is being deliberately disingenuous for the purpose of delegitimizing Dr. Jasser. It is one of the two, if not both. In either event, my respect for her as well as my trust in her assertions has dropped precipitously.
Two, Gellar asserts that Dr. Jasser's push to reform Islam is superfluous:
"Jasser's Islam does not exist. He does not have a theological leg to stand on." . . .
Jasser has no following among Muslims and doesn't represent any Islamic tradition. So what's the point?" . . .
This is a position that is cynical, dangerous, and unsupported by Islamic doctrine or Western history. It is cynical in that it posits that no change in Islam is possible, thus why even try. It is dangerous because it consigns the future of Islam to those who want to keep it mired in the 7th century and it virtually assures that our children will some day be fighting a cataclysmic and existential, if not genocidal, war.
Most polls of Muslims find support for such things as violence in support of Allah or the murder of "apostates" to be minority positions, albeit sizable minorities. As to Iran, the theocracy's brutal, corrupt regime has delegitimized Islam as a political construct among Iran's youth. So regardless of how the Koran, Sunnah or Hadiths may be interpreted by Wahhabists, a majority does not hold to their positions. This certainly suggests that evolution is possible. The flip side of that coin is that they are not the one's with the guns, and indeed, are more likely at the moment to be targets of violence by the minority of Muslims than we in the West. Thus if Muslims are to have any chance of evolving their religion, they will need significant support from non-Muslims, something that our current administration, the Western left and Geller would deny them. Strange bedfellows indeed.
Two, Geller neglects an important point. Islam in fact came with amendment clauses - the doctrine of itjihad and the saying in the Hadiths that the ummah "can never agree on an error." If those have any meaning at all, then there is more than ample room for Islam to evolve, though it will be a bloody internal struggle indeed.
Lastly, during the 9th through the 11th centuries, Islam was the most advanced and enlightened civilization on earth. That ended with the Mongol invasions. Since then, in the Islamic world, there has never been a Renaissance, a Reformation, or a period of Enlightenment. For Wahhabists, there is only Ibn Wahhab's 17th century spin of Ibn Taymiyyah's 13th century interpretation of 7th century Islam. But history teaches us that that all it takes is one man to reform a religion. What remains is for a Muslim Martin Luther to appear and to make use of itjihad, nailing his 95 theses to the doors of Mecca in order to lead a reformation. Whether we think it likely or unlikely is irrelevant. History teaches us what is possible and the polls tell us that a significant portion of the Islamic world might well be receptive. It is, in any event, in the best interests of the entire Western world - and the entire Islamic world - to lend any such effort our full support.
Obama's WTF Budget
Obama today sent to Congress his leviathan $3.73 trillion dollar budget request for 2011. In hyping the release, he noted that his proposed freeze to the discretionary spending that has exploded under his watch, plus draconian cuts to defense spending not mentioned above, would save $1.1 trillion over ten years. He further stated that, under his budget, discretionary spending as a percentage of the entire budget would be at its lowest in decades. As to his promise to cut our budget deficit in half by the end of his first term, . . .
Let's put the spin in perspective. Our budget shortfall last year was $1.3 trillion. In 2009, it was $1.4 trillion and, in 2011, it is forecast to hit $1.5 trillion. So when Obama hypes saving $1.1 trillion OVER TEN YEARS, he isn't even matching the shortfall of one of those years. It's like putting a band-aid over a severed carotid artery. More responsible savings like that and we will be bankrupt in the foreseeable future.
As to the percentage that discretionary spending is to the entire budget, it is hard to think of a more cynical expression of spin. The only reason discretionary spending will be lowered in the future as a percentage of total spending is because entitlement spending is set to rise exponentially with the retirement of baby boomers. It has us on a course to fiscal Armageddon. And Obama is not proposing a damn thing to reign in entitlements in his 2011 budget. Instead, he is using it as a positive in his spin of the 2011 budget. What an utterly worthless s.o.b.
As to his claim to be on track to cut our budget deficit in half by the end of his first term, good lord, that is so patently false I can't believe he raised it in a speech days ago. I heard him say it. I can't believe he said it. Nor can I wait to see what numbers he is going to use to try and show that he is making good on his promise. I don't think its even possible to torture the CBO numbers to the point where they will support his statement.
I don't know about you, but I really am pining for the good ole' days of fiscal responsibility under the Carter administration.
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