Standing In The Presence Of Evil: Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp

The photo above is of a mass grave in the Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp. The camp was liberated by the British Army 70 years ago today on April 15, 1945, an act that is being commemorated in the news today.

NPR has the story of Bergen Belsen Through The Eyes Of Its Liberator. The Daily Mail has an article, Through The Gates Of Hell, that includes never before seen photos taken by British soldiers in 1945. Another article recounts the personal story of a survivor of the camp, "We Did Not Know The Horror To Come." Billie Halliday, a British expatriate, tells of the horrors he saw at Bergen Belsen in Langley veteran saw best and worst of humanity in WWII. Dennis Kilcommons, a journalist, discusses his own visit to Bergen Belsen forty years ago, an event that impacted on him in precisely the same way as my own visit there, discussed below, impacted on me.

Bergen Belsen was a spoke in the wheel of the Final Solution, Hitler's plan to exterminate the Jews in Europe. The method was to gather Jews and other enemies of the state into concentration camps run by members of Hitler's praetorian guard, the SS. Jews not murdered en mass in the camps were to be worked to death, forced to labor while on starvation diets.

The Third Reich's Final Solution resulted in the murder of six million Jews, an event the world would later label the Holocaust. There were others sent to these concentration camps as well to suffer the same fate as the Jews - Gypsies, Eastern Europeans, homosexuals, political prisoners and captured Soviet soldiers. Five million of them also died in the Nazi concentration camps.

Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp was located in north central Germany. It was one of the less notable of the Nazi concentration camps. The camp did not have a Doctor Mengele to conduct sadistic experiments upon the inmates. Nor was the camp the scene of mass execution in gas chambers like at Auschwitz. Murder on an industrial scale at Bergen Belsen was much slower, though by no means less cruel, horrific, or evil than at the other camps. At Bergen Belsen, murder was brought about by systematic starvation and disease allowed to run rampant.

When the British liberated Bergen-Belsen on April 15, 1945, they brought in film crews and photographers to document the living hell that they found. The War Office tasked famed director Alfred Hitchcock to turn the footage into a documentary that, only years later, was released to the public. The first half hour of the documentary deals with Bergen Belsen, the second half hour with other camps, as well as Nazi execution of prisoners in the face of advancing American and British troops:



I am not Jewish. I had studied World War II in school, of course, and I was well aware of the horrors of Nazi concentration camps. I had seen the pictures and read the stories of Dachau and Auschwitz. But, as a young man, the horror and revulsion I felt was purely on an intellectual level.

I wasn't even aware of Bergen Belsen until I found myself, two decades ago, driving past it while on assignment in the area. I had some time to spare, so we went into the site.

There was nothing left of the original buildings at Bergen Belsen by then. All of the camps buildings had been burned and leveled by the British in 1945. There were several buildings built on the site since to house memorials to the 70,000 Jews, Soviet prisoners of war, and other people who were murdered there. There were mementos in glass cases and thousands of horrible pictures lined the walls. It was indeed heartbreaking to see. And there were some exhibits given over to the most famous of the Bergen Belsen's victims, Czech painter and writer Josef Čapek and the sisters, Margot and Anne Frank.

At some point, I stepped outside the memorial buildings and began to wander about. I came upon a series of about twenty rectangular grass plots raised up about a foot off the ground, each neatly lined by brick. They varied in size, but the largest I recall was about maybe 9 or 10 yards wide by maybe 20 yards long. Each plot had its own plaque standing next to it.

I wandered over to one plot and read the plaque. I don't remember the exact numbers on that first plaque, but I remembered it said something like "7,000 people buried here." I wandered to the next plot and read its plaque, and so on and so on. The smallest of the mass graves held the remains of about 1,500 people; the most was over 10,500.

As I read the plaques at each of these tiny mass graves, that is when the horror of it all became real. That is when I fully comprehended the evil that was committed there, and was able for the first time to comprehend the magnitude of its scale. There were no more numbers written on pages of books or pictures on a wall. These were tens of thousands of people, murdered and tossed one on top of another into the smallest possible holes imaginable; tens of thousands of murdered people but a few feet below where I stood. Most were not soldiers, but simple men, women and children who had done no wrong; vibrant people with families, people with lives that could have enriched the world. That moment of realization has haunted me ever since.

What is evil? Moral relativists will say that there is no such thing as evil, but they are are naive fools. No one who visits Bergen Belsen can come away believing that. Evil is easy enough to spot, just hard to articulate. The dictionary defines it as "profound immorality, wickedness, and depravity." I think that close enough. I certainly saw that at Bergen Belsen and, there, for the first time in its presence, understood it.

I don't think many people truly do - understand evil that is. It is hard until you see it first hand and feel its effects on a visceral level. Many of the WWII generation who are now dying off understood this evil. Many of them saw it first hand. They ended the genocidal evil that was Nazi Germany. And famously, they said "Never again." We should all thank God that they did.

Enough.

Update: I had originally included here a "palate cleanser," video of an Auschwitz survivor, the now 90+ year old Adolek Kohn, and his family who returned to that worst of concentration camps and made a tongue in cheek dance video. The brilliant Robert Avrech of Seraphic Secret has informed me that the video is seen by some Auschwitz survivors as offensive. I have no desire whatsoever to offend any survivor of that particular hell. If you wish to see the videos originally posted, the dance video is here, and the back story of the man is here.

Evil cannot win unless we let it. The lesson of Bergen Belsen is that, under no circumstance can we let it. We would be well to remember that in our dealings with Iran, a country equally as evil and genocidal as Hitler's Nazi Germany.

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Obama's Claim: "I Didn't Raise Taxes, I Lowered Them"

Adolf Hitler once said "The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one." Who knew Obama studied the wit and wisdom of der Furher. But that apparently is the case. Exhibit one, his claim in an interview on Sunday with O'Reilly - "I didn't raise taxes; I lowered them over the past two years." Lolllll. This joker must think we live in an alternative universe where the Lincoln hypothesis - that you can't fool all of the people all of the time - doesn't apply.

Obama's problem is that what may have been true in 1935 is not true in 2011, when there are a huge pool of people sitting at their keyboards with access to the internt. This from the WSJ:

. . . Perhaps Mr. Obama has forgotten some of his tax achievements. Allow us to refresh his memory. In his historic health-care bill, for example, there is the new $27 billion "fee" on drug companies that is already in effect. Next year, device manufacturers will get hit to the tune of $20 billion, and heath insurers will pay $60 billion starting in 2014—all of which are de facto tax increases because these collections will be passed on to consumers as higher costs. Of course, these are merely tax increases on business.

As for tax increases on individuals, perhaps he forgot the health-care bill's new 0.9 percentage point increase in the Medicare payroll tax for families making over $250,000 and singles over $200,000. That tax increase takes effect in 2013, as will the application of what will be a 3.8% Medicare surtax (up from 2.9% today) to "unearned income" for the first time. This is a tax hike on investment and interest income, which will reduce the incentive to save and invest.

Mr. Obama also told Mr. O'Reilly that he hasn't moved to the "center" since November's Democratic election defeat, saying "I'm the same guy." Save for a couple of tactical retreats that he couldn't avoid, we agree with him. As the President said recently in the State of the Union, he's going to insist on raising taxes again on people making over $200,000 when his deal with Republicans in Congress expires in 2012. Definitely the same guy.

And then there is this from the Americans For Tax Relief:

ATR says the $1 trillion health care overhaul alone added numerous taxes, including the individual mandate that requires most Americans to purchase health insurance or else pay a fine.

During the legislative debate, Obama and Democrats in Congress argued that a penalty for not carrying insurance is not a tax. But in recent attempts to defend Obamacare as constitutional, the Obama Justice Department has called the penalty a tax.

The health care law’s employer mandate provision also should be considered a tax, ATR said. That provision requires companies to report all business-to-business sales of goods and services exceeding $600 to the Internal Revenue Service. In a bipartisan vote, the Senate recently voted to repeal the so-called 1099 provision, and Obama says he supports the repeal.

The health care law also includes a tax on medical device manufacturers, as well as a higher tax on withdrawals from health savings accounts and a cap on flexible spending accounts.

Other taxes in the health care law cited by ATR include a surtax on investment income, an excise tax on comprehensive health insurance plans, a hike the in the Medicare payroll tax and a tax on indoor tanning services. (See complete list)

On Feb. 4, 2009, Obama signed a federal tobacco tax hike, raising the excise tax 62 cents per pack. Critics, including ATR, said that tax alone violated Obama’s campaign pledge not to raise taxes on couples earning less than $250,000 and on individuals earning less than $200,000.

During Sunday’s interview, Bill O’Reilly asked Obama if he is “a man who wants to redistribute wealth,” as The Wall Street Journal has described him.

The president denied it, again saying, “I didn't raise taxes once; I lowered taxes over the last two years.”

Responding on Monday, ATR said Obama’s claim of being a net-tax-cutter “rests on the temporary tax relief he has signed into law. “That tax increases Obama has signed into law have invariably been permanent. In fact, Obama signed into law $7 in permanent tax hikes for every $1 in permanent tax cuts,” ATR said.

“Over 90 percent of the dollar value of the tax cuts Obama signed into law are only temporary,” said ATR. “100 percent of the tax increases Obama signed into law are, however, permanent … Permanent changes to tax law signed by Obama amount to a net tax hike of $618.7 billion.

Obama is shameless. As Harry Truman once said of Richard Nixon

[He] is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he'd lie just to keep his hand in.

I think that could equally be said about Obama today.

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Demanding Racist Teabaggers Show Civility

Evan Coyne Maloney puts the left's calls for civility and their accusations of racism and radicalism of the right in perspective.



H/T Powerline

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The Scene From A Bunker, Deep Below DNC HQ

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This Day In History - June 13: Slouching With Yeats, Japans Greatest Swordsman Dies

Art: The Bard, John Martin, 1817

1525 – Martin Luther married Katharina von Bora against the celibacy rule decreed by the Roman Catholic Church for priests and nuns. Luther, a critical figure in the history of Western Civilization, gave birth to the Reformation. One of Luther's deepest criticisms was against the Catholic Church's then practice of selling indulgences as a means of forgiveness of sin. In 1517, Luther nailed his famous criticism of the Catholic Church, 95 Theses, to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg on the 31st of October, 1517. It kicked off a firestorm that resulted in his excommunication by the pope in 1521.

1774 – Rhode Island becomes the first of Britain's North American colonies to ban the importation of slaves.

1777 – Marquis de Lafayette landed near Charleston, South Carolina. He came to the U.S. in order to help the Continental Congress to train its army. He would play a pivotal role in helping the U.S. during our Revolutionary War, leading troops in several major engagements, not the least of which was Yorktown.

1893 – Grover Cleveland undergoes secret, successful surgery to remove a large, cancerous portion of his jaw; operation not revealed to US public until 1917, nine years after the president's death. All that is not too notable. What is notable is that the portion of his jaw that was removed is on display at the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia. Mutter is sort of the night of the living dead of the museum world.

1927 – Aviator Charles Lindbergh receives a ticker-tape parade down 5th Avenue in New York City in celebration of his solo non-stop flight from Long Island to Paris in the single-seat, single-engine monoplane the Spirit of St. Louis.

1934 – Adolf Hitler and Mussolini meet in Venice, Italy; Mussolini later described Hitler as "a silly little monkey".

1942 – The United States established the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner to our modern Central Intelligence Agency.

1944 – Germany launched a V1 Rocket attack on England. Only four of the eleven bombs actually hit their targets. Interestingly, many of the German scientists who worked on Hitler's rocket program would be spirited to the U.S. after the war to work on our own space program. I had the unique opportunity to grow up next door to one of these scientists. A fascinating man.

1966 – The United States Supreme Court rules, in Miranda v. Arizona, that the police must inform suspects of their rights before questioning them.

1970 – "The Long and Winding Road" becomes the Beatles' last Number 1 song.

1971 – The New York Times begins publication of the Pentagon Papers. I did my senior thesis at college on the Pentagon Papers and how we went from WWII to the Gulf of Tonkin incident. I still don't understand why Nixon fought the publication of these documents. There was little if anything in there that was of intelligence value by 1971, and the story it told of how we stumbled into Vietnam was mainly a story of missteps by JFK and LBJ.

1978 – Israeli Defense Forces withdraw from Lebanon.

2000 – South Korean President Kim Dae Jung meets North Korea's dictator, Kim Jong-il, for the beginning of the first ever inter-Korea summit, in the northern capital of Pyongyang.

2000 – Italy pardons Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who tried to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981. Agca recently convert to Catholicism.

2002 – Bush withdraws the U.S. from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

2005 – A jury in Santa Maria, California acquits pop singer Michael Jackson of molesting 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo at his Neverland Ranch.

2007 – Al Qaeda - or Iran - does a second bombing of the Al Askari Mosque, one of Shia Islam's holiest sites in Iraq. The first bombing in 2006 brought the country to the brink of civil war. The second bombing, coming in the midst of the surge, had little if any impact.


Births

823 – Charles the Bald, Holy Roman Emperor and King of the West Franks - essentially the area today corresponding to France.

1752 – Fanny Burney, English novelist and diarist. Her novels were satirical peeks into the lives of English aristocrats. My favorite is Camilla published in 1796.

1786 – Winfield Scott was one of the greatest and most successful Generals ever to serve our nation. He served on active duty as a general longer than any other man in American history. Over the course of his fifty-year career, he commanded forces in the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Black Hawk War, the Second Seminole War, and, briefly, the American Civil War, conceiving the Union strategy known as the Anaconda Plan that would be used to defeat the Confederacy.

1865 – William Butler Yeats, Irish writer and my favorite poet. Some of his poetry is of incredible beauty. But his most famous work, The Second Coming, written shortly after the end of WWI, is a poem famous for its disturbing vision.

THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

1892 – Basil Rathbone, English actor who is perhaps most famous for his role as Sherlock Holmes in a series of movies.


Deaths

1645 – Miyamoto Musashi, Japan's most celebrated Samauri swordsman. He became famous for his numerous duels - over sixty of them without a loss. He was the founder of the Hyōhō Niten Ichi-ryū of swordsmanship and the author of The Book of Five Rings a book on strategy, tactics, and philosophy.

1918 – Tsar Mikhail Alexandrovitch Romanov was first of the Romanovs murdered. His execution was ordered by Lenin.

2008 – Tim Russert, host of Meet the Press, died of a sudden heart attack.


Holidays and observances

In ancient Rome, today was the fesival of Quinquatrus Minusculae held in honor of the goddess Minerva, the virgin goddess of warriors, poetry, medicine, wisdom, commerce, weaving, and the inventor of music. She is often depicted with an owl and came to symbolize wisdom.

In the Catholic pantheon of saints, today is the feast of Saint Cetteus and Saint Leo III.

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A Bit Of Honesty From Speaker Pelosi (Updated)

[W]hat the political left, even in democratic countries, share [with Hitler, Stalin and Mao] is the notion that knowledgeable and virtuous people like themselves have both a right and a duty to use the power of government to impose their superior knowledge and virtue on others.

Thomas Sowell, The Prejudices Of The Elite, 2007

"Every aspect of our lives must be subjected to an inventory ... of how we are taking responsibility" in order to control carbon dioxide emissions.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Pelosi Appeals For China's Help on Climate Change, AP, May 28, 2009

Carbon dioxide is central to life. We exhale it. Plants use it to create oxygen. Each time we burn a fossil fuel - those fuels that provide over 90% of our energy and feed our vehicles - we release carbon dioxide. It is hard to imagine quite literally anything that we consume or use, from buying an orange at a store to purchasing, say, a desk that was transported across the country on a truck, that is not involved directly or indirectly in the emission of carbon dioxide.

Yet for all of that, the vast majority of carbon emissions are either not man made or are otherwise natural emissions that we simply cannot control. As pointed out at Power and Control: "The burning of fossil fuels is responsible for just 3.27% of the carbon dioxide that enters the atmosphere each year, while the biosphere and oceans account for 55.28% and 41.46%, respectively."

To what degree, if any, do carbon emissions effect the climate. Scientists in fact disagree on that one. But even assuming that carbon does effect climate, can we can have any sort of impact on our climate by attempting to control the small percentage of carbon dioxide emissions over which theoretical control is possible? That is an even more contentious question. Then, assuming we can actually effect climate, what limits should there be on such efforts to force change by government fiat - i.e., where is the cost/benefit analysis?

For example, Obama has proposed a cap and trade bill that will impose a massive regressive tax on our economy. Yet, as the Governor of Indiana pointed out not long ago, "[n]o honest estimate pretends to suggest that a U.S. cap-and-trade regime will move the world's thermometer by so much as a tenth of a degree a half century from now." The scheme proposed by Obama is like that of the EU. Not long ago, the EU banned outdoor heaters in the UK to limit carbon emissions. Those heaters were responsible for .002 of one percent of Britain's total carbon emissions. Banning them was an exercise in futility. Yet the economic impact was considerable. The cost to pubs, cafes and caterers of this regulation is estimated at a staggering £250 million (half a billion dollars) annually in lost business. Are either justified?

[Update: Jim Manzi at NRO on the Waxmen Cap & Trade Bill:

. . . The costs would be more than ten times the benefits, even under extremely unrealistic assumptions of low costs and high benefits. More realistic assumptions would make for a comparison far less favorable to the bill.

I’ve had to rely on informal studies and back-of-envelope calculations to do this cost/benefit analysis. Why haven’t advocates and sponsors of the proposal done their own? Why are they urging Congress to make an incredible commitment of resources without even cursory analysis of the economic consequences? The answer should be obvious: This is a terrible deal for American taxpayers.

What Mr. Manzi neglects to mention is that this cap and trade system seems far more about finding a massive new revenue source and a vehicle to punish traditional energy than it is about actually reducing carbon. Indeed, an identical program in the EU has seen carbon emissions rise since cap and trade was put in place.

Update: See also this cost benefit analysis from economist Martin Feldstein.]

At any rate, if you don't know the answers to the questions I posed above yet, I would suggest you start digging deep and figure it out. And then take a vocal stand - because there are at least four groups of people who are not motivated by objective science but who are completely invested in pushing a particular answer to these questions. And they are about to change your life drastically:

Group I - As Michael Crichton pointed out several years ago in a brilliant essay on the issue of 'environmentalism,' the far left have made of the global warming issue a religion, complete with an Eden, a dogma, a utopia, and severe penalties for heresy. Al Gore is on record demanding that any dissenting opinion be silenced and and that skeptics be denied access to the public. Numerous of the top "scientists" in the global warming industry are on record calling for the actual prosecution of people who contest "global warming" and the need to control our carbon emissions.

They have traded objective science for religious dogma and when that happens, one takes their word as scientific fact at one's own peril. I am reminded of the fatwah issued by the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia in 1993 that instructed "the earth is flat. Whoever claims it is round is an atheist deserving of punishment." Dogma and science clearly do not go together. We could do with true debates on this issue - but debate is shunned by the global warming crowd. There is a reason climate sceptic Lord Monkton was prevented by the left from appearing before the House Energy Committee at the same time as Al Gore. [Update: See also here, discussing Stanford U. Prof. and global warming alarmist Stephen Schneider's refusal to engage in a debate] If they are not prepared to defend their positions, how can they be believed?

As an aside, someone the other day referred to selling carbon credits under a cap and trade scheme as "granting indulgences." After I stopped laughing, I realized just how apt a description it was, for this is a religion and indulgences were used by the medieval Church to grant forgiveness for sins in return for money.

Group II - A second group are those who want to use environmentalism and control of carbon as a vehicle to attack capitalism and redistribute the world's wealth. Indeed, that was a major theme at last years Bali Conference held by the IPCC, which saw a UN panel urge the imposition of a 'global' carbon dioxide tax on the richest nations. The proceeds of the proposed tax were to fill the UN coffers, which they would then distribute to developing nations, ostensibly to help them combat the effects of climate change.

[Update: To clarify, I consider this group to be made up of the larger international community who are agitating for a redistribution of America's wealth. And the day after I published this, they are in the news again. The Global Humanitarian Forum (GHF) issued a report in which they claim 315,000 deaths in the Third World last year due to global warming. They are using that as justification to put a carbon tax in America, payable to the UN, at the top of the list for the Copenhagen UN/IPCC Summit. It should be noted that, in consideration of the facts that we are in a seventh straight year of global cooling, that we are in an extended period of solar inactivity as reported by NASA, and that temperatures world wide have risen less than a degree over the past century, the numbers of deaths "due to global warming" posited by the GHF would seem to be more than a little cooked. And indeed they are - see Bishop Hill for the explanation.]

[Update 2: If this report is accurate, then Obama has in fact signed us up for both a unilateral carbon emissions reduction a large scale transfer of wealth to the UN, just as GHF and the IPCC are requesting. This is insanity on steroids.]

Group III - Yet a third group, and some of the most vociferous supporters of climate change regulation, are businesses and individuals such as GE and Al Gore who stand to make a windfall from climate change regulation. These are rent seekers who see a chance to reap billions out of the collective pockets of us all. As one author wrote in the WSJ several days ago, we need to beware the Climate Change Industrial Complex. Truly, we do.

Group IV - The most insidious group of all is the fourth - socialist left wing politicians who are on the cusp of using the supposed need to control carbon emissions to justify a massive expansion of government and curtailment of our freedoms. Some of these politicians are fervent believers in the global warming religion while others are far more cynical. Both see in the issue, an unparalleled vehicle for expanding the reach of government, filling the coffers of government with new taxes, and justifying government control of seemingly every aspect of life and the economy. Under the guise of regulating carbon, there is literally nothing that the government cannot reach and then effect through a combination of regulation and taxation. For example -

No more lamb - sheep burps cause global warming.

No more steaks - cattle farts, why they're worse than vehicle emissions.

Indeed, I hope you like a vegetarian diet.

Fat people cause global warming - lose weight or get taxed.

Your thermostat - no more central heating, get ready for centrally controlled heating. As Obama said, "We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK,”

Gas - get ready for it to skyrocket in price - which in fact is nothing more than the left has long sought.

Cars - get ready for them to shrink to deathtrap size while the sticker price goes rocketing "skyward."

Your roof - buy white paint.

Your pocketbook - it will shrink massively under cap and trade plus all of the other green initiatives, with the proceeds going to fund the climate change industry and government coffers. Estimates now are that the cap and trade policies of Obama alone will to cost each family in America nearly $4,000 annually. That is quite a regressive tax from the man who promised us tax cuts but for the wealthy few.

Private jets - well, you can't afford one, but our overlords will be quick to point out that just a few of those (i.e., theirs) will not add appreciably to our carbon footprint. Green for thee, not for me, as Instapundit would put it. It is much easier to be green when you do not have to worry about paying your bills at the end of the month, but it gets even easier when you are not just incredibly rich, but also have a high tolerance for your own personal hypocrisy.

This isn't the road to a green Utopia. Its the road to an Orwellian green hell.

No one on the left has done more to clarify how the socialist left sees this issue than Nancy Pelosi today. As she said, the left intends to reevaluate "every aspect" of your life. What she implied was that after such reevaluation comes regulation and control of aspects she finds below her standards. Thomas Sowell was right - shades of Hitler, Mao and Stalin indeed.

[Update 3: The Non-Governmental International Panel on Climate Change has just issued a nearly 900 page report challenging the science of global warming. You can find the document here. Below are two videos that show the unveiling of the report and give a brief overview.

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A Socialist Coup (Updated)

At least one rule of the EU is simple and unambiguous. A failure of any one member country to ratify an EU treaty (or in this case, the Constitution disingenuously renamed a treaty to get around the need for national referendums) means the Treaty does not come into force. But the EU is not going to let democracy or its own laws stand in the way. It has brushed aside the one democratic referendum held the other day in Ireland and plans to enforce the Treaty of Lisbon regardless. There is a true coup going on in Europe. The rule of law and democracy have been tossed out, and what is being created in their stead is something both both Marx and Orwell would recognize.
__________________________________________________________

If you believe in democracy and the rule of law, what you see today across the pond and in Europe should be horrifying. The Irish referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon, blogged below, by law should have ended this socialist coup. But it has not. The EU Referendum quotes a press release from Hans-Gert Pöttering, the president of the EU parliament:

It is of course a great disappointment for all those who wanted to achieve greater democracy, greater political effectiveness and greater clarity and transparency in decision-making in the European Union that the majority of the Irish could not be convinced of the need for these reforms of the European Union. We must not forget, however, that the European Union has experienced crises and times of difficulty several times before. Today, as in the past, we must keep a cool head.

The rejection of the Treaty text by one European Union country cannot mean that the ratifications which have already been carried out by 18 EU countries become invalid. The ratifications in the other EU Member States must be respected just as much as the Irish vote. For that reason, the ratification process must continue in those Member States which have not yet ratified. . . .

Read the entire post.

There is nothing democratic or transparent about the manner in which the EU operates. And indeed, the opacity and centralization of power without any institutionalized system of checks and balances will only increase significantly once the EU is operating under its Constitution. Pöttering's rejection of EU rules regarding complete ratification of the Treaty by all EU member nations as a prerequisite for the Treaty going into effect is unlawful - but it tells you precisely how undemocratic and how utterly determined the intelligentsia of Europe are to impose the EU upon its citizens, wholly irrespective of whatever the wishes of the citizens may be.

And this from the Times:

Britain is pressing on with the tortuous ratification of the European Union’s Lisbon treaty, despite Ireland rejecting it in a referendum.

Jim Murphy, the Europe minister, said today the Irish would be left isolated when the other 26 EU member nations passed the treaty into law later this year. The treaty would establish the offices of a European president and foreign minister, and would reduce the power of individual nations to veto reforms.

Gordon Brown, the prime minister, has rejected calls for a referendum on the treaty, but in Ireland, where constitutional law obliged a referendum, citizens rejected it overwhelmingly.

. . . Legally the treaty requires the ratification of all 27 member states to come into force - but Britain has joined France and Germany in signalling that it will look for a way around that technicality [emphasis added].

. . . The treaty was still good for Britain, he insisted, and the onus was now on Ireland to propose a means of resolving the crisis when EU leaders meet in Brussels next week.

The rest of the EU could proceed with the document in some form without the Irish, he signalled, and would finish ratifying it at the end of this year.

He said: “It is important to reflect then, is it 26 governments who have ratified and is it one that hasn’t? And then we discuss the way forward.”

. . . European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso said the treaty was not dead. France and Germany, too, have urged the EU to press ahead with the project despite admitting that the referendum result was a serious blow.

Read the entire article. And there is this, also in the Times, from socialist Labour MP, Dennis MacShane. He gives you some idea of the mindset of those determined to make the EU super-state a reality, democracy be damned:

It took hundreds of pages of the Federalist Papers, a few dozen men locked for weeks in a sealed room in Philadelphia and a bloody civil war for the US constitution to be accepted. So the little local difficulties in France, the Netherlands and now Ireland must be seen in a broader perspective.

Anti-Europeans are lacing their champagne with Guinness as they celebrate the “no” vote and proclaim with W.B. Yeats “all changed, changed utterly”. Yet the EU, its Commission, existing treaties and directives will still be in place tomorrow. Europe has been here before and will be again.

. . . Ireland and the rest of Europe will wake up on Monday with a headache but not much else. Not a single Eurocrat will lose his job. . .

The big losers are Turkey and Croatia. British Tory Eurosceptics hypocritically proclaim their support for Turkish accession, but know that demanding referendums on future treaties means an end to enlargement [emphasis added].

No EU treaty can come into force until all signatory nations ratify it. But Ireland represents 1 per cent of the EU's total population and some old-fashioned democrats may feel that 1 per cent does not outweigh the rest of Europe's nations which are saying “yes” to the treaty [emphasis added].

But the rules are clear. Had the Irish voted “yes” and the British Parliament voted “no”, it is unlikely that Open Europe and Stuart Wheeler would describe the Irish popular vote as superior to one by Britain's sovereign parliament.

But amid the clamour from anti-EU campaigners in Britain and other nations to ignore sovereign parliamentary decisions, some way forward will have to be found.

. . . “Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold,” Yeats wrote, and its complacent political establishment may feel that Ireland is falling apart. Yeats added that “anarchy is loosed upon the world”, and an anarchic bust-up is what many Eurosceptics hope for. But it won't happen. Europe will go on its summer holidays. Perhaps when it comes back, ways will be found to make the treaty work, or the parts of it that do not need any treaty change.

. . . As the hysteria dies down, ways will be found to make Europe work, with or without the treaty. For both pro- and anti-Europeans, things have not changed so utterly at all.

Read the entire article. Mr. MacShane seems to be a little off in his U.S. history. There was no civil war involved in the crafting of the U.S. Constitution. Nor was it a thing crafted in hiding. Indeed, the Federalist Papers he cites and the like are a testament to just how open and democratic the process was in crafting the Constitution. That stands in stark contrast to everything about the EU. Indeed, every effort has been made to muddle the water. The Treaty of Lisbon stood for months as hundreds of pages of incomprehensible amendments apart from the original documents being amended - thus making it impossible for the average person to make heads or tails to what the Treaty actually said or to compare it to the Consitution from 2005. Indeed, it is hard to think of a more grotesque and improper comparison than that which Mr. MacShane makes between the U.S. and the socialist coup that is occurring today in Europe.

And how Orwellian is it for MacShane to appeal to "democracy" to reject the "no" vote of Ireland? The reason only 1% of the citizens of Europe voted against this socialist nightmare is because only 1% of Europe's citizens have yet to be given a vote on it, at least under its current disingenous categorization as a "treaty" rather than a "constitution." When it was named the latter, both the people of France and the Netherlands voted it down in 2005. Which is precisely why the EU renamed it a treaty and sought to ram it down citizen's throats without their opportunity to vote on it.

And what does it tell you of the thought process of Mr. MacShane to attack the Tory party over a referendum on EU enlargement, claiming hypocrisy on the Tory's part because they, the Tories, know a referendum to enlarge the EU will fail. These people have nothing but utter disdain for democracy and a complete belief in their right to impose their will. They are dangerous.

Update: More from EU Referendum on the plans impose the Treaty of Lisbon irrespective of the Irish vote here.

The people of Britain and Europe have collectively shrugged their shoulders and allowed their democratic votes to be taken from them without, seemingly, any concern. I do not understand how this can occur without blood in the streets. I will never understand this mindset and apathy. What is going on in Europe is no less a coup with a bare patina of democracy than was Hitler's accretion of power in the 1930's. I expect the long term ramifications of this grand experiment in socialism to be no less disastrous.

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Bush, Obama & Talks With Hitler

President Bush, speaking before Israel’s Knesset, gave a brilliant speech, hitting among his major points that attempting to talk to and appease genocidal enemies does not work – just as attempts to talk with Hitler in the late 30’s were an incredibly naive blunder that led to WWII. Anyone who has been following this blog has heard that same theme repeated ad infinitum (see here). No names were mentioned by Bush in his speech, but the Obama and the Democrats have for some reason decided that it was a thinly veiled attack on them and are pulling out the far left playbook to try and stop such blasphemy before it can actually be debated. It’s the politics of fear, politics beyond the water’s edge, etc. And in usual Republican fashion, there is no response to the pure bull spewing from the left.
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This was President Bush today from his speech at the Kinnesset:

. . . There are good and decent people who cannot fathom the darkness in [bin Laden, Iran's theocracy, Hamas, Hezbollah] and try to explain away their words. It's natural, but it is deadly wrong. As witnesses to evil in the past, we carry a solemn responsibility to take these words seriously. Jews and Americans have seen the consequences of disregarding the words of leaders who espouse hatred. And that is a mistake the world must not repeat in the 21st century.

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history. (Applause.) . . .

I have included the entire speech at the bottom of this post. It is one of Bush’s best. For some reason, the Obama camp took that bit about meeting and appeasement as being about them. Their response, from the NYT:

The Obama campaign issued an angry response. In an e-mail statement to reporters, the senator denounced Mr. Bush for using the 60th anniversary of Israel to "launch a false political attack," adding, "George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the president’s extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel."

Obama's response is incredible. Any possible comparison of his articulated foreign policy is labled as the politics of fear and put beyond debate (As to the "politicization of foreign policy," someone will have to explain that to me. It sounds both sinister and meaningless.) He should be roasted over the coals for hiding from a debate about matters clearly existential to our country. Yet in true Republican fashion, not a single Republican, including McCain, is jumping up and down on the tables crying at the top of their lungs, "bull*****." A big part of the Republican problem is their total inability to communicate and respond to the sheer hypocrisy of Democratic attacks. And for more such hypocrisy, the NYT quotes some incredible historical revisionism from Rahm Emanuel:

Other Democrats leapt to Mr. Obama’s defense, among them Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, who accused Mr. Bush of taking politics overseas.

"The tradition has always been that when a U.S. President is overseas, partisan politics stops at the water’s edge," Mr. Emanuel said in a statement. "President Bush has now taken that principle and turned it on its head."

Wow. Where did that come from? No one will ever accuse Democrats of being historians. The principle that "politics stops at the water's edge" – a phrase coined by Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg in 1948 – originated in context of how our Congress should deal in bipartisan fashion with threats to our country. Vandenberg, an isolationist, nonetheless supported President Truman and argued to his colleagues that we should present a united front to our enemies. Indeed, it was what Republicans did during WWII and its aftermath. The Democrats, who have done all possible to undercut Bush foreign policy, to legislate a defeat in Iraq and champion the cause of surrender while our soldiers have been fighting and dying over there have completely gutted, shredded and burned Vandenberg's precept til there is nothing left of it. For Rahm Emanuel to pull out that phrase in this context shows that he is either a complete idiot with no knowledge of history or a partisan hack with no shred of intellectual honesty. Actually, I consider the two in combination to be the most likely explanation.

Here is President Bush's speech given at the Knesset. It is possibly his most eloquent speech of his presidency:

2:55 P.M. (Local) THE PRESIDENT: President Peres and Mr. Prime Minister, Madam Speaker, thank very much for hosting this special session. President Beinish, Leader of the Opposition Netanyahu, Ministers, members of the Knesset, distinguished guests: Shalom. Laura and I are thrilled to be back in Israel. We have been deeply moved by the celebrations of the past two days. And this afternoon, I am honored to stand before one of the world's great democratic assemblies and convey the wishes of the American people with these words: Yom Ha'atzmaut Sameach. (Applause.)

It is a rare privilege for the American President to speak to the Knesset. (Laughter.) Although the Prime Minister told me there is something even rarer -- to have just one person in this chamber speaking at a time. (Laughter.) My only regret is that one of Israel's greatest leaders is not here to share this moment. He is a warrior for the ages, a man of peace, a friend. The prayers of the American people are with Ariel Sharon. (Applause.)

We gather to mark a momentous occasion. Sixty years ago in Tel Aviv, David Ben-Gurion proclaimed Israel's independence, founded on the "natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate." What followed was more than the establishment of a new country. It was the redemption of an ancient promise given to Abraham and Moses and David -- a homeland for the chosen people Eretz Yisrael.

Eleven minutes later, on the orders of President Harry Truman, the United States was proud to be the first nation to recognize Israel's independence. And on this landmark anniversary, America is proud to be Israel's closest ally and best friend in the world.

The alliance between our governments is unbreakable, yet the source of our friendship runs deeper than any treaty. It is grounded in the shared spirit of our people, the bonds of the Book, the ties of the soul. When William Bradford stepped off the Mayflower in 1620, he quoted the words of Jeremiah: "Come let us declare in Zion the word of God." The founders of my country saw a new promised land and bestowed upon their towns names like Bethlehem and New Canaan. And in time, many Americans became passionate advocates for a Jewish state.

Centuries of suffering and sacrifice would pass before the dream was fulfilled. The Jewish people endured the agony of the pogroms, the tragedy of the Great War, and the horror of the Holocaust -- what Elie Wiesel called "the kingdom of the night." Soulless men took away lives and broke apart families. Yet they could not take away the spirit of the Jewish people, and they could not break the promise of God. (Applause.) When news of Israel's freedom finally arrived, Golda Meir, a fearless woman raised in Wisconsin, could summon only tears. She later said: "For two thousand years we have waited for our deliverance. Now that it is here it is so great and wonderful that it surpasses human words."

The joy of independence was tempered by the outbreak of battle, a struggle that has continued for six decades. Yet in spite of the violence, in defiance of the threats, Israel has built a thriving democracy in the heart of the Holy Land. You have welcomed immigrants from the four corners of the Earth. You have forged a free and modern society based on the love of liberty, a passion for justice, and a respect for human dignity. You have worked tirelessly for peace. You have fought valiantly for freedom.

My country's admiration for Israel does not end there. When Americans look at Israel, we see a pioneer spirit that worked an agricultural miracle and now leads a high-tech revolution. We see world-class universities and a global leader in business and innovation and the arts. We see a resource more valuable than oil or gold: the talent and determination of a free people who refuse to let any obstacle stand in the way of their destiny.

I have been fortunate to see the character of Israel up close. I have touched the Western Wall, seen the sun reflected in the Sea of Galilee, I have prayed at Yad Vashem. And earlier today, I visited Masada, an inspiring monument to courage and sacrifice. At this historic site, Israeli soldiers swear an oath: "Masada shall never fall again." Citizens of Israel: Masada shall never fall again, and America will be at your side.

This anniversary is a time to reflect on the past. It's also an opportunity to look to the future. As we go forward, our alliance will be guided by clear principles -- shared convictions rooted in moral clarity and unswayed by popularity polls or the shifting opinions of international elites.

We believe in the matchless value of every man, woman, and child. So we insist that the people of Israel have the right to a decent, normal, and peaceful life, just like the citizens of every other nation. (Applause.)

We believe that democracy is the only way to ensure human rights. So we consider it a source of shame that the United Nations routinely passes more human rights resolutions against the freest democracy in the Middle East than any other nation in the world. (Applause.)

We believe that religious liberty is fundamental to a civilized society. So we condemn anti-Semitism in all forms -- whether by those who openly question Israel's right to exist, or by others who quietly excuse them.

We believe that free people should strive and sacrifice for peace. So we applaud the courageous choices Israeli's leaders have made. We also believe that nations have a right to defend themselves and that no nation should ever be forced to negotiate with killers pledged to its destruction. (Applause.)

We believe that targeting innocent lives to achieve political objectives is always and everywhere wrong. So we stand together against terror and extremism, and we will never let down our guard or lose our resolve. (Applause.)

The fight against terror and extremism is the defining challenge of our time. It is more than a clash of arms. It is a clash of visions, a great ideological struggle. On the one side are those who defend the ideals of justice and dignity with the power of reason and truth. On the other side are those who pursue a narrow vision of cruelty and control by committing murder, inciting fear, and spreading lies.

This struggle is waged with the technology of the 21st century, but at its core it is an ancient battle between good and evil. The killers claim the mantle of Islam, but they are not religious men. No one who prays to the God of Abraham could strap a suicide vest to an innocent child, or blow up guiltless guests at a Passover Seder, or fly planes into office buildings filled with unsuspecting workers. In truth, the men who carry out these savage acts serve no higher goal than their own desire for power. They accept no God before themselves. And they reserve a special hatred for the most ardent defenders of liberty, including Americans and Israelis.

And that is why the founding charter of Hamas calls for the "elimination" of Israel. And that is why the followers of Hezbollah chant "Death to Israel, Death to America!" That is why Osama bin Laden teaches that "the killing of Jews and Americans is one of the biggest duties." And that is why the President of Iran dreams of returning the Middle East to the Middle Ages and calls for Israel to be wiped off the map.

There are good and decent people who cannot fathom the darkness in these men and try to explain away their words. It's natural, but it is deadly wrong. As witnesses to evil in the past, we carry a solemn responsibility to take these words seriously. Jews and Americans have seen the consequences of disregarding the words of leaders who espouse hatred. And that is a mistake the world must not repeat in the 21st century.

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history. (Applause.)

Some people suggest if the United States would just break ties with Israel, all our problems in the Middle East would go away. This is a tired argument that buys into the propaganda of the enemies of peace, and America utterly rejects it. Israel's population may be just over 7 million. But when you confront terror and evil, you are 307 million strong, because the United States of America stands with you. (Applause.)

America stands with you in breaking up terrorist networks and denying the extremists sanctuary. America stands with you in firmly opposing Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions. Permitting the world's leading sponsor of terror to possess the world's deadliest weapons would be an unforgivable betrayal for future generations. For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. (Applause.)

Ultimately, to prevail in this struggle, we must offer an alternative to the ideology of the extremists by extending our vision of justice and tolerance and freedom and hope. These values are the self-evident right of all people, of all religions, in all the world because they are a gift from the Almighty God. Securing these rights is also the surest way to secure peace. Leaders who are accountable to their people will not pursue endless confrontation and bloodshed. Young people with a place in their society and a voice in their future are less likely to search for meaning in radicalism. Societies where citizens can express their conscience and worship their God will not export violence, they will be partners in peace.

The fundamental insight, that freedom yields peace, is the great lesson of the 20th century. Now our task is to apply it to the 21st. Nowhere is this work more urgent than here in the Middle East. We must stand with the reformers working to break the old patterns of tyranny and despair. We must give voice to millions of ordinary people who dream of a better life in a free society. We must confront the moral relativism that views all forms of government as equally acceptable and thereby consigns whole societies to slavery. Above all, we must have faith in our values and ourselves and confidently pursue the expansion of liberty as the path to a peaceful future.

That future will be a dramatic departure from the Middle East of today. So as we mark 60 years from Israel's founding, let us try to envision the region 60 years from now. This vision is not going to arrive easily or overnight; it will encounter violent resistance. But if we and future Presidents and future Knessets maintain our resolve and have faith in our ideals, here is the Middle East that we can see:

Israel will be celebrating the 120th anniversary as one of the world's great democracies, a secure and flourishing homeland for the Jewish people. The Palestinian people will have the homeland they have long dreamed of and deserved -- a democratic state that is governed by law, and respects human rights, and rejects terror. From Cairo to Riyadh to Baghdad and Beirut, people will live in free and independent societies, where a desire for peace is reinforced by ties of diplomacy and tourism and trade. Iran and Syria will be peaceful nations, with today's oppression a distant memory and where people are free to speak their minds and develop their God-given talents. Al Qaeda and Hezbollah and Hamas will be defeated, as Muslims across the region recognize the emptiness of the terrorists' vision and the injustice of their cause.

Overall, the Middle East will be characterized by a new period of tolerance and integration. And this doesn't mean that Israel and its neighbors will be best of friends. But when leaders across the region answer to their people, they will focus their energies on schools and jobs, not on rocket attacks and suicide bombings. With this change, Israel will open a new hopeful chapter in which its people can live a normal life, and the dream of Herzl and the founders of 1948 can be fully and finally realized.

This is a bold vision, and some will say it can never be achieved. But think about what we have witnessed in our own time. When Europe was destroying itself through total war and genocide, it was difficult to envision a continent that six decades later would be free and at peace. When Japanese pilots were flying suicide missions into American battleships, it seemed impossible that six decades later Japan would be a democracy, a lynchpin of security in Asia, and one of America's closest friends. And when waves of refugees arrived here in the desert with nothing, surrounded by hostile armies, it was almost unimaginable that Israel would grow into one of the freest and most successful nations on the earth.

Yet each one of these transformations took place. And a future of transformation is possible in the Middle East, so long as a new generation of leaders has the courage to defeat the enemies of freedom, to make the hard choices necessary for peace, and stand firm on the solid rock of universal values.

Sixty years ago, on the eve of Israel's independence, the last British soldiers departing Jerusalem stopped at a building in the Jewish quarter of the Old City. An officer knocked on the door and met a senior rabbi. The officer presented him with a short iron bar -- the key to the Zion Gate -- and said it was the first time in 18 centuries that a key to the gates of Jerusalem had belonged to a Jew. His hands trembling, the rabbi offered a prayer of thanksgiving to God, "Who had granted us life and permitted us to reach this day." Then he turned to the officer, and uttered the words Jews had awaited for so long: "I accept this key in the name of my people."

Over the past six decades, the Jewish people have established a state that would make that humble rabbi proud. You have raised a modern society in the Promised Land, a light unto the nations that preserves the legacy of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. And you have built a mighty democracy that will endure forever and can always count on the United States of America to be at your side. God bless. (Applause.)

3:18 P.M. (Local)

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Interesting News - 30 January 2008

Medieval Islamic justice in the Maldives. Four men who broke into a 12 year old girls house and gang raped her were convicted only of "consensual sex before marriage" and given no jail time. The Islamic Court ruled that the victim had implied consent because she had reached the age of puberty and did not scream or struggle, as the court has determined the facts.

Has anyone noticed that the greatest threats to freedom of speech in the West all come from the left these days. The latest involves Kommisar Corzine in the Garden State.

And in the Islamic World, the censor keeps a close eye on what books are permissible for sale in the county. Nothing is allowed in critical of Islam or making the connection between Islam and terrorism – which, as we know from Britain, does not exist.

I happen to pray to the patron saint of economics also.

Sheik Yer Mami has a round up of Jihad News. As to be expected, all is quite disturbing – with the statement on Jordian family values the most so.

Some humorous and sage advice on the upcoming election at Politics & Pigskins.

Pressaphobia? Perhaps agenda journalism has something to do with it.

So was 1812 the worst year ever for Britain? I think that such a characterization is a bit to soon. 2008 may well dismiss thoughts of 1812 to . . . the dustbin of history.

Oh Adolph, we barely knew you. Der Spiegel on the rise of Hitler to the position of idol in 1930’s Germany.

"There is . . . nothing less accountable or more invisible than a hidebound bureaucracy, exercising its right to omniscience and an implacable resistance to reason." What a great quote by a Brit caught in a stereotypical comedy sketch with local govt. But he fails to see the humor. If he thinks the locals are bad, what does the world’s ultimate bureaucracy, the EU, portend? (H/T: An Englishman’s Castle)

The thought of a McCain nomination is driving some of my favorite conservative pundits nuts. I think McCain will be the best of the existing choices for foreign policy, – and if he gets good economic advice, that he could be a successful President. (H/T Instapundit)

The thing is, turning over Gaza was Ariel Sharon’s idea. Yet I am sure he would have truly punished Hamas for their actions under the current circumstance. Sharon went comatose far too soon, or stayed compos mentis too long, depending on your point of view. The former would lead to Israel exercising its duty to defend its citizens with all necessary force. The latter would have left Gaza under Israeli control. What is happening now is simply ridiculous.

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