Pathologies and Motivations of the Left

There are some very good posts out of late, trying to analyze the motivations, and in some cases, tactics, of the left wing our political spectrum. Both are correct. I would take them a bit farther in some respects.

At Bookworm Room, the author writes:

Near the end of his talk about American communists’ long-term plan (now coming to fruition) to flood America with a permanent Democrat majority through Hispanic amnesty, Trevor Loudon tossed in an interesting throwaway. When someone asked him why Leftists would want to reduce the US to the status of a Latin American banana Republic, he said that, in a conversation with Tammy Bruce (a former hard Leftist herself), she told him “They’re all damaged individuals.” That is, we have a powerful political movement made up of damaged people out for revenge.

The author goes on to flush out the point about damaged individuals. They are the footsoldiers of the left. The left invites them to embrace their grievances, nurse them, use those grievances to define themselves. Then they claim moral superiority as victims of society, for which they demand sympathy and obsequence. Woe be unto any person in society who does not provide both for, whenever possible, the left will enlist the police power of the state to punish them.

At American Digest, where Gerard Van Der Luen invariably looks at the oddities of life from a unique perspective, he opines that the left has taken the seven deadly sins and turned them into left-wing virtues:

Progressive PRIDE: It’s no accident that this word comes up again and again in their writings. It is essential for the Progressive to internalize extreme amounts of Pride. Pride in the self is the single most important element the freed will needs to move God out of the universe entirely and Self into the center. Once Self is in the center and the feeding of Self the most important element of existence, there is effectively no limit on what the Will can demand for the Self. . . .

Progressive ENVY: This is an ancient organizing tool that uses those with less than everything as tools against those who have, well, more. It doesn’t matter if “more” is an second goat, or an extra billion dollars. Thou shalt covet is the commandment here. . . .

Progressive SLOTH: One of the pleasures of being a Progressive is the one never has to actually produce anything of use in the form of innovation and invention. Progressives need only put in place things that impede innovation and invention in the form of excessive laws and continuing and complex regulations and false customs. It is remarkable in this century that one can spend a lifetime making these impediments to prosperity in the media, in academic life, in unions, and in a bureaucratic career, and only rise from reward to greater reward by making those and other careers safer for slackers and lay-abouts. . . .

Progressive LUST: . . . [T]here are endless fully-supported programs that enable sex without any chance of pregnancy and, should avoiding pregnancy prove to be beyond the mental capabilities of the betas, there are subsidized programs for terminating any inconveniences. . . .

Progressive AVARICE: The old joke of the two line IRS form that reads,

HOW MUCH DID YOU MAKE? __________________.
SEND IT IN.

seems less and less amusing as it becomes more and more clear that Progressivism is merely the stalking horse for the complete control of private property and assets of the middle class. (Graduation to the “political class” aka “The Party” or “Politburo” grants you and your family a waiver.)

Both BWR and van der Luen are accurate in their assessments of the left and the left's tactics. I'll go just a bit farther in trying to relate my own thoughts.

1. Victim Groups: Marx, in his magnum opus, The Communist Manifesto, claimed in his opening lines that all of history was nothing more than a "history of class struggles" between "oppressor and oppressed." It is an incredibly simplistic, distorted and myopic view of society and history, but it is the one the left has wholly adopted. Thus, the left seeks power by dividing the world into discrete victim's groups, and, as Bookworm Room points out, this draws the traumatized and those who feel wronged like moths to a flame. They become the foot soldiers and captains in the left's war on Western civilization.

2. Moral Superiority: The left claims for themselves moral superiority on behalf of the victim groups. The left uses that to justify harnessing the police power of the state, ostensibly in defense or furtherance of these victim groups. And in order to work fundamental change, the left seeks to punish not merely deed, but thought and speech through the police powers of the state.

Note here the corollary to all of the above. Once the victims groups have served their purpose and the left fully takes power, there are no more victims groups, only the state and enemies of the state.

3. Socio-Economics: The entire focus of the left is on socio-economics. From each according to his means to each according to his needs, as Marx once wrote. A leftist views perfection as equality of outcome, and more particularly, economic outcome. Thus does the left see societal problems and solutions as all rooted in economics. All problems of this nation and, indeed, the world, can be solved with better job opportunities and increased sharing of wealth. It is one of the reasons our modern left has failed in so many ways to actually help the victim groups they claim to champion, yet whose problems largely transcend economics. It's why you have Nicholas Kristoff at the NYT this week bemoaning the fact that the left ignored the Moynihan report half a century ago. And it is why the left is having so much trouble dealing with Iran and Islamic terrorism, none of whose motivations are rooted in economics.

4. Religion As The Enemy: The goal of marxism and the left is to rework society, to uproot it from its historical foundations, and to create a paradise of equality for all on earth. Since the inception of left wing philosophy in the French Revolution, it's adherents have sought, as absolutely necessary for achieving their ends, to drive the Judeo-Christian religion from the public square. The Judeo-Christian religions are inextricably linked to our governing systems, laws and societal structures and provide the basis for Western morality, elevating the sanctity of the individual human life above all. The left wants morality to be determined solely by Government. That can only be accomplished when the Judeo-Christian religion no longer influences our society.

The left relied on the Courts and a bastardized interpretation of the First Amendment to attack the Judeo Christian religion for the past near century. But their greatest weapon has come with "gay rights," given that both Judaism and Christianity view homosexuality as a sin. That tool has been coupled with an expansive version of "women's rights" to include forced taxpayer funding of contraception, to include abortifacients, as a means to attack and marginalize religion in society.

5. Education: Lenin once famously said ""Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted." And thus the left has long sought to dominate academia at all levels, to control the curriculum, and to teach left wing values.

6. Family: The basis for society since the dawn of Western civilization has been the family, with it being the parent's responsibility to teach their children values and morality. But the left seeks to intercede, and indeed, limit the role of the family in raising children. This desire to stand in loco parentis is nowhere more apparent than in regards to decisions regarding sex, abortion and birth control, where the left has long sought to completely disengage parents from these decisions, where issues, implicating as they do fundamental morality.

7. Emotion Over Reason: The left relies on emotion over reason, which is perhaps their greatest strength. Oh, left wing academics kill entire forests to add the patina of reason to justify left wing policies. But the reality is that the pull of the left is their emotional appeal to values we all share, even if those values are utterly perverted by the policies the left adopts.

8. Kulaks: The left must have their Kulaks, their groups of implacable enemies and oppressors. For race hustlers, it is white conservatives. For radical feminists, it's the patriarchy. When Obama was pushing Obamacare, it was the insurance companies. For people to feel emotion and certainty of moral purpose, the left must always have an evil oppressor to demonize.

9. Hatred of Western Civilization: Within the larger context of left wing ideology, since it is our nation and Western civilization that the left wishes to co-opt and change, it is our nation as well as Western civilization that is promoted as uniquely evil. Thus do women's rights advocates spend mountains of ink attacking such burning issues as man-spreading on the NY subway while wholly ignoring the complete lack of women's rights in the Islamic world. Thus can Obama excuse Muslim violence against the West by pointing back a thousand years in history to the Crusades. How often can the West be condemned for imperialism before it is noted that virtually every extant nation on earth has engaged in imperialism at one time or another, and that the Muslims have been the most imperialistic and expansionist force in history. When left wing academics condemn Americans for expanding into Indian territory in America, do they ever go back to look at the brutal wars the Indians themselves fought for territory? No, in every case, for the left, nothing excuses the actions of the West, nor does anything rise to the level of sin outside of the West.

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The Watcher's Question -- How Would You Improve Race Relations In America?

Each week the Watcher's Council holds a forum. This week's topic is "how would you improve race relations in America." Having been invited to respond, here is the extended version of my answer. A shorter version will appear at the Watcher's forum.

Update: The Forum has now been posted. There are several very good answers to the question. Do pay the forum a visit.

There will always be some degree of tribalism, it being human nature. But racism today is largely absent from this country. Those who harbor "racist" views are relegated to the very fringes of society. Virtually all Americans of whatever color or political persuasion would like to see nothing more than blacks fully embracing the opportunities life in this nation offers, and enjoying the fruits of their efforts equally with all others. So why are race relations problematic today, and why, by all metrics, are black Americans worse off than others? It can all be summed up in one picture:

This picture is from one of Rev. Al's protests a few years ago. The sign the woman is holding up says everything. Racism is no longer a real issue in society, but the left must maintain the canard that it is. Blacks must be made to see themselves as permanent victims of racism and as being championed by the race hustlers of the left. Moreover, it's important to note the poor grammar used on the sign. It screams out that the woman who wrote it has been failed by whatever schools she attended, thus limiting her opportunities to thrive in America.

So with that in mind, the first thing to understand about race relations is that the left are invested in seeing that the "racial divide" remains as wide as possible. This is political, as it has been since the early 60's, when the marxist "new left" -- our modern left -- made common cause with the heirs of Martin Luther King's civil rights movement. They morphed that movement from an effort to build a color blind society with equality of opportunity for all into a color centric, unified block of people who are fed daily a tautology that they are, and will ever be, permanently victimized by white conservatives. Actual history of support for blacks and civil rights was ignored or rewritten, and it was done so effectively that, to this day, blacks vote 90% as a block for Democrats. If the modern left ever loses even a portion of that block of support, it would be catastrophic. While quite literally everyone I know on the right would like to heal the "racial divide," for the left, their very political survival depends on using it to "divide and conquer."

Thus do you have Rep. John Lewis claiming that any effort to insure the integrity of the vote, something that should be of greater importance to blacks than any other racial group, is actually an effort to deprive blacks of their right to vote. Thus do you have a man at the pinnacle of academia, Harvard Prof. Henry Gates, and other black intellectuals teaching their students about critical race theory, color blind racism, white privilege, and to believe that black slavery was an unpardonable sin such that, irrespective of today's reality, they should keep their two hundred year old racial grievances alive until all blacks are paid reparations. Thus do you have the Department of Justice using disparate impact theory to claim that racism is rampant, despite the fact that they can find no actual incidents of racism in any individual instance. For the modern left, it is critical to keep blacks beliving that all of America today is nothing more than 1954 Selma, Alabama writ large.

The second thing to understand is that blacks have paid a heavy price indeed for their Faustian bargain with the left. By virtually every metric, while the lives of blacks have improved, and while many black individuals have been able to embrace the opportunities this country has to offer, a very substantial portion of blacks have not. It is obscene that, in America, some 25% of blacks live in poverty. It is obscene that, where in 1965, less than 30% of black children were born into a single parent family, that number is now over 70%. It is obscene that that 30 to 40 percent of inner city kids don’t graduate from school, and a very substantial number who do graduate are functionally illiterate. It is obscene that blacks are seven times more likely to commit violent crime than other races. And it is obscene that these problems are cyclical. Nothing the left has done for blacks has broken this cycle, and it all portends to get much worse as cities, where large numbers of blacks congregate and many of whom take public sector jobs, fall into bankruptcy and economic chaos from the failure of the blue political / economic model.

The third thing to understand is that the left takes blacks for granted. In the pantheon of left wing victim groups, perhaps no group gets more attention and ink, but falls lower on the scale of importance. No two things would perhaps benefit the black lower and middle class than good entry level jobs and better education. But those needs run up against the reality that unions, and especially teachers unions, are the financial foundation of the left. Thus did you have Obama, almost in his first days as President, end the school voucher program in the nation's worst performing school district. Thus do you have the D.C. city council voting to, in essence, keep Walmart from opening stores in their district. And thus do you have Obama on the cusp of legalizing millions of Central and South American illegal aliens -- nearly all of whom will be competing for jobs with the black lower and middle class -- in order to gain Decomcrat voters. When it comes to blacks, the left feels no need to balance their needs against those of leftwing economic interests because they have the only thing they need from blacks -- their votes -- already locked up.

The fourth thing to understand is the race card. The race card has been incredibly powerful tool, and the left has not hesitated to use it whenever possible since the 1960's. It has been used to silence all debate and end careers. It serves the triparte purpose of mining white guilt, keeping the focus off of the real problems in the black community, and keeping blacks focused on nursing historical racial grievances. How many blacks today see imaginary racism as their greatest threat? And when was the last time conservatives made an actual, concerted push to reach out to blacks? The answer to that last question is never. The RNC at the national level spends next to nothing on reaching out, having written off the black vote since 1964.

So, how to improve race relations? The answer in today's post-racial America starts and ends with politics. Conservatives must convince blacks that they have their best interests at heart -- that we see them as equal members in the melting pot. Conservatives must also convince blacks that the solutions we propose will, in the long term, work to their advantage. When conservatives call for the end to teacher's unions, no single group of people would benefit more from that then blacks. When conservative call for an end to, or at least a lowering of, the minimum wage, no single group of people would benefit more from that then blacks. When conservatives call for altering laws that decrease the stability of the family unit, no single group of people would benefit more from that then blacks. Conservative must make their case, both that they have black Americans interests firmly at heart, and that blacks have been sorely used by the left.

But to do that, conservatives have to break through a wall of lies and propaganda from the left, at the national level, but most importantly, at the local level. They need to appear at every black forum to make their case, from the NAACP to Howard University to the inner city schools and the local black churches, despite the fact that they will be buried under an avalanche of race cards. And they need to become vociferous in immediately responding to the race card whenever it is played. All of that requires determination, money, and conviction. Rand Paul has flirted with it, and my hat is off to him for at least making some efforts in this regard, but it needs to become a focus for conservatives and Republicans alike, at all levels. That and only that is how you will improve race relations in America.

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The "Really Destructive Maniacs"

From Dr. Sanity:

At least the selfish narcissist is limited in the chaos and havoc he wreaks. But, the "really destructive maniacs of this world" are the ones who do it for your own good.

The more benign form of this type of narcissism - but equally as insidious - is the left's core belief that society can and should be perfected by government regulation.

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An Adult Conversation On Medicare?

This ad really sums up everything about the left's style of argument. One, it is a complete lie as, under Ryan's plan, senior's Medicare would remain untouched. Two, it is designed to appeal wholly to emotion rather than make any sort of intellectually honest argument. Three, it is designed to demonize the right for making any sort of serous effort to reform Medicare. When the left calls for an adult conversation, what they are really asking is that the right shut up and not push back against their scurrilous attacks. They could care less about anything other than gaining political power, whatever the cost to our nation. Worthless scum.

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Liberal Tax Policy

. . . explained:

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Immigrants, Demagoguery & Expanding The Left Wing Base

Note the similarities of the left, on both sides of the pond.

In Britain, a Labour supporter mentions to Gordon Brown she is concerned about immigration to Britain - and she has every right to be. Labour - and the EU - have thrown open the borders of Britain. The demographics are completely and completely changed because of it, government services are being overwhelmed, crime has skyrocketed and the very nature of Britain is being changed because of it all. As I pointed out here, the decision to allow this level of immigration was a conscious, though unannounced, decision of Labour made after determining that it would substantially increase their voter base. At any rate, the 66 yr. old Labour supporter went on to say "the issue of immigration was not being discussed properly for reasons of political correctness. 'You can't say anything about immigrants.'" PM Minister Brown was pleasant enough, but then in his car, with a microphone still taping, called the woman a bigot for apparently even broaching the topic.

In the U.S., Obama and the entire left are hyperventilating over a carefully crafted Arizona law directing Arizona law enforcement to arrest illegal immigrants. The bill does not allow for racial profiling, but directs police to check immigration status should they have otherwise lawful contact - i.e., stop for a traffic violation, etc. Obama demagogued the issue at a Town Hall the other day. Victor Davis Hanson sums up the left wing response:

Racist! Nativist! Profiler! Xenophobe!

Write or say anything about illegal immigration, and one should expect to be called all of that and more—even if a strong supporter of legal immigration. Illegal alien becomes undocumented worker. Anti-immigrant replaces anti-illegal-immigration. “Comprehensive” is a euphemism for amnesty. Triangulation abounds. A fiery op-ed grandstands and deplores the Arizona law, but offers no guidance about illegal immigration — and blames the employer for doing something that the ethnic lobby in fact welcomes. . .

The common threads between Britain and the U.S. are that leftists on both sides of the pond see immigration as a means to attack the existing political system and increase their own political power. Further, both are quite willing to demagogue the issue and label opponents as bigots in order to prevent debate or discussion on the topic. Both are despicable.

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And The Prize For Most Inane MSM Article Of The Day Goes To . . .

. . . The Boston Herald for trying to tie their eupohoric victory lap over the passing of Obamacare with a supposed right wing backlash to the election of Scott Brown to the Kennedy's ancestral Senate seat, since he didn't kill Obamacare. These left wing authors show the same degree of grace and intellectual honesty in victory that the left displays at all other times. And in this case, the lefties at the Herald don't simply stretch logic, they murder it:

Republicans feeling blue as Scott Brown win backfires
By Jessica Van Sack and Hillary Chabot

Republican folk hero Sen. Scott Brown is being taunted by triumphant Democrats - and slammed by irked conservatives - after the historic health-care bill he was elected to kill was signed into law by President Obama yesterday.

“If he were a milk carton, he would be expired,” said Massachusetts Democratic Party chairman John Walsh.

Brown’s backers from the insurgent Tea Party movement want to know if they’ve been had. . . .

Given that Brown never had a chance to vote on the healthcare bill being rammed down our throat, why would - or could - anyone possibly make the leap in logic to lay the blame for that on Scott Brown. But Brown is the 41st vote - and the bottom line is that the left's ability to radically remake our country beyond the insanity of Obamacare is now very much at issue.

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The War On Christianity & Free Speech In The UK

Since the days of the French Revolution, the socialist left has been waging a war on Christianity. They are winning it in Britain. Today's obscenity - a senior teacher in Britain's public (gov't) school system - a system whose quality has been dropping like a brick in the ocean since Labour got their hands it over a decade ago - was suspended when he walked out of a compulsory lecture being given on a training day for teachers. The topic of the training - promotion of a homosexual agenda in the schools. The teacher, a Christian, was appalled and walked out. Then he was suspended from teaching for privately expressing his principled discontent.

This from the Daily Mail:

A senior teacher has been suspended from his £50,000-a-year job after he complained that a training day for staff was used to promote gay rights.

Kwabena Peat, 54, was one of several Christian staff who walked out of the compulsory session at a North London school after an invited speaker questioned why people thought heterosexuality was natural.

The presentation was given by Sue Sanders, a co-founder of the Schools Out organisation which campaigns for gay equality in education.

According to Mr Peat, Ms Sanders, herself a lesbian, said that staff who did not accept that being gay was normal had ‘issues’ they had to deal with.

Mr Peat, a history teacher who is also a head of year, said he was upset that people who disagreed on religious grounds had no chance to respond.

He wrote privately to the three staff members who organised the session, complaining about Ms Sanders’ ‘aggressive’ presentation. In his letter, he cited the Bible and warned that practising homosexuals risked God’s ‘wrath’.

But the staff complained to the school’s principal that they felt ‘harassed and intimidated’ by the letter and, after an investigation, Mr Peat was placed on paid leave. . . .

Read the entire article. To be a Christian in Britain is now to be a second class citizen at best. To express any views contrary to those deemed politically correct by the chattering class is to be subject to acceptable discrimination. This really is outrageous.

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Losing The Message Wars

For every ten Democrats I have heard baldly blame the Republicans for the subprime crisis, and for every Democrat I have heard speak against McCain's presence in the negotiations, I have heard maybe one Republican speak to the contrary. Some of the worst was last night, listening to CNN, listening to Paul Begala heap scorn on Republicans for the subprime crisis while the token Republican on the panel remained silent in the face of complete falsehoods. Further, I just listened to Harry Reid and Chris Dodd - two people up to their eyes in direct responsiblity for this subprime crisis - hold a news conference giving their CYF (Cover Your Fannie) story on all of this, including with blame for McCain, with no corresponding attempt by Republicans to respond in kind.

The Republicans are pristine in comparison to Democrats as regards the subprime crisis that has brought our economy to the brink of depression. Republicans also have good reason to revolt against Democrats - and their enablers such as Tennessee Senator Bob Corker - who have turned this bailout not into protection for consumers, but into a continuing funding resolution for the most corrupt of Democratic progressive advocacy organizations. For Republicans to cede the narrative on this is the height of incompetence. Unless and until they become absolutely vociferous in getting out their message, the left will ever increase their stanglehold on America, much to America's detriment.

Other posts related to Subprime Crisis (from oldest to newest):

McCain, The Fannie and Freddie Crisis, and Obamafuscation - Obama and the entire Democratic Party are trying to blame Republicans for the subprime crisis. But this crisis was created by Bill Clinton and protected against Republican efforts to reign it in over a decade – until it failed, nearly pulling out entire economic system into a depression.

A Washington Post Front Page Hack Job - The Washington Post does a hit job on McCain, grossly distorting his record on regulatory matters and ignoring his cosponsoring of legislation to establish much stronger regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Dodging a Depression - The NYT and WSJ document just how serious is the subprime crisis. Quite literally it brought us to the point of a complete and catastrophic stoppage of our financial systems as institutions lost confidence in their fellow institutions. This was not a stock market crash, it was a lending and credit crash. The WSJ describes the events of the week leading up to the crisis point.

Obama & The "Family" Of Fannie Mae - Documenting Obama’s relationship to Fannie Mae.

The Origins – And Foreseeability – Of the Subprime Crisis - A 1999 article in the NYT describes the Clinton Administration forcing subprime loans onto America and also forecasts that this will create a house of cards that will fall apart in a down market.

Covering The Left’s Fannie - The NYT tries to play up old ties of a McCain campaign worker with Fannie Mae while minimizing the fact that McCain himself, in 2005, co-sponsored legislation that may well have prevented the fiscal crisis we are in now.

The Left’s Subprime Meltdown - A post by the Anchoress discusses this subprime crisis as a creation of the left and a system that was protected to the end by the left. She adds additional sites, quotes and links to explain the mosaic.

Fannie & Freddie, McCain & Obama, Subprime & Wall St.The WSJ discusses both how the subprime loan market came about and how Democrats, including Obama, were both the cause of the problem and the roadblock to a solution that would have averted this catastrophe. Dafydd at Big Lizard's explains how Mortgage Backed Securities worked on Wall Street.

A Doddering Fool & Charlatan - Chris Dodd is up to his ears in the subprime crisis. With our economy teetering on an actual depression due to the Fannie/Freddie/subprime loan crisis, it was not merely surreal to watch Senator Chris Dodd chair an emergency hearing of the Senate Banking Committee to evaluate the Treasury's proposed rescue plan, it was obscene.

Finally – Oversight - The FBI has finally announced criminal investigations at Fannie and Freddie.

When Will They File As A 527 – The NYT continues its wholly biased reporting on the subprime crisis, refusing to report on the genesis of the crisis and instead, reporting on the relationship between Fannie Mae and Rick Davis of McCain’s campaign team.

McCain The Chessmaster - Opining on the potential risks and rewards of McCain's decision to cancel campaigning, return to Washington to take part in negotiations over a response to the subprime crisis, and tentatively cancel the Friday debate.

The President Addresses The Nation - Bush explains the stakes involved for America with the subprime crisis.

McCain The Chessmaster Part II - McCain was responding to a 3 a.m. phone call in returning to Washington. He is given political cover and support by Bill Clinton.

A Spotlight On The Left's Subprime Crisis - A video summary of the origins of the subprime crisis with lots of footage of Rep. Barney Frank and others protecting Fannie Mae from regulation by the Bush Administration and McCain.

WaMu Swallowed Up In The Left's Subprime Swamp - Washington Mutual goes under because of toxic mortgage debt.

Great Moments In Leadership - Obama phones it in on the subprime crisis.

The "No Deal" - McCain Responds - The left is blaiming McCain for failure of a deal on the subprime crisis. McCain answers in a memo.

Dodd, ACORN, and the Penultimate Screwing of the Taxpayers - The left, the people responsible for the subprime crisis, proposed a deal that would have used the return on rehabilitated investments not for the benefit of taxpayers but to fund progressive advocacy organizations that are fundamentally corrupt.

Krauthammer On The Subprime Crisis: Time For A Return To Public Executions - America is livid over this fiscal crisis and wants a pound of flesh to satiate its cravings before beginning the job of putting our financial house back in order. Krauthammer things we should give it to them and suggests a return to the auto de fe, this time as a reality show.

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Two Myths Of The Left - Iraq Has Increased Terrorism Worldwide and Made Iran Stronger

We have heard for years the arguments that the American invasion of Iraq has only increased worldwide jihadi recruitment and, as repeated most recently by Obama, that Iran is stronger today because of the "failed policies of Bush and McCain." But a look at both arguments in light of today's situation shows both to be demonstrably false.

______________________________________________________

A long favored claim of the left is that the Bush administration's war on terror and its invasion of Iraq has increased jihadi recruitment world wide. Human nature being what it is, that was probably true two years ago. One would expect that those with jihadi sympathies were energized by the 9-11 attack and then responded to bin Laden's calls when the U.S. fought back. Indeed, two years ago, it appeared that they were backing a "winning horse," to use bin Laden's words. But this is not 2006.

As General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker noted in their recent Congressional testimony, both believe that the defeat of al Qaeda in Iraq and the successful rejection of al Qaeda by the Sunni Awakening Movements are playing a signficant role in discrediting jihadism world-wide. While its impossible to verify that with the certainty of a Pew poll, the downward trajectory of jihadi attacks world wide strongly supports their argument. This from Reuters:

A study released on Wednesday reports a decline in fatal attacks of terrorism worldwide and says U.S. think-tank data showing sharp increases were distorted due to the inclusion of killings in Iraq.

"Even if the Iraq 'terrorism' data are included, there has still been a substantial decline in the global terrorism toll," said the 2007 Human Security Brief, an annual report funded by the governments of Canada, Norway, Switzerland, Sweden and Britain.

For example, global terrorism fatalities declined by 40 percent between July and September 2007, driven by a 55 percent decline in the "terrorism" death toll in Iraq after the so-called surge of new U.S. troops and a cease-fire by the Shi'ite militant Mehdi Army, the brief said. . . .

Read the entire article.

The second myth of the left is that Iran has been made stronger by the Bush administration's prosecution of the war on terror. That was Obama's message a few days ago. Certainly, as things stood in December, 2006, that was correct. Iran indirectly benefited from having the U.S. remove two implacable enemies, Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan, from its borders. Further, Iran had deeply invested in support for its creations, the Mahdi Army of Sadr and the Badr Brigades of SICI. As Michael Ledeen explained in an article written during the dark days of 2006, Iran was on the cusp of "Lebanizing" Iraq as the U.S. withdrew.

But then something happened on the way to the mosque. The President rolled the dice with the surge and all has been changed - Iran's incredibly bloody proxy war in Iraq has been exposed, the SICI changed its loyalties from Iran to Iraq's traditionalist Grand Ayatollah, Ali Sistani, and now Sadr's militia has been decimated. With the fall of both Basra and Sadr City, Iran's proxy is left without a base.

The greatest threat to Iran today comes from a democratic Iraq on its border that honors the traditional Shia practice of quietism - i.e., maintaining a wall between mosque and state, to put it in American terms. Iran is a deeply troubled country of 60 million people held under the rule of a medieval theocracy by ever greater repression. The theocracy itself is illegitimate when looked at in terms of a millenium of apolitical Shia tradition - a tradition shredded in 1979 by Ayatollah Khomeini and his velyat-e-faqi, a new philosophy justifying and requiring theocratic rule. And indeed, the most popular religious figure in both Iraq and Iran is now Grand Ayatolah Ali Sistani, an adherent to the quietist school. This is deeply problematic for Iran. As Reuel Marc Gerecht explained recently:

Although conscious of the fleeting loyalty of Iraqi Shiites who once took refuge in Iran from the wrath of Saddam Hussein and are now blessed with ever-larger Iraqi oil revenues, Tehran probably didn't anticipate how quickly Shiite sentiment in Iraq could change. The Iranians didn't see the rapid rise of the Iranian-born Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who has become the most popular ayatollah in Iran as well as the most powerful cleric in Iraq. Iranian and Iraqi clerical ties are old, complicated, intensely personal, and often quite affectionate--all of which now plays powerfully against the Iranian ruling elite's cynical politics in Mesopotamia.

It is a very good bet that Sistani and other prominent Iraqi clerics have remonstrated vociferously with their Iranian interlocutors in Qom against Iranian-fed violence among Iraqi Shiites. We can see the Iranian side of this in former president Mohammad Khatami's accusing [Iran's Supreme Guide] Khamenei virtually by name of spilling Shiite blood in Iraq and turning Iran's Islamic revolutionary message into a call for violence and upheaval beyond its borders. Khatami's recent speech at Gilan University is an astonishing sermon from a man not known for boldness.

Read the entire article. Since 2003, Iran has won tactical victories in both Gaza and, just days ago, Lebanon. But in Iraq, the theocracy of Iran is facing a mortal threat to its legitimacy and an enticing example of democracy to its deeply troubled populace that, not a decade ago, appeared on the edge of a counter-revolution. Obama's claim that Iran is stronger now could not be more false. Indeed, unless the U.S. leaves Iraq and allows the Iranians to resume their Lebanization of Iraq - something that would happen if troops are withdrawn too soon, as General Petraeus noted days ago in written testimony to the Senate - Iran's theocracy is far more threatened by their peaceful neighbor than by Saddam Hussein or the Taliban. Obama and the left need to find new arguments. The decision to invade Iraq may yet achieve its initial promises of reducing terrorism and provide a dangerous example of a Muslim democracy both in the heart of the Middle East and on the border of Iran.

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Krauthammer on Lobbying, McCain & The Left's Demagoguery

Charles Krauthammer responds to the NYT hit piece on John McCain, providing a civics lesson and highlighting the demagoguery of the left in the process.













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Charles Krauthammer takes a more benign view of lobbying than do most in this day and age, though he is completely correct that the "lobbying" is constitutionally protected speech that is often both reasonable and necessary. Krauthammer then notes, as I did here, that there was nothing untoward whatsoever in John McCain trying to get a recalcitrant FCC to do their job and make a decision on a matter effecting Paxson Communications. That, indeed, falls well within the ambit of what we expect our elected representatives to be doing. This from Krauthammer:

Everyone knows the First Amendment protects freedom of religion, speech, press and assembly. How many remember that, in addition, the First Amendment protects a fifth freedom -- to lobby?

Of course it doesn't use the word lobby. It calls it the right "to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Lobbyists are people hired to do that for you, so that you can actually stay home with the kids and remain gainfully employed rather than spend your life in the corridors of Washington.

To hear the candidates in this presidential campaign, you'd think lobbying is just one notch below waterboarding, a black art practiced by the great malefactors of wealth to keep the middle class in a vise and loose upon the nation every manner of scourge: oil dependency, greenhouse gases, unpayable mortgages and those tiny entrees you get at French restaurants.

Lobbying is constitutionally protected, but that doesn't mean we have to like it all. Let's agree to frown upon bad lobbying, such as getting a tax break for a particular industry. Let's agree to welcome good lobbying -- the actual redress of a legitimate grievance -- such as protecting your home from being turned to dust to make way for some urban development project.

. . . What would be an example of petitioning the government for a redress of a legitimate grievance? Let's say you're a media company wishing to acquire a television station in Pittsburgh. Because of the huge federal regulatory structure, you require the approval of a government agency. In this case it's called the Federal Communications Commission.

Now, one of the roles of Congress is to make sure that said bureaucrats are interpreting and enforcing Congress's laws with fairness and dispatch. All members of Congress, no matter how populist, no matter how much they rail against "special interests," zealously protect this right of oversight. Therefore, one of the jobs of the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee is to ensure that the bureaucrats of the FCC are doing their job.

What would constitute not doing their job? A textbook example would be the FCC sitting two full years on a pending application to acquire a Pittsburgh TV station. There could hardly be a better case of a legitimate "petition for a redress" than that of the aforementioned private entity asking the chairman of the appropriate oversight committee to ask the tardy bureaucrats for a ruling. So the chairman does that, writing to the FCC demanding a ruling -- any ruling -- while explicitly stating that he is asking for no particular outcome.

This, of course, is precisely what John McCain did on behalf of Paxson Communications in writing two letters to the FCC in which he asked for a vote on the pending television-station acquisition. These two letters are the only remotely hard pieces of evidence in a 3,000-word front-page New York Times article casting doubt on John McCain's ethics.

Which is why what was intended to be an expose turned into a farce, compounded by the fact that the other breathless revelation turned out to be thrice-removed rumors of an alleged affair nine years ago.

It must be said of McCain that he has invited such astonishingly thin charges against him because he has made a career of ostentatiously questioning the motives and ethics of those who have resisted his campaign finance reform and other measures that he imagines will render Congress influence-free.

Ostentatious self-righteousness may be a sin, but it is not a scandal. Nor is it a crime or a form of corruption. The Times's story is a classic example of sloppy gotcha journalism. . . .

Read the entire article.

The problem with lobbying is that it has become associated with pandering to special interests at best and, at worst, a tool of corruption when combined with earmarks - as Duke Cunningham, William Jefferson and John Murtha exemplify. In that light, McCain stands firmly on the right side of this issue, being a champion against the corrupting practice of earmarks and an opponent of the corrupting influence of money in politics. Indeed, his much maligned McCain-Feingold bill was aimed at precisely the latter. Regardless, lobbying will always be an element of our Democratic system, and to pretend otherwise, as does Obama - who happens to embrace earmarks - is pure demagoguery.

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When Even The Left Gets Nervous

Obama's followers are resembling more of a cult than a campaign. Many, myself included, having been pointing out for weeks that there is nothing behind the wonderful rhetoric. Beyond Obama's lack of experience is his lack of any specific policy ideas or plans, his uber liberal voting record, and his questionable associations. It seems a few on the left side of the aisle are waking up to this as well.


This today from ABC's Jack Tapper:

It's as if Tom Daschle descended from on high saying, "Be not afraid; for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people: for there is born to you this day in the city of Chicago a Savior, who is Barack the Democrat."

Obama supporter Kathleen Geier writes that she's "getting increasingly weirded out by some of Obama's supporters. On listservs I'm on, some people who should know better – hard-bitten, not-so-young cynics, even – are gushing about Barack…

Describing various encounters with Obama supporters, she writes, "Excuse me, but this sounds more like a cult than a political campaign. The language used here is the language of evangelical Christianity – the Obama volunteers speak of 'coming to Obama' in the same way born-again Christians talk about 'coming to Jesus.'...So I say, we should all get a grip, stop all this unseemly mooning over Barack, see him and the political landscape he is a part of in a cooler, clearer, and more realistic light, and get to work."

Joe Klein, writing at Time, notes "something just a wee bit creepy about the mass messianism" he sees in Obama's Super Tuesday speech.

"We are the ones we've been waiting for," Obama said. "This time can be different because this campaign for the presidency of the United States of America is different. It's different not because of me. It's different because of you."

Says Klein: "That is not just maddeningly vague but also disingenuous: the campaign is entirely about Obama and his ability to inspire. Rather than focusing on any specific issue or cause — other than an amorphous desire for change — the message is becoming dangerously self-referential. The Obama campaign all too often is about how wonderful the Obama campaign is. “

The always interesting James Wolcott writes that "(p)erhaps it's my atheism at work but I found myself increasingly wary of and resistant to the salvational fervor of the Obama campaign, the idealistic zeal divorced from any particular policy or cause and chariot-driven by pure euphoria. . . .

Then there's MSNBC's Chris Matthews who tells Felix Gillette in the New York Observer, “I’ve been following politics since I was about 5. I’ve never seen anything like this. This is bigger than Kennedy. [Obama] comes along, and he seems to have the answers. This is the New Testament."

And behold, Obama met them and greeted them. And they came up and took hold of His feet and worshiped Him. . . .

Read the entire post here.

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Interesting News - 19 January 2008

Silencing free speech in the blogosphere . . . now in Israel and in Finland. In Belarus, they have jailed an editor for blasphemy for reprinting the Danish cartoons. The left cannot tolerate free speech. There is nothing "liberal" about the modern left.

And how's this for a bit of insanity. In the future, all Islamic terrorism designed to promote the creating of a world wide caliphate shall, in Britain, be refered to as anti-Islamic acts. George Orwell goes dhimmi.

I posted the other day on a WSJ article incisively noting that the essence of intolerance was to dehumanize those who disagree with you and to portray them as evil. It is a complete rejection of intellectual honesty and classical liberalism. So, in that vein, how do you think global warming skeptics are being portrayed?

And the rule of thumb, I always thought, was that when you are under attack, the appropriate reaction is a response with overwhelming force. Failing to react is simply an invitation to more attacks.

Ghandi may not agree with my thoughts above, but then again, as Victor David Hanson points out, the current Ghandi seems to have a warped vision of the cause of violence in the world today. Some field work may be required.

The Shield of Achilles asks "Am I still considered an "islamophobe" or a right-wing alarmist if I say that the Netherlands really has a problem?" Read his post and decide for yourself. I think the problem is at least duplicated in the UK. And as we speak, the Dutch gird their loins for a bit of rioting by members of the Religion of Peace.

Righttruth has a terrorism round-up. And Red Alerts has a counter-jihad round-up. Then there is this good round-up from Soob. All are well worth a read. As is this bit of link-whoring poetry.

Tajikistan, a Muslim country, apparently is looking for a bit of separation between mosque and state.

And if your going to embrace left wing non-violence, keying a marines car is not an appropriate way to express your belief. Justice has been served in the case of Jay Grodner.

So what’s worse, Guantanamo Bay or the plight of women in the Middle East? Wajiha Al-Huweidar thinks it’s the latter.

Withn the ranks of the anti-war left is a large contingent that wants the U.S. to fail in Iraq. As one liberal surprisingly framed it, "[t]hat is a malevolent righteousness that properly repels most Americans." Q&O has the story.

American Digest has the latest stupid science round-up.

Where can one find the world biggest rubber stamp? Apparently across the pond in the UK Parliament which just approved a massive transfer of wealth to the EU after only a bit more than 3 hours of debate. As the EU Referendum calculates, that works out to a transfer of British tax dollars at a rate of "£481 million a minute." Part of the reason for the short debate was to hide the demise of UK’s rebate from the EU. As it stands now, the UK’s "net contributions to the EU will increase from an already horrendously large £4.7 billion to £6.8 billion in 2011." It is a mark of how rotted the government is across the pond that the Tories put up no fight against this. This really is a socialist coup. Its getting to sound like time for a Tea Party of sorts. I am sure we can cobble some Mohawk Indian costumes together for a reasonable price if any of our British brethren would care to rent them for a night or two. Read the post here.

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The NYT and the Deadly Peril of Iraq to Democrats

If history is any guide, the Democrats who have invested so completely in defeat in Iraq will suffer a voter backlash if the electorate comes to see the Iraq war as a success. By transparently tying their hopes for partisan political gain to defeat in Iraq, our Democratic leadership is now in bind from which there is no way to retreat from retreat.

Thus, the left are reduced to ignoring the success of the surge in increasingly outlandish ways. Instead of acknowledging the success of the surge in reducing violence to its lowest level since the invasion of Iraq began, the common refrain among Democrats today is that Iraq was the deadliest year yet for American soldiers.

And on those rare occasions when you can get a Democrat to admit that the surge has worked, you get one of two "yes but’s." The first "yes but" is that the success of the surge really only occurred because Iraqis knew that Democrats intended to cut and run from Iraq once they were elected. Indeed, according to history as rewritten by Obama, the Anbar Awakening was a direct result of the 2006 election. That evinces nearly the same degree of intellectual honesty as attributing the continued rising and setting of the sun to a Democratic electoral victory.

The second response one gets is that, while the surge may have improved security, it is still a failure because its whole purpose was to give room for political gains as of yet unrealized. The centerpiece of these "hoped for" gains was de-Baathification to reunite the Sunni population. Thus it was the horror of horrors yesterday when the Iraqi government passed a de-Baathification law out of Parliament. One can only imagine the number of expletives resounding off the hallowed halls haunted by our modern left.

The de-Baathification is a great success for those who want to see Iraq succeed as a democracy. Thus, true to the rule that for every action there is a reaction, we have the enemy of that success, our mendacious left, led in the MSM by the NYT, reacting with all of the sputtering vitriol they can muster to attack the new law. The Sunni legislators in the Iraqi Parliament supported the new law. As described in a NYT article:

But members of the largest Sunni coalition in parliament agreed to the new measure. Adnan al-Dulaimi, the group's leader, said the legislation was fair to low-ranking former Baathists and allowed the higher-ranking Shubah members to receive pensions, "which I consider good and acceptable."

See here. But that is not good enough for the odious NYT editorial board. They use rank speculation to attack the new law. I will not go point by point through the editorial, you can read it here, and I have no doubt you will soon hear similar arguments made in Democratic talking points as time progresses. But one has to love the NYT conclusion. "Iraqis are going to have to do a lot better to make their country work. Withdrawing American troops may finally persuade them to do that."

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Apparently, the only way to insure victory is to declare defeat in Iraq and leave it to reinfestation by al Qaeda and Iranian plans to create an Iraqi Hezbollah. If only we declare defeat and leave, then everyone will "live happily ever after." When will the MSM ever press these incredibly disingenuous people on this fantasy? When will the MSM ever ask them what the costs of their cut and run plan portend to be in terms of our national security, a revitalized al Qaeda, and a Middle East that no longer credibly respects U.S. military power?

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Interesting News From Around the Web

An interview with an Iraqi Shiite cleric and politician who calls for secular rule, religious opposition to the Iranian concept of theocratic rule, and who says that "President Bush and America should be thanked for saving us from . . . Saddam Hussein. . ."

In Iraq, a series of raids target the Mahdi Army and, in a separate action, the capture of two men suspected of involvement in the May 12 kidnapping of three American soldiers during an insurgent attack against their checkpoint 12 miles south of Baghdad.

A sharp rise in inflation has provoked fierce criticism of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad—not only from his reformist opponents, but also from senior conservatives who helped bring him to power but now say he is mismanaging the economy.

The story of Naomi Wolf and the incredible sophistry of our modern left.

EU propaganda - in reality, its what the EU does most effectively.

Iran expanded their terrorist activities in Iraq after the 2006 elections in America, but they have been beaten back by a combination of effective U.S. military action and an Iraq that does not buy into the Iranian theocratic model, despite the surge of mullah money and weapons into Iraq. The assertion the reduction in violence in Iraq is due in part to a conscious decision of the mad mullahs in Iran is counterfactual according to Michael Ledeen.

Der Spiegel has a timeline of "the most important political events and violent attacks in Pakistan since March 2007."

The Bhutto assassination, seen in light of the assassinations in Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East, is an example of how radical Islamist, both Wahhabi / Salafi and Khomeinist Shia, register their vote in elections.

An analysis of Bhutto’s legacy and the ramifications of her assassination from the Jerusalem Post.

From Wafa Sultan: "The Quran states: ‘Allah hath purchased of the believers their persons and their goods, for theirs (in return) is the Garden (of Paradise ): They fight in His Cause, and slay and are slain" (9/111).’ I believe that Muslim clerics in the US have explained this verse in the same way that the clerics in Syria had explained it to me at young age. Growing up, I had always believed that suicide bombing was justified for the cause of being a martyr."

The UK resorts to bribing criminals to self deport themselves in an attempt to deal with a glut of foreign criminals that cannot be deported under the EU’s insane immigration and deportation laws.

How utterly screwed are British multiculturalists: . . . Amis recently put to his impeccably liberal audience at the ICA: 'Do you feel morally superior to the Taliban?' Only about a third raised a hand to say they did, a nice demonstration of relativist liberal guilt.


And there is this gem from the multiculturalists in Germany: "Many of us in the West are convinced that our presence in Afghanistan cannot be justified, that our troops should withdraw and that Afghanistan should be left to the Afghans. They ask themselves: Who are we to believe that it is inhumane to sell an 11-year-old girl? Who are we to impose our values so vehemently on the Afghans, on this [40 year old] man . . . [who purchased] this girl [and married her]?"

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More Hugo

Rick Moran at Right Wing Nut House brings up an interesting point. The facts on the ground suggest vote fraud in Venezuela did occur, but the spread was so great that Hugo's machine was simply unable to change enough votes / stuff enough ballots to make it come out their way. If in fact that is the case, one could expect that Hugo will do his best to improve the efficiency of his machine and make sure the numbers come out "right" the next time. Everything about Hugo indicates that he will not accept this "no" vote beyond paying it lip service for just as long as he must.

And as Rick documents, the lefty blogosphere has more then a few people praising Hugo and making unfavorabe favorable comparisons to Bush who, we are told, is a dictator and who refused to accept the will of the people. All of which leaves one to ponder whether such idiocy is learned or genetic.

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The EU - Europe’s Grand Experiment In Socialism

One of the defining characteristics of today’s left is a belief in the power of the central government to cure all ills of society. The left of today does not trust the individual to exercise responsibility nor to govern themselves at the local level. Power is collected in the central government and ever more control is taken over the daily lives of citizens through regulation and statute. Democracy is minimized. Free speech is manipulated through government investment in, if not ownership of, the media and through government use of its masses of taxpayer funds to manipulate national discourse. Further, in the world of the left, free speech bows to multi-culturalism.

The ultimate manifestation of this philosophy today is the grand socialist experiment that is the European Union. And as the EU grows in power, its omnipresent influence is felt ever more in European society.

This from an article in Der Spiegel:

PERFECTING A SYSTEM OF TOTAL CONTROL

How Brussels Regulates our Daily Lives

. . . The European Commission in Brussels wants to protect European citizens even more effectively against danger and disease. Soon there will be a well-intended -- but mostly completely unnecessary -- regulation for every aspect of life.

One-year-old Diego didn't have a chance. Try as he would, he simply couldn't get the old "Made in China" lighter or the new "child-safe" version from France to light. Older children like Tessa, who is almost five, managed to coax a flame from the Chinese model after only three minutes. It didn't take her much longer to light the French version.

From a bureaucratic standpoint, the pre-pubescent subjects' efforts to play with fire -- all in the name of scientific research, of course -- were a complete success. Under an European Union regulation that goes by the code K (2007) 1567, as of March 11, 2008 only "child-safe" disposable lighters will be approved for sale in the EU. But first the lighters' "child safety" must be demonstrated in a test laboratory. Under the regulation, a lighter is deemed acceptable (that is, child-safe), if no more than 15 of 100 kids aged less than 51 months manage to light it.

There are exceptions, of course. For one thing, the regulation does not apply to higher-priced lighters. That's because the bureaucrats in Brussels are convinced no one would allow children to gain access to expensive lighters. But even the bureaucrats sometimes have their doubts about their own basis research. Now they warn that even a lighter labeled as "child-safe" in the future is "not necessarily safe for children," adding that lighters should continue to "be kept out of reach of young children."

In all seriousness, the EU's inspectors are keeping themselves busy coming up with more and more regulations to govern even the most hidden corners of human existence, and that will cover the length and breadth of the EU -- from Inari in northern Finland to Limassol on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus.

Current regulations already run the gamut from protections against fine dust and noise to soil conservation to protections for workers against solar radiation and protections for non-smokers. A green paper for a "smoke-free Europe" is currently under discussion. The German state of Hesse recently opposed EU bureaucrats' efforts to redefine the term "wine" so that it would exclude non-grape-derived products like its traditional Äppelwoi ("apple wine," a local take on cider). The Hessians were successful -- for now.

EU Commission President José Manual Barroso and his 26 commissioners have nothing but good intentions. Anxious to dispel their image of bureaucrats well removed from the realities of daily life, they seek to portray themselves as the guardian angels of Europe's citizens, the protectors of the old and the young, and the guarantors of a life free of danger.

According to the EU Commission's new "Consumer Protection Strategy Paper," the EU must demonstrate to Europe's 493 million consumers that it has their best interests in mind. This new zeal has led to many a bizarre or even completely nonsensical EU directive, even though many of the new regulations are fundamentally justified. But when taken together, they create new control mechanisms on top of old ones already notorious for their intrusiveness and inefficiency.

Measuring the Obvious

For example, many European cities and regions, at Brussels' behest, are now developing so-called noise maps. To produce the maps, precise noise readings must be taken on every street, whether in downtown areas, in industrial zones, along railway lines or in expensive and leafy residential neighborhoods.

Some communities have already completed the mammoth project, while others are dragging their feet. All are furious about the new requirement.

"We are drowning in a sea of data," complains Munich Mayor Christian Ude. And in the end, no matter how costly the measuring process is, the results reveal what everyone has known all along: that it's louder on busy, high-traffic streets than in exclusive, villa-filled residential neighborhoods with maximum speed limits of 30 kilometers per hour.

Like Munich, many cities developed noise maps years ago. But now Brussels is dictating a new set of criteria, which means that the entire process has to be repeated from scratch. It's "a lot of bureaucracy" and "completely useless," says Ude.

The EU's self-proclaimed protectors of the general health and well-being are especially interested in food hygiene regulations. Their goal is to fully regulate the production, transport and sale of food products from the producer to the consumer's plate. Once again, the underlying concept makes perfect sense, and yet the new rules, while failing to prevent spoiled meat scandals or the excessive use of pesticides, have in fact served up all kinds of new absurdities. A Westphalian pig farmer who fattens his animals in his own forest, just as his grandfather did, runs afoul of the law if he allows the pigs' liquid manure to seep straight into the forest soil instead of draining it through standardized concrete pipes.

In some cases the Brussels bureaucrats' zealous rush to implement new standards has cost ordinary citizens their livelihoods. For instance, a regulation that requires all legal cheese production facilities to have running water and electricity spells the end of many Alpine cheeses. The small dairies that traditionally make these cheeses simply cannot afford the investments needed to satisfy the Brussels requirements.

Europe's "Specific Hygiene Regulations" cover every product and every producer, from "meat from hoofed animals kept as pets" to "frogs' legs and snails" and "animal fats and cracklings."

Anyone who, milk pail in hand, hopes to find fresh milk from the farm these days will have a lot of searching to do. Under Paragraph 17, Section 1 of the Animal Food Hygiene Regulation, "the sale of raw milk or cream to consumers is prohibited."

Only in exceptional cases are dairy farmers permitted to sell untreated milk to customers, and only when they are in compliance with a long list of detailed requirements regulating everything from the condition of the floors in the farmer's milking room to the material used to make his doors.

Of course, the dairy farmer mustn't forget to post a warning sign that reads "Raw milk -- Boil before consuming" in a "visible and legible manner at the selling location."

Part 2: Are Europeans Dim-Witted and Unable to Cope with Life?

There is only one thing the Brussels bureaucrats have forgotten in their zeal to slap regulations on just about everything: the often-evoked "responsible citizen." The Europeans of the 21st century appear to be dim-witted and unable to cope with life -- and wholly dependent on the dictates of Big Brother in Brussels. When it comes to protecting the population from its own supposed lack of common sense, Big Brother is enthusiastic.

For example, in the past, a German who wanted to build a small vacation house on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca ran the risk of building on top of a toxic waste site. In response to such hazards, the EU commissioners submitted a draft guideline for "soil protection" which is currently being debated in the European Parliament. Under the guideline, government agencies throughout Europe would be required to test the condition of the soil on every piece of property, from the Arctic Circle to Sicily, and identify "contaminated" sites.

The authors of the draft guideline say that its purpose is to protect the environment. Europe's soil faces all kinds of threats to its purity, from industrial chemical residues to agricultural pesticides, erosion, salt-water intrusion and the adverse effects of rapid development.

But because the EU has only partial jurisdiction in this area, it is essentially left up to the member states to decide what to do with the results of the soil tests.

Moreover, because the EU is so good at imposing regulations, non-profit organizations, businesses and citizens are demanding increasingly comprehensive protections for both the working and private spheres. "Bureaucracy is in demand," says Volker Hoff, a Christian Democrat and the minister for European affairs in the German state of Hesse.

A Tireless Effort to Regulate Everything

Advocates for the protection of consumers, children, animals, patients and practically everything else are tirelessly proposing new things that they are convinced require regulation or, in some cases, ought to be banned outright. The EU administrators in Brussels are only too pleased to comply, while the representatives of the member states are quick to give the go-ahead.

. . . In truth, even legal experts find the well-intentioned flood of regulatory fervor overwhelming. Last year the president of Germany's Federal Constitutional Court, Hans-Jürgen Papier, warned "against the constantly increasing regulation of virtually all areas of society and the economy, as well as large segments of private life."

The "expanded apparatus of the Brussels EU Commission" contributes to the fact "that there is now a layer of overregulation that exceeds the reasonable scope of the law," says Papier, the chief justice of Germany's highest court. For this reason, says Papier, the legal system runs the risk "of suffocating the individual responsibility and self-determination it is in fact intended to guarantee." Torsten Stein, a European legal expert at Saarland University, warns that one day EU citizens will become aware "that, long after the end of absolute rulers, a new authority has established itself that once again claims the authority to decide what is good and what is bad for subjects."

Undeterred by such doubts, officials in Brussels continue to perfect a system of total control. . .

Read the entire article. Several months ago, I read a critique by one of our leftist pundits of Fred Thompson, a conservative one-time Senator who was then considering a bid for the Presidency. A significant criticism was that Mr. Thompson had not initiated any new laws or regulatory efforts during his time in the Senate. And therein lies the difference between today's neo-liberal left and the conservatives. The left considers Mr. Thompson a failure for his restraint. A conservative would consider that a great accomplishment. At any rate, if the axiom is true that you get the government you deserve, Europe is in sad straits indeed.

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From Pacifist to NeoCon

Dr. Sanity has one of her many insightful posts today, this one on the changing conditions in Iraq and how our leftist elites are and will react to it:

What Hanson calls the "soft neocons" are really the "utopian neocons", a fair-weather version of neoconservatism, which can only support freedom and democracy when there is no imperfection, no mess, and absolutely no sacrifice present in the process.

You can bet that the Democrats will appropriate neocon ideas the minute they believe those ideas are popular. Then they will proceed to distort them in the same manner they have distorted all the other great ideas of liberalism; and continue to believe that freedom is free and requires nothing but rhetoric to exist in the world.

The neoconservative philosophy has always understood that it takes more than rhetoric to counter the forces that would destroy western civilization; and that the pervasive nihilism of the postmodern infection that has spread throughout the once liberal left and which is now promulgated and promoted by the West's own intellectual elites, only facilitates tyranny.

Read the entire post.

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Britain’s Left Has a Statistical Problem With Policing

This today on the problems with policing and the rise of violent, unsolved crime in the UK:

Police are neglecting to tackle serious, violent crimes and focusing instead on more minor offences as they strive to meet government targets, the man charged with shaping the future of policing in England and Wales has admitted.

Peter Neyroud, chief executive of the National Policing Improvement Agency, said that over the past five years police had focused on increasing the number of “offences brought to justice”. But the former chief constable admitted that this meant that catching a murderer carried no more importance than apprehending someone who had stolen a bottle of milk.

“There has been, in the minds of many professionals, me included, a neglect of the serious,” Mr Neyroud said. “Because detecting a stolen milk bottle counts the same as detecting a murder . . . you get your points from, not necessarily milk bottles, but certainly in mid-range, volume crime, rather than serious crime.”

This is the first time that a senior officer has suggested that the target-driven culture is diverting police from properly investigating more serious crimes. His comments reinforce those of rank-and-file officers at the weekend who said that police were putting more effort into catching burglars than investigating a paedophile ring. . . .

Read the gory details here. In America, local police are precisely that – local. The state sets the qualifications, but it is the local populace who either directly elect their police leadership, or their immediate local government appoints the police leadership. Thus, accountability of the police is directly to the populace. That is not to suggest that local control is a panacea, but what you get is far less beauracracy and a proper ordering of priorities. What you do not get are crimes screened out or the situations described in some of the British police blogs such as here, here and here. If there is a rise in violent crime, the police chief is going to be addressing it and he is going to try and make the populace feel like the police are concerned, or he will find himself on the unemployment line.

And that is how it should be. No one knows better the needs of the local community than the locals. But the neo-liberals of today just don’t see it that way. A defining characteristic of the left is their belief either that the electorate cannot be trusted, or that they, the left, can do a better job of telling the electorate how to live than the electorate can possibly decide on their own. Either way, the left arrives at the same point - they seek to centralize power and limit the say of the electorate (much like with EU treaties). They dictate from on high rather than provide the general framework and the support necessary for the locals to govern themselves.

And when that happens, you get situations such as the UK finds itself in today. The Labour Government is ever quick to quote a mass of statistics to show how Britain is thriving under Labour’s sage stewardship. Indeed, several members of the Labour government have appeared in the news over the past year quoting statistics to show how much improved police performance has been on their watch. But if you lift the knickers on those statistics, it becomes quickly apparent that there are huge systemic problems.

So what was Labour’s response to this problem: “. . . [T]he Home Office [is] prepare[ing] to publish a “violence action plan” aimed at reducing the number of most serious violence, serious sexual offending and domestic violence offences.” Insanity.

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