The Redhunter

October 20, 2008

"Freedom of Speech in Jihad Analysis: Debunking the Myth of Offensive Words"

About time someone said this.

From a story in today's Washington Times written by the invaluable Bill Gertz:

A U.S. military "Red Team" charged with challenging conventional thinking says that words like "jihad" and "Islamist" are needed in discussing 21st-century terrorism and that federal agencies that avoid the words soft-pedaled the link between religious extremism and violent acts.

"We must reject the notion that Islam and Arabic stand apart as bodies of knowledge that cannot be critiqued or discussed as elements of understanding our enemies in this conflict," said the internal report, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times.

The report, "Freedom of Speech in Jihad Analysis: Debunking the Myth of Offensive Words," was written by unnamed civilian analysts and contractors for the U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for the Middle East and South Asia. It is thought to be the first official document to challenge those in the government who seek to downplay the role of Islam in inspiring some terrorist violence.

"The fact is our enemies cite the source of Islam as the foundation for their global jihad," the report said. "We are left with the responsibility of portraying our enemies in an honest and accurate fashion."

I hope these guys keep their resumes updated, because they're going to need them if Obama's elected in November. The political correctness on this is bad enough with GW Bush, but it will be absolutely out of control with Obama.

You can download the report from the Times website at the link above. If that disappears, you can go here.

The reason why it is important that we use words like jihad, takfir, Islamist, and the rest is that we need to be clear as to who we are fighting. We need clarity on the nature of the enemy, who he is, and his historical roots. While we must understand that no, not all Muslims accept the idea of violent jihad, we must also understand that all too many do, and that they are the ones currently in control of the umma.

Of course, any "Red Team" is not the end-all-to-be-all. Their job is to provide the "counter" or "alternative" analysis, the purpose of which is to challenge assumptions. It's just that in this case I think they're right.

Read the whole thing, but here is an excerpt from the Executive Summary:

There are a growing number of USG documents that suggest that we stand in danger of (if we have not already) demonizing Islam and/or associating all Muslims with violence simply by invoking the Islamic identity, or Islamist goals, or a particular extremist group. While there is concern that we not label all Muslims as Islamist terrorists, it is proper to address certain aspects of violence as uniquely Islamic. This does not imply that all violence is Islamic, or even that all violence perpetrated by Muslims is uniquely Islamic. The fact is that our enemies cite the sources of Islam as the foundation of their global jihad. We are left with the responsibility of portraying our enemies in an honest and accurate fashion.

There are a lot of problems in our current approach, but one of them is not "demonizing Islam." President Bush and virtually all other Western leaders have gone out of their way to do the opposite.

The problem, rather, is with those who want to define our problem as narrowly as possible. Many do not even want to use the term "war," but rather see it through the lens of law enforcement. They generally see the problem as only al Qaeda and only in Afghanistan. This must end, and we should label our enemies as they are: Jihadists, Takfiris, and Islamists.

Posted by Tom at 9:30 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

October 19, 2008

Joe Biden, Sarah Palin, Dan Quayle, and When a Gaffe is not a Gaffe

Oct 20: Updated at bottom with today's Biden gaffe

And to think that they crucified Dan Quayle because he spelled "potato" wrong.

Unless they do the same to Joe Biden, the media and late night talk-show hosts who made so much fun Dan Quayle need to send him a letter of apology.

Anyone who follows politics knows that Senator Biden is a walking gaffe machine. Consider this small collection of his wit and wisdom:

If you're not sure, Roosevelt was not president when the stock market crashed and TV hadn't been invented in 1929.

And then we have his debate with Alaska Governor Sarah Palin:

" When we kicked -- along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and Barack said, "Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don't know -- if you don't, Hezbollah will control it."

Now what's happened? Hezbollah is a legitimate part of the government in the country immediately to the north of Israel."

Huh?

"Pakistan already has nuclear weapons. Pakistan already has deployed nuclear weapons. Pakistan's weapons can already hit Israel and the Mediterranean."

Pakistani missiles barely have the range to get halfway to Israel, much less hit anything in the Mediterranean.

We could go on and on listing Biden's gaffes, see here and here for material. Joe Biden says stupid things every single week. The man is an absolute walking gaffe machine. But listing them is not my purpose, and would take too long.

The True Story of the Potato

Did you know that the reporters who were in the room with Quayle when he misspelled "potato" didn't know how it was spelled either? It's true. Not only that, but the school had prepared flash cards with the words that were used in the spelling exercise, and the one for the word in question had it spelled as "potatoe"

Bet you didn't know that, either.

In fact, when Quayle noticed the discrepancy between the flash card and the way the student spelled it, he showed the card to the other adults standing with him, and they nodded in agreement that the student had spelled it wrong.

That little fact wasn't reported by the media either.

The true story of what happened can be found in many places, but perhaps the most comprehensive is by Quayle himself in his 1994 memoir Standing Firm. He devotes an entire chapter to the incident.

I'm not going to do a book review here, but suffice it to say that if you think that Quayle uses the book as an opportunity to settle scores, lash out at the media, or engage in bitter "I didn't deserve it," you'll be disappointed. Quayle is the opposite of the stereotypical politician; humble, candid, and amazingly hard on himself.

When Is a Gaffe not a Gaffe?

So why is it that Joe Biden does not suffer the same fate as Dan Quayle? Why is it that Sarah Palin is seemingly held to a higher standard than other Biden? These are not easy questions to answer, but let me take a shot at it.

One is simply how you look and come across. Joe Biden looks and sounds like a senator or professor. He also looks his age. Dan Quayle has a boyish look that chronological age will never wear away. Sarah Palin sounds like a midwestern "everywoman," and makes no attempt to act or talk Washingtonese.

Another is how you handle the aftermath. Quayle admits that he screwed up the press briefing that immediately followed the incident. At this point neither Quayle or anyone in his entourage knew anything was amis (recall that no one in the room challenged the "e" and many thought it correct). When a reporter slyly asked "so how do you spell "potato" again?" he should have realized his earlier mistake and made a joke about it. Unfortunately, he was caught off guard and unsure what the reporter was talking about. It was this "deer in the headlights" part of the incident that made a small mistake into a career defining event more than the incident itself.

All this, remember, according to Quayle himself. I told you he was hard on himself in the book.

The media is on the lookout for anything Sarah Palin might say that is slightly wrong. Rest assured that if she said that "jobs" was a three letter word it would be the subject of late-night jokes for the rest of her life.

Biden, on the other hand, seems to skate along making gaffe after gaffe without anyone other than us nasty right-wing bloggers seeming to care. There is no aftermath for him to deal with because most of the press simply ignore his gaffes.

Therefore, another part of the reason for the disparity of treatment is that Joe Biden is a liberal and Dan Quayle and Sarah Palin are conservatives. The media and comics are overwhelmingly liberal and use their platforms to push their cause, and this means highlighting gaffes by people they don't like and ignoring those of people they do like.

So in the end, I conclude that there are three reasons for the disparity in treatment. Not in order of importance, they are: Image and how you present yourself, how you handle the aftermath, and media bias.

Monday Evening Update

No sooner do I write the above post than Senator Biden proves the case. Via ABC News (H/T NRO)

"Mark my words," the Democratic vice presidential nominee said at a Seattle fundraiser Sunday, "it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."

Wait a second. I thought that with the ascendancy of The One the rest of the world would all like us again? Isn't that why we are supposed to elect him?

But now "the world" will test Obama with an "international crisis, a generated crisis"? Why would they generate a crisis, if he's the one we've all been waiting for?

But wait, it gets better. Biden continues:

"I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate," Biden said, including the Middle East and Russia as possibilities, "and he's gonna need help. And the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you - not financially to help him - we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."

What in the world does that "not gonna be apparent initially...that we're right" bit mean? That he's going to screw it up initially?

Don't leave me yet, there's more:

"Gird your loins," Biden told the crowd. "We're gonna win with your help, God willing, we're gonna win, but this is not gonna be an easy ride."

Do what?

The garrulous Biden...

or rather, "The blithering idiot"

...said that he's "forgotten more about foreign policy than most of my colleagues know, so I'm not being falsely humble with you."

Oh yes that was certainly humble of you.

"I think I can be value added, but this guy(Obama) has it. This guy has it. But he's gonna need your help. Because I promise you, you all are gonna be sitting here a year from now going, 'Oh my God, why are they there in the polls? Why is the polling so down? Why is this thing so tough?' We're gonna have to make some incredibly tough decisions in the first two years. So I'm asking you now, I'm asking you now, be prepared to stick with us. Remember the faith you had at this point because you're going to have to reinforce us.""

Or maybe he'll be down in the polls because people will come to their senses and realize that he has no idea how to handle international crises, and that his blithering idiot of a vice president is of no help whatsoever.

Posted by Tom at 8:45 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

October 9, 2008

Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, and a Tale of Two Americas

John Edwards gained a lot of political traction with his "Two Americas" schtick. Economics may be one way to divide Americans, but it's not the only way.

For a number of years liberals have told us that we should elect their candidates because they are "smarter" than conservatives. This usually, but not always, takes the form of citing university degrees. They tend to denigrate conservatives, most famously Ronald Reagan and George W Bush as "stupid" and "anti-intellectual.

We see this now with their characterizations of Senator Barack Obama and Governor Sarah Palin.

One argument that Obama's followers make as to why we should elect him is that he was once president of the Harvard Law Review, and later taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School. Palin, on the other hand, is mocked as a rube who "only" has a Bachelor of Science degree in communications-journalism from the University of Idaho.

Imagine, if you will, an audience that consists of two groups of people: One, the faculty of Harvard University. The other, Americans from the small towns of the mid-west. Suppose they hear the following speech given by General of the Army Douglas MacArthur (ret) (originally given to the corps of cadets at West Point). A brief excerpt will make the point:

Duty, Honor, Country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying points: to build courage when courage seems to fail; to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith; to create hope when hope becomes forlorn....

But these are some of the things they do. They build your basic character. They mold you for your future roles as the custodians of the nation's defense. They make you strong enough to know when you are weak, and brave enough to face yourself when you are afraid. They teach you to be proud and unbending in honest failure, but humble and gentle in success; not to substitute words for actions, not to seek the path of comfort, but to face the stress and spur of difficulty and challenge; to learn to stand up in the storm but to have compassion on those who fall; to master yourself before you seek to master others; to have a heart that is clean, a goal that is high; to learn to laugh, yet never forget how to weep; to reach into the future yet never neglect the past; to be serious yet never to take yourself too seriously; to be modest so that you will remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength. They give you a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a freshness of the deep springs of life, a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of an appetite for adventure over love of ease. They create in your heart the sense of wonder, the unfailing hope of what next, and the joy and inspiration of life. They teach you in this way to be an officer and a gentleman.

Upon hearing these words, which group will think "yes, these are ideals to which I aspire but may never reach, and which part will snicker?

And when the audience hears this part...

The unbelievers will say they are but words, but a slogan, but a flamboyant phrase. Every pedant, every demagogue, every cynic, every hypocrite, every troublemaker, and I am sorry to say, some others of an entirely different character, will try to downgrade them even to the extent of mockery and ridicule.

...which group will think "yes, sadly there are those of that type in our country too" and which will sit upright and think "wait, he's talking about me" ?

If later a bugle plays taps for our fallen troops while an honor guard stands erect and proud, which group will salute and put their hand over their hearts, tear in eye, and which will roll their eyes?

And if at the end a flight of F-15s flys overhead in a "missing man" formation, which will thrill at the sight while understanding its meaning, and which, uncomprehending the significance of the maneuver, will simply snear that "it was all just part of the military-industrial complex"?

You ask me, I take the William F. Buckley Jr. approach to government. He famously once said that he'd "rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University."

Before all you liberals get your panties in a wad, no I am not ascribing all of the worst aspects of the Harvard crowd to Barack Obama. If he was in our audience, in good Clintonian fashion he'd put on a good show. Heaven only knows his true feelings, but his radical background and associations are not encouraging.

So go ahead, all you liberals, denigrate Sarah Palin as you wish. Go on, mock her winks, her manner of speaking, her lack of elite eduction, that she has five children, that she - gasp - hunts and fishes, whatever amuses you.

Me? I'll take her alone any day over the entire faculty of Harvard when it comes to running this country.

Posted by Tom at 9:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 7, 2008

Why Ayers and Wright Matter

I haven't written very much about Senator Obama's questionable associations, but when I have I've made my thoughts pretty clear. I find it hightly objectionable that we should have a candidate from a major party who consorted with figures such as Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers. That he may well become president is disturbing.

There are two questions; how well did he know these figures, and what does it matter? I've answered the former in previous posts such as this one of a few days ago.

The reason why Obama's association with Ayers and Wright is important is that it goes to his judgment. Obama tells us that we should elect him because of his superior judgment. He bases this largely on one thing; his opposition to invading Iraq. The issue, then, is not Obama's character.

For purposes of argumentation lets ignore whether it was wise to invade Iraq.

What does it say about a man's judgment when he associated with Ayers and Wright? The Obama camp would have us believe that Obama didn't know that Ayers was an unrepentant terrorist, or that it was ok to associate with him because he had denounced Ayers, or that because Ayers' terrorist activities took place when Obama was a child.... I never did get that last one.

Where was Obama's vaunted judgment during all of this? If it was so superior, shouldn't have have caught on quickly as to who and what Ayers was? Why did he praise Ayers book on education, for example?

Lets also get over the notion that Obama is somehow excused because he was a child when Ayers was a terrorist. This is so completely irrelevant that it boggles the mind. The question is not how old Obama was when Ayers was committing his terrorist acts, the question is whether Obama knew, or should have known, of Ayers terrorist past during their relationship.

If Obama wants us to believe that his judgment is so superior then he should have been able to figure out who Ayers was pretty quickly. Either way Obama loses; if he didn't know it exibits bad judgment for not being able to evaluate other people (something critical in a president), and if it did it shows bad judgment because no one in their right mind should associate with an unrepentant ex terrorist.

For example, on his very website it still says that "Obama supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions." If his judgment with Ayers was so poor, why should we believe he will be able to size up Ahmadinejad any better? Recall that Obama actually used the example of the 196_ Kennedy-Khruchshev summit as a reason to meet with foreign dictators. One reason why the summit turned out so disasterously for Kennedy was that he had failed to size Khruchshev up correctly before meeting him, whereas Khruchshev had correctly judged that he would be able to bully Kennedy.

As for Wright, lets be clear what didn't happen. Obama did not attend Trinity United for a short period 10 or 20 years ago. He didn't just start to attend recently. Wright isn't just some preacher who endorsed Obama. Wright is not just a preacher that Obama went out and got his endorsement. Obama went to Trinity United for 20 years, and heard sermon after sermon. He described Wright as his "spiritual mentor." He only left when it became politically inconvenient to stay.

For that matter, what does it say about Obama's judgment that he attended the Million Man March? If his judgment is so superior, why didn't he figure out who and what Louis Farrakhan was before the event?

Finally, let's not pretend that Ayers and Wright were Obama's only questionable associations. The list goes on. Frank Gaffney, writiing in The Washington Times, goes over more, including Frank Marshall Davis, a Stalinist communist who admired the Soviet Union, Madeline Talbott of ACORN, Don Warden, (who converted to Islam and changed his name to Khalid al-Mansour). "Mr. al-Mansour has worked closely to advance the influence operations in America of one of Saudi Arabia's most insidious royal billionaires, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal." Worse still is Rashid Khalidi, who was

...a former colleague of Mr. Obama's at the University of Chicago and now a professor at Columbia. Mr. Khalidi is an enthusiastic supporter of the Palestinians, fervent critic of Israel (which he calls a destructive "racist" state), an admirer of suicide bombers and a driving force behind the Arab American Action Network (AAAN). This so-called pro-Palestinian "community organization" in Chicago is another beneficiary of the largess of the Obama-Ayers team at the Woods Fund and promotes an agenda that would horrify many of Mr. Obama's Jewish supporters.

If you want to question McCain's judgment over the Keating Five scandal, fine. The investigative report showed that McCain portrayed "poor judgment" and it is a mark against him. I do think you're stretching to compare that, though, to association with an unrepentant terrorist and a racist kook preacher. One can even say that McCain tried to make up for the whole affair with his McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill. Obama, of course, has no legislation to his name.

A Thought Experiment

To all of you liberals who see no problem with Obama's association with Ayers, or don't even think that he "associated" with him, consider if the shoe was on the other foot.

What would you think if John McCain had had the exact same relationship with abortion-clinic bomber Eric Rudolf? Can you honestly say that you'd have no problem with the situation?

For that matter, consider if John McCain had sat in a church for 20 years and listened to a white supremacist.

I know liberals will scream at this, but I do think in all honesty that if McCain had done either of these things we on the right would have purged him from our ranks long ago.

Update

The invaluable Andy McCarthy discusses Obama's radical past and concludes that

What Obama is about is infiltrating (and training others to infiltrate) bourgeois institutions in order to change them from within -- in essence, using the system to supplant the system. A key requirement of this stealthy approach (very consistent with talking vaporously about "change" but never getting more specific than absolutely necessary) is electability. With an enormous assist from the media, which does not press him for specifics, Obama has walked this line brilliantly. Absent convincing retractions of his prior radical positions, though, we should construe shrewd moves like the ostensibly reasonable Second Amendment position as efforts make him electable.

This is why Ayers is so important: it is a peek behind the curtain of Obama's rhetoric. When he talks about "education reform," that sounds admirable and, given the state of the schools, entirely reasonable. But when you look at what the Obama/Ayers program really tried to do to the schools (see, e.g., Stanley's work on this), it is radical. With a guy who speaks in euphemisms -- "change," "social justice," "due process," etc. -- it is vital to have concrete examples of how these concepts are put into action.

I have spoken with several undecided voters who tell me that they see Obama as a moderate, not much different in his positions than McCain. It's all I can do not to let my jaw hit the floor when I hear this. My conclusion is that one, the McCain campaign in general, and Senator McCain in particular, have done a poor job at communicating who and what Obama is. Two, the media are so in the bag for Obama that they're doing as good a job of investigating him as they did with John Edwards. This does not portend well.

Posted by Tom at 9:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 30, 2008

A Childlike View of the World

David Gelernter knocks it out of the park with a piece in The Weekly Standard that will leave youngish yuppie liberal types seething.

His thesis is that the generation who grew up after the 60s Cultural Revolution know little about recent history, and most of what they do know is wrong. Recall Obama actually using the Kennedy-Khrushchev summit as a reason why he should meet with Ahmadinejad.

He calls them "gen-CR", and his indictment is stinging

We know what to expect of gen-CR. Unless they have grown up in regions or families with an unusually strong grasp of tradition, patriotism, and reality, gen-CR'ers tend to have a fuzzy view of history, an unconditional belief in tolerance and diplomacy, and contempt for the military and war-making. Their patriotism (such as it is) tends to focus on the "global community" or "the planet" or some other large, meaningless object. (Beyond a certain point, patriotic devotion spread too thin simply evaporates-which is a good way to get rid of it if you are, say, an English intellectual trusting to the European Union to eradicate this primitive emotion.)

Ouch.

To be sure, not everyone in a particular generation fits to type. After all, not all baby boomers burned their draft cards and protested the war in Vietnam. But there are certain general characteristics (dare we call them "stereotypes"?) of each generation.

On to some history:

His (Obama's) announcement that he would meet Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without preconditions shows exactly why a president must not merely know history but have a decently nuanced view. It was wrong for Chamberlain to meet Hitler and foolish for JFK to meet Khrushchev, but right for Begin to meet Sadat and for Churchill to make repeated long, dangerous journeys to meet Stalin.

We've all read leftie blogs gleefully point out that we were supposedly "allied" with Iraq during the Iraq-Iran war, and how in 1983 Reagan-envoy Donald Rumsfeld traveled to Baghdad and shook hands with Saddam, and how these supposedly illegitimized our 2003 invasion.

Never mind that we weren't really "allied" with Iraq. For awhile I tried to point out that we were very much allied with Stalin's Soviet Union, and yet as soon as the war ended fought a Cold War against them for 40 years, so did our onetime alliance with them illegitimize that too? Eventually I grew weary and gave up. Too many on the left today lack the moral clarity to understand the difference.

But other than racism, sexism, or the new one, "homophobia", Hemingway points out that "Gen-CR recoils from the idea of enemies." Last night I was listening to Dennis Prager on the radio say that when he spoke with Europeans they told him that what they didn't like about America was that we spoke about good and evil. Anecdotal to be sure, but it rings true.

Start with a given: An Obama administration might still bring about defeat in Iraq; speeded-up troop with-drawals might weaken this new democracy and bring on its collapse like a burnt-out log into a blaze of terrorist violence. But if it did-if the left's policies proved tragically mistaken-Obama's supporters would never know it. What would the collapse of America's noble project in Iraq look like in the funhouse mirrors of the New York Times, NBC, Time and Newsweek and NPR and the rest of the establishment media? "In the end, Bush policy plunged Iraq into chaos, but Obama was smart enough to pull out before more American lives were lost." And that's what Democrats would "know" about Iraq.

It would all just be another excuse to blame George W Bush and from which to seek political advantage, the better to put us all under the rule of the EPA.

Members of the CR generation who had mainstream, establishment educations have been trained like pet poodles to understand where romping is allowed and where it is forbidden. The permissible range of thought on such topics as protected minorities, protected species, protected psychosexual deviations, et al. is clearly spelled out from kindergarten onward.

Yup. I see more intolerance among the "tolerance" and "diversity" crowd than anywhere else. The push for gay marriage is about a lot of things, but marriage isn't one of them. Their real agenda is to force everyone to accept and approve of the gay lifestyle whether they want to or not. Anyone who deviates from correct thought will be severely punished.

You doubt me? Consider the fate of Harvard President Harry Summers, and before the incident that got him in trouble he was considered a right-thinking liberal:

To understand this generational shift in the making, consider the resignation of Harvard president Lawrence Summers in 2006, under attack for having said that, just possibly, the far greater number of male than of female scientists might have to do with innate differences between men and women-something that a large majority of working scientists (male and female) almost certainly take for granted (whether or not they are willing to say so). But Summers had expressed a forbidden thought, and (despite his abject confessions and apologies at the Harvard show trials) was duly banished. In the gen-CR age now approaching, such embarrassing accidents will no longer happen. Forbidden ideas simply won't occur to the Harvard presidents of the future.

The Obama generation in action.

Posted by Tom at 9:30 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

September 7, 2008

Proving Malkin Right

Michelle Malkin calls it like it is in her editorial today. Here's an excerpt:

There's something about outspoken conservative women that drives the left mad. It's a peculiar pathology I've reported on for more than 15 years, both as a witness and a target. Thus, the onset of Palin Derangement Syndrome in the media, Democratic circles and the cesspools of the blogosphere came as no surprise. They just can't help themselves.

Liberals hold a special animus for constituencies they deem traitors. Minorities who identify as social and economic conservatives have left the plantation and sold out their people. Women who put an "R" by their name have abandoned their ovaries and betrayed their gender. As female Republican officeholders and female conservative public figures have grown in number and visibility, so has the progression of Conservative Female Abuse. The astonishing vitriol and virulent hatred directed at Alaska's Republican Gov. Sarah Palin is the most severe manifestation to date.

As if to prove her right, several liberals left some rather unhinged comments. Here are a few

By: petemurray

1. Ms. Palin has rushed to make political capital from her Down's syndrome child. However, as Alaskan writer and herself a mother of a Down's syndrome daughter, and Democrat, Mary Mullen points out, all the programmes onwhich Alaskan parents of special needs children depend to assist them in helping their children maximize their potential were put in place under Democrat administrations and were opposed tooth and nail by the Republicans.
2. The political wedding of her pregnant 17 year old daughter is nothing less than child-abuse in the cause of political respectability. To pressurize this pregnant child into marriage at this age is to ignore the statistical fact that 95% of such marriages fail with sad personal consequences to all concerned. This child was impregnated when she was 16 and in most advanced societies "Levi" would not be preparing for marriage. He would be preparing his defence to charges of statutory rape.
3. Imagine what a field day Ms. Malkin and the other attack-dogs of the extreme right-wing press would have had if Chelsea Clinton had got herself pregnant at 16 rather than exercsing restraint and growing up a credit to herself and her parents.
4. Is feckless teenage parenting and the equally feckless failure of parents to inculcate decent values in their teenage children now off the agenda for conservative pundits?

September 7, 2008 at 3:35 p.m. | Mark as Offensive

By: SDindependent

It is Sunday, McBush has Palin sequestered, she is not allowed to take a singe question from anyone. According to the lobbyist that runs his campaign, Rick Davis she will not be interviewed until she is ready..... "READY". What the hell is this. She is not READY to answer a question from a reporter but she is READY to step in and take over the presidency.

This has got to be the most ominous scam on the American public since the Bush-Cheny Iraq War on WMD's claim.

September 7, 2008 at 2:18 p.m. | Mark as Offensive

By: kc

More spittle for Cons to lick up. Ms.hatelibs selling some of her wonder spittle for the gullible Cons to swill down. Drink it up and feel empowered by hate. Nothing more liberating in the world then being given permission to hate. Lick it up. Feel the power.
September 6, 2008 at 9:52 p.m. | Mark as Offensive

You can see that when Malkin wrote Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild, she had no lack of material to draw from.

Posted by Tom at 8:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 21, 2008

Senator Ted Kennedy

As I think we all know by now, Senator Edward Kennedy has a malignant brain tumor. The prognosis is not good.

I wish him nothing but a speedy recovery. He and his family are in my prayers.

Much as I may disagree with him and other liberals on policy matters, I wish none of them personal misfortune. It is time to put all of the aside right now as he and his family go through this difficult time together.

Posted by Tom at 7:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 16, 2008

Bush in Israel and the Democrat Melt Down

Well well, so Senator Obama and a whole slew of Democrats are all bent out of shape over what President Bush said in Israel. Here's the part of his speech before the Knesset yesterday that has them all in a tizzy:

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.)

Note, of course, that no Democrat is actually named. If the currently outraged Democrats had been thinking, they would have issued statements that went something like this:

"One thing all Americans agree on is that appeasement doesn't work. As president, I will engage in tough, principled, and direct diplomacy just like Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan before me. And of course, no American president will engage with terrorists, least of all those who seek to destroy our stalwart ally, Israel. I look forward to celebrating the 65th anniversary of Israel's independence."

But nooooo, they had to all go off and through a big hissy fit.

Senator Obama showed why he'll never be qualified to be president:

I'm a strong believer in civility and I'm a strong believer in a bipartisan foreign policy, but that cause is not served with dishonest, divisive attacks of the sort that we've seen out of George Bush and John McCain over the last couple days

and

That's exactly the kind of appalling attack that's divided our country and that alienates us from the world

"Divisive"? This from a senator who's party wants to force "gay marriage" on us through the courts; the most undemocratic branch of government? That is in bed with Movon.org, one of the most "divisive" groups out there? That panders to the nutroots crowd who regularly deride Bush and Cheney in the most vile terms?

Mark Salter nails Obama's M.O.

We have all become familiar with Senator Obama's new brand of politics. First, you demand civility from your opponent, then you attack him, distort his record and send out surrogates to question his integrity. It is called hypocrisy, and it is the oldest kind of politics there is.

Rich Lowry lists Obama's "rules", and what is "off limits"

He can't be called a "liberal" ("the same names and labels they pin on everyone," as Obama puts it); his toughness on the war on terror can't be questioned ("attempts to play on our fears"); his extreme positions on social issues can't be exposed ("the same efforts to distract us from the issues that affect our lives" and "turn us against each other"); and his Chicago background too is off-limits ("pouncing on every gaffe and association and fake controversy").

Should we on the right take Obama up on his stated desire to have an oh-so-clean campaign?

We could take Obama's rules in good faith if he never calls John McCain a "conservative" or labels him in any other way. If he never criticizes him for his association with George Bush. If he doesn't jump on his gaffes (like McCain's 100-years-in-Iraq comment that Obama distorted and harped on for weeks). And if he never says anything that would tend to make Americans fearful about the future or divide them (i.e., say things that some people agree with and others don't).

Oh, and he would have to stop lying about the meaning of Senator McCain's "100 years in Iraq" statement.

Obama's not alone, though, in his whining. Michael Goldfarb, blogging at The Weekly Standard, has usefully compiled a list of reactions. Here's one

(Senator Joe) Biden again did not mince words when discussing Bush's remarks, accusing the president of engaging in "long-distance swiftboating" with his speech in Israel. Biden also cited numerous examples of the Bush Administration reaching out to unfriendly regimes in Libya, North Korea and Iran, arguing that Bush's insinuation that the Democrats were soft on terrorism was "truly delusional ... and truly disgraceful."

The Democrats can sure dish it out but they can't take it.

So What of Appeasement?

The Democrats claim that they're not appeasers of dictators and terrorists. Are they?

Since Senator Obama is the one in the limelight, let's look briefly at his record:

Senator Obama: yesterday "George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists..."

Senator Obama November 1, 2007: "I would meet directly with Iranian leaders. I would meet directly with Syrian leaders. "

A quick look at the relevant website for the State Department confirms what we already know

Iran remained the most active state sponsor of terrorism....

Since Syria's 1979 designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, it has continued to provide political support to Palestinian terrorist groups.....

What really is the difference between meeting with Hamas, Hezbollah, and the leaders of those who sponsor them? Neither group could survive were it not for their sponsors.

Want more? Here's Obama at one of the Democrat debates last year:

Asked if he would be willing to meet separately "without precondition" during the first year of his administration with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea, Obama said, "I would."

Here he is again:

"The notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them...is ridiculous," Sen. Obama said in a debate last year. "One of the first things that I would do in terms of moving a diplomatic effort in the region forward is to send a signal that we need to talk to Iran and Syria."

What's ridiculous is the notion that such a meeting will not be trumpeted as a victory by the Jihadists. What Obama does not seem to realize is that the United States is not just an average run-of-the-mill nation. The President, Democrat or Republican, is not called "the leader of the free world" for nothing. Simply meeting with the President will be interpreted as lending legitimacy to regimes that are illegitimate and worried about it. Dictators, by their very nature, have no real legitimacy. The pseudo-elections in Iran and Venezuela (they probably have them in Syria, Cuba, and North Korea too) change this not at all.

So even if nothing is decided at these "talks", they will be portrayed as a victory by the other side. We can say all we want that no, they're not a victory for Iran/Syria/Cuba/North Korea/Venezuela, but it won't matter. The propaganda organs of our opponents will be out in full force, and in one of Bush's biggest failings he hasn't beefed up ours, so there won't be much of a response.

Not Just Obama

It's not just Sen. Obama who is an appeaser. Kathryn Jean Lopez has helpfully compiled a list of other Democrats the President could have been talking about, such as

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, freelance diplomat, who in December 2007 said: "the road to Damascus is a road to peace."

Or, perhaps he meant Speaker Pelosi in April 2007: "I believe in dialogue. As my colleagues have said over and over again, unless you communicate, you cannot understand each other. You cannot reach agreement."

Or maybe he meant recent Obama endorser and former North Carolina senator John Edwards, who, according to his own press release in February of last year, believes "the U.S. should step up our diplomatic efforts by engaging in direct talks with all the nations in the region, including Iran and Syria."
...

Or former Democratic presidential candidates and senators Chris Dodd and John Kerry, who met with Syria's al-Assad and said: "As senior Democrats on the Foreign Relations Committee, we felt it was important to make clear that while we believe in resuming dialogue, our message is no different: Syria can and should play a more constructive role in the region ...

Liberals typically bring up the fact that U.S. presidents from Roosevelt to Reagan met with Soviet leaders. This is true, but misleading. These were meetings well scripted out in advance, with little being left to chance. Reykjavik in 1986 was the exception, not the rule.

Further, Obama seems blissfully unaware that unscripted high-level meetings are highly risky. As often as not they backfire. Reykjavik backfired on Gorbachev. Khrushchev sized up Kennedy as a "weakling" in their initial meeting, prompting the former to believe he could get away with sneaking nuclear-armed missiles into Cuba. It's widely thought that Stalin snookered Roosevelt at Yalta. If nothing else, Obama should read Khrushchev's rants at Eisenhower or Nixon during some of their meetings. That alone would give him second thoughts.

So should we not "talk" with these regimes? I hate to sound Clintonian, but it depends on what you mean by "talk". A meeting with an Iranian representative in the back room of the Canadian embassy in Madrid? No problem. President-to-President talks surrounded by thousands of reporters? Hold your horses.

Lastly, in fairness I will say that President Bush's tough talk hasn't extended to the Saudis, who's export of Wahhabism is designed to destroy the West. Also, our dopey Secretary of State has been "pressuring Israel to meet with Hamas representatives". Side

On the upside, Senator John McCain tells it like it is

If Senator Obama wants to sit down across the table with the leader of a nation that calls Israel a stinking corpse--what is it that he wants to talk about with him?

Nothing.

Meaningful negotiations could take place if they stop sponsoring terrorist organizations...those are the preconditions for sitting down with the Iranians.

Exactly right.

Update

This is the guy who wants to negotiate with the dictators of Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, and Cuba (h/t Dagney's Rant)

I'm sure they'll all take him very seriously after he destroys our ability to respond to anything militarily.

What we need to do is spend more money on weapons, not less.

Posted by Tom at 8:00 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

March 27, 2008

The Global Patriot Incident

On March 25, the American Forces Press Service issued the following:

A ship on short-term charter to the U.S. Navy's Military Sealift Command fired warning shots at a small boat approaching the ship as it was preparing to transit the Suez Canal last night, military officials reported.

There were no reports of casualties from the ship, the Global Patriot.

Officials said several boats approached the Global Patriot while it was preparing to transit the Suez Canal. The boats were hailed and warned by a native Arabic speaker on the Global Patriot to advise them to turn away. Other warning steps, including a signal flare, were used to caution the boats.

One small boat continued to approach the ship and received two sets of warning shots 20 to 30 meters in front of the boat's bow. All shots were accounted for as they entered the water, officials said.

Here's the same story with video

The initial report of no casualties, however, turned out to be wrong. The next day the AFPS issued this

U.S. 5th Fleet officials today expressed regret for the death of an Egyptian citizen who died the night of March 24, an apparent result of warning shots fired at a small boat approaching a ship chartered by the U.S. Navy.

"We express our deepest sympathies to the family of the deceased," Vice Adm. Kevin J. Cosgriff, 5th Fleet commander. "We are greatly saddened by events that apparently resulted in this accidental death. This situation is tragic, and we will do our utmost to help take care of the family of the deceased."

The U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet Command continues to work cooperatively with Egyptian authorities, including the Suez Canal Authority, through the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, officials said. A full investigation into the incident is under way....

Oh boy, I thought, here we go again. Will we get the same reaction from the left as we did in early January when several small Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats zoomed around 3 US Navy ships?

This blog doesn't get many comments, but I did get one on the post that I wrote about the incident from some leftist who wrote that "So, WHY was it that the Iranians threatened the US? Funny stuff, eh pal? Some jokester on the CB airwaves! The Pentagon once again has mud on its face." Over on his own blog he took great delight in mocking the administration. I heard much the same from commenter "anon" over at the most excellent DowneastBlog (I can't find the exact post).

The incident with the Global Patriot hasn't received the same coverage, but the Internet being what it is I felt sure that someone else was blogging about it. I checked the Daily Kos and Huffington Post to see if they had anything. To their credit, I have only been able to find straight-up news reports on those two blogs. So unless I'm missing something they're not engaged in any wackyness on this one. There is a long thread about it over at the Democrat Underground, but other than the usual talk about "mercenaries" not much of note.

You don't have to go far on Google, however, to find posts on "Global Patriot". This guy titles his post "Global Patriot Lied: Egyptian WAS Murdered", so you know where he's coming from. Another says that the incident proves that we're "ignoring sovereignty". His theory is that we're trying to paper over the affair because "It's just some Egyptian guy", but if it is was an Australian "the papers would go beserk!" There are more but these came up on page 1.

Now, I'm sure that many leftists are being responsible about this incident, as my search of the Daily Kos and Huffington Post showed. And no doubt the right has it's share of nutty bloggers as well.

I just rather thought I'd use this post to discuss this from a larger perspective. Because if the left isn't going nuts over the incident with the Global Patriot, the one in January with the Iranian speedboats showed that too many will rush to see anything as another Gulf of Tonkin Incident, just as every spike in violence in Iraq is seen as portending another Tet Offensive.

My friend (ok I've only met him once) Steve Schippert was writing the other day over at National Review's The Tank blog about an incident in Iraq, but his words apply here as well

There are things beyond our control in Iraq. And there are mistakes we make. But there are far more things that we simply are not aware of because we are not omniscient or omnipresent. Or, you can believe that we are a torturous, imperialistic force of bad actors and worse actions. Take your pick.

Anyone who has read this blog at all knows that I take the former position.

With regards to the Global Patriot, any one of a number of things may have happened. Our guys may have simply miscounted the rounds as the hit the water and not realized that one hit the Egyptian. Or the rounds may have skipped along the water (yes this really happens) and then hit the Egyptian. The contractors simply assumed that the rounds went into the water.

Another possibility is that Egyptians may really be members of a Jihadist organization like al Qaeda and killed their own guy to stage an incident (kind of like a suicide bombing but for purely propaganda purposes). It's also possible that the contractors lied about the incident.

Maybe we'll never know.

The question is, what is your initial reaction? If it's to give our side the benefit of the doubt then you possess moral clarity. Yes, let's pursue a vigorous investigation. But as with Schippert, it annoys me to no end that there are those who's first reaction is to assume that the American government is lying, misleading, racist, on and on.

And please, lets not have any tripe about how we all need to "question authority". That's not what this is about. It's about a knee-jerk leftism that lives in the past and wants every American military venture to become another Vietnam.

The bottom line is that bad things happen by accident. You can take every imaginable precaution and you will still have incidents of this sort. And it doesn't matter whether a conservative Republican or liberal Democrat is in the White House.

This said, we do need to be aware that incidents such as this one will be exploited by the anti-American and Jihadist media to their fullest extent. As I have written many times, we are engaged in a War of Ideas as much if not more than one involving bombs and bullets. We need to do all that we can to keep these incidents from happening. We also need to do all that we can to put our own media in place so that when they do we can get out our side of the story quickly and efficiently.

I think that the responsible position is to simply wait for the results of the investigation. If we don't think the investigation was honestly done, then let's say so. If the results of the investigation are such that we need to change our procedures, fine, let's do so. If we even need to prosecute people let's do so, though this seems unlikely. But it's at best irresponsible to judge before the facts are in.

In the meantime, though, can we please give our side the benefit of the doubt?

Posted by Tom at 9:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 6, 2007

Can We Question Their Patriotism Now?

According to a new Fox News poll, "nearly one out of every five Democrats thinks the world will be better off if America loses the war in Iraq"

Here are the details; The poll was conducted by telephone on Sept 25 & 26. The total sample was 900 registered voters nationwide, giving it a margin of error of +/-3%.

The relevant question is this one

Do you personally think the world would be better off if the United States loses the war in Iraq?
______________Yes______No_____(Don't Know)
Democrats____19%_____62________20
Republicans____5%_____87_________8
Independents___7%____ 76________17

Don't get me wrong; I'm just as disturbed by the 5% of Republicans and 7% of Independents who would answer such a question in the affirmative as I am the Democrats. For that matter, I cannot imagine how anyone could say they don't know. Of the Republicans, my guess is they're Ron Paul types.

The best I could say for someone who would think that "the world would be better off" is that they buy into the lies that we are wantonly massacaring Iraqis, and that if we left the violence would magically cease. They probably also believe that it is a war fought to steal Iraqi oil, or to benefit "big business" like Halliburton, or some such thing.

The poll question looks pretty straightforward to me. I don't see how someone could complain that it was worded poorly, or that the results have been twisted out of context or something.

The bottom line is that almost 1 in 5 Democrats, and 1 in 20 Republicans want their country to lose a war. This is not a question of why we went in, or should we stay, or whether the war is winnable. By agreeing with question they want us to lose, and as such deserve to have their patriotism questioned.

Posted by Tom at 7:33 PM | Comments (18) | TrackBack

September 27, 2007

From Muslim Foot-Baths to Muslim Smoking Rooms

This post by Mark Steyn over at The Corner highlights a situation that is sadly becoming all too typical

Okay, Muslim foot-baths in Kansas City airport, gender-segregated swimming sessions at French municipal pools, banning pork from Aussie hospital menus, no eating donuts for Belgian cops during Ramadan, no seeing-eye dogs or alcohol in Minneapolis taxi cabs, fine, fine, fine. Must be sensitive and all that.

But this is an amazing victory. In Vancouver, infidels can't smoke but Muslims can:

Vancouver's hookah-parlour owners are celebrating after winning an exemption Thursday from a proposed new bylaw that will ban smoking on most sidewalks in commercial districts, in bus shelters and even in taxis passing through Vancouver.

In giving the bylaw unanimous approval-in-principle, Vancouver city council members bowed to arguments that hookah lounges provide an important cultural space for the city's Muslims and granted them a temporary exemption...

[Emad Yacoub] said hookah lounges are essential for immigrants from hookah-smoking cultures, because it helps them deal with the depression common for newcomers and gives them places like they have at home.

Where do the rest of us go to deal with depression? As Jay Currie asks, "What about my culture?"

By creating a special exemption for Muslims - who do seem to be the only immigrant group actively demanding these sorts of “cultural accommodations” we are basically declaring our Muslim citizens worthy of special treatment and, at the same time, unworthy of the health concerns which are purported to be the basis of general smoking bans.

The state, in other words, is prepared to treat Muslims as free-born adults who can weigh the "cultural value" (ie, the pleasures) of smoking against the health risks. But not the rest of us.

Posted by Tom at 8:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 24, 2007

Ahmadinejad at Columbia

I was able to tune into Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about halfway through his address at Columbia University earlier today. What struck me was what a poor speech it was. He rambled and seemed not to be able to stay on any one topic for long. I was unimpressed.

Much more interesting was the question and answer period which followed. He is the master of evasion, able to take just about any question and turn it into a soliquoly on "justice" for the Palestinians. When asked whether Iran was building nuclear weapons he engaged in moral equivalence; "you have them and you tell others they can't have them?" Sadly though unsurprisingly, many in the audience applauded him.

Playing to Western leftists, he tried to portray Iran as the a victim; of terrorism, Western imperialism, of economic sanctions for no reason, and of Iraqi chemical weapons.
The last is at least true, although no doubt many leftists will simply use this as an excuse to attack the United States. All we want is justice and freedom, he insisted.

Many students were having none of it, there being many reports of anti Ahmadinejad demonstrations outside of the lecture hall. And many in the United States who haven't paid much attention to him will rightly be offended by his insistence that more "research" is needed to determine whether the holocaust occured or not.

Also President Bollinger (whom I heard later on the Sean Hannity show) did attack Ahmadinejad pretty good during his introduction, and to their credit many students applauded him. On the flip side, they should have just boycotted the whole thing.

Here's how I think it will play out from a public perception standpoint

This is win for Ahmadinejad in Iran and in Muslim countries, as they will only show him at his best. They won't show Bollinger's introduction. They'll also show the students applauding Ahmadinejad. The mere fact that he spoke at a major American university give him legitimacy and standing.

Further, this invite and his speaking at Columbia feeds into the fantasies of the jihadists. The Khumeinists believe that they can declare jihad and create a regional Imamate. They believe that they can pull the wool over our eyes as to their true intentions. This event today encourages that belief.

On the other side, some in Muslim countries will hear Bollinger's introduction (from one source or another), and this will be damaging. Also, more people in the United States will now realize what a dangerous man this guy is.

The real shame here is on Columbia University for inviting him in the first place. I don't buy their excuse that everyone should be given a forum. Dean Coatsworth even said that they would have invited Hitler if he had been willing to debate. This is absurd. There are some people so extreme we need not listen to them. Grand Wizards of the KKK are an example. Anyone who denies the holocaust and has repeatedly said that Israel should be wiped off the map is another.

Unfortunately, this is the same university that allowed Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minutemen, was literally chased off stage by leftist idiots in October 2006. According to his website, he was supposed to return this year but the deal was nixed. It's unclear why, but Gilchrist said that the Columbia Political Union succumbed "to pressure from anti-freedom-of-speech gangsters." It wouldn't surprise me.

While I'm sure Ahmadinejad had great security, I'm sure he had nothing to fear from any students at Columbia. Conservatives don't storm stages or disrupt speakers, and leftists will tolerate anyone who hates the U.S.

And anyone who wonders where the faculty of Columbia's sympathies lie need only consider that this is a university that has banned ROTC and military recruiters, yet has no problem inviting a man like Ahmadinejad.

Rather, I think the Editors of National Review have figured out why Columbia invited Ahmadinejad

Ahmadinejad’s visit to Columbia has nothing to do with freedom of speech. Rather, it is one more capitulation in series of victories for anti-Israel sentiment at the university. Columbia has long had problems with professors’ intimidating students who disagree with them about Israel’s right to exist, and its Middle East–studies department is a hotbed of anti-Israel hysteria. The sad reality is that there isn’t much daylight between Ahmadinejad’s positions on the legitimacy of the founding of Israel and those of Columbia professors Joseph Massad and Gil Anidjar.

I think they have it about right. Bollinger and other academics prattle about "free speech", but the experience of conservative speakers at universities over the past 30 years has put the lie to this. Recall also that these academics are the same ones who pushed onerous speech codes (most of which have fortunately been overturned by the courts).

In the end, sometime in the next year or so we'll have to face the Iranian quest for nuclear weapons and their sponsorship of terrorism. Hitler had no shortage of apologists in France and Britain in the mid-30s. After he took Czechoslovakia (and certainly after Poland) most people came around, though it was nearly too late. Let's hope it's not so close this time.

Posted by Tom at 9:24 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

September 1, 2007

MEMRI TV

Let's take a minute to recognize an organization that is absolutely invaluable for anyone who wishes to understand the Middle East.

MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, is or should be a national treasure. From their mission statement

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) explores the Middle East through the region's media. MEMRI bridges the language gap which exists between the West and the Middle East, providing timely translations of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish media, as well as original analysis of political, ideological, intellectual, social, cultural, and religious trends in the Middle East.

What you have are translators who sift through all manner of newspapers, magazines, blog sites, radio broadcasts and television shows that originate out of the Middle East. Material deemed important is posted in English on their website. You can also sign up for their email newsletter, which I have done.

Translated are the good, the bad, and the ugly. Contrary to what detractors no doubt say, any fair survey of MEMRI translations shows that they are not simply trying to make Arabs or Persions look bad. But there will be no pleasing some people.

Recently launched isMEMRI TV, which is fast becoming an indespensible resource. . Middle Eastern television shows are monitored and posted with English subtitles. Transcripts for each show are also available.

Unfortunately they don't allow you to post clips on other sites, like what you can do with YouTube or other videosites. Hopefully this will change, but until then head over and check out what they've got.

Posted by Tom at 8:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 18, 2007

The End of Great Britain as We Know It

For an appalling display of the ignorance and stupidity of British youth, watch the latest edition of BBC TV’s Question Time.

May as well turn Westminster into a mosque right now and get it over with.

(h/t Melanie Phillips)

Posted by Tom at 7:46 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

July 17, 2007

The Polls! The Polls!

So Senator Webb thinks that we need to pull out of Iraq because a NYT poll says that 55% of enlisted soldiers say we should withdraw from Iraq. He said this in a debate with Sen Graham last weekend on Meet the Press. Webb also used this argument when he made the Democrat rebuttal to President Bush's State of the Union address last January.

It isn't just Sen. Webb, the anti-war folks in general use polling results incessantly to justify their demand that we withdraw now from Iraq.

Logically speaking this type of argument is called an enthymeme, which is a syllogism without one it it's parts; major premise, minor premise, or conclusion. Webb and those like him who use this argument don't spell out their reasoning, but based on what

We should base our policy on the latest poll
The latest poll on Iraq says that most people favor immediate withdrawal
Therefore we should withdraw immediately

If those who use polls as part of their argument deny that this is their argument, which part are they denying? Most likely they'd deny the major premise (line 1). Perhaps what they mean is

We should base Iraq policy on the latest poll
The latest poll on Iraq says that most people favor immediate withdrawal
Therefore we should withdraw immediately

or

We should base military policy on the latest poll The latest poll on Iraq says that most people favor immediate withdrawal Therefore we should withdraw immediately

But syllogisms 2 & 3 seem rather selective. If you're going to base Iraq policy, or military policy on the polls, why not policy in all areas? Why not decide other issues on the polls too, such as abortion, school choice, or illegal immigration? It is not clear why we should choose policy based on polls in one area and not another.

Perhaps, however, those who use polls as part of their argument are saying yet something else.

We should base our policy on poll readings if said poll holds firm over a period of time Polls on Iraq have said for some time that most people favor immediate withdrawal Therefore we should withdraw immediately

This is the only argument that really makes any sense. Unfortunately, those who make their argument based on polls rarely get into this level of detail, so I'm forced to guess.

Truth be told, I realize I am seriously overthinking this. My general observation is that people who make their arguments based on polls, whether they be conservatives or liberals, rarely think through what they are saying to this level. Most of they time they are simply pulling numbers to support a predetermined conclusion and we all know it.

And lets be clear, conservatives can be just as guilty of this as liberals. In the recent debate over the immigration (really amnesty) bill in Congress, some conservatives based their opposition to the bill on poll numbers which showed that the majority of Americans opposed the legislation.

But I think you need to be consistent. If you're going to use poll numbers to justify your position in one area, you've got to do it in others. You can't say, for example, that we should pull out of Iraq because the polls say we should, then take a position against school choice even though polls show the majority of Americans favor it.

We can get into a deep philosophical discussion on this whole matter of public opinion and public policy, and I'm sure it gets rather complicated, but since that isn't really the subject of this post I'll just touch on a few areas.

Of course in any republic public opinion matters. But this opinion gets to be expressed at regularly scheduled intervals called voting. The founding fathers were just as afraid of mob rule as they were of tyranny. They wanted a government somewhat insulated from the passions of the moment. This is one reason why our Congress is divided into two houses, in which the House most closely represents the immediate will of the people with the Senate a bit more insulated.

Once elected, should represenatives take notice of changes in the public mood? My answer is that yes they should take notice but they should be wary of making radical policy changes based on polls and focus groups.

A few months ago I wrote a post on the Democrat Party's "New Rules for Going to War" Two of my mock rules were

• It at any time a poll of the American people show that their support for military operations goes below 50% the troops are to be immediately withdrawn

• It at any time a poll of active-duty military personnel show that their support for military operations goes below 50% the troops are to be immediately withdrawn

I guess I could call my latter rule the "Senator Jim Webb honorary rule for going to war".

It'd all be funny if it wasn't so pathetic. They didn't poll the troops in the Revolution, Civil War, WWII, or Korea, or any other war to see what they thought. Yes public opinion matters, yes it matters what the troops think. It's rather the modern obsession with polls, especially when they're used selectively and really to bolster predetermined conclusions that bothers me. And you just can't make public policy by turning to the latest poll, whether it's of the general public or the military.

Reasonable people can disagree about what exactly the public thinks we ought to do about Iraq, and how long they've felt that way. On the one hand I don't think it's nearly as clear cut as the anti-war left would have us believe, but at the same time there's no denying that there's a deep frustation and disillusionment.

But enough of my philosophical ramblings. The bottom line is that too many politicians and people in general use polls to justify predetermined positions. They also only use polls when it bolsters their position on an issue, and ignore them when they go against their position. I'm sure I've been guilty of this too on occasion. It's an easy trap to fall into.

The bottom line is that too many politicians, mainly in the Democrat Party but also in the GOP, are completely poll-driven and seem utterly devoid of principle. This needs to change.

Posted by Tom at 9:30 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

June 24, 2007

Fake Arguments against Democracy

The latest argument coming from the left is that by not supporting Hamas, the Bush Administration, and conservatives in general, do not respect Democracy.

Here's Jimmy Carter (h/t NRO)

The United States, Israel and the European Union must end their policy of favoring Fatah over Hamas, or they will doom the Palestinian people to deepening conflict between the rival movements, former US President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday.

Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who was addressing a conference of Irish human rights officials, said the Bush administration's refusal to accept the 2006 election victory of Hamas was "criminal."

Carter said Hamas, besides winning a fair and democratic mandate that should have entitled it to lead the Palestinian government, had proven itself to be far more organized in its political and military showdowns with the Fatah movement of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

Next up is a writer on the Daily Kos (h/t LGF)

The extreme contempt both Israel and the U.S. have for democracy means that, despite recent events in Gaza, the isolation and strangulation of Hamas and the Palestinians of Gaza will likely continue. The probable Israeli response to Hamas’ assumption of power in Gaza will be to ease restrictions in the West Bank and engage in meaningless “peace talks” with Abbas, with the cynical aim of increasing his popularity relative to Hamas’. In the long-term, however, if Hamas remains resilient and does not submit to external pressures to relinquish power, we could very possibly witness a full-blown “‘Bay of Pigs’ type invasion of Gaza”, with Dahlan at its head.

If what we want to see is a relatively stable Palestinian democracy with the capacity to engage in meaningful peace negotiations with Israel (and again I emphasise that these are not the objectives of the Israeli government), the policies we should follow are obvious, as they have been for months. The Hamas government should be recognised as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and should be engaged with in the form of meaningful final status negotiations.

Sorry, but I'm not buying this.

The whole issue raises interesting, and I don't think completely easy to answer, questions about the nature of democracy, and it's twin, liberty.

The short version of my answer is that there is a lot more to democracy than just the mechanics of voting. Carter I'm not so sure about, but I have to think that most liberals and even leftists know this full well. So when the folks at Kos berate conservatives for not accepting Hamas because they were elected, I have to think they're not being entirely serious in their criticism, because it's eithe that or they're outright apologists for terrorism. I have to think that most who spout this line are just blinded by their hatred of President Bush. In short, they've got Bush Derangement Syndrome.

After all, if the Ku Klux Klan started winning elections in the U.S., I can't imagine the left would accept their right to rule regardless of the fairness of the vote.

Likewise, the Nazi party won a plurality of the vote in the 1933 elections, coming in first with 43.9%, more than twice that of their nearest opponent. The election itself was relatively free and fair, but who today would say that it really represented "democracy"?

All of this brings to the forefront the central question of elections and their relationship to what we think of as "democracy": Is it just or acceptable for a non-democratic party to come to power through elections?

What is Democracy?

The US Department of State helpfully provides a longish definition. Here are some of the highlights

Freedom and democracy are often used interchangeably, but the two are not synonymous. Democracy is indeed a set of ideas and principles about freedom, but it also consists of a set of practices and procedures that have been molded through a long, often tortuous history. In short, democracy is the institutionalization of freedom.

Several "Pillars of Democracy" are listed

# Sovereignty of the people. # Government based upon consent of the governed. # Majority rule. # Minority rights. # Guarantee of basic human rights. # Free and fair elections. # Equality before the law. # Due process of law. # Constitutional limits on government. # Social, economic, and political pluralism. # Values of tolerance, pragmatism, cooperation, and compromise.

Wikipedia says that

Liberal democracy is a representative democracy along with the protection of minorities, the rule of law, a separation of powers, and protection of liberties (thus the name liberal) of speech, assembly, religion, and property.

I think that most Westerners can agree that all of the above are pretty good definitions of democracy.

Back to the Palestinian Authority

Clearly, then, Hamas does not qualify as an institution committed to democracy. Neither, for that matter, does Fatah. Therefore, when the Kos author talks about "extreme contempt both Israel and the U.S. have for democracy" we can conclude that he either has no understanding of democracy, is just off on a political rant and is thus guilty of lazy thinking, or is just an apologist for terrorism. Or, as I mentioned above, he's got BDS.

As for ex-President Carter, I think he's just a bitter old man. He never reconciled himself to this 1980 defeat, and for a Christian seems not to have learned how to forgive. He's thrown in with the worst dictators, has become a virtual anti-Semite, and I believe will be judged harshly by history.

The Algerian Example

What if a situation develops whereby a political party promises to dismantle the institutions of democracy if it is elected? What if it actually wins a majority of the popular vote?

Such a situation has actually occured, not once but several times in the post-WWII era.

In 1991, the Islamic Salvation Front won the first round of Algeria's first multi-party elections. The ISF had promised to turn the country into an Islamic state and institute sharia law. After the voting, the military stepped in and annuled the elections. Western governments either applauded or remained silent. This led to a civil war, and some 160,000 people were killed over the next ten years. However, in the end the insurgents were defeated and a true democracy (republic, actually) is emerging.

What it Means

We in the West are good at the mechanics of voting. Through international agencies we can set up relatively free and fair votes most of the time.

But our record at installing actual democratic values has been rather hit-or-miss. We got it right in Germany and Japan. India has also turned out to be a stable democracy. We got it wrong in Zimbabwe and most other African states. El Salvadore seems to be doing well, but Nicaragua not so much.

Iraq somewhat parallels the Palestinian Authority. It was easy enough for us to set up voting, not so easy to convince people to respect each other's liberty.

In the end, then, we need to recognise that democracy is about more than voting. We need to think harder about what it takes to instill concepts of liberty in troubled regions, and not fixate on voting. This is a tough subject, and will require much thinking and trial and error in order to get it right in a place like Iraq. The first step, though, is to have moral clarity on the subject, and to recognize the true nature of democracy.

Posted by Tom at 10:00 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 22, 2007

The VA Tech Shooting

I haven't weighed in on this before now because it's the type of thing in which first impressions are often the wrong ones, because there was so much else going on, and because it wasn't as if no one else was talking about it.

Why did a Cho Seung-Hui, kill 32 people and himself? Was it something that we "allowed" to happen because "we" didn't do something to stop him? Or was it a random act of violence that simply proves that there is evil in this world?

My inclination is to answer that Cho was a psychotic who was inspired to his deed by negative aspects of our culture. It's easy Monday-morning quarteback signs of violent psychosis, but the signs were there and nobody did or could do anything. Yes there is simply evil in this world and this was one time it reared it's ugly head.

As such, the best single reaction we can have to this incident is to pray for souls of the departed as well as their families. This may seem trite to nonbelievers, but to those of us who know God understand the true power of communication with the almighty.

Not the Issue

Let's just get it out of the way right now; gun control is not the issue. The left will no doubt seek to use this incident, just as they did Columbine or any other gun murder, to agitate for more laws. The good news is that they will not be successful. The bad news is that we'll have to put up with some nonsense for awhile.

We'll hear that the "gun lobby" is what is stopping "sensible gun control". Yet a lobby is nothing more than the sum total of the individuals that contribute to it. In this case, the gun lobby consists of millions of Americans who are members of the NRA or similar organizations and vote for pro-gun candidates. The simple fact is that the anti-gunners have not been able to mobilize voters to a degree anywhere near that of pro-gun organizations.

We'll also hear that those dastardly "high capacity" magazines are to blame. In this case Cho used a Glock 9mm and .22 semi-auto pistols. The capacity of the former is 17 rounds with the standard magazine. It is possible to pass a law that would restrict sales of magazines with greater than say 6 or 7 rounds (the capacity of a 1911A1). But anyone who has fired an automatic pistol knows how easy it is to change magazines; it is an operation that can be completed in a few seconds, much faster than someone could "rush" the shooter.

Some will even tell us that we need to ban handguns altogether. They're living in a fantasy world; it just isn't going to happen.

More seriously is the issue of Cho's derangement and why he didn't show up in any of the databases that are checked as part of any gun purchase. From what I've been able to gather, Cho was never actually institutionalized but only at an outpatient clinic, which is why he didn't show up on the relevant database(more information on Cho's situation here). Whether we want to include outpatient files in gun background checks is, I think, as much of a civil rights issue as it is a gun control one.

Also is the issue of gun sales to non-citizens. Cho held a green card, which doesn't prevent him from getting a gun. I'm not up on the law here, but if as I think it's true that we don't deny green card holders any other part of the Bill of Rights, so don't see how we can deny them their Second Amendment rights. But I might be wrong here, and icertainly it is something we can discuss.

Mostly, though, the "gun control is the problem" argument fails the test of correlation. If lack of gun control is related to crime, then we should have had higher crime prior to the late 1960s than we do today. Yet the opposite is the case. We basically had no gun laws on the books before the late 1960s, yet crime was dramatically lower. The crime rate underwent a dramatic rise in the 1960s, just as the time gun laws were being put on the books. The crime wave of the 1930s was nothing compared to what we experience today. Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, and Pretty Boy Floyd were pikers compared to today's criminals. The Valentine's Day Massacre was huge at the time but today would be a 2 or 3 day story.

The Issue

The issue, I think, is how an obviously disturbed individual was allowed to remain on campus. That Cho was nuts is obvious just from reading his plays. News stories routinely say that he "seethed with rage" . Professors and students alike were afraid of him.

While it's easy to be a Monday-morning quarterback, it is nevertheless disturbing that despite all the signs nothing was done.

But from what I've been able to gather nothing was done because nothing could be done. We as a society made a decision some decades ago that our mental health laws needed serious reform. We decided that too many people had been unjustly incarcerated because they were declared insane, and that it was better to err on the side of letting them go. Liberals saw it as a civil-rights issue, and conservatives saw it as a chance to save money on mental hospitals. So we're all to blame.

Jennifer Roback Morse summed up the problem

Until someone commits a crime, it is usually not possible to take actions that would prevent him from hurting himself or others. We don’t have facilities for people who pose a threat to others, but who haven’t done anything yet. Many mentally ill people cycle between homelessness and the county jail, incarcerated for petty crimes, but receiving no long-term help. The Treatment Advocacy Center, based in Arlington Virginia, estimates that as many as a third of the homeless suffer from either bi-polar disorder or schizophrenia. But we can’t make the mentally ill take their medications, even if those medications can mean the difference between a rational person who can function normally and a delusional person who is a danger to others.

As to what should be done, she has I think some useful suggestions as to how to get started

What would be constructive is an honest discussion about how a free society should face the reality of mental illness. It is not a protection of civil liberties to redefine the mentally ill as if they were rational and able to make informed decisions about their care and treatment, even when they are obviously not. As we can see from the Virginia Tech massacre, it is not consistent with public safety to wait until a mentally ill person has committed a crime. It is not “personal responsibility” to expect the families of mentally ill people to take care of them themselves. This means turning their homes into a 24-hours-a-day mental institution, staffed by relatives who never get training, help, or a day off.

The ever-insightful Peggy Noonan offers a more straightforward analysis; we lack common sense.

There seems to me a sort of broad national diminution of common sense in our country that we don't notice in the day-to-day but that become obvious after a story like this. Common sense says a person like Cho Seung-hui, who was obviously dangerous and unstable, should have been separated from the college population. Common sense says someone should have stepped in like an adult, like a person in authority, and taken him away. It is only common sense that if a person like Cho leaves a self-aggrandizing, self-celebrating, self-pitying video diary of himself to be played by the mass media, the mass media should not play it and not publicize it, not make it famous. Common sense says that won't help.

Surely she is right, but still one cannot help but to have sympathy for the administrators who did nothing. If they had thrown Cho out of school they would have undoubtably faced a lawsuit.

It would seem, therefore, that a reform of our mental health laws are in order.

Also Not The Issue

Note what I did not say was the issue; a lack of money. The problem is not that we don't have enough "services", although we will undoubtably hear this line from what we'll call the mental-health lobby.

The problem was not that Cho didn't have access to a therapist. The problem was that it was legally impossible to separate him from vulnerable students and professors, or, for that matter, from society at large.

Right to Carry

I am a big believer in right-to-carry, although I have never exercised it myself. Virginia, like most states in recent decades, has a law in which any law abiding citizen may obtain a conceiled carry permit after going through a special class and passing a proficiency test. However, the Virginia Tech administrators banned guns from their campus, as was their right. Was this a wise decision?

The answer, I think, is that while it was a dumb decison we cannot say had students and professors been allowed to carry firearms Cho's shooting spree would have been stopped. Yes there have been shooting sprees in other schools that were stopped by armed administrators or teachers. But while allowing teachers and (in college) students to be armed may be a good idea, it isn't really the issue.

What About the Culture?

It is a serious concern that negative aspects of American culture played a role in Cho's decison to go on a shooting rampage. If a combination of mental illness and access to guns led to shooting sprees, we'd have seen this sort of thing every month in the seconed half of the 20th century. As mentioned earlier, there were virtually no restrictions on who could buy guns before the late 1960s. College attendance skyrocketed after World War II in the wake of the GI bill. Yet Columbine-type shootings seem to be a thing of the present. Why?

One can't help be be a bit taken aback by the glorification of violence in so much of our society. From TV and movies to video games, wild senseless violence seems absolutely out-of-control. At least in the old movies when people were killed it seemed to be for a reason, even when it was gangsters doing the shooting. Now it's just "how many people can we kill" in a move or video game.

In the wake of the VA Tech massacre, the Wall Street Journal reprinted "No Guardrails: August 1968 and the death of self-restraint", an editorial that first ran in 1993. Here's the money section

We think it is possible to identify the date when the U.S., or more precisely when many people within it, began to tip off the emotional tracks. A lot of people won't like this date, because it makes their political culture culpable for what has happened. The date is August 1968, when the Democratic National Convention found itself sharing Chicago with the street fighters of the anti-Vietnam War movement.

The real blame here does not lie with the mobs who fought bloody battles with the hysterical Chicago police. The larger responsibility falls on the intellectuals--university professors, politicians and journalistic commentators--who said then that the acts committed by the protesters were justified or explainable. That was the beginning. After Chicago, the justifications never really stopped. America had a new culture, for political action and personal living.

With great rhetorical firepower, books, magazines, opinion columns and editorials defended each succeeding act of defiance--against the war, against university presidents, against corporate practices, against behavior codes, against dress codes, against virtually all agents of established authority.

It was the death of self-restraint. It wasn't so much a situation of rules being violated as it was that basic concepts of acceptable behavior were thrown out the window.

In the End

Changing the culture is something we should and must work for but is necessarily long-term. As such it cannot be our only task.

We must work to change a system in which those-in-charge cannot get rid of obviously idisturbed individuals. A debate over civil rights is a necessity. If we give administrators too much power the potential for abuse is enormous. Yet the current situation cannot be allowed to stand.

Gun control is not the issue or problem. Right to carry is necessary, but won't really solve the problem either. The problems are in our culture and the inability of administrators to make common-sense decisions. We need to change what we must change.

Update I - The Media

I don't know how I forgot to write about this aspect of it but as we all know Cho desperately wanted his act carried on TV. In a highly controversial decision, NBC obliged. Tongue-in-cheek, columnist Jack Kelly asked that if we're going to ignore the Second Amendment in our quest for safety why worry about the First Amendment (I can't find a link to this column, it was in the Sunday Washington Times and they didn't have a link on their site. I also can't find the exact quote on the Volokh Conspiracy)

"A practical, connonsense way of reduciing gun violence - especially in schools - would be a federal law prohibiting, or at least seriously limiting, the interstate reporting of serious gun crimes like Virginia Tech for five working days," suggsted a poster at the Volokh Conspiracy, a blog devoted to legal issues.

No one seriously is proposing to violate the First Amendment in this way. "Person from Porlock" was parodying the enthusiasm of journalists for gun control legislation.

Absolutists on the First Amendment are rarely so absolute on the Second.

Update II: "False Posturing and Real Threats"

Mark Steyn hits it out of the park today. Here's the money section

I think we have a problem in our culture not with "realistic weapons" but with being realistic about reality. After all, we already "fear guns," at least in the hands of NRA members. Otherwise, why would we ban them from so many areas of life? Virginia Tech, remember, was a "gun-free zone," formally and proudly designated as such by the college administration. Yet the killer kept his guns and ammo on the campus. It was a "gun-free zone" except for those belonging to the guy who wanted to kill everybody. Had the Second Amendment not been in effect repealed by VT, someone might have been able to do as two students did five years ago at the Appalachian Law School: When a would-be mass murderer showed up, they rushed for their vehicles, grabbed their guns and pinned him down until the cops arrived.

But you can't do that at Virginia Tech. Instead the administration has created a "Gun-Free School Zone." Or, to be more accurate, they have created a sign that says "Gun-Free School Zone." And, like a loopy medieval sultan, they thought that simply declaring it to be so would make it so.

The "gun-free zone" turned out to be a fraud -- not just because there were at least two guns on the campus last Monday, but in the more important sense that the college was promoting to its students a profoundly deluded view of the world.

Bingo

Posted by Tom at 8:13 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

April 16, 2007

Moral Posturing

People are engaged in moral posturing when they say they want to "do something" about a problem but then reject all options that involve risk or pain. Their words make them sound concerned, but they are not willing to sacrifice anything to achieve the objective. They don't want to do anything that would actually solve the problem, they just want to sound like they care.

Let's look at three areas in which people posture constantly

Darfur

Everyone wants to save Darfur. Hundreds of thousands are dying there and many more have become refugees. The essence of it is simple enough; the Islamist government of Sudan is trying to put down a rebellion in Darfur, and has adopted the most severe scorched-earth policies to do so. Rather than use the Sudanese Army, the government in Khartoum funds and supplies a militia group known as the Janjaweed, which carries out it's nefarious word. Rape and murder are the favorite intimidation tools of the Janjaweed.

So far the governments of the United States and United Kingdom are just about the only two on the planet interested in "doing something". The something they have been doing has been limited to private economic sanctions, trying to work through the United Nations Security Council, and sending in humanitarian aid to the people of Darfur.

It's not working, of course. The sanctions thus far imposed don't impress Khartoom, the French, Russians, and Chinese all prevent the Security Council from taking serious action, and all the humanitarian aid in the world won't prevent murder and rape.

But we all want to "do something", right?

So let's consider some real options and see if you're still on board.

We could put trade sanctions on China. Why China, you ask? Well, the Chinese have decided that Sudan is going to be their main source of foreign oil for their growing economy. They've got big contracts with Khartoum, and the last time I checked some 5,000 troops in Sudan to help protect the oil fields. This is why China stifles our efforts in the UN; they don't want to make the government mad at them.

So let's force the issue by twisting China's arm. Let's make them feel some pain and maybe they'll put pressure on Khartoum.

Course we know this will mean higher prices at the store for us, and harm to US businesses that trade with China, but we're on board because we want to save Darfur, right?

If you don't like that option we could sail an aircraft carrier off the coast of Sudan and tell the government that we'll put a few JDAMs on key buildings in Khartoum if they don't play ball. Heck we could even do it with a B-2 one night. If you don't like that we could send in special ops forces to supply and train Darfur resistance groups.

Course, Sudan might retaliate by getting back in the game of terror, which is where they were during the 90s. And sooner or later some of our special ops guys will get killed. But hey, we're all for saving Darfur, right?

Or if you don't like those options let's do this; trade sanctions against all countries that trade with Sudan. Course, that would mean sanctions against France, Russia and most of the world, and it would hurt our economy too, but we're all for saving Darfur, right?

Global Warming

We're all supposed to believe that the earth has a fever and that unless we do what Al Gore says civilization as we know it will come to an end. We are told by Gore and those like him that mankind is the main cause of global warming and that we must change our ways.

So in the late 90s they came up with someting called the Kyoto Protocols, which would requite a 5.2% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from what we were emitting in 1990. Calculated up this would mean about a 29% reduction from where we are today. And all this is not really guaranteed to cure our planet but might slow down the process.

Well we all want to care so you hear otherwise intelligent people prattling on about how oh yes they too want to stop global warming. Anyone who doesn't see things their way is not just wrong but probably a holocaust denier too since everybody knows that all real scientists are 100% on board with everything Al Gore says.

But since all good people are on board, let's do something about global warming! On board, everyone?

Good, because h