THE POLITICAL LEFT AND THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF NARCISSISM - Part I

This will be a multi-part post that discusses how postmodern progressive leftism encourages and rewards malignant narcissism and sociopathic behavior. I have discussed elsewhere both the sociopathic selfishness and the sociopathic selflessness that characterizes the malignant variant of narcissism.

Between the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, a fundamentally fascist (i.e., a nationalistic socialist) movement; and with the second wind that has been given to the remnants of the 20th century's failed socialist and communist 'experiments' (in which millions of people were slaughtered by the compassionate and progressive left), we have truly entered a golden age of narcissism where, as Wretchard has commented, "....it is this single-minded pursuit of the irrelevant by the self-important that constitutes the greatest catastrophe of our time." In this "golden age", personal responsibility has been trashed; reason and truth trivialized; and the celebration of victimhood is the pinnacle of self-empowerment and self-actualization.

INTRODUCTION

In a book titled WHY IS IT ALWAYS ABOUT YOU? The Seven Deadly Sins of Narcissism, authors Hotchkiss and Masterson identify what they call the "seven deadly sins" of narcissism and their origin:

1. Shamelessness: Shame is the feeling that lurks beneath all unhealthy narcissism, and the inability to process shame in healthy ways.
2. Magical thinking: Narcissists see themselves as perfect using distortion and illusion known as magical thinking. They also use projection to dump shame onto others.
3. Arrogance: A narcissist who is feeling deflated may reinflate by diminishing, debasing, or degrading somebody else.
4. Envy: A narcissist may secure a sense of superiority in the face of another person's ability by using contempt to minimize the other person.
5. Entitlement: Narcissists hold unreasonable expectations of particularly favorable treatment and automatic compliance because they consider themselves special. Failure to comply is considered an attack on their superiority, and the perpetrator is considered an "awkward" or "difficult" person. Defiance of their will is a narcissistic injury that can trigger narcissistic rage.
6. Exploitation: Can take many forms but always involves the exploitation of others without regard for their feelings or interests. Often the other is in a subservient position where resistance would be difficult or even impossible. Sometimes the subservience is not so much real as assumed.
7. Bad boundaries: Narcissists do not recognize that they have boundaries and that others are separate and are not extensions of themselves. Others either exist to meet their needs or may as well not exist at all. Those who provide narcissistic supply to the narcissist are treated as if they are part of the narcissist and are expected to live up to those expectations. In the mind of a narcissist there is no boundary between self and other.

The ideology of the political left in all its various iterations--socialist, communist, radical environmentalism, progressive; call it what you will-- is, at its core an essentially narcissistic and self-indulgent pursuit of power, with all the unhealthy psychological attributes that implies

This is not to suggest that narcissism or sociopathy exit merely within the political left. Clearly it does not. But, having made that qualification, today's progressive leftist is steeped in and encouraged by an ideology that rewards only feelings and not critical thinking or truth; fantasy and not reality; and good intentions instead of actual outcome in the real world. The seven deadly sins of narcissism outlined above lead the the poor, innocent and unsuspecting lefist into cognitive dissonance in his thinking patterns and wreak all sorts of misery and spiritual destruction on the people who are the targets of the leftists' supposed goodwill.

But they neither care nor notice, since the primary determinant of why they do what they do is to make themselves feel good; to escape for one brief moment the emptiness of their own individual souls and the self-hatred and rage that motivate them.

Let's discuss these psychological 'sins' one by one and see how they accurately describe the psychology that is the basis of modern leftist thought.

EXCESSIVE SHAME AND SHAMELESSNESS
I have written about shame extensively in connection to the Arab World, a culture that is primarily a shame-based. In the case of the Arab world, I explained, they were plagued by an excess of shame, which was the underlying root cause of their societal dysfunction.

OTOH, utter shamelessness, the flip side of excessive shame, is highly characteristic of those who think themselves superior to others and not governed by the rules that ordinary mortals subscribe to.

To understand how related these two extremes of shame are, we need to discuss exactly what shame is and why it is necessary for both individuals and society as a whole.

Shame itself, is often an underappreciated psychological state. Particularly in the modern world, but also throughout history, shame-- in limited quantities and small doses--has facilitated civilized conduct and made both individuals and cultures behave more appropriately.

Healthy shame, in fact, keeps us in touch with reality, and reminds us of our limitations, faults, and humanity. To quote Dirty Harry on the subject, "A man's got to know his limitations."
When an individual experiences healthy shame, he or she may not be very happy to have embarrassing weaknesses and defects made obvious, but this awareness can be both insightful and humbling. As long as an individual is capable of self-doubt and self-reflection about his behavior; he is able to remain open-minded and willing to search for a better understanding of himself and others.

The key point, whether you are talking about excessive shame or shamelessness--that is the absence of shame even when shame would be appropriate, is that the emotion that drives both states is identical. Like the two sides of the same coin,excessive shame and shamelessess are inseparable. Individuals very often flip-flop between the two extremes when they cannot process the reality of their own unacceptable feelings or behavior.

It is for this reason, the political left shares with the Arab world a basically ""shame culture and why each are fascinated with, and admire (and emulate) the other's behavior.

One way that the shame culure plays out on the political left is in their response to ethical and moral challenges.

Next time there is a huge scandal in the news (sexual or otherwise), note the underlying mental gymnastics that permit the media to "forget" to report ethically inappropriate actions by Democrats compared to Republicans. If such actions go unreported--or only make it to Page 6 of the news, it is as if somehow the behavior is minimized and/or trivialized.

This almost never happens when it is a Republican who has strayed or had a broken moral compass--a topic that can stay on top of the national headlines for weeks on end. And note, that if a Democrat's unethical or scandalous behavior DOES make the front page, you will be unable to discover which political party he or she is actually a member. It may be mentioned, but farther down in the lede; more often it is not even mentioned at all.

Now, ask yourself how a typical Republican responds to scandal. Generally, he or she is capable of feeling both shame and guilt about the behavior in question, whether it is in the public or personal domain; and frequently this acknowledgment of his behavior leads him to resign from office sooner, rather than later. Often, he will retreat entirely from public life. The conservative tends to have high moral standards that he expects not only of himself, but of others and is ashamed when he violates them; even more so when the knowledge of his violation is made public (which Democrats can always count on the press to do). At this point, psychological denial about the behavior cannot be maintained.

This reality is also twisted by the left, who pounce on the supposed "hypocrisy" of conservatives who, for example, preach family values but then have affairs or behave badly. Indeed, this is precisely my point. When a Republican or conservative behaves counter to his standards, he experiences a healthy dose of appropriate shame.

Democrats and those on the left HAVE NO MORAL OR ETHICAL STANDARDS TO BEGIN WITH (that's what moral relativism is all about), hence when their reprehensible behavior is exposed for all to see, they are utterly shameless about it. They have managed to convince themselves that they are, on the whole, morally superior to the common riff-raff (and certainly compared to evil Republicans and conservatives they perceive themselves to be virtual saints; champions of the poor and oppressed and leaders in goodness). For such a person how can any traditional rules of behavior apply? When you subscribe to an ideology that emphasizes how loving, compassionate, and caring and "reality-based" you are as its central theses, then you are home free! So, even when your reprehensible behavior is made public, then you are not mandated to feel any shame--shame is for losers.

And, as a last resort, if you begin to feel too uncomfortable, you can always play the victimhood card--because, after all, if you did something bad someone or something else must have made you do it.

In this regard, I will cite only two recent examples--John Edwards and Barney Frank. Both of whom created a three ring circus proclaiming their innocence and purity endlessly ad nauseum, despite all evidence to the contrary, knowing that they would be defended by the ever loyal useful idiots of the left for as long as possible.

After all, they are better people than the rest of us and this entitles them to behave badly.

Many Democrats and certainly most leftists are completely shameless in the sense that they will never ever, for as long as they can possibly get away with it, going to admit to bad behavior. And in those rare cases where they simply cannot wiggle and maneuver and lie and deceive; or self-righteously tell you how wonderful they really are and all the wonderful things they have done for the 'little people'; they will simply pretend they are still virtuous and have been victimized in some way. What's sad is that they often believe it themselves.

Vanderleun recently wrote a piece about "Democrats and socialists gone wild". In it, he describes the exploits of three of the latest acts of shamelessness by those on the left. In both instances, there are rants and rages against those who accuse them (often by the intellectuals of the left); and for as long as possible they will pretend they are victims of bad behavior by others (this is psychological projection). Note John Edward's latest rant, for example. And how can we ever forget the "I did not have sex with that woman" moment during the glory days of Bill Clinton's victimization by Monica Lewinski?

Let's face the truth here. We all sin and engage in reprehensible behavior from time to time. We are all certainly capable of it. But the shamelessness about it that I am describing is really only typical of those individual with significant narcissistic defects in their personality. Again, without a doubt, narcissists and liars and cheats exist on both sides of the political aisle. But a narcissist in a guilt culture behaves somewhat differently than a narcissist in a shame culture (see the link on shame cultures vs guilt cultures for a discussion of this).

In general, Republicans and conservatives believe they have better ideas. But Democrats and leftists believe they are better people.

This makes all the difference in their experience of shame--or their lack of experiencing it.

MAGICAL THINKING, or Fairy Tales Can Come True.

The second deadly sin is "magical thinking". In psychiatry, this phrase describes a pervasive belief that one can control things or persons or events with one's thoughts or feelings (that's where the "magic" comes in). There is ofter a considerable amount psychological distortion going on, as well as psychlogical projection (see also here). These creative psychological maneuvers serve to maintain the magical thinking and obscure reality and truth, which is far too threatening for the fragile ego of the leftist.

How are these maneuvers manifest in the behavior of today's left?

In general the postmodern political left, which touts itself as "reality-based" is far from it. They emphasize the acendency of feelings over reason--and, as witness to this, they are primarily concerned about feeling good about themselves. They care little about the actual outcome of the social programs that they support, it's all about them and their supposed "compassion". They blindly perpetuate the victimhood mentality since creating and nurturing victimhood and perpetual grievance expands their base and brings in new recruits for their ideology. But let anyone one of those 'victims' from an approved victimhood group break away and empower themselves and you will begin to see the sometimes rather vicious hatred that underlies their loving compassion for the oppressed.

Any who oppose their anti-poverty schemes must "hate" the poor; any who want to empower minority groups to take responsibility for their lives and fortunes are described as 'racist'; any who think that the content of a person's characteer or the qualifications for the job trump race or gender or sexual orientation, are by their definition racist, sexist or homophobic--take your pick.

The highway to today's hell is paved with all their wonderful intentions. They mean well, and therefore if you oppose them by presenting better ideas, you must, by definition, be evil.

In order to preserve the fantasy that people with leftist beliefs are "better people" than those evil righty conservatives we see repeated instances of psychological projection (externalizing their own feelings onto others) and distortion of reality.

Further, we can witness even more of their political "magical thinking" in the foreign policy initiatives of the Obama Administration; as well as in the parallel fantasies that have characterized most of the economic policies of the White House and Democrats. They have the strange notion that reckless spending can go on forever on any program that they deem "essential" and for a "good cause" (when that is determined by the left it becomes sacrosanct).

First, let's take a look at current foreign policy.Bruce Thornton has written about the magical thinking that seems to dominate Obama's thinking:

Worse, however, is the magical thinking that lies behind the mantra of “diplomacy.” This faith in talk is predicated on assumptions about human nature and state behavior difficult to validate by the historical record. It reflects a Western Enlightenment idea that force is an outmoded relic of our primitive past, to be replaced by rational discussion in which give-and-take dickering, negotiation, respect for the other side’s position and demands, and a mutual, sincere desire to adjudicate grievance and avoid conflict can resolve disagreements. The key assumption is that in the end all people are rational and want peace and comfort more than any other good.

Obama has pushed the "reset" button on a number of fronts, but surprise! We are still hated, only now we are also routinely mocked because Obama is perceived as weak and uninvolved. Over the past two years we have routinely thrown our friends under the Obama bus; while appeasing and bowing to our enemies. We have routinely focused on the less important (to our national interest anyway) issues like Libya and Quadaffi; rather than take a strong stance on Iran, a major and imminent threat, not only to the region, but to our national interests in the region. Time and again, Obama has resorted to his supposedly "magical" rhetoric, as if words without the necessary backbone to stand behind them. When he actually does something like give the order to go in and take down Bin Laden (and, I still believe that all the psychological evidence suggests that Obama had to be dragged kicking and screaming into that action, but when it turned out ok was perfectly willing to take all the credit) many on the left had a hissy fit and rushed to condemn it as somehow being "inconsistent with our values."

It's hard to be consistent with one's values when those "values" change on a daily basis depending on which way the wind blows. Remember, the goal is not reason or truth or consistency to values, but promoting a particular ideology. That is why there the left demonstrates "subjectivism and relativism in one breath, dogmatic absolutism in the next."

For them, their magical thinking is absolute...magic. It makes all those unpleasant realities simply go away when they do not fit into their philosophy

Meanwhile, on the economic front it is undoubtedly clear that there is a considerable amount of magical thinking going on on both sides of the political spectrum when it comes to the economy, but recently there has some attempts to start a rational conversation that could address the serious problem with debt and spending this country is faced with. The Ryan Economic Plan, which calls for both tax cuts AND decreased spending is a case in point. Yet, far from using this as a starting point to discuss reality, it has instead been used for the purpose of villifying Republican who now stand accused of wanting to push granny off a cliff.

This new ad put out by the Democrats could just as easily been produced by a grossly psychotic individual, completely out of touch with reality; so severe is the distortion and deception it demonstrates. Meanwhile, in keeping with the magical thinking, the left seems to believe that doing nothing is a safe strategy (and it might well be from a political or ideological perspective; but reality probably isn't going to agree with them for very long; but hey, "In the long run we are all dead", right? So only think in the short run and imagine that all these problems will go away; meanwhile grab as much power as you can now.

Narcissists just know that their fairy tale can come true. They believe as fervently as any religious fanatic that their wishes and feelings are more powerful than reality.

Unfortunately for all of us, what those wishes and feelings actually create is usually a freakin' mess for others to clean up.

In Part II, I will tackle the narcissistic sins of Arrogance, Envy and Entitlement.

UPDATE: Vanderluen notes in the comments that he has a related post on the left and the Seven Deadly Sins (you know, those Biblical ones: PRIDE, ENVY, WRATH, SLOTH, LUST, AVARICE and GLUTTONY. Check it out.

WHAT A FREAKIN' MESS

Obama has basically abandoned Israel and given carte blanche to attacks on all its borders. Rick Santorum thinks that Israel is in deadly peril:

Today, Israel is surrounded by an armed alliance of Jihadist fundamentalists and nationalists, from North to South to East. Its West is the Mediterranean ocean, where Israel’s enemies would like to push her Jewish population. And Pres. Barack Obama has just put Israel’s very existence in more peril.

And I have to agree with him and with Krauthammer's assessment tonight on the Fox All Stars.

Meanwhile, The Corner's Andrew Stiles has leaked a copy of the Democrats budget proposal and it reflects the ideology they espouse perfectly:



Harry Reid, best known for his brilliant mind; economic acumen and overwhelming patriotic concern for his country had this to say:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said it would be "foolish" for Democrats to propose their own federal budget for 2012, despite continued attacks from Republicans that the party is ducking its responsibility to put forward a solution to the nation's deficit problems.

"There's no need to have a Democratic budget in my opinion," Reid said in an interview Thursday. "It would be foolish for us to do a budget at this stage."

Maybe this really will be the end of the world tonight.

Unfortunately, I fear things are going to get a lot worse. And I'm an optimist.

***(I wanted to get this post in 'under the wire' or at least before the trumpets sound, so to speak...see you next week...maybe)

EDDYING AWAY

Sorry for the light blogging. I am in the process of getting my daughter (I can't believe she's all grown up!!) off to college this week. It's both painful and exhilarating for both of us; and there is a lot to do.

How time flies...it seems like just a short while ago she was a tiny little baby; then taking her first steps and then off to kindergarden! This is a big moment in my life and an even bigger one in hers.

Walking Away

For Sean
By C. Day Lewis

It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day-
A sunny day with the leaves just turning,
The touch-lines new-ruled - since I watched you play
Your first game of fotball, then, like a satellite
Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away

Behind a scatter of boys. I can see
You walking away from me towards the school
with the pathos of a half-fledged thing set free
Into a wilderness, the gait of one
Who finds no path where the path should be.

That hesitant figure, eddying away
Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem,
Has something I never quite grasp to convey
About nature's give-and-take - the small, the scorching
Ordeals which fire one's irresolute clay.

I had worse partings, but none that so
Gnaws at my mind still. Perhaps it is roughly
Saying what God alone could perfectly show-
How selfhood begins with a walking away,
And love proved in the letting go.


Here is the Boo on our Pismo Beach trip earlier this month:



Hope to be back to more regular blogging by the middle of next week!

FPRBIDDEN FRUIT

Now that Obama and the Dems have got in touch with their inner neocon, they can't seem to get enough of that foreign policy forbidden fruit....

Of course, when you are a Cognitively Dissonant Democrat (but perhaps that is redundant?), the fruit tastes a lot better when a Democrat is in the White House--why just about anything behavior is now possible!



[Political Cartoons by Eric Allie]

WHY I THINK PAUL RYAN WOULD MAKE AN EXCELLENT PRESIDENT

Here, he takes on Obama, point by point regarding the GOP budget proposal:




And for VP, perhaps someone with foreign policy chops and no BS--perhaps John Bolton?

But then I am rather partial to straight shooters and talkers.

UN INSANITY CONTINUES

But then, what do you expect of an organization that has become anti-freedom, anti-human rights, and even anti-human? Anne Bayefsky writes:

The U.N.’s top human rights official took time this past week to concern herself about the treatment Bin Laden received as he was killed. She demanded to know “the precise facts surrounding his killing” for the purpose of determining its legality. According to Pillay, “counter-terrorism activity…in compliance with international law” means “you’re not allowed…to commit extra-judicial killings.” And this requirement would only be satisfied if the Americans had stuck by what she claimed was their “stated…intention…to arrest bin Laden if they could.”

On Friday, two professors and part-time U.N. “experts,” Christof Heyns and Martin Scheinin, issued a joint statement on Bin Laden’s killing. The two academics claimed that “the norm should be that terrorists be dealt with as criminals, through legal processes of arrest, trial and judicially-decided punishment.” They also insisted that the U.N. was entitled to receive “more facts” “to allow an assessment in terms of international human rights law standards.” Those standards would be violated, they claimed, unless “the planning of the mission allowed an effort to capture Bin Laden.”

The suggestion from these two U.N. authority-figures that America is criminally at fault for killing Bin Laden if their terms have not been satisfied is both offensive and legally false.

Bayefsky also notes that,"... U.N. reaction to Bin Laden’s death indicates that the Obama administration’s warm embrace of the organization is endangering American lives."

I think though that she is overlooking an important Obama characterological pattern, which is to sell out his own supporters in the service of self-aggrandizement. The UN and it's rising power have always been an important attraction to the man. In fact, I have always believed that Obama is on the prowl for something bigger than just being President of the US--a country that he has mixed feelings about to begin with. His ego will demand that he move beyond America, particularly after he finishes his various denunciations and denigrations of this country.

I think he has always had his sights set on becoming Secretary General of the UN, and that is why he belittles America and bows to the UN whenever possible. This is the major reason why I expect that Obama will backtrack and hem and haw and eventually (after his poll bounce, of course; and, if he can keep the bounce going, after his successful re-election in 2012) find some way to "disown" the takedown of OBL.

Think he can't do it? Watch and see. I could be wrong, but when it becomes a liability for him (and it will, eventually), all bets are off except being able to count on Obama's overweening narcissism.

WHY ARE WE TOLERATING A RETROGRADE POLITICAL IDEOLOGY WITH RELIGIOUS TRAPPINGS ?

Jonathan Kay has written an article that discusses Geert Wilders'"problem with Islam"--which is incredibly similar to my own problem with the religion:

Of course, in the modern, politically correct Western tradition, hatred expressed toward a religion typically is held on the same level of human-rights opprobrium as hatred expressed toward a race or an ethnicity. But Islam is not really a religion at all, as Mr. Wilders sees it, but rather a retrograde political ideology with religious trappings.

He notes that while other religions draw a distinction between God and Caesar, between the secular and the spiritual, Islam demands submission in every aspect of human existence, both through the wording of the Koran itself and the Shariah law that has developed in its shadow. The faith also supplies a justification for aggressive war; vilifies non-believers; and pronounces death upon its enemies. In short, Mr. Wilders argues, it has all the ingredients of what students of 20th century history would recognize as a fully formed totalitarian ideology.

“I see Islam as 95% ideology, 5% religion — the 5% being the temples and the imams,” he tells me. “If you would strip the Koran of all the negative, hateful, anti-Semitic material, you would wind up with a tiny [booklet].”

It’s easy to see why many Europeans casually jump to the conclusion that Mr. Wilders is a hatemonger. He wants to halt non-Western immigration to the Netherlands until existing immigrants can be integrated, and he wants to deport any foreigner who commits a crime — the same sort of policies as those advocated by genuine xenophobes.

But even so, his insistence on the proper distinction between faith and ideology is an idea that deserves to be taken seriously. For it invites the question: If we permit the excoriation of totalitarian cults created by modern dictators, why do we stigmatize (and even criminalize) the excoriation of arguably similar notions when they happen to be attributed to a 7th-century prophet?

After the heralded killing by Navy SEALS in Afghanistan of the religious mass murderer, Osama Bin Laden; it seems appropriate to once again revisit the discussion about the religion that drove him to kill, and which in large part not only supported, but encouraged his killings.

Since 9/11, many people have been careful to make a distinction between "Islam" and "Islamist" in their writings in order not to be accused of discrimation against Muslims--especially those of the "moderate" variety.

After 10 years, though, this elusive sub-species of Muslims remains mostly off the record and largely silent even after numerous atrocities committed in the name of Islam and its god. I happen to think that there may indeed be a large number of Muslims who are good people, and it is not Muslims per se that I have a problem with.

My problem is with Islam, the religion/ideology.

Regarding what is often referred to as the "hijacking" of Islam: Islam was not so much hijacked by extremists (the preferred Obama Administration designation of Islamist ), as it was acutely exposed to the entire world for the viciously misogynistic, anti-life, totalitarian system it evolved into when it was mated with National Socialism in the mid-20th century and then begat an entirely new iteration of Marxism in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

It has also been argued that (and I quote Juan Cole here): "Linking Islam… with a pejorative term such as fascism is extremely unfair. In fact, it is a form of racism."

But it is not at all unfair; nor is it in the least bit racist. Rather, it is a logical and very rational conclusion to make based on the empirical evidence.

What has happened to the "moderates" in Islam? Reuel Marc Gerecht offered an explanation not too long ago:

Though Europeans often fail to see it, the secularization of the Muslims living in their midst has been, by and large, a great success. It explains why Muslim activists gain so much attention, be they arch-conservatives, like the devotees of the Tabligh movement in Britain and on the continent who espouse segregation in Europe, or "progressives," like the Switzerland-based intellectual Tariq Ramadan, who refuses forthrightly to declare the Muslim Holy Law null and void as a political testament for Muslims in a European democracy. The moderates have abandoned the field. They have become European. The militants, who perhaps should be seen as deviants from a largely successful process of secularization, are the only ones left ardently praying.

This explains why the so-called "moderate" Muslim has not taken up opposition to the extremists with the ferver that the West anticipated. Instead we see large and protests and mourning of Bin Laden's death by supposedly mainstream Muslims in, of all places, Londonistan.

In a perverted twist of reality and with a toxic infusion of psychological projection, those in the West seeking to discuss in some detail the teachings of Islam which have inspired entire nations and literally hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of Muslims to spew hatred toward other religions; kill "infidels" with the blessings of their religious leaders; oppress and kill women with impunity; and otherwise inflame believers with a virulent madness that verges on the worship of death; are instead themselves vilified and accused of racism and hate.

Christopher Hitchens noted, "The useless and meaningless term Islamophobia, now widely used as a bludgeon of moral blackmail, is testimony to its success."

But the truth is that "Islamophobia" is not a phobia at all-- it is a completely rational fear of an insane and irrational force that seems to be sweeping the world. Being afraid of the so-called "religion of peace" after the innumerable acts of violence, terror and depravity committed in the name of Allah worldwide is not exaggerated; not inexplicable; and most certainly not illogical.

Being afraid of Islam as it undermines freedom of speech and thought, as well as and other critical values of Western civilization, is far from a phobia--it is a natural response to the sad reality.

What the UN (and the Islamic world) would like to mandate if they can get away with it, is a sort of meta-Islamophobia--an Islamophobicphobia, to be precise; or, as I would define it, " an exaggerated, usually inexplicable and illogical fear of mere criticism of Islam, as well as a pathological reluctance to hold it to account for the actions and behavior of its followers."

There is much written both in the Middle East and in the West about the proposition that Islam is "under siege" and that hatred of Islam is a rising concern. This has been repeated frequently particularly since the global war on terror (which actually is a global war on Islamic fanatiacism). Those who decry this reality are not only reluctant to admit that the wave of terror and irrational hatred sweeping the world is specifically associated with the religion of Islam; they simultaneously blame the victims of the terror and the objects of the irrational hatred as the one's responsible for its existence. Islam is given a free pass and the shouts of "God is Great" that precede the latest atrocity apparently have nothing to do with what is written in the Koran.

It is getting harder and harder to keep a straight face as the knee-jerk denial and sanctimonious utterings of organizations like CAIR and UN "human rights" committees--not to mention US political figures-- fill the news media on a daily basis with their attacks on anyone who criticizes Islam and their rising institutional anti-semitism and encouragement of Islamic extremism.

Islamophobia? Anyone who by now has not realized that Islam has given carte blanche to the fanatics in its midst is either completely out of touch with reality, or living on another planet (e.g., planet Hollywood, or planet Marx/Obama).

So, let me say for the record that I reject being labeled as "Islamophobic" utterly. Rather, I have a healthy, rational fear of a religion that aggressively seeks my submission or death. As I have stated previously, for most of my adult life, it seemed perfectly reasonable to ignore Islam. What little I knew of it did not appeal to me in any way whatsoever to encourage me to delve deeper.

I liked it that way.

If I had thought about Muslim values at all (and I didn't) it is likely that I would have been completely turned off to the religion, as opposed to being indifferent to it. I was mildly disgusted and appalled when examples of its rampant brutality were brought to my attention, but frankly, I never understood enough about the religion to place the responisibility for its adherents' behavior onto its teachings.

After 9/11 and becoming aware of organizations like Al Qaeda; ideologies like Wahhabism and its spread; and suddenly recognizing the Palestinian issue for the red herring it was, I could no longer permit myself to be ignorant of what Islam was all about.

In an ideal world, I shouldn't even have to say it, but Islam has forced me to explicitly and loudly state--just as Geert Wilders has-- that I absolutely, thoroughly and unequivocally reject Muslim values and culture, which facilitate and breed hatred and dysfunction in every nation in which they are practiced.

What follows is not an exhaustive list, but let me touch on some of the highlights that form the basis of my rejection:

1. If we are going to talk about oppression, shall I begin with the ubiquitous institutionalized oppression and humiliation of women in Muslim society? Detractors claim that the Quran does not foster this attitude, but witness the devaluation of women; the sexual fear of women; the incarceration of women; the infantilization of women; the social marginalization of women, etc. etc.

2. The overt and institutionalized anti-semitism in Islam, that is frankly paranoid and of psychotic proportions.

3. The assumption of the victim role while actively victimizing other religious groups. This is the entire psychological manipulation involved in the cries of "Islamophobia !"

4. The hypocritical call for tolerance, while promoting intolerance and bigotry among its own adherents.

5. The glorification of death rather than life.

6. The fostering of mindless obedience and punishment of independent thinking.

7. The poverty of ideas and rational thought among its leaders.

8. The inability to condemn unequivocally the barbaric acts done in the name of Islam.

9. The fact that you would force your religion on me, if you could.

As I said, the list is not exhaustive. There are many more reasons why I have come to my intense rejection of this particular religion. As stated in a previous post::

I DON'T CARE ABOUT ISLAM except insofar that people of that faith want to destroy me, my family, my country and my way of life. For more than 50 years of my life, Islam and I got along famously. I completely ignored it; and praise be to Allah, it completely ignored me.

After September 11th, I could continue to live in a state of denial and ignorance about the fact that Islam had come to represent all the values that are incompatible with human life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Or, I could face reality and recognize Islam as a serious threat to all I hold dear and value in the world.

No; a rational, healthy fear of Islam's barbaric medievalism and its desire to subjugate the entire human race under the yoke of its god is perfectly appropriate and continually justified by the fanatical behavior of millions of Muslims everywhere on the planet.

This is not Islamophobia; this is common sense; and as Hitchens's column makes clear, the intent of this crazy UN resolution serves only to advance Islam's clearly stated goal of subjugating the world's population to its rule.

So, getting back to Kay's pertinent question in his column about Wilders: If we permit the excoriation of totalitarian cults created by modern dictators, why do we stigmatize (and even criminalize) the excoriation of arguably similar notions when they happen to be attributed to a 7th-century prophet?

Answering that question is absolutely critical to understanding the reasons why the west appears to be so willing to commit cultural suicide in order to accommodate an ideology and a religion determined to destroy it.

DON'T LOOK ! IT'S FAR TOO GRUESOME !

The White House had no problem declaring a "mission accomplished" today with reports of the creation of new jobs:

U.S. private employers shrugged off high energy prices to add jobs at the fastest pace in five years in April, pointing to underlying strength in the economy, even as the jobless rate rose to 9.0 percent.

Private sector hiring, including a big jump in the retail sector, boosted overall nonfarm payrolls by 244,000, the largest increase in 11 months, the Labor Department said on Friday. Economists had expected a gain of only 186,000....

The White House welcomed the report, which it said was a sign the jobless rate would soon recede.

I hope they're right, but they keep saying things like that; gloating almost when any statistic gives even the mereist hint of a suggestion of a possiblity that the dark days of the economy are over.

Nevertheless, in spite of the addition of these jobs, the jobless rate remains high at 9%.

Then there's this little reality check to consider...

The good news is that the economy added about 268,000 new jobs. The bad news is that 25 percent (62,000) were from McDonald’s. That’s honorable and respectable work, of course. But consider this: Had the Obama administration not granted McD’s a waiver from having to abide by the law, it might not have added all those workers. And if the company had added the jobs anyway, they all would have been jobs without health insurance since the company was going to stop providing benefits without the waiver.

And, Peter Kirsanov has a question for Brave Sir Robin:

In January 2009, you warned that if Congress didn’t pass your $800 billion stimulus bill the unemployment rate today would be approximately 8.5 percent. You claimed that if Congress did pass the stimulus bill the unemployment rate would never climb above 8 percent, and today’s unemployment rate would be approximately 6.5 percent.

Today your administration announced that the unemployment rate is 9 percent.

Why didn’t that $800 billion work as promised? How much more do you contend you need to spend to get the unemployment rate down to 6.5 percent?

[Political cartoons by Lisa Benson]

HE DIDN'T SCORE THE TOUCHDOWN

Obama the Wonderful has decided not to release any photos of the dead Bin Laden--not for evidence, and especially not for "gloating" or "spiking the football".

How very upper class of him. How civilized. How completely absurd.

John J. Miller observes:

Perhaps releasing the photos of a dead Osama bin Laden is a bad idea. Maybe they would reveal an operational detail that’s better left undiscovered. If this is the case, of course, President Obama (or someone else) could just say so and the controversy mostly would vanish.

What bugs me is the metaphor: Obama says the United States won’t put out the pictures because “we don’t need to spike the football.” By this, he means that America shouldn’t gloat over the death of the world’s most-wanted terrorist. But if a police department releases gruesome photos of a shooting, does it “spike the football”? No, it simply provides evidence. It has nothing to do with gloating–and neither do the calls to release these pictures.

Separately, spiking the football is a great sport-specific ritual. The NCAA may frown upon it, but as end-zone celebrations go, this is about as modest as they come, like slapping the hand of the third-base coach on a home-run trot. I wish the president hadn’t implied there was something unbecoming about it.

Well, don't forget, John, that Obama is superior to the rest of us. He's beyond all this talk of war and such.

I now have sincere doubts about Obama's role in the entire operation. I suspect he had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to actually make an operational decision. His behavior and his picture in the previous post would seem to confirm that he was most likely a bit player, or a bench warmer.

Let's face it: HE DIDN'T SCORE THE TOUCHDOWN. That's why he doesn't want to spike the football. He probably doesn't even feel like he's on the same team.

Michael Moore's response is classic (can't link to it because it has a virus). He claims Bin Laded wasn't "killed", he was "executed". My response: OK. And your point is???

As for all those questions about whether we should be celebrating the death of a terrorist, my response: Hell yes.

Did we violate international law? WTF cares?

Where does this sort of silliness come from? I question the survival instincts of all these holier-than-thou-moral-beyond-reason-or-sanity people and suspect that they are actually morally,culturally, and individually suicidal--or at least in the throes of a powerful death wish.


Meanwhile, let's celebrate shall we?

TENSE TIMES FOR THE NARCISSIST IN CHIEF AND HIS STAFF

I am perfectly willing to give Obama a significant amount of credit for authorizing the kill on Bin Laden. But please, enough is enough.

Why is HIS bravery; HIS gutsiness in the face of danger; HIS part in this operation being so overly emphasized and overplayed???

Did you know that Navy SEALs were also involved?

According to another one of those White House briefings of reporters designed to suck up all available credit for good news, President Obama's homeland security advisor reveals that it was a really tense time in the air-conditioned White House as unidentified U.S. Navy SEALs closed in on the world's most wanted man after midnight a half a world away.

"Minutes passed like days," says John Brennan, who bravely stood with press secretary Jay Carney before reporters and TV cameras today chronicling his boss' weekend heroics.

The heavily-armed commandos flying in a quartet of darkened Blackhawk and Chinook helicopters more than 100 miles into Pakistan were probably listening to their iPods and discussing the NFL draft.

"The concern was that bin Laden would oppose any type of capture operation," said Obama's Sherlock Holmes. So U.S. troops were prepared "for all contingencies."

In fact, this weekend was such a tense time in the White House that Obama only got in nine holes of golf. But he still managed to deliver his joke script to the White House Correspondents Assn. dinner Saturday evening.

Sunday was, Brennan revealed to his eager audience, "probably one of the most anxiety-filled periods of times in the lives of the people assembled here." Poor poor bureaucrats. Extra Tums all around. Did someone order dinner?

And look! The only picture released from that "tense time" is this one:



Tense times indeed for the Narcissist in Chief and his staff.

Could we get a glimpse of the REAL heroes in all this do you think?

DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD

Which old witch? That Bin Laden witch.

My professional opinion? YAY!
My personal opinion? YAY!

Wonderful news...let's hope that his will be a major game-changer. And even if it's not, it's still important psychologically. There's a lot to be said for persistence.

SUNSHINE

I am going on vacation for a week over to Pismo Beach, so blogging will be light to non-existent for that time... after all, everyone needs a little sunshine!

And, speaking of sunshine, in the spirit of shining some light into dark places, here's Bill Whittle (h/t American Digest) on the enigma of Barack Hussein Obama.

To be honest, what's on BHO's birth certificate has always a secondary and relatively unimportant aspect of thereally critical questions that needed to be asked and answered about the left's metrosexual messiah: e.g., what substance, if any, lies beneath the carefully-crafted, fiercely controlled facade of this media-created personhood? What is the real history of Obama/Soetoro/Barack/Barry? And what is the true character of this man who came to mean all things to all people and who is now the President of the U.S?; Obama burst on the political scene like Athena springing forth full grown and fully armed from the head of some anonymous Zeus. He is a man who came out of nowhere; with no real accomplishments except a glib tongue and a exaggerated sense of self importance....

Personally, I find his appeal rather inexplicable; and his power over the useful idiots of the left rather frightening...even more so after two years.



Stay tuned for Part II from Whittle (not out yet).

ASS BACKWARDS

Paul Krugman, professional moron economist argued in the NY Times recently that patients are not consumers and that it is "profoundly irresponsible" to say that they are. He actually has the audacity to cite the "special" relationship between doctor and patient as his justification for this position:

Here’s my question: How did it become normal, or for that matter even acceptable, to refer to medical patients as “consumers”? The relationship between patient and doctor used to be considered something special, almost sacred. Now politicians and supposed reformers talk about the act of receiving care as if it were no different from a commercial transaction, like buying a car — and their only complaint is that it isn’t commercial enough.

What has gone wrong with us?

What has "gone wrong" is that the government and wonks like Krugman have been instrumental in the systematic and ongoing destruction of that "special, almost sacred" relationship.

In fact, I remember very clearly when the relationship first began to go south: when Hilary Clnton used her position as firs lady to aggressively pursue "Hilarycare" (as it was then called) and generated all the redistributive euphoria (which came to full fruition with Obamacare more recently) back in the early 90's. Life was never the same for physicians after that early fiasco; the HMO started the disruption of doctor patient; and it even impacted how doctors were recruited and trained by medical schools (not necessarily for the better).

The doctor-patient relationship has never been the same since.

As patients had less and less to do with actually making decisions with doctors regarding their care because they were seduced by the idea of not having to pay for treatment; and, as the government and insurance company bureaucrats increasngly made those decisions INSTEAD OF either doctors or patients, it seemed that all the loca,l state and federal government programs that I was acquainted with simultaneously started referring to patients as "consumers." This remarkable change was clearly, I felt at the time, an attempt to downplay and disguise the reality that patients no longer had control over the money that was paid to doctors and no longer were even in the loop in deciding what care was thought to be "best" for them.

In fact, as a doctor, I absolutely hated calling patients "consumers"--not because they were not consumers of the product that I had to offer, but because the term was suddenly being deliberately and consciously used to denigrate and marginalize the doctor/patient relationship; and to make patients feel that they still had some power in that relationship.

They did not.

The only power they had was to see the doctor their plan told them to see.

Don't get me wrong, I think that patients are, and of right ought to be considered consumers. Who else has the biggest stake--both financially and physiologically-- in the outcome (and cost) of health care services? But calling them "consumers" in the current system of government/insurance-rationed health care is extremely deceiving.

Why?

Because it is the government (who whoever is mandated to pay for the health services) that has assumed the greatest stake and the bottom line IS ALWAYS A FINANCIAL ONE.

I have had more than 30 years working in this environment. Patients used to--when they actually were "consumers" of health care--used to decide all the time to pay for procedures and medications that they and their doctors decided were needed. They also used to negotiate if necessary, with doctors and hospitals on costs and repayment issues. This is not allowed to happen now as the government, hospitals, and insurance companies have squeezed the consumers out of the equation. You cannot get drugs that aren't on the formulary of a hospital (and at some large government hospitals, that formular is strictly controlled and does not include newer--and hence, more expensive drugs, even if they are better for some patients); and I can tell you first hand that it is extremely rare for considerations other than financial ones to be the bottom line. I think doctors still care about their patients, but they, too, are squeezed out. Patients are not consulted much at all, but told what treatments they will get and what will be paid for. Most health care "consumers" don't have much choice at all. Considering the enormous amount of money that is in question, Americans should be getting the best possible care if it is true that "you get what you pay for." But, you see, what used to be a simple consumer transaction between two individuals--a doctor and a patient--has become a circus of paperwork and middlemen; a factory of waste and stupidity (penny wise and pound foolish) and a carnival of thwarted commercialism.

Unfortunately, government medicine--whether at the local, state, or federal level, is not willing to pay the real costs of excellent health care. These administrative middlement have developed a number of very clever covers for this, always touting "evidence-based medicine" as their baseline for denying care. Their rallying cry is "there's no scientific evidence for that treatment over this cheaper one." But in a system where scientific research never seems to actually do those clinical studies that might prove that one treatment is better than another for a given individual (remember, that all these studies are statistical averages that don't take individual responses into account, but average them out)this trope is entirely bogus most of the time. Doctors don't treat "statistics" they treat individuals (as I tell my residents repeatedly).

And only individuals can make the decisions that are right for them at any given moment.

So why have health costs continued to skyrocket, even with all these new controls on spending in every facet of the doctor/patient relationship?

Carpe Diem says it is because patients are not spending their own money:

Krugman is correct that patients are not consumers, but for a completely different reason that Krugman misses entirely: Almost 90% of health care costs are paid with "other people's money" (insurance companies, government and employers, see chart above, data here), and only about 11% is paid "out of pocket" by patients. So patients are no longer the "consumers" of health care, and they haven't been for a long time, because the "consumer" paying almost the entire cost of medical care is a third party. Over time, the "consumer" paying the bill for health care services has gradually become third party payers, and the trends projected in the chart above indicate that it won't get any better in the future.

But Krugman seems to be arguing that regardless of who is paying for health care, "there’s something terribly wrong with the whole notion of patients as “consumers” and health care as simply a financial transaction." Krugman's further claims that “'Consumer-based' medicine has been a bust everywhere it has been tried."

Well, what about LASIK surgery, retail health clinics, concierge medicine, medical tourism and cosmetic surgery, to name just some of the successful "consumer-based" medical services?

When we think about soaring health care costs in the United States, isn't one of the main reasons precisely because patients have NOT been treated as consumers spending their own money? In that case, I think Krugman has it backwards. If the goal is to control health care costs, that will never happen until patients are treated like consumers.

There's a wonderful graph at the link that is quite instructive.

Krugman and other progressives have it (as usual) ass backwards. The real "doctor/patient relationship" was only healthy and thriving when patients were consumers of health care and were treated as such. They could demand equal stature with their doctors in making decisions; or choose to cede control to a doctor they trusted to act in their best interest. Now, of course, no one necessarily acts in the patient's (or the consumer's) best interest; but it's very telling that every one asserts they are, almost reflexively and defensively.

Just ask the patients who already are in all those lovely plans that ration their care and make decisions for them--especially the sick ones. I think you might discover that they don't feel they are really in the loop at all.



[Political cartoons by Dana Summers]

AN ANNUAL REMINDER TO KEEP FAITH

Every spring, a renewal of the spirit is celebrated along with the awakening of new life and growth. These days in particular, it is a much-needed reminder that, no matter how terrible everything seems; no matter how insane or uncomprehensible the universe appears; and no matter how dark and gloomy and frightening the prospects for our species, life itself is ever reborn and the world renewed once more.

HAPPY EASTER !



[Roses just picked this morning from my garden]

ENDING OUR SO-CALLED "ADDICTIONS"

In case you missed it, here is a rather perfect example of the underlying mindset of many on the political left, whose ideology is at heart is primitive, retrogressive, and anti-human--whether it is applied to environmental issues, political issues, or interpersonal issues:



As, Michael Walsh notes,

One thing you have to say about the Left: They never miss an opportunity to let the mask of hatred slip. It’s practically Pavlovian; they are so invested in the myth of their own righteousness that their “tolerance” fetish goes right out the window whenever they suffer the slightest affront to their delusional notion of how the world works.

Here's another example of the way the left does politics, in this case attacking a 16 year old Paul Ryan for taking government benefits after the death of his father:

Of all the banal and empty-headed Democratic debating tricks, this one is one of my least favorite: to pretend that somebody who believes a particular government service should be changed or reduced has a moral obligation to forgo the use of that service. That is the kind of sloppy thinking that should be self-refuting, but, alas, is not, particularly among our friends on the left, who are not famous for the rigor of their thinking or for the continence of their emotions, the most prominent of which is hatred.

Don't ever let those leftist 'progressives' get away with explaining to you how much more kind and compassionate their world view is....

Or, how "reality-based" their continuous appeasement and betrayal of fundamental values is...--from Andy McCarthy at The Corner who ironically noted:

I’ve been asking why the State Department has not designated the Taliban as a terrorist organization, and why Congress’s authorization for the use of military force supporting the war has not been updated to include the Taliban as part of the enemy, given that defeating the Taliban — a terrorist organization – is the stated rationale for our continuing combat operations in Afghanistan.

The obvious, if cynical, explanation seemed to be that we were planning to negotiate with the Taliban (or, at least, encourage Karzai’s negotiating with the Taliban). It is supposed to be U.S. policy — or, at least, it used to be — that we don’t negotiate with terrorists for to do so would reward and thus encourage their barbaric methods. Formally branding the terrorists as terrorists would thus complicate negotiations with them.

And, perhaps most importantly, don't ever allow yourself to believe that there is any real logic or consistency to their so-called "principled" stances.

Today's 'progressive' left is all about emotional immaturity and casual cruelty; the celebration of appearance over substance; feeling good about themselves as a necessary and sufficient condition for all political policies. The superficial mask of compassion and caring hides a profound degree of psychological denial and projection--and an intense hatred of the modern world; so much so that they are perfectly willing to drag us back to the middle ages (who does that remind you of?).

So, instead of being shocked that progressives actually are against progress (of the human sort, anyway), I figure it actually makes a psychotic sort of sense, if you appreciate the lunacy of it all.

And, oh yes. As long as we are ending our addiction to economic growth, we poor deluded non-leftists also obviously need to end our crippling addictions to reason, reality, truth and life too, because well... you know where those things will lead.

UPDATE: MORE 'ADDICTIONS' WE NEED TO BE FREED FROM! Specifically, did you know that "the rules of grammar discriminate against “marginalized” groups and restrict self-expression."? Neither did I:

Even noted composition scholar Peter Elbow, in his address, claimed that the grammar that we internalize at the age of four is “good enough.” The Internet, thankfully, has freed us from our previous duties as “grammar police,” and Elbow heralded the day when the white spoken English that has now become the acceptable standard, will be joined by other forms, like those of non-native and ghetto speakers.

Freed from standards of truth claims and grammatical construction, rhetoric is now redefined as “performance,” as in street protests, often by students demonstrating their “agency.” Expressions are made through “the body,” images, and song—sometimes a burst of spontaneous reflection on the Internet. Clothes are rhetorically important as “instruments of grander performance.”

I swear, these morons professional progressives will not be happy until the human species is once again living in caves, grunting unintelligibly and desperately scavenging for food.

It's no wonder they can relate so well to the Islamic fanatics of the world.

NOTE: You do realize that these are the people who are teaching your children, don't you?

STEMMING THE ONSLAUGHT OF DEMOCRAT DEMAGOGUERY

A daunting task:

A new McClatchy poll brings some bad news for Republicans in light of the House’s vote to adopt Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R., Wis.) budget proposal last week, which includes politically risky reforms to Medicare. According to the poll of registered voters, 80 percent oppose cutting Medicare and Medicaid to reduce the deficit, including 68 percent of self-identified conservatives and 70 percent of Tea Party supporters.

Granted, respondents aren’t asked to decide whether they would rather “save Medicare by reforming it for future retirees” (per the Ryan plan) or “pretend like everything’s fine even though Medicare is going bankrupt in nine years” (the ‘reelect Obama in 2012′ plan). But these results, which are consistent with those of similar polls, further underscore the momentous educational challenge facing Republicans as they attempt to sell Ryan’s plan to skeptical voters and stem the onslaught of Democratic demagoguery....

Or, as Hot Air notes: New Dem ad: In Paul Ryan’s America, your grandpa will strip to pay for health care"

Meanwhile, a poll suggests that Americans believe the best way to decrease the deficitis to tax the rich.

Sigh.

Do Americans really have the capacity anymore to do the hard thing? Or, have we like NATO become impotent to actually deal with the real world anymore? Are we simply suckers for a smooth-talking con artist and his gang of pickpockets? Are we still able to distinguish between substance and demagoguery; between reality and illusion?

Time (and the next election) will tell...stay tuned.



[Political cartoons by Eric Allie]

THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN

Here is a detailed analysis of President Obama's budget proposals. Go and read it if you want to get beyond the rhetoric to see the man behind the curtain.

Today the President proposed:

1.a negotiating process;
2.deficit and debt targets;
3.a new budget process trigger mechanism;
4.and new spending cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, other entitlements, and defense.
Compared to the budget he proposed in February, he offers no new proposals in non-security discretionary spending (I think), taxes, or Social Security.

Hennesey then goes into detail about each of these issues and concludes:

Here are four broad reactions to the new proposal.

First, this is a short-term budget, not a long-term budget. There are three forces driving our long-run government spending and deficit problem:

1.demographics;
2.unsustainable growth in per capita health spending; and
3.unsustainable promises made by past elected officials, enshrined in entitlement benefit formulas.
The President’s proposal addresses none of these forces. It instead spends most of its effort on everything but those factors. His proposed Medicare and Medicaid savings, while large in aggregate dollars, are quite small relative to the total amount to be spent on those programs, and he lets the largest program in the federal budget (Social Security) grow unchecked. While Bowles and Simpson focused their efforts on the major entitlements and also addressed other spending areas and taxes, the President’s proposal does the reverse, focusing on other mandatory spending, taxes, and defense. That’s a short-term focus.

Second, this proposal “feels” to me like the recently concluded discretionary spending deal. It’s the size of a typical deficit reduction bill that Congress usually does every five or so years. I’m sure the affected interest groups are even now preparing to invade Washington to explain how a 3-5% cut will devastate them. The problem is that our fiscal problems are now so big that they require much larger policy changes.

Third, while framed as a centrist proposal, the substance leans pretty far left. It’s deficit reduction through (triggered) tax increases on the rich, plus defense cuts, plus unspecified other mandatory cuts and process mechanisms that might cut Medicare provider payments. Centrist Democrat proposals do all of these things, but they also reform Social Security and Medicare, usually through a combination of raising the eligibility age, means-testing, and raising taxes.

Fourth, the President’s speech was campaign-like in its characterization of and attacks on the Ryan plan.

Whatever you might argue about the Ryan plan, it is a serious, substantive effort to cut federal spending and get a handle on the enormous debt that the Obama White House has done more than "inherit". Granted that debt and deficit spending was already an issue when Obamessiah came to power; but the fact remains that he has done nothing serious to address it; and on the contrary has added record levels of debt and entitlement spending with complete and utter disregard for the impact that this will have on ordinary Americans and future generations--all the time sounding as if he meant to deal with it, when in fact he doesn't.

He is, quite simply, beggaring America's future, not "winning" it.

And if you combine his frantic efforts to alienate allies and suck up to enemies (I believe he calls this "negotiation" and/or "resetting the button"); with his emphasis on American weakness and impotence; what we arrive at is a studied, deliberate policy to destroy once and for all, American leadership in the world--both in the national economic realm and in international policy realm.

This President is not only the worse American President in history, he is the first President who is deliberately and I believe consciously out to destroy American values and exceptionalism. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness mean nothing to this man except as a rhetorical springboard to forward his leftist and basically socialist agenda. I have a hard time imagining he even likes this country and what it has stood for for more than 200 years.

His real agenda can never prosper as long as America exists in the world.

Deliberate and conscious, you say?

There is no other conclusion that can be drawn from his rhetoric and watching his behavior (what he actually does). Hennessey's analysis is one important clue as to what's up.

He knows exactly what he is doing, His goal is to subsume America into an impotent international government; which I suspect he also intends to put himself forward to lead once this country is in ruins.

I dearly hope that the American public begins to really pay attention to the man behind the curtain--because he is all about putting on a magic show to impress and awe the gullible even as he is losing the future of this country.

Mark Steyn asks, "Question: How much do you have to invest in the future before you’ve spent it and no longer have one?"

Don't worry, we are on track to not having a future in somewhere between 2-6 years --however long the false wizard of hope and change remains in office.

FAILURE IS THE MOST DESIRABLE OUTCOME FOR THE LEFT

Victor Davis Hanson writes that "Failure is Very Much and Option":

Lost in the furor over the budget is any discussion of the fact that, after a certain baseline point, redistributive payouts might be making things worse for those on the receiving end. Black middle-class flight from northern big cities, failing public schools like nearby Fresno City College, where yesterday it was announced that 70 percent of students (the majority of them on some sort of federal and state loan support) fail to receive a two-year AA degree — these are just a few indications that increasing reliance on government subsidies does not eliminate, and may well perpetuate, such ills as illiteracy, poverty, and hunger.

Read the whole thing. It's worse than Dr. Hanson writes, though, because failure is actually a really desirable outcome insofar as it can give more opportunities for the progressive left to increase their power and control over others. The ever-expanding culture of victimhood that has been exploited by the progressive left to continually expand its base and increase its political power, has done little or nothing to actually help the victims it routinely identifies and proceeds to infantalize. The only people being "empowered" by this culture are the intellectual elite of the left and their Democratic Party minions. Indeed, the constant jockeying among these identified victim groups; their competing claims as well as the continued failure of all the politically correct policies developed to cater to them, are evidence of the intellectual, moral and political bankruptcy of leftist ideas. For more than a century, the false promises of socialism and communism have been found to be empty. But even in failure, the left refuses to give up the failed policies that have brought individuals and nations to utter ruin--they just recycle them, like good little environmentalists. President Obama in his ridiculously vague and partisan oration on budgetary matters yesterday gives us a perfect example of the recycling technique perfected by leftists in denial. This is a man who promised "hope and change"--and now he is the master of the status quo. Paul Ryan, in his response to the President has this to say:

We cannot accept an approach that starts from the premise that ever-higher levels of spending and taxes represent America’s new normal. We have an obligation to fulfill the mission of health and retirement security for current retirees and future generations. We have a historic commitment to limited government and free enterprise. And we have a duty to leave the next generation with a more prosperous nation than the one we inherited. [...] If you are someone who agrees with the president that we cannot avoid this outcome without resorting to large tax increases, know this: No amount of taxes can keep pace with the amount of money government is projected to spend on health care in the coming years. Medicare and Medicaid are growing twice as fast as the economy — and taxes cannot rise that fast without a devastating impact on jobs and growth. If you believe that spending on these programs can be controlled by restricting what doctors and hospitals are paid, know this: Medicare is on track to pay doctors less than Medicaid pays, and Medicaid already pays so little that many doctors refuse to see Medicaid patients. These arbitrary cuts not only fail to control costs, they also leave our most vulnerable citizens with fewer health-care choices and reduced access to care. And if you believe that we must eliminate waste, fraud and abuse in these programs, know this: Eliminating inefficient spending is critical, but the only way to do so is to reward providers who deliver high-quality, low-cost health care, while punishing those who don’t. Time and again, the federal government has proved incapable of doing that. Medicare is projected to go bankrupt in just nine years unless we act to curb the relentlessly rising cost of health care. This cannot be done with across-the-board cuts in Washington. It has to be done by giving seniors the tools to fight back against skyrocketing costs. That’s why our budget saves Medicare by using competition to weed out inefficient providers, improve the quality of health care for seniors and drive costs down. The president’s proposals are aimed more at empowering government than strengthening the free market.

And that last sentence about sums up what's going on here. The very very compassionate left is so wrapped up in feeling good about themselves (note how they routinely emphasize that their opponents want women, children and the elderly to 'suffer'--some have even gone so far as to call it a 'genocide' or insist that Republicans and conservatives 'hate' everyone but wealthy white males. This is as pristine an example of psychological projection as you are likely to witness) that they could care less about the actual outcomes of their policies. If the economy is worse because of their frenetic spending, they quite naturally believe that spending MORE will make it better--that, and escalating the rhetoric (remember their terrible anguish about the lack of civil discourse and the conservative 'hate' not so long ago??) against those who, in good faith, are trying to deal with reality. Just watch as Paul Ryan--not the specifics of his plan--becomes the lightening rod for the incivility of the progressive left. Success is not the goal; nor do they want the economy to turn around if it is the free market and reducing their profligate ways that will accomplish that end.

They are all about the redistribution of wealth; the creation of entitled victimhood groups who will blindly support them; and the expansion of big government for the sake of holding on to their power over others. Oh yes, all that and posturing.



[Political cartoons by Nat Beeler]

BAD ECONOMIC THINKING--A HALLMARK OF PROGRESSIVE POLICIES

I get exceedingly tired of the constant refrain in this country about how the "rich get richer and the poor get poorer"; or statements to that effect by the intellectuals of the left. Well, on this topic, Kevin Williamson brings up a point that even I had not considered: yesterday's "rich" are not the same as today's:

The numbers generally cited in support of this argument do not actually tell us much about what has happened to the incomes of wealthy households over time. That’s because the people who are in the top bracket today are not the people who were in the top bracket last year. There’s a good deal of socioeconomic mobility in the United States — more than you’d think. Our dear, dear friends at the IRS keep track of actual households (boy, do they ever!), and sometimes the Treasury publishes data about what has happened to them. For instance, among those who in 1996 were in the very highest income group isolated for study — the top 0.01 percent — 75 percent were in a lower income group by 2005. The median real income of super-rich households went down, not up. The rich got poorer. Among actual households, income grew proportionally more for those who started off in the low-income groups than those that began in high-income groups.
[...]
When somebody says that that top 1 percent saw its income go up by X in the last decade, they are not really talking about what happened to actual households in the top 1 percent. Rather, they are talking about how much money one has to make to qualify for the top 1 percent. All that really means is that the 3 million highest-paid Americans in 2010 made more money than did the 3 million highest-paid Americans in 2000, the 100,000 highest-paid Americans this year made more money than did the 100,000 highest-paid Americans made in 2000, that the 50,000 highest-paid Americans made more money this year than did the 50,000 highest-paid Americans made in 2000, that the 1,000 highest-paid Americans this year made more money than did the 1,000 highest-paid Americans made in 2000, etc., which is not shocking. But, as the Treasury data show: They are not the same people. [emphasis mine]

These essential facts make the argument routinely trotted out by the left repeatedly to justify their various policies to "redistribute the wealth" completely ridiculous.

WEALTH IS CONSTANTLY BEING REDISTRIBUTED --not by their Marxist policies or 'compassionate' progressivism--but through the neutral, non-partisan and entirely non-judgmental workings of the Market. The "wealthy" are an ever-changing group of individuals. And, the poor are getting richer--not because of any actions by the clever denizens of the left, thank you very much.

Of course, the political lefts and their strategists have a rather vested interest in stirring up class warfare and stoking hatred against "the wealthy". As P.J. O'Rourke wrote in Eat The Rich, "Your money does not cause my poverty. Refusal to believe this is at the bottom of most bad economic thinking."

But that is one thing that the progressive left is incredibly good at--bad economic thinking.

Consequently, much to the puzzlement and annoyance of leftist intellectuals, in those places in the world where their wealth redistribution policies have already been implemented (i.e., in socialist and communist countries) wealth is disappearing; initiative is decline; and the human misery index is climbing. Instead of "sharing the wealth", people in those countries enjoy the benefits of "sharing the poverty" that inevitably occurs when bad economic thinking is translated into public policy--even with the best of good intentions (another thing the political left is particularly good at).


The "great experiments" in the Soviet Union failed abysmally even before it came crashing dowin in the early 1990's. In 1956, when Soviet tanks rolled into Hungary and violently crushed all dissent, it was obvious to anyone with half a brain that these socialist utopias were not all they were cracked up to be. Even today, many on the left cannot bring themselves to admit that the application of Marx to the real world had only succeeded in bringing about abject poverty, misery, death, and slogans. Many many slogans.

Instead of creating a utopia for the proletariat, Marx and his theories only generated the conditions for societal suicide. Look at Cuba. Look, if you can stand it at North Korea.

Marx was entirely wrong about the labor theory of value; and about the whole class warfare thing.

Far from rising up against their "oppressors", the proletariat--in a free system--will want to become wealthy themselves. In America, they have bought into the capitalist system and the "American Dream"--i.e., that they can achieve anything they want with hard work and perseverance-- in large numbers. The sharp differences between the classes have been eroding for generations primarily because of the social mobility that Williamson writes about; as well as the very human desire to improve conditions for themselves and their posterity. Nore and more of those who start out in poverty find their way into the middle class, thus gaining hope for themselves and their children.

Those who make their way up to the highest earners, will find that it is not a "given" to remain in that upper stratum and that they may tumble down without putting forth constant effort and thought (note the number of "instant" millioaires who, after winning the lottery, will waste away their windfall and end up worse off than they were when they won it). It takes more than the possession of money to hold onto wealth, it takes rational thought and effort.

That is why, to great astonishment of the socialists, many of the "oppressed" proletariat are relatively happy and content with their lot! That is why progressives have resorted to calling such individuals "class traitors" or "race traitors", because they dare to do well (without the progressive's compassionate programs; or in spite of them more likely) and are able to move themselves into entrepreneurship and beyond.

Happy and content people do not generally initiate violent revolutions nor rise up against their so-called oppressors--particularly when they don't feel oppressed, but feel empowered.

The legacy of Marx's "social justice" has been the neverending victimhood scam perpetrated by the left.

How inconvenient for the left that the clever capitalist system actually co-opts all those oppressed workers, and empowers them enter the dreaded "middle class"!

Marx always expected that the middle class would disappear as capitalism developed, since he believed that the only sustainable positions were the ones of his dialectic.

That is not what actually happens in the real world as it turns out.

Whenever people are given political liberty and allowed to pursue their own happiness (and not the mandates of the state), the ranks of the middle class expand and grow stronger.

In fact, the values and ideals of this particular economic group have come to anchor society in the United States.

Far from wanting to ignite a worker's revolution as Marx predicted, they enjoy the creature comforts of the capitalist system and feel themselves empowered by it. They even like their health care system for the most part and don't want it overhauled by some monstronsity created by Congressional know-nothings whose "cure" is going to be much worse than the actual disease.

But, even worse from the "progressive" viewpoint, is the typical person in the middle class who believes that he or she can better themselves by using the many opportunities offered by a free, capitalistic democracy. That's why the left are so desperate to create more victimhood constituencies who will proudly stand for all those unworkable policies. That's why they always resort to stoking the "evil rich" meme.

As O'Rourke suggests, they still believe that my money (and yours) causes everyone else's poverty. They have an intense psychological need to believe that because it justifies their stealing other people's wealth.

As long as they can seduce others into believing they are being victimized by the "rich", they are able to get away with supporting the same old, tired economic policies that make them feel good about themselves, but do little to improve the lot of the poor; or to give those who are struggling economically the opportunities that will help them escape perpetual poverty.

Bad economic thinking may be a hallmark of progressive policies, but perpetual poverty for all has always been the historical consequence of those policies.

STOP AND SMELL THE ROSES

The economy is not improving.
We're in debt up to our ears.
The world is going to hell in a handbasket....

It's time to stop and smell the roses! My first two blooms from the rose garden were fabulous this weekend!







And my new kitteh, Berbatov (Manchester United's central forward), is always there to show me how to relax and enjoy the simple things in life....

IN IT TO WIN IT vs EMBLEM OF IMPOTENCE

Mark Steyn writes about non-breaking news on the war front:

What with all the budget talk, I was just wondering whether that third war – or kinetic scope-limited whachamacallit – was still going. You remember, it was in all the papers for a couple of days. So I guess things have gone quiet because it’s all wrapped up now? Apparently not.

Oh yeah, that one....Things aren't going so well, are they?

Glenn Reynolds reminds us that he said when this all began: "Waging war halfheartedly, on the cheap, and by committee is not a formula for success."

My father was a Marine in WWII who fought on Iwo Jima, a rather non-significant island in the Pacific, where there were 2,400 US casualties after only the first day of the battle which raged for weeks. About 19,000 Marines in total were killed during all of World War II --and one-third of those Marines killed in action died during the Battle of Iwo Jima! Amazingly, one in three Marines at the Battle of Iwo Jima was either killed or wounded.

I know this because I was raised on stories of WWII and still have my father's Marine scrapbooks. 50 years after the battle, he still talked about it and how proud he was to have served and fought for his country.

In those days, America was in it to win it. We didn't go to war unless we were determined to fight as if our lives and our freedoms depended on it.

Just once in my adult lifetime, I'd like to see us fight a war, sure of our values and our cause; and utterly determined to continue the fight until we have won.

From the left's perspective, I'm sure this makes me a bloodthirsty warmonger; but what's the effing point of all these timid, quarter-hearted (not even half)
kinetic military actions? The "rules of engagement" should be simple and direct: do what needs to be done to bring the fight to a successful end.

In the long run, not only will our wars be more successful; but I'll bet that the loss of live (both our own and any civilians) will be minimized (what a thought!). No wonder we don't want to hear about Libya anymore; or Iraq; or Afghanistan. Every war turns into a long, drawn out and pathetic standoff with the barbarians; who we will eventually appease and then surrender to so that they can come back to haunt us over and over again.

As Steyn says, "...if you wanted to devise a forlorn emblem of the impotence of the hyperpower, this non-war for non-victory is hard to beat."

LET'S LOOKS AT SOME PSYCHOLOGY AND TEST A LITTLE REALITY

The Democratic spin is that the elderly will starve, 32 million will die from lack of health insurance, children will grow up without educations; women and children will die horrible and painful deaths; puppies and kittehs will be mercilessly killed, and hell on earth will descend upon America. The Republican spin is that our country is drowning in unsustainable debt and to save everyone in it, we have to tighten our belts and cut spending.

Republicans were presumably elected on a wave of public discontent to deal with the crisis we face; but then they are routinely punished for doing so by death threats, recall threats and general harassment by certain elements of the electorate for trying to deal with it (Hooray for civility!). Their cuts are supposedly "too draconian" and people are mad mad enraged. It seems that many want the crushing debt to be fixed--but not if it means that their precious entitlements are going to be cut. Cut the other fellow's entitlements instead.

Of course, there are many who don't want the problem of the debt to be fixed at all. They are contemptuous toward those who are needlessly scaring everyone; primarily because they firmly believe that there is no crisis that can't be fixed by taxing the rich some more. Those dirty, grubbing rich people could fix our problems and all they would have to do is give us more of their money.

The country is almost evenly divided into people who insist that we don't have to make any cuts and can continue to fund entitlements and pet projects for forever; and those who think that we are headed for fiscal disaster along the lines of Greece, Portugal, and Ireland.

Who's right? Who's "reality based"? Whose policies are really "progressive" and will "win the future"?

Which side of this argument is attempting to adapt to an unpleasant reality? and which is exhibiting symptoms of dysfunction and maladaptation? Which side is in denial and which is avoiding reality instead of facing it?

The accusations and rhetoric are flying around on both sides; and this a favorite tactic left over from elementary school days. YOU did it! No, YOU did it....etc. etc. etc etc.

Each side claims the "facts" are on their side and that the other is generating hysteria.

But, guess what?!

There actually are logical and reasonable ways of assessing for yourself who may or may not be using maladaptive psychological defense mechanisms and avoiding reality--especially when "the facts" are claimed by both sides.

It's important to remember that anyone who is reasonably psychologically healthy is not afraid of examining their thinking processes; nor are they so wrapped up in their emotions that they are unable to appreciate their own psychological blind spots or challenges to their ability to determine what is real and what is a distortion.

Everyone who claims a modicum of psychological insight and awareness; or who claims to be "reality-based", needs to constantly monitor what they are thinking and feeling; and, in particular how their feelings might be influencing their ability to test reality.

Speaking as a psychiatrist, it is not very healthy or adaptive for either an individual or a group of individuals (i.e., a culture) to distort reality for very long. In the short-term the use of an immature or even a psychotic psychological defense (see here , here and here for details) can give a person time to adapt to painful reality without their sense of self falling apart. It gives them time to change themselves and adapt; or, alternatively, it can preserve the psychological self at the expense of the physical self. Generally, though, a significant injury or death is a rather high price to pay simply because accommodating the real world is too difficult or abhorrent.

Thus we come to the fundamental topic of this post. How does one assess if someone is using a maladaptive defense that is a symptom of an underlying refusal to acknowledge reality? Even more importantly, how can you tell when YOU YOURSELF are using maladaptive defenses to disguise your own biases and unacceptable feeliings?

Researcher George Vaillant makes the following pertinent observation:

“…whether a defense is normal or abnormal depends on the eyes of the beholder. We always regard our own vigilance toward our enemies as adaptive, but we view their mistrust of us as an unwarranted projection of their own shortcomings”

This is why accusations go back and forth in political debates that can best be summarized by the following exchange:

"You are in denial!" or "No! You are the one in denial!"
"No, you are!"
"See! What did I tell you?"

And so on. This gets rather tiresome to listen to; and we have been hearing it pretty regularly from both Democrats and Republicans. Each side in the argument believes they are free from the “contamination” of using an immature or primitive psychological defense like Denial; while the other person/side exemplifies its use.

Logically, of course one or the other may be correct in their assertion, both, or neither.

While feelings about the matter maybe useful pieces of data with which to understand reality, but they are certainly not the best tool for that purpose; and an overreliance on them to the exclusion of reason and critical thought is a strategy that cannot be successful if long-term survival is the goal. If feelings are going to be used in an argument (e.g., "I feel that you are deliberately killing women and children if you do that!") then to assess the appropriateness of one's feeling (especially in the absence of any factual evidence), the contents of the unconscious must be explored and brought to the conscious level and considered. Unconscious internal conflicts (e.g. coflicts between "ideology" and the real world, for example) can easily mask the inappropriate aspects of the feelings, making them worthless as a means of understanding what is real.

Taking this kind of action as a method of checking and understanding one's own feelings is a process called "insight" or "self-awareness". Some people do this quite naturally and honestly. Some learn in therapy or when they are in crisis. But if insight is absent then one's feelings have the potential to do great harm --both to one's self and to others.

Some unconscious factors, or psychological defenses, that can make one's feelings untrustworthy are: 1) the person you are responding to has become symbolic of someone else in your life (displacement, fantasy, or perhaps distortion); 2) focusing on one particular aspect of a person, you ignore other, more objective data that are available to you about the person (denial); 3) you place your own unacceptable feelings onto the other person--e.g., I'm not an angry person, -- he's an angry person! (projection or full-blown paranoia).

The truth is that there are countless ways that unconscious processes within ourselves can distort our responses to others and to reality itself.

Growing up and attaining maturity requires that we take a moment to consider such factors playing a role in our emotions before we act on those emotions. If we come to know ourselves and understand our own weaknesses, vulnerabilities, limitations and secrets; then our emotional responses to people or to the world can be very valuable tools to help interpret the world. But they are only tools, and if not used wisely, they can do more harm than good.

Feelings cannot be used in a court of law--for good reason. And they are not ultimate truth in the court of reality, either.

The key to gaining control over behavior that is motivated by maladaptive, unconscious defenses is to make them conscious. This requires that a person be able to reflect on his or her behavior or feelings and on the contents of one's mind; and with honesty and forthrightness develop some insight into why one feels, thinks, or acts a certain way. This is particularly important if the way one is thinking, feeling or acting is causing serious problems to one's self or to others.

Let us return to the acrimonious political debate mentioned earlier. How can you decide if someone is "projecting" or is in "denial" versus accurately responding to and interpreting objective reality? In other words, how do you tell if the use of a defense is a symptom of some underlying psychological problem versus whether it is adaptive and healthy?

In order to be adaptive, a psychological defense:

• should regulate, rather than remove affect – that is, instead of totally anesthetizing a person, the defense would just reduce the pain (and therefore make it easier to cope; rather than to avoid coping altogether)

• should channel feelings instead of blocking them (i.e., allow a healthy expression of those feelings in a way that can discharge them in socially acceptable ways rather than keep them hidden and motivating behavior)

• should be oriented to the long-term; and not simply short-term comfort or avoidance (or, short-term political gain)

• should be oriented toward present and future pain relief; and not focused past distress

• should be as specific as possible (i.e., be as a key is to a lock; not as a sledgehammer applied to a door)

• the use of the defense should attract people and not repel them (Vaillant points out that the use of the mature defenses --i.e., humor, altruism, sublimation etc.-- is perceived by others as attractive and even virtuous; while the immature defenses are generally perceived as irritating, repellant, and even evil).

A discussion of the factors that influence the development of mature defenses and healthy adaptation can be found here.

If we want to test reality and determine who is in denial and who is trying to face and adapt to an unpleasant reality, then we need to look at the behavior of both sides and apply the criteria listed above. Go for it.

Remember, one or both sides may be in denial; one or both sides may be coping with the situation in a childish and immature manner; and one or both sides may have the real "facts" of the economic situation or be ignoring the real facts. If both sides are in denial and/or childishly attempting to avoid reality, then it becomes a question of which side is closer to acknowledging and adapting to the real world.

Sometimes, especially with childish and immature children and adults, that is the best you can hope for.

DEMS GO TO BACKUP PLAN AFTER WISCONSIN FIASCO

Mary Katherine Ham is exactly right:

Alternate headline via Mary Katharine Ham, ever mindful of developing media narratives: “Small, state-wide election with vital national implications soon to have no national implications whatsoever.”

Hard core leftists and their Union and Democrat minions will now aggressively MoveOn to the next strategy to undermine fiscal restraint and to move their progressive agenda forward! (With the obligatory conspiracy fantasy in hand, of course--brought to you by the usual crooks and liars)



[Political cartoons by Glenn McCoy]

ONE LAST WORD ON FREEDOM OF SPEECH--OK, MAYBE NOT THE LAST WORD !

On the right to offend others, Mark Steyn today says that he is sick of "member(s) of the governing class far too comfortable with the idea that he and his colleagues should determine the bounds of public discourse." He gpes on to quote James Allan:

The only valuable sort of freedom of speech is the sort that allows people to do or to say what others find wrong-headed, offensive, distasteful and intolerant.

Being free to say and do what everyone else wants you to say and do is not a liberty or freedom you will ever have to fight for; it will make little difference to anything . . .

I think any good, well-functioning democracy requires its citizens to man up and grow a thick skin. If you’re offended, tell us why the speaker is wrong. Don’t ask for a court-ordered apology and some two-bit declaration.

When did our skins get so thin? When did a withering look, a contemptuous comment or displaying a complete indifference to people who are offensive and total idiots to boot get replaced by those politically correct "court ordered" apologies and the whining public displays of victimhood?

Like Steyn, I'm sick of it. In fact, any society that prides itself on being free and standing for individual rights should be rather nauseated by it.

Imagine the hurt feelings of all those Brits when our forefathers dumped their precious tea into Boston Harbor! Why, the horror of it all is just overwhelming! It led to war, but then we Americans weren't as afraid of the consequences of symbolic gestures and pushing the envelope of free speech. We believed we had a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

This is not my last word on freedom of speech...it is too important to leave to the likes of Lindsey Graham or intolerant Muslim clerics.

Damn their hurt feelings and outraged sensibilities and full speed ahead!

BUFFOONS OF THE RIGHT; BUFFOONS OF THE LEFT: AND THE PIRATES OF ISLAM

Lindsey Graham says, "Free speech is a great idea, but we're in a war." Reason appropriately notes:

...when we have a political class as routinely venal as Lindsey Graham—or Time's Joe Klein, who really did write that "Jones's act was murderous as any suicide bomber's"—that means that war-inspired censorship is always just a shout away.

In case Graham hasn't noticed, his statement has already been taken to the absurd by the PC minions in this country. Look at our academic campuses, supposedly the bulwark of intellectual freedom. "Free speech is a great idea, but you know, it might hurt someone's feelings."

Or, as Mark Steyn discovered when he was brought up before the Human Rights Commission in Canada for daring to write a book that was not expecially submissive, it might hurt tender, Islamic feelings in particular. Steyn says in reply to a post by Andrew Stuttaford:

...ever since I ran into a spot of bother in Canada, I’ve found myself giving speeches in defense of freedom of expression in Toronto, London, Copenhagen, etc. I did not think it would be necessary quite so soon to take the same stand in the land of the First Amendment against craven squishes of the political class willing to trade core liberties for a quiet life. I have no expectations of Harry Reid or The New York Times, but I have nothing but total contempt for the wretched buffoon Graham."

Stuttaford, for his part, had made this point:
Don’t get me wrong. I think Jones’s actions were ill-judged and unhelpful to what the U.S. is trying to do in the Islamic world. Nevertheless, if we start allowing Muslim mobs to dictate the limits of American free speech, this country will have sunk a very long way down.

Indeed. When we start allowing Muslims--or any group, for that matter; or all those politically correct speech codes and their enforcers; or buffoons like Graham and Reid to take an "idea" that is enshrined into the US Constitution as a merely "guidelines"--i.e., something to be discarded when it is convenient or scary to stand up for them; then it is only a matter of tme until all our liberties are at the mercy of any thug anywhere.

Disagree with Jones. Talk to him and try to convince him to give up his narcissistic attention-seeking ways (good luck). Whatever is within the scope of standing up for our values and our hard-won freedom. And, save the outrage for the perpetually outraged perpetrators of the only "non-virtual" crime being discussed.

Unless you think that burning a holy book justifies the murder of Jones himself (remember Theo Van Gogh?); or of any number of innocent infidels who offend Islamic fanatics by their mere existence. "Oh, but you say indignantly, "we only want to silence a provocateur like Jones, not kill him!"

Do any of those who are so quick to demand Jones be silenced really imagine that such an action would appease these Islamic thugs anyway? That they would stop killing people? You have to be Muslim for their code to even apply (and even then, it's very 'iffy' whether or not they might decide to kill you or not)....dealing with infidels honestly is not part of their "code."