Monday, January 30, 2006
WHY I HATE BILL CLINTON, REASON NUMBER 3,476,895
Clinton Warns of Rising Anti-Islamic Feeling
So Bill comes down clearly on the side of censorship, of the restriction of free speech if some governmental entity regards it as "offensive." There is no loophole for "offensive" or "appalling" speech in the First Amendment, and for an American President to call for essentially its repeal makes me want to impeach the lowlife again.
In the meantime, there are thousands of Islamist websites around the world openly calling for genocide of Jews and Christians, but apparently those beliefs aren't "offensive" to Our Beloved 41st President. Even for Bill--who has always wanted Muslims to love him more than he cared about American security, or anything else--this is a new low.
Clinton Warns of Rising Anti-Islamic Feeling
Former US president Bill Clinton warned of rising anti-Islamic prejudice, comparing it to historic anti-Semitism as he condemned the publishing of cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper.
"So now what are we going to do? ... Replace the anti-Semitic prejudice with anti-Islamic prejudice?" he said at an economic conference in the Qatari capital of Doha.
"In Europe, most of the struggles we've had in the past 50 years have been to fight prejudices against Jews, to fight against anti-Semitism," he said.
Clinton described as "appalling" the 12 cartoons published in a Danish newspaper in September depicting Prophet Mohammed and causing uproar in the Muslim world.
So Bill comes down clearly on the side of censorship, of the restriction of free speech if some governmental entity regards it as "offensive." There is no loophole for "offensive" or "appalling" speech in the First Amendment, and for an American President to call for essentially its repeal makes me want to impeach the lowlife again.
In the meantime, there are thousands of Islamist websites around the world openly calling for genocide of Jews and Christians, but apparently those beliefs aren't "offensive" to Our Beloved 41st President. Even for Bill--who has always wanted Muslims to love him more than he cared about American security, or anything else--this is a new low.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Frank Lindh's "fiery" defense of his son, "Jihad Johnny" Walker Lindh is mostly full of predictable smarmy euphemism:
This is all very familiar: Avoidance of individual responsibility is the sine qua non of contemporary leftism. It's all the fault of society ("the system").
"I am just a father whose son got into some trouble,"
"Our system broke down in the case of John Lindh."
"People wanted to get someone and blame someone."
"This is the story of a decent, honorable young man who embarked on a religious quest."
This is all very familiar: Avoidance of individual responsibility is the sine qua non of contemporary leftism. It's all the fault of society ("the system").
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
MARK STEYN, THE ANTI-AMERICAN IMPERATIVE, AND THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH
Mark Steyn has a major piece in both The New Criterion and Opinion Journal currently, and it's basically a distillation of Steyn's thoughts on the demographic disaster awaiting Europe in the coming years. It's a very familiar theme to regular Steyn readers--if expressed more angrily and with less humor than we are used to.
What I thought of as I read it was a particular media point of view we saw during the French riots a couple of months ago, best expressed in a Village Voice story by David Ng ("CNN Got It Wrong: The Paris riots weren't that bad—and the French government handled it well"):
And that was the tenor of the European elite reaction to the French riots: Move on, nothing to see here, let's not exaggerate. (The German daily Tagesspiegel: "One has to keep calm; Paris isn't Baghdad." While they reveled in the chaos of Hurricane Katrina, the European elites couldn't see see any real problems at home.
But the demographics cited by Steyn mean that the November riots were simply a preview of coming attractions. That Europe's minorities will continue to grow more restive, more demanding, is not really a variable; the only real variable is when Europe will allow itself to talk about it without "sharp inhalations and raised eyebrows." I would predict that the European elites, like Mr. Ng's friends in the chi-chi cafe, will remain in denial for a very long time.
The Paul Krugmans of the world may enjoy telling us how much happier the French are than us. But Edgar Allan Poe knew about "happiness" and denial as well as he knew his chi-chi cafes:
Mark Steyn has a major piece in both The New Criterion and Opinion Journal currently, and it's basically a distillation of Steyn's thoughts on the demographic disaster awaiting Europe in the coming years. It's a very familiar theme to regular Steyn readers--if expressed more angrily and with less humor than we are used to.
What I thought of as I read it was a particular media point of view we saw during the French riots a couple of months ago, best expressed in a Village Voice story by David Ng ("CNN Got It Wrong: The Paris riots weren't that bad—and the French government handled it well"):
U.S. reporters gave a sensationalized image of an entire country under siege.
On Monday, two French colleagues and I were talking at a chi-chi café in Paris when we saw a group of police officers in battle regalia boarding a bus just outside our window. "I think we can guess where they're going," one of my friends remarked. Sharp inhalations all around, followed by raised eyebrows. ...Contrary to the breathless dispatches from the American press, Paris was most certainly not burning. Those of us ensconced in the central part of the city could hardly tell anything was going on. ("This is not exactly the second French Revolution," another journalist colleague told me.) American media hyperbole served to heighten the distancing effect. Expounding on French social inequalities from their suites at the George V, the dashing reporters of CNN et al., their infographics a-blazin', created a sensationalized image of an entire country under siege.
And that was the tenor of the European elite reaction to the French riots: Move on, nothing to see here, let's not exaggerate. (The German daily Tagesspiegel: "One has to keep calm; Paris isn't Baghdad." While they reveled in the chaos of Hurricane Katrina, the European elites couldn't see see any real problems at home.
But the demographics cited by Steyn mean that the November riots were simply a preview of coming attractions. That Europe's minorities will continue to grow more restive, more demanding, is not really a variable; the only real variable is when Europe will allow itself to talk about it without "sharp inhalations and raised eyebrows." I would predict that the European elites, like Mr. Ng's friends in the chi-chi cafe, will remain in denial for a very long time.
The Paul Krugmans of the world may enjoy telling us how much happier the French are than us. But Edgar Allan Poe knew about "happiness" and denial as well as he knew his chi-chi cafes:
But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince's own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither of ingress or egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the "Red Death."***
...And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.
