The Editorial Times.ca: October 2008



The Editorial Times.ca

"The Thorn of Dissent is the Flower of Democracy"©

or, if you'd rather...
"Its my blog and I'll pry if I want to, pry if I want to"
with apologies to Leslie Gore




"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” CS Lewis.


©Chris Muir

Monday, October 27, 2008

Liberalism is a mental disorder

Clear, irrefutable proof that liberalism is indeed a derangement. Consider the following:

"An unintentionally hilarious assertion was made by Alaska State Senator Hollis French on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC cable show Friday night.

Maddow and French were discussing the so-called Troopergate scandal and Gov. Sarah Palin's alleged grudge in firing former Alaska public safety commissioner Walt Monegan for not reopening an investigation of a state trooper who went through a nasty divorce with Palin's sister.

Hollis, a Democrat who led the state legislature's investigation into Palin's actions in firing Monegan last July, cited "severe logical fallacies" in claims made by Palin and her husband Todd, including the Palins' request for reduced security despite their assertions that Wooten was a rogue cop.

Then came the coup de grace from French:

"Stop and think about, what good does it do to fire a trooper if you really think he's dangerous?"

Yes -- the man actually uttered those words ... loud enough to hear ... on national television. The mind reels when confronted with such a worldview. Could be worse, however. If French were wearing a badge, for example.

The well-intentioned Alaskan legislator elaborated on his odd, troubling assertion, asking of anyone taking such a supposedly outlandish action as terminating the employment of a "dangerous" police officer:

Do you think he's going to leave his job and suddenly be docile and happy about life because he's just been fired? It's likely to make him more dangerous.
Heaven forbid that a dangerous state trooper is ever fired. This sort of thing might convey to those employed on the public dime that they are accountable for their actions."

[...]


L.A. Times guilty of suppressing info "in the Political Interest"?

The L.A. Times Suppresses Obama’s Khalidi Bash Tape

Obama, Ayers, and PLO supporters toast Edward Said’s successor, but the press doesn’t think it’s quite as newsworthy as Sarah Palin’s wardrobe.

By Andrew C. McCarthy NRO Online


"Let’s try a thought experiment. Say John McCain attended a party at which known racists and terror mongers were in attendance. Say testimonials were given, including a glowing one by McCain for the benefit of the guest of honor ... who happened to be a top apologist for terrorists. Say McCain not only gave a speech but stood by, in tacit approval and solidarity, while other racists and terror mongers gave speeches that reeked of hatred for an American ally and rationalizations of terror attacks.

Now let’s say the Los Angeles Times obtained a videotape of the party.

Question: Is there any chance — any chance — the Times would not release the tape and publish front-page story after story about the gory details, with the usual accompanying chorus of sanctimony from the oped commentariat? Is there any chance, if the Times was the least bit reluctant about publishing (remember, we’re pretending here), that the rest of the mainstream media (y’know, the guys who drove Trent Lott out of his leadership position over a birthday-party toast) would not be screaming for the release of the tape?

Do we really have to ask?

So now, let’s leave thought experiments and return to reality: Why is the Los Angeles Times sitting on a videotape of the 2003 farewell bash in Chicago at which Barack Obama lavished praise on the guest of honor, Rashid Khalidi — former mouthpiece for master terrorist Yasser Arafat?

At the time Khalidi, a PLO adviser turned University of Chicago professor, was headed east to Columbia. There he would take over the University’s Middle East-studies program (which he has since maintained as a bubbling cauldron of anti-Semitism) and assume the professorship endowed in honor of Edward Sayyid, another notorious terror apologist.

The party featured encomiums by many of Khalidi’s allies, colleagues, and friends, including Barack Obama, then an Illinois state senator, and Bill Ayers, the terrorist turned education professor. It was sponsored by the Arab American Action Network (AAAN), which had been founded by Khalidi and his wife, Mona, formerly a top English translator for Arafat’s press agency.

Is there just a teeny-weenie chance that this was an evening of Israel-bashing Obama would find very difficult to explain? Could it be that the Times, a pillar of the Obamedia, is covering for its guy?"


[...]

Bill Whittle and the Obama " Redistribution of wealth" Bomb

Shame, Cubed
Three separate reasons to be appalled, each more disgusting than the last.

By Bill Whittle NRO Online

The Drudge Report this morning led off with a link to audio of Barack Obama on WBEZ, a Chicago public radio station. And this time, Barack Obama was not eight years old when the bomb went off.
Speaking on a call-in radio show in 2001, you can hear Senator Obama say things that should profoundly shock any American — or at least those who have not taken the time to dig deeply enough into this man’s beliefs and affiliations.

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

Barack Obama, in 2001:

You know, if you look at the victories and failures of the civil-rights movement, and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to vest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples. So that I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at a lunch counter and order and as long as I could pay for it, I’d be okay, but the Supreme Court never entered into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society.

And uh, to that extent, as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution — at least as it’s been interpreted, and Warren Court interpreted it in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties: [It] says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.

And that hasn’t shifted, and one of the, I think, the tragedies of the civil-rights movement was because the civil-rights movement became so court-focused, uh, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change. And in some ways we still suffer from that.

A caller then helpfully asks: “The gentleman made the point that the Warren Court wasn’t terribly radical. My question is (with economic changes)… my question is, is it too late for that kind of reparative work, economically, and is that the appropriate place for reparative economic work to change place?”

Obama replies:

You know, I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. The institution just isn’t structured that way. [snip] You start getting into all sorts of separation of powers issues, you know, in terms of the court monitoring or engaging in a process that essentially is administrative and takes a lot of time. You know, the court is just not very good at it, and politically, it’s just very hard to legitimize opinions from the court in that regard.

So I think that, although you can craft theoretical justifications for it, legally, you know, I think any three of us sitting here could come up with a rationale for bringing about economic change through the courts.”

THE FIRST CIRCLE OF SHAME
There is nothing vague or ambiguous about this. Nothing.

From the top: “…The Supreme Court never entered into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And uh, to that extent, as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical.”

If the second highlighted phrase had been there without the first, Obama’s defenders would have bent over backwards trying to spin the meaning of “political and economic justice.” We all know what political and economic justice means, because Barack Obama has already made it crystal clear a second earlier: It means redistribution of wealth. Not the creation of wealth and certainly not the creation of opportunity, but simply taking money from the successful and hard-working and distributing it to those whom the government decides “deserve” it.

This redistribution of wealth, he states, “essentially is administrative and takes a lot of time.It is an administrative task. Not suitable for the courts. More suitable for the chief executive.

Now that’s just garden-variety socialism, which apparently is not a big deal to may voters. So I would appeal to any American who claims to love the Constitution and to revere the Founding Fathers… I will not only appeal to you, I will beg you, as one American citizen to another, to consider this next statement with as much care as you can possibly bring to bear: “And uh, to that extent, as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution — at least as it’s been interpreted, and [the] Warren Court interpreted it in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties: [it] says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.

The United States of America — five percent of the world’s population — leads the world economically, militarily, scientifically, and culturally — and by a spectacular margin. Any one of these achievements, taken alone, would be cause for enormous pride. To dominate as we do in all four arenas has no historical precedent. That we have achieved so much in so many areas is due — due entirely — to the structure of our society as outlined in the Constitution of the United States.

The entire purpose of the Constitution was to limit government. That limitation of powers is what has unlocked in America the vast human potential available in any population.

Barack Obama sees that limiting of government not as a lynchpin but rather as a fatal flaw: “…One of the, I think, the tragedies of the Civil Rights movement was because the Civil Rights movement became so court-focused, uh, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change. And in some ways we still suffer from that.”

There is no room for wiggle or misunderstanding here. This is not edited copy. There is nothing out of context; for the entire thing is context — the context of what Barack Obama believes. You and I do not have to guess at what he believes or try to interpret what he believes. He says what he believes.

We have, in our storied history, elected Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives and moderates. We have fought, and will continue to fight, pitched battles about how best to govern this nation. But we have never, ever in our 232-year history, elected a president who so completely and openly opposed the idea of limited government, the absolute cornerstone of makes the United States of America unique and exceptional.

If this does not frighten you — regardless of your political affiliation — then you deserve what this man will deliver with both houses of Congress, a filibuster-proof Senate, and, to quote Senator Obama again, “a righteous wind at our backs.”

That a man so clear in his understanding of the Constitution, and so opposed to the basic tenets it provides against tyranny and the abuse of power, can run for president of the United States is shameful enough.

We’re just getting started.

THE SECOND CIRCLE OF SHAME

Mercifully shorter than the first, and simply this: I happen to know the person who found this audio. It is an individual person, with no more resources than a desire to know everything that he or she can about who might be the next president of the United States and the most powerful man in the world.

I know that this person does not have teams of highly paid professionals, does not work out of a corner office in a skyscraper in New York, does not have access to all of the subtle and hidden conduits of information … who possesses no network television stations, owns no satellite time, does not receive billions in advertising dollars, and has a staff of exactly one.

I do not blame Barack Obama for believing in wealth distribution. That’s his right as an American. I do blame him for lying about what he believes. But his entire life has been applying for the next job at the expense of the current one. He’s at the end of the line now.

I do, however, blame the press for allowing an individual citizen to do the work that they employ standing armies of so-called professionals for. I know they are capable of this kind of investigative journalism: It only took them a day or two to damage Sarah Palin with wild accusations about her baby’s paternity and less time than that to destroy a man who happened to be playing ball when the Messiah decided to roll up looking for a few more votes on the way to the inevitable coronation.

We no longer have an independent, fair, investigative press. That is abundantly clear to everyone — even the press. It is just another of the facts that they refuse to report, because it does not suit them.

Remember this, America: The press did not break this story. A single citizen, on the Internet did.

There is a special hell for you “journalists” out there, a hell made specifically for you narcissists and elitists who think you have the right to determine which information is passed on to the electorate and which is not.

That hell — your own personal hell — is a fiery lake of irrelevance, blinding clouds of obscurity, and burning, everlasting scorn.

You’ve earned it.

THE THIRD CIRCLE OF SHAME

This discovery will hurt Obama much more than Joe the Plumber.

What will be left of my friend, and my friend’s family, I wonder, when the press is finished with them?

Hotair: "Smells Like Socialist Spirit"

If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court. I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed people, so that now I would have the right to vote. I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order as long as I could pay for it I’d be o.k. But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society.

To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that. …

I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. You know, the institution just isn’t structured that way. Barack Obama
"...One more clarifying thought is in order. Barack Obama complains that the Constitution is a “charter of negative liberties”. That’s because the Constitution was intended as a limiting document, to curtail the power of the federal government vis-a-vis the states and the individual. The founders intended at the time to limit the reach of the federal government, and built the Constitution accordingly.

Barack Obama wants to reverse that entirely. And that’s radical change you’d better believe in, or else."




Related ,

and:
If I told you that in 2006 several former Weather Underground terrorists linked up with the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS) and Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) to form an activist support group, would you do any more than yawn?

If I were to say that two of those former terrorists were Bill Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dohrn, would your ears prick up-ever so slightly?

If I then revealed that several leaders of this organisation went on to create a satellite group, specifically designed to help Barack Obama win the US presidency, would you start to get a little bit interested?


Read all of the link immediately above:
Early this year MDS board members Tom Hayden, Bill Fletcher and Barbara Ehrenreich joined with radical actor/activist Danny Glover to set up a new organisation-Progressives for Obama.

The quartet announced;

We intend to join and engage with our brothers and sisters in the vast rainbow of social movements to come together in support of Obama’s unprecedented campaign and candidacy. Even though it is candidate-centered, there is no doubt that the campaign is a social movement, one greater than the candidate himself ever imagined....

Sunday, October 26, 2008

"Vote for the old guy."


An acquaintance of mine offered up the observation that, given the extent to which the liberal media (is there any other kind now?) have climbed so deeply into the tank advocating the vote for Obama, and given how they've pretty much lied or failed to report on just about everything Democrat in the U.S. election, perhaps the real message from them is "Vote for the old guy".


Sunday, October 12, 2008

Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac: May 5, 2006





The second signature on the left, if you don't recognize it is "John McCain"

Powerline:

"One thing I hadn't realized is that McCain's reform legislation was passed through the Senate Banking Committee, but was not able to gain majority support on the Senate floor. All twenty Senators who signed the letter calling attention to the urgency of reforming Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac were Republicans. After May 2006, the Democrats continued to use Fannie and Freddy as their private slush funds until the inevitable collapse, which McCain had warned against so eloquently, occurred."

Sunday, October 05, 2008

Whittle on: "Cowboys and Secret Agents"

There are only a few people, it seems, that truly understand the nascent threat that Islam is to western democracy, and why, for all its bluster, warts and bravado, the United States may well be the last frontier for western democracy and true individual freedom and responsibility. Canada is about halfway along the road to capitulation. Britain has fully capitulated, most of the rest of the EU is on its way, some states tentatively trying to resist assimilation, with limited success. Bill Whittle at NRO talks about the divide that exists in the fight:
[...]
"So I found myself toe-to-toe with someone on the same team, but from the opposite side of the fence, so to speak. It was weird. Helga might start in with a criticism of how stupidly the Bush administration handled the run-up to Iraq . . . oh no, here we go again . . . and follow that instantly by saying of course Saddam had WMDs! Bush should have attacked him without warning before he had time to move them to Syria!

Not what I expected. So then she’d say if Americans could just be a little more informed they could evolve past being such cowboys about such complex issues — at which point I would jump in and say, whoa, whooooaaa there little filly! You don’t evolve past being a cowboy. Being a cowboy is the pinnacle of evolution. Once you’re at cowboy, there’s nowhere to go but down. Cowboys don’t look for fights, but they don’t run away from them either. They do what they have to do, when they have to do it. And they usually have to do it alone, because everyone wants Black Bart’s gang out of town, but no one wants to walk down the street alongside the sheriff and get shot doing it.

Helga had never heard anyone defend cowboydom before. I mean, she’s from freaking Europe, fer chrissakes. But she liked it. And so we spent several hours over lunch, turning the clichés up to eleven in that sort of playful yet serious yet playful tone you take after four margaritas at your best friend’s wedding reception.

I asked her if she’d ever fired a gun before, and she had to think for a moment. Once, she replied, at the carnival, shooting at the paper target.

Ma’am? That’s a BB gun. It goes tick-tick-tick-tick. A real gun makes a sound like the earth coming apart and produces a muzzle flash the size of a large pizza. When you shoot a .45 caliber 1911-A1 hand cannon, you will know it. You will have no trouble remembering the experience whatsoever. And when I told her that what I like to shoot at most often was a life-sized paper image of Osama Bin Laden, she literally gasped in amazement. They let you do that?

Let you? They not only let you do it, they charge you for it. That’s the sound of freedom, baby! BOOOOOM!!"

[...]

Saturday, October 04, 2008

Media barely literate...anyone surprised?

An analysis carried out by a language monitoring service said Friday that Gov. Sarah Palin spoke at a more than ninth-grade level and Sen. Joseph Biden spoke at a nearly eighth-grade level in Thursday night's debate between the vice presidential candidates.

The analysis by the Austin, Texas-based Global Language Monitor said Palin, governor of Alaska and the GOP vice presidential nominee, used the passive voice in 8 percent of her sentences, far more than the 5 percent used by the Democratic senator from Delaware. [...]

The two candidates were nearly even in total number of words spoken. The normally voluble Biden restrained his tendency to ramble by uttering just 5,492 words during the 90-minute debate, versus 5,235 for Palin, Payack said. [...]

Here's the breakdown:

Grade level: Biden, 7.8; Palin, 9.5 (Newspapers are typically written to a sixth-grade reading level.)

Sentences per paragraph: statistically tied at 2.7 for Biden and 2.6 for Palin.

Letters per word: tied at 4.4.

Ease of reading: Biden, 66.7 (with 100 being the easiest to read or hear), versus 62.4 for Palin.



This sure explains a lot about what we read and hear from our esteemed media mavens. Some years ago, I had dealings in a retail computer business with public school teachers. At the end of it, I had to find someone who could speak in polysyllabic words, complex sentences and with genuine sophistication of thought. The teachers, bless their hearts, had lowered their communication ability to that of the grade 4 kids, and couldn't seem to get out of the mode in the rest of their lives.
So, if media pundits write and speak at the "grade 6 level" on a regular basis, it may follow that that's the level of their thinking as well. Certainly, that would be consistent with the intellectual level presented in much of their verbiage. What you get is what there is...