PALIN: And so soon it begins ... !

Party at war as Palin 'goes rogue' | The Australian

The MSM and the left begin their destruction of the thing they fear most, a 2012 run for the White House by Sarah Palin. As I mentioned yesterday - "it's a shame Sarah Palin is not at the head of the ticket [now]" I'll support her in 2012, unless "the MSM and the federal super majority in DC ... fix it so she can't" run.

Even the foreign press cites "unnamed campaign insiders" and "aides close to both candidates" and "a senior Republican" and "four Republicans close to Ms Palin" and "a Palin associate" and "reports" and "advisers to Senator McCain" and "McCain sources," ... eight common unnamed sources in a single article and not one named source, NOT ONE! These are all journo-speak for "I don't have a source, but I trust my rumor mongers."

UPDATE: The fix is in, and proof of it is here. [26 Oct.'08; 12:57 PM]

Election 2008, Foreign press,
Geopolitics, McCain, Media,
MSM, Palin, Politics

DEBATE: Who lost?

Quick Points on the Debate | Jay Nordlinger - The Corner NRO
HT - Thursday links, with contrapposto - Maggie's Farm

Who lost? The American people!

For the life of me I can not see the value of debates at the presidential level; it's a media circus and offensive to the intellect ... nothing is accomplished because the collapsed and concentrated format eliminates the ability to thoroughly discuss issues (something the candidates avoid at all costs anyway).

Check out Nordlinger's painful comments through the main link above.

Debate, Election 2008,
McCain, Obama, Politics

MSM: Turned off or turning off?

As Campaign’s Intensity Peaks, Interest in Big 3’s Evening News Continues to Wane | BizzyBlog
Evening News Ratings Decline | Media Bistro

There is a general feeling (here in the heartland) that the MSM cannot be trusted to just "do" the news; especially the Big 3 evening news machines.

The continuous decline in viewers forces us to ask: is the decline due to "turned off" viewers or to viewers turning them off?

In the past two weeks, Big 3 evening newscast viewership has actually declined by 360,000, or 1.6%. What's more, in percentage terms, viewership among "The Demo" of ages 25-54 has declined even further (220,000, down 3.1%).

My guess is the former; the human mind can only take so much dysfunction before it seeks to protect itself. Perhaps only history will know for sure.

In our home we expect at least the appearance of "fair and balanced."

ABC, CBS, Election 2008,
Media, MSM, NBC, Politics

ISLAM: The making of strange bedfellows!

Diane West, NRO, has written ...

I have come to believe that the Western way of life – which I’ll define in brief as life lived according to Judeo-Christian-evolved morality and liberty – is imperiled by the demographic spread and influence of Islamic ideology and laws.

[...]

In the cause of not-giving-offense – the highest cause of Westerners-turned-multiculturalists – we have prevented ourselves from undertaking a hard-eyed appraisal of Islamic ideology as a whole, jihadism included, and engaging in a serious discussion of how to contain it. [HT: Brussels Journal]

She says what many have realized for some time: we're our own worst enemies, preventing "ourselves from undertaking a hard-eyed appraisal of Islamic ideology ... and engaging in a serious discussion of ... it."

Recently I've found well-reasoned, anti-Islam apologetics available to the public both online and off-line. The above is an example; found this morning as I prepared to publish the following.

****

The thoughts and opinions of internationally acclaimed novelist Ian McEwan have encouraged my hope that it is not too late to stop the global, Muslim tsunami; McEwan ... in defense of a friend under attack as an Islamophobe ... told reporters ...

He was glad to leap to the defence of his old friend Martin Amis [CRIB link] when the latter's attacks on Muslims brought down charges of racism on his head. He made an exception of the Islamic issue out of friendship to Amis, and because he shares the latter's strong opinions.

"A dear friend had been called a racist," he said. "As soon as a writer expresses an opinion against Islamism, immediately someone on the left leaps to his feet and claims that because the majority of Muslims are dark-skinned, he who criticises it is racist. This is logically absurd and morally unacceptable."

A few days ago I realize how often I felt like Diogenes, yet instead of looking for a man of honesty, I'm looking for men of honesty whose honesty results in courage and conviction. Perhaps I've found one in David Thompson, who wrote in a recent post ...

Last year, I wrote a short post titled It’s Okay to Dislike Islam. In it, I argued:

One of the creeping, unanalysed [sic] myths of our time is that it is somehow wrong to dislike Islam, or any part thereof, and wrong to take a dim view of its tenets and demands, and wrong to take a still dimmer view of the figure who founded it. I can practically hear the distant tutting and grunts of disapproval. Poor Islam. Poor Muslims. Their beliefs are being mocked. How hurtful. How “racist”. How terribly unfair.

No. It's not unfair at all. What’s unfair is a demand for unearned deference and a unilateral exemption from the testing of ideas. What’s unfair, indeed despicable, are efforts by Islamic groups to cow dissent and stifle criticism with a well-rehearsed pantomime of victimhood and the projection of false motives. Pretending to be hurt in order to assert one’s will over others [CRIB link], or to gain unreciprocated favours, or to exert control over what others may say and think, is cowardly and malign. Let me say that once again. It’s cowardly and malign.

At the time, I feared I might be stating the blindingly obvious.

I like that: "unearned deference" and "unilateral exemption";

the first being the expectation of social profit without incurring any expense for that status, and,

the second, being the expectation one is free to do to others what one will not tolerate in return from those same others (again without cost for that freedom).

That the inmates have taken over the asylum is evidenced in worldwide capitulation to both expectations by individuals, groups, corporations, governments, NGOs, religious personalities (also here), and agencies of governments.

That the line between peaceful Joe Muslims and authoritarian fanatic Muslims has been blurred is no secret, but to blame those in the West for the blurring is cowardly. I'll no more accept the blame for this blurring than a Muslim should for the blurring of the line between myself and Fred Phelps as Baptist preachers; that blurring began in my backyard.

Muslims chant "unfair, unfair"; but as Thompson points out, criticism of Islam is not unfair:

What’s unfair, indeed despicable, are efforts by Islamic groups to cow dissent and stifle criticism with a well-rehearsed pantomime of victimhood and the projection of false motives.

The West has been found standing on the road, showing their support for the poor Muslim victims, when in fact they've been trooping by naked as Jaybirds:

It is a widespread notion that deeply held convictions are at least entitled to respect - when in reality there is no “at least” about it, and no entitlement either. The challenging of beliefs is an often brutal business, but the ensuing and almost inevitable hurt is emotional and not physical. There is nothing wrong in this; it is how knowledge advances. [Oliver Kamm; HT - David Thompson]

What concerns me about my joy at finding fellow travelers on this road is that one is pro-homosexual and anti-religious and another is as liberal as liberal can be. Who knows where the others stand?

For all I know McEwan would despise the society I would like to see and Thompson would consider me a religious sycophant. But on the issue of Islam and its demands on the world today we're in agreement and that is all that truly matters at this juncture.

Muslims, their supporters, and those who believe there is a politically correct way to live life have, sans debate, foisted the lie that ALL people and ALL ideas deserve respect upon the world. Governments, especially leftist/socialist entities (read EU and UN), have likewise come to believe it is their job to ensure such respect is forthcoming from those with whom they disagree.

Ideas have no claim on our respect; they earn respect to the extent that they are able to withstand criticism. [quote by Kamm]

Our litigious society is the direct result of the convergence of two social pressures:

first, the insatiable appetite of the legal community to attain ever greater altitudes of legal gobbledygook and the servile response of justices to such attainments and,

second, a permissive, egalitarian mindset that informs bad behavior such behavior is the fault of any number of others, each of which needs to be sued ... but under no circumstance must the actor to take responsibility for his or her actions.

Modern Islam has exploited these pressures well, using our laws and courts to prove just how well.

Someday a generation will exist to judge this generation. I wish to be counted as one who stood up to the inmates and tried earnestly to recapture the keys to the control room. Though the following was written on the subject of abortion, I found it germane to this post:

Future generations may well condemn our society's countenance of abortion in the same way we look back in wonder and revulsion at those who defended slavery. Men such as William Wilberforce and Abraham Lincoln are rightly revered today for their opposition to that peculiar institution -- but we must recall that they were outnumbered and reviled in their time.

Indeed, both men were stretched to the limit of their political skills, and their lives, to obtain justice. The nobility of their cause, though clear to us, was nowhere near apparent to their contemporaries. Then, as now, the most dreadful things can become convention if enough folks go along. [Theo Caldwell, National Post; HT: The Black Kettle]

As author McEwan told the NYT last year ...

"All religions make very big claims about the world, and it should be possible in an open society to dispute them. It should be possible to say, 'I find some ideas in Islam questionable' without being called a racist."

Notice McEwan's prerequisite: "an open society." Islam will not tolerate an open society in their totalitarian world; even if a "peaceful" Islam exists and wants such a society, Islam's leaders will not allow it!

Let's put a stop to this for the sake of generations to come!

Islam, Muslims, Religion,
Respect, Victimhood