Opinions on what happened September 11, 2012 and the aftermath

Victor Davis Hanson  writing at PJMedia
....Mr. President, do not obsess  over the pretext of the day. Terry Jones is only as crude as Andres Serrano and his Piss Christ, which I don’t recall warranted a personal call from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs to the artist to cool it, much less a federal effort to detain a Coptic filmmaker. Sometimes Muslims will rage at a Rushdie novel, sometimes at a papal reference to a Byzantine letter, and at other times at a supposedly flushed or torched Koran. Or maybe a grainy amateurish video will be set them off to kill a nun, blow up a priest, burn down an embassy, or assassinate a Western ambassador.  There are three-hundred-million-plus free-thinking Americans, and thus at least that many possible “slights” — if you choose to go down that road of blaming free expression rather than the primeval mind that objects to it.

The opportunities for Muslims in the Middle East to be outraged at the West in general and the U.S. in particular are legion. You, Mr. Obama, the most powerful of all Americans, must remember that these totems are mere tools of an al-Qaeda, a Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic Jihad — or whatever the particular aggrieved party calls itself this week. They are no more than crude pretexts to direct fury among their ignorant and impoverished masses at opportune times against the United States, and thereby gain power.

In that regard, each time we castigate a Rushdie, a Danish cartoonist, a U.S. soldier, or a nut like Terry Jones, we simply play into the hands of the Islamists. The latter are thrilled when American grandees look weak, desperate, and only too eager to fall over themselves in undermining their own singular Constitution and distancing themselves from their own values. Far better it would be to say, one time — and only one time: “We cherish and protect freedom of expression and abhor censorship and violence; if that bothers you, it bothers you.” End of story...........

Lars Hedegaard writing at RightSideNews:
Those who planned and executed 9/11 were eminently aware that the attack was yet another strike in the war between Islam and the rest of the world that has been going on for 1400 years, and we – the intended victims of Islam’s war of aggression – had better wise up to this fact.

Our leaders refuse to do so but we and our friends around the world shouldn’t follow leaders that are trying to lead us into the abyss.

We have no right to follow such leaders. We owe it to our fellow men and to our children to go on the counteroffensive against the forces of darkness with all our might.

A couple of years ago I had the pleasure of dining with that eminent authority on Islamic history, professor Bernard Lewis, in Princeton. I asked him who he thought would win the 1400-year war between Islam and non-Islam.

He answered: ”It is hard to win a war if you refuse to acknowledge that you are under attack.”
That is precisely what our Western governments, our mainstream press, our so-called academic experts and, sadly, many of our church leaders have steadfastly refused to acknowledge for the past decades since Islam’s modern incursion into the West took off about thirty years ago.

Not only are these blind people trying to lead the blind. They are using every instrument at their disposal to silence those who have faced reality and tried to speak out about it..........

Daniel Greenfield at his blog:
....The past week has shown us  what a Post-American world looks like and it isn't a batch of treaties that lead to men and women from around the world meeting to decide how to feed the hungry, clothed the naked and take everyone's guns away to banish violence from the world. It's mobs of violent savages ransacking embassies while their suited brethren use it to explain to our decadent leaders that the only way we will have peace is if we let them decide what sections of the Bill of Rights we get to keep.

Forget the UN, the Post-American order isn't a blue flag, it's a black flag with Mohammed on it. There are far more people in the world who believe in a world order based on the violent ravings of a 7th Century madman than the number of people who believe in a world order based on 19th Century European wishful thinking. And it helps that the supporters of 7th Century violence over 19th Century internationalism are far more willing to use murderous violence to get their way.

The burning embassies and authorities scurrying to intimidate the Mohammed filmmaker into making some kind of apology or going to jail, as their British predecessors bullied Salman Rushdie into doing, reveal the naked order of the new world. It isn't a place of treaties or laws, but of naked force and we will not be the ones doing the forcing...........


Glenn Reynolds writing at his blog:
.....When taking office, the President   does not swear to create jobs. He does not swear to “grow the economy.” He does not swear to institute “fairness.” The only oath the President takes is this one:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

By sending — literally — brownshirted enforcers to engage in — literally — a midnight knock at the door of a man for the non-crime of embarrassing the President of the United States and his administration, President Obama violated that oath. You can try to pretty this up (It’s just about possible probation violations! Sure.), or make excuses or draw distinctions, but that’s what’s happened. It is a betrayal of his duties as President, and a disgrace.

He won’t resign, of course. First, the President has the appreciation of free speech that one would expect from a Chicago Machine politician, which is to say, none. Second, he’s not getting any pressure. Indeed, the very press that went crazy over Ari Fleischer’s misrepresented remarks seems far less interested in the actions of an administration that I repeat, literally sent brown-shirted enforcers to launch a midnight knock on a filmmaker’s door.

But Obama’s behavior — and that of his enablers in the press — has laid down a marker for those who are paying attention. By these actions he is, I repeat, unfit to hold office. I hope and expect that the voters will agree in November.........

Useless Nitwits and the halfwits batting for them

Uncommon Knowledge interviews Victor David Henson and a halfwit.

The Obama crash

Victor Davis Hanson writing at PJMedia
I have a confession to make:  I don’t quite understand the jubilation among the conservative-Republican forces during the last two months of the Obama crack-up, and here, unfortunately, is why:...........

Ten Commandments for Our New Century

Victor Davis Hanson writing at PJMedia has a list of New Commandments for our new century. So hilarious you will want to tear out your hair and sob for the collective madness of the Left fogging everything that was once crystal clear and sensible. The commentors also see how much has changed all around and not for the better.

  If you think our quiet lives of desperation  can sometimes become a bit much, relax. Here are some guidelines to soothe your frustration — a few commandments that make sense out of today’s nonsense.

1) Wealth and poverty are now more relative, than absolute, conditions.The ancient idea of the limited good once again rules. Someone who has more, by definition, took unfairly more from someone else with less, one who nobly chose not to do that in turn to others. ...........

2) Regulators are never the problem; a dearth of regulations always must be. If a teacher is at fault, a train operator sleeps, or a Wall Streeter loots, it is never because an administrator was lax, a supervisor chose to overlook drug use, or an auditor was incompetent. Instead, the common culprit was that we did not have enough laws............

3) Debt is a mirage. Borrowing right now has no connection with repaying eons later. At some future date, inflation, debt reduction, write-down, higher taxes on “them,” growing the economy, a computer meltdown, those not born, a few “fat cats,” or a German will somehow................

4) In our new age of diplomacy, being liked trumps being respected. The former proves we are magnanimous, the latter that we may be unfairly feared and thus by implication unkind..........

5) Collective national wealth is natural; private wealth is unnatural. Barack Obama flies on sophisticated jets because as an American president he deserves that birthright; Boeing, which makes such wonderful planes for profit, does so only by the exploitation of non-union workers. Shut down a Boeing plant, and the planes will still materialize out of the upper air. iPhones, gas, and brain surgery spontaneously appear for all our benefit; engineers, oil company CEOs, and .....

6) Medieval exemption is not medieval. Saying one thing, while doing another, is no longer hypocrisy, but rather logical, given that sinning is finessed by prior qualification. Deploring racial profiling ensures that you ....

7) Victimhood is always sought, never questioned.........

8) Neanderthals need nerds.........

9) Ideology, for all the protestations of the zealot, is now not to be taken too seriously — not in this age of global leisure and affluence..........

10) Owing in our new millennium shall be less stressful than saving..........

America will come out stronger than ever

Victor Davis Hanson, writing at TownHall, is painting a rosy scenario for the USA which is based on it's own energy resources. It would be great if the Republicans,when they get rid of Obama, follow his dream of independence from arab oil  to get America back to the mighty nation we expect it to be.... for the world's sake and it's own.

....America will soon again be able to supply all of its own domestic natural gas needs -- and perhaps for the next 90 years at present rates of consumption. We have recently become a net exporter of refined gas and diesel fuel, and already have cut imported oil from OPEC countries by 1 million barrels per day.

With expanded exploration and conservation, the United States could also eventually supply half its own petroleum needs. If we were to eliminate just 5 million barrels of our current daily 9 million barrels of imported petroleum, the annual savings could reach nearly $200 billion per year. Eventually, the new gas and oil could add another 1.6 million new jobs and add up to nearly $1 trillion in federal revenue.

That windfall would cut out about a third of our present annual trade deficit -- well apart from additional income earned by new natural gas exportation. "Investments," "shovel-ready jobs" and "stimulus" would finally become more than empty sloganeering.

But America's new oil discoveries are not occurring in a vacuum. The entire Western Hemisphere is enjoying a fossil fuel boom, from northern Canada to Brazil and Argentina. America's backyard will soon be comparable to the oil-rich Persian Gulf, keeping more American money -- and troops -- at home. Illegal immigration should taper off as well, as oil-rich Latin American economies reap huge cash bonanzas. Hugo Chavez's Venezuela will soon be simply one of many regional exporters.

Current crises in American foreign policy -- Iran's efforts to obtain the bomb, the protection of an embattled Israel, stopping the funding of radical Islamists -- might be freed from the worries of perennial OPEC threats of cutoffs and price spikes.......


On illegal immigration issues in California

The hypocritical world of the Left

Victor Davis Hanson has penned a great article at PJMedia:
....Examine the burdens of modern liberal exemption and indulgence.

Race: Democratic strategist and MSNBC analyst Karen Finney said this the other day, “One of the things about Herman Cain is, I think that he makes that white Republican base of the party feel okay, feel like they are not racist because they can like this guy. I think he giving that base a free pass. And I think they like him because they think he’s a black man who knows his place. I know that’s harsh, but that’s how it sure seems to me.”

Accusing either Cain of being an Uncle Tom sort or his supporters of being racists in backing a supposedly minstrel-like African-American (and that is what the successful entrepreneurial Cane is reduced to) is now a sort of standard left-wing narrative. There are no repercussions in such smears, no charges of racism. I assume that when Cain authentically drops his g’s, he is a sort of embarrassment to the liberal elite; when Obama does that in front of the Black Caucus, apparently we are to assume that this is some sort of wink-and-nod necessity for the former Harvard Law Review editor to do the necessary pandering to his “base.” Indulgences for racist stereotyping are purchased by loud proclamations of liberalism. Were Cornel West or Harry Belafonte a conservative, their rantings would long ago have been written off as false-consciousness racism.

Big Money: Michael Moore’s wealth is usually pegged around $50 million. If half his fortune were liquid and conservatively put into a savings account at about 2% interest, Moore’s annual income would be about $500,000 per year. That income would easily put him into the now hated “1%”, a group which he and others have blasted as schemers who benefit from capitalism at the expense of the 99%.

Yet when asked about his own 1% status recently on CNN, Moore was left sputtering and grasping for straws about his high-school education and all the philanthropic things he does. In other words, his liberal fides supposedly purchase him an indulgence from the supposed sins of being rich — in the manner that the left, the media, and popular culture do not go after George Soros for nearly breaking the Bank of England (making a $1 billion profit in currency speculation), or being convicted of insider trading in France (upheld on appeal). There are no signs at Occupy Wall Street damning the Soros speculations that fund “good” causes.....................