Gazizza.Net

"Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism." —George Washington

"All of us denounce war—all of us consider it man’s greatest stupidity. And yet wars happen and they involve the most passionate lovers of peace because there are still barbarians in the world who set the price for peace at death or enslavement and the price is too high." —Ronald Reagan

"All evils in our now extensive catalogue flow from a falsified picture of the world which, for our immediate concern, results in an inability to interpret current happenings." —Richard Weaver

"Conservatives believe that there is evil in this world, that it will intrude into our lives and that we should be ready and willing to fight against it. We also know that evil lurks in every human heart and that we will not always meet the moral standard we claim to believe in. On some points we will fail (mea culpa, mea maxima culpa), on some we shall succeed, and on some we will never be tested. But we will not abandon our belief in that standard, and will resist all attempts to pretend it doesn’t exist. Courage is real and it is good; cowardice is real and it is bad. And that remains true, and I will believe it, even if I prove to be cowardly and not courageous when the time comes." —Nathanael Blake

"No matter what, the law will teach. It will either teach that marriage exists as a natural institution with public purposes and meanings, centered around bridging the gender divide, and bringing together one man and one woman to share their lives as husband and wife and to become father and mother to their children, or it will teach that marriage is a mere creation of the state, recognizing and condoning the private sexual choices of adults, and intended merely to fulfill adult desires. There is no other option; one or the other will become normative... We can only hope that judges and policy makers will heed... [these] warnings before it is too late." —Robert George & Ryan Anderson

"I live in northern New England, which has a very low crime rate, in part because it has a high rate of gun ownership. We do have the occasional murder, however. A few years back, a couple of alienated loser teens from a small Vermont town decided they were going to kill somebody, steal his ATM cards, and go to Australia. So they went to a remote house in the woods a couple of towns away, knocked on the door, and said their car had broken down. The guy thought their story smelled funny so he picked up his Glock and told ‘em to get lost. So they concocted a better story, and pretended to be students doing an environmental survey. Unfortunately, the next old coot in the woods was sick of environmentalists and chased ‘em away. Eventually they figured they could spend months knocking on doors in rural Vermont and New Hampshire and seeing nothing for their pains but cranky guys in plaid leveling both barrels through the screen door. So even these idiots worked it out: Where’s the nearest place around here where you’re most likely to encounter gullible defenseless types who have foresworn all means of resistance? Answer: Dartmouth College. So they drove over the Connecticut River, rang the doorbell, and brutally murdered a couple of well-meaning liberal professors. Two depraved misfits of crushing stupidity (to judge from their diaries) had nevertheless identified precisely the easiest murder victims in the twin-state area. To promote vulnerability as a moral virtue is not merely foolish. Like the new Yale props department policy, it signals to everyone that you’re not in the real world." —Mark Steyn

"Our government, under our Constitution, was established upon the principles of Federalism—that the federal government would have limited enumerated powers and the rest would be left to the states. It not only prevented tyranny, it just made good sense. States become laboratories for democracy and experiment with different kinds of laws. One state might try one welfare reform approach, for example. Another state might try another approach. One would work and the other would not... Federalism also allows for the diversity that exists among the country’s people. Citizens of our various states have different views as to how traditional state responsibilities should be handled. This way, states compete with each other to attract people and businesses—and that is a good thing. Everyone in Washington embraces Federalism until it comes to someone’s pet project designed to appeal to the voters. Then, oftentimes, even the most ardent Federalist throws in with the ‘Washington solution’ crowd...[I]f conservatives use Federalism as a tool with which to reward our friends and strike our enemies, instead of treating it as a valued principle, we are doing a disservice to our country—as well as to the cause of conservatism." —Former Sen. Fred Thompson

"Huge numbers of Americans don’t know jack about their government or politics. According to a Pew Research Center survey released last week, 31 percent of Americans don’t know who the vice president is, fewer than half are aware that Nancy Pelosi is the speaker of the House, a mere 29 percent can identify ‘Scooter’ Libby as the convicted former chief of staff of the vice president, and only 15 percent can name Harry Reid when asked who is the Senate majority leader. And yet, last week, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that two-thirds of Americans believe that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales’ firing of eight U.S. attorneys was ‘politically motivated.’ So, we are supposed to believe that two-thirds of Americans have studied the details of the U.S. attorney firings and come to an informed conclusion that they were politically motivated—even when Senate Democrats agree that there is no actual evidence that Gonzales did anything improper. Are these the same people who couldn’t pick Pelosi out of a lineup? Or the 85 percent who couldn’t name the Senate majority leader? Are we to imagine that the 31 percent of the electorate who still—after seven years of headlines and demonization—can’t identify the vice president of the United States nonetheless have a studied opinion on the firing of New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias?" —Jonah Goldberg

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Norman Chad - TV Sports Can Be A Real Turnoff - washingtonpost.com

1. Here's my problem with Ultimate Fighting -- if nobody dies, how ultimate is it?

2. Can you imagine the sound effects Fox Sports would've used if it covered Apollo 11's mission to the moon in 1969?

3. I think Gary Bettman made a bold move taking the NHL off of national TV.

4. You've got to hand it to the NFL Network -- even in the offseason, it's live every day reporting nothing.
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7. I programmed my TiVo to record all poker shows and my TiVo hired a workplace attorney.
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11. Tim McCarver and Boomer Esiason each have a weekly TV talk show. This is what gaming theorists would call a "statistical improbability."
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13. I'll take Vin Scully and an Orange Crush every day of the week and twice on Sundays.
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18. I'm not above watching a "Walker, Texas Ranger" rerun on Hallmark.

19. As it turns out, George Washington might've cut down that cherry tree because it was blocking the signal from his DirecTV receiver and he desperately wanted MLB's Extra Innings package so he could watch as many Red Sox games as possible.
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23. I get paid to watch television every week. I wish someone would pay me more not to watch it.
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Q. Since NFL teams are always drafting for their biggest needs, why didn't the Bengals select a criminal law attorney? (Jim and Connor Harmann; Hartland, Wis.)

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Democrats for Life of America has released what it calls its 95-10 Initiative, which promotes policies they claim will reduce the number of abortions in America by 95% in ten years. I would dispute their assessment of the program's efficacy, but they are, in general, a good program.

1) Federal Funding for Pregnancy Counseling and Daycare on University Campuses
2) Provide Accurate Information to Patients Receiving a Positive Result from an Alpha-Fetoprotein Test tests
3) Make Adoption Tax Credits Permanent
4) Ban Insurance Industry Discrimination Against Pregnant Women
5) Require Adoption Referral Information
6) Women’s Right to Know
7) Provide Ultrasound Equipment
8) Increase Funding for Domestic Violence Programs
9) Parental Notification
10) Call for Congress to Fully Fund Federal WIC Program
11) Provide Grants to States to Promote and Implement Safe Haven Laws
12) Require Counseling in Maternity Group Homes
13) Require SCHIP to cover pregnant women and their unborn children
14) Federal Funding for Toll-Free Number/ National Public Awareness Program
15) Conduct a National Study & Update Abortion Data
16) Federal Funding for Pregnancy Prevention Education

There's a brochure available which provides some details behind these proposals. Many of these are common sense and should be passed: informing pregnant women who've received a positive result on a test for genetic defects that those can often return false positives; making the adoption tax credits permanent will encourage people to adopt children whose lives have been spared; requiring pregnancy centers to provide information about the option of adoption to pregnant women; using ultrasound equipment to allow women to see their unborn child before making the final decision to abort; requiring teenage girls who need a parental permission to take an aspirin to inform their parents before having an abortion; promoting the freedom for women to hand over their children, no questions asked; having maternity homes provide women information on adoption; and increasing awareness of options for pregnant women.

Checking the list of sponsors and supporters I don't see either of our Delaware Democrats co-sponsoring this, even our "personally opposed, but..." Senator Joseph Biden. Notice that this bill in no way infringes a woman's ability to choose, just gives her al the resources she needs to make a true choice. There's only a few sponsors on it right now so let's see if the "safe, legal and rare" pro-choicers mean it, or if nothing more than political hot air.

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Florida House Approves Abortion-Ultrasound and Waiting Period Proposal

Under a bill the Florida state House approved on Friday morning, anyone wanting an abortion would be required to have an ultrasound and given an option of seeing it beforehand. Pro-life lawmakers hope the requirement will further reduce the number of abortions in the state. ... The ultrasound requirement would not apply to women who are victims of sexual abuse because Republican Rep. Denise Grimsley added an exception to the bill to exempt them.

Backers of the ultrasound provision and waiting period say it would help women make better decisions than having an abortion. They also said it wouldn't be unconstitutional by infringing on so-called abortion rights.

''If you read this bill, it doesn't do anything to take away a woman's right to choose,'' Rep. Kevin Ambler said. "What it does is put a thoughtful, deliberative process in place.''

As I mentioned the other day, pro-choicers frequently say they'd like to make abortion "safe, legal and rare." Well, here's another chance for them to do so, and without impacting a woman's "rights." In fact, this even enhances a woman's ability to make a choice since it's helping her get all the information about the choice she's about to make. She'll be given the option to see the child she's about to abort, but still be allowed to make up her own mind. What could be more pro-choice than that?

So naturally, those who propound "choice" oppose this bill.

Wendy Grassi, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of Southwest & Central Florida said she opposed the ultrasounds requirement and said the legislature shouldn't tell abortion practitioners what to do.

Once again, we see "choice" is just a smokescreen for no restrictions on abortion.

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Townhall.com::Speaking as a Former Fetus...::By Dinesh D'Souza

Speaking as a former fetus, I welcome the Supreme Court's decision permitting regulation of partial birth abortion.

D'Souza goes on to compare the current debate over abortion to the Lincoln-Douglas debates over slavery in the US Senate campaign of 1858. He compares the "pro-choice" position on abortion to Douglas' "pro-choice" position on slavery:

Douglas, the Democrat, took the pro-choice position. He said that each state should decide for itself whether or not it wanted slavery. Douglas denied that he was pro-slavery. In fact, at one time he professed to be "personally opposed" to it. At the same time, Douglas was reluctant to impose his moral views on the new territories. Douglas affirmed the right of each state to choose. He invoked the great principle of freedom of choice.

"I'm not pro-abortion. I'm personally opposed, but I'm reluctant to impose my personal position on others." Sound like anyone we know?

Lincoln, the Republican, disagreed. Lincoln argued that choice cannot be exercised without reference to the content of the choice. How can it make sense to permit a person to choose to enslave another human being? How can self-determination be invoked to deny others self-determination? How can choice be used to negate choice? At its deepest level, Lincoln is saying that the legitimacy of freedom as a political principle is itself dependent on a doctrine of natural rights that arises out of a specific understanding of human nature and human dignity. ... The argument between Douglas and Lincoln is very similar in content, and very nearly in form, to the argument between the pro-choice and the pro-life movements. Pro-choice advocates don't like to be considered pro-abortion. Many of them say they are "personally opposed." One question to put to them is, "Why are you personally opposed?" The only reason for one to be personally opposed to abortion is that one is deeply convinced that the fetus is more than a mere collection of cells, that it is a developing human being.

If abortion is something you personally oppose, why do you oppose it? There's really no reason to oppose it other than your belief that the abortion is killing a living human person. And if you believe that, how can you believe that it's possibly a valid choice? You're either lying about being opposed to it, or selling your conscience for political gain.

Finally, Dinesh turns his sights on the hard-liners in the pro-life movement:

In my view the pro-life movement at this point should focus on seeking to reduce the number of abortions. At times this will require political and legal fights, at times it will require education and the establishment of alternatives to abortion, such as adoption centers. Unfortunately such measures are sometimes opposed by so-called hardliners in the pro-life movement. These hardliners are fools. They want to outlaw all abortions, and so they refuse to settle for stopping some abortions, with the consequence that they end up preventing no abortions. These folks should learn some lessons from Abraham Lincoln.

He's exactly right. Rome wasn't built in a day. A quixotic focus on saving all unborn lives will cause us to fail to save some lives that could be savable now. In World War II, we defeated Japan by taking small island after small island. An assault on mainland Japan early in the war would have been a bloodbath and a failure without having taken the islands that allowed to have supply lines for our troops. We're in a similar situation today: we've taken our first island, but there are many more to go. We're not in any position to attack the mainland.

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At UD, Justice Scalia illustrates 'originalist' view

The Trenton native, appointed by President Reagan in 1986, holds to an "originalist" view of constitutional interpretation. He looks for the original meaning of the document, rather than reading it through an ever-changing contemporary lens as the "living document" school of interpretation would.

To put it another way, Scalia interprets the Constitution by actually reading it, rather than as according to his own opinions. A "living" Constitution is no Constitution at all, since any meaning the person wants can be read into it. Who can forget the Supreme Court declaring the death penalty unconstitutional in the 1970s, even though the Constitution expressly refers to capital punishment multiple times? A judge's responsibility is to interpret the law, not to write it. If a judge is interested in writing law, than they are honor-bound to resign their position and run for legislative office where the writing of laws is properly done.

"You must drive from your mind that every stupid law is unconstitutional," he said. "Laws can be stupid but constitutional. There are innumerable laws like that."

And that's the point. Too many judged see their view as correcting mistakes made by the Legislature. A law may be stupid, but if it doesn't violate the Constitution, a judge doesn't have the authority to override it on a whim, although many do just that. Judges need to remember that they are one person or part of a small group of people, especially when compared to a legislature which holds committee hearings, receives phone calls and letters from constituents, meets with experts and many other discussions of bills before they are enacted as laws. We should put our faith in that process rather than a small hearing with just a few representatives of two opposing sides present.

Judges need to rule only in the clearest situation of wrong-doing and minimize the impact of their decisions. Let the political process handle as much as possible. When judges attempt to do too much, the country gets divided. (See Roe v. Wade.)

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"Americans never quit."
- General Douglas Macarthur

But apparently Democrats do.....

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This past Sunday's Gospel was from the final chapter of John, where Jesus asks Peter three times if Peter loves him. I don't know what got in to me, but I couldn't stop picturing Jesus singing "Do you love me, now that I can dance?"

I'm a bad, bad person.

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Pencader Days: Two Questions

Networks that show baseball games do not show people who run onto the field during the game because it only encourages others to do the same. Why is this logic not applied to people who go on shooting rampages at, say, Virginia Tech?

I don't really have an answer, but it's something the news media should think about.

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A friend of mine, who's an award winning web designer, rips DELDOT for their website publicizing the project to add a 5th lane to I-95.

Here's his comments on the home page:

THE HOME PAGE What it should be: A synopsis of what the project is, a map of the area it will impact and a timetable of when work will be ongoing, as well as an area for breaking or current news, such as where and when to expect construction delays.

What it is: An oversize version of the same horrid logo used on the billboard (it takes a rare stroke to make a logo that works equally poorly on both a black and white background).

But there's so much more he finds wrong with the site. Read the whole thing.

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Texas Senate Approves Abortion Survey Bill to Reduce State Numbers

The Texas Senate gave preliminary approval to a bill that would allow the state to collect information associated with abortions such as insurance payments used to pay for it or the women's reasons for having one. The idea behind the bill is to learn more about why women have abortions so those reasons can be addressed.

Many of those who support abortion claim to want to make it "safe, legal and rare,' borrowing the phrase that President Clinton used in the last decade. Yet, whenever an opportunity comes up to actually reduce abortions, they find some excuse not to support the action. The claim this time is doctor-patient confidentiality:

However, the bill has drawn opponents including the Texas Medical Association, which says it introduces on the doctor-patient relationship even though women considering an abortion have no prior relationship with the abortion practitioner.

Laurie Felker Jones, spokeswoman for NARAL's Texas affiliate, told the Dallas Morning News that he group opposes the bill as well.

"Most Texans don't need an exhaustive study and a laundry list of questions for patients to know why women are seeking abortions in Texas. It's because they're accidentally pregnant," she said.

If you read the article, it seem quite clear that this information would be collected anonymously and therefore doctor-patient confidentiality would not be an issue. Also, while Ms. Jones is seemingly correct that women have abortions because they become accidentally pregnant, might there not be other causes? Plenty of women get pregnant accidentally, but raise their children, so there must be more to the decision. Texas is merely trying to see what puts women in the situation where they feel they must have an abortion and seek to help them come a solution to it. This wouldn't infringe upon anyone's "right" to an abortion and would deny no one any freedom they currently have under the law. There's no pressure, no coercion, so what's the beef?

The only reason to oppose this is either strict libertarian grounds (which I think we can safely assume are not being honestly used among the pro-abortion faction objecting to this bill) or the idea that all abortions are good things, even if they'd never make that claim in public. Once again, we see that for many the claim to want to make abortion "safe, legal and rare" is just another political lie.

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"And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? or do we imagine we no longer need its assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time; and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this Truth, that God governs in the Affairs of Men. And if a Sparrow cannot fall to the Ground without his Notice, is it probable that an Empire can rise without his Aid?"

-- Benjamin Franklin (Motion for Prayers in the Constitutional Convention, 28 June 1787)

Reference: Franklin Collected Works, Lemay, ed., 1138.

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European Nations Demand World Bank Continue Forcing Abortion on Developing Nations

For decades the World Bank has been pressuring developing nations into implementing population control in order to qualify for receipt of loans. That program accelerated during the Clinton era in the 1990s as the Bank, which is controlled by the United States, more openly insisted countries wishing to receive funding permit abortion, and institute 'family planning' programs.

The current Administration has attempted to alter this abortion-pushing stance with the guidance of Juan Jose Daboub, a former El Salvador finance minister, who was last year appointed as a managing director of the bank under President Paul Wolfowitz. The new health strategy sought to relax requirements that recipient countries implement population control 'family planning' policies as a condition of receiving loans.

However the World Bank Board of Directors deferred a decision on accepting the new health strategy on Tuesday after receiving complaints from European World Bank Directors. In an April 19 letter, a copy of which was obtained by LifeSiteNews.com, Bank Directors from Belgium, Switzerland, France, Germany and Norway demanded that the bank continue its coercive population control policy.
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Rather than accepting the pro-abortion rhetoric that population control is key to development, Mosher asserts that forcing population control via financial pressure is "economic assassination."

"Taking poor countries and deliberately eliminating their primary resource - young people," he said, "is criminal". He explained that developing nations with higher infant mortality rates require higher birth rates to sustain their populations. Without social security systems in place elderly parents rely on children to sustain them in old age. For all their talk of women's rights, he said, the population controllers are doing women in developing nations no favours by forcing depopulation.

Europe is currently dealing with the consequences of a declining population, a loss of hope for the future and government retirement programs that will be bankrupt if current trends continue. Why they want to impose these results on poor nations as well is beyond comprehension. People are any nation's most valuable resource. They bring work, ideas, and hope for the future. People are the most fundamental capital in any economy and removal of capital from an economy will always have negative consequences.

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...at least to a nerdy Cahtolic like me.

The Vatican has created a website with photos from the past few papacies. Should be some fun viewing.

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"To deny that [the people] are frequently led into the grossest of errors, by misinformation and passion, would be a flattery which their own good sense must despise." - Alexander Hamilton

"The very aim and end of our institutions is just this: that we may think what we like and say what we think." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

"There ain’t no ticks like poly-ticks. Bloodsuckers all." - Davy Crockett

"I know no class of my fellowmen, however just, enlightened, and humane, which can be wisely and safely trusted absolutely with the liberties of any other class." - Frederick Douglass

"When a new source of taxation is found it never means, in practice, that an old source is abandoned. It merely means that the politicians have two ways of milking the taxpayer where they had only one before." - H. L. Mencken

"The naked truth is always better than the best dressed lie." - Ann Landers

"Peace cannot be achieved through pretending that war does not exist." - Steven Plaut

"The main problem with pacifism is that it doesn’t work in all situations. The main problem with pacifists is that they’re convinced it does." - Burt Prelutsky

"If the war in Iraq is such an unnecessary and futile expenditure of blood and treasure as Pelosi et al. have been saying, why not put an end to it? But to do that would mean taking responsibility for the consequences- and those consequences would be disastrous and lasting. They would probably still be lasting when the 2008 elections come around. The Democrats cannot risk that." - Thomas Sowell

"It is patently absurd to judge sane, normal people as being incompetent and untrustworthy to bear arms while blithely ignoring the obvious truth of the old saying that when good people are legally disarmed, only bad people will have guns."- Michael Reagan

"I think we have a problem in our culture... with being realistic about reality... [T]he administration [at Virginia Tech] has created a ‘Gun-Free School Zone.’ Or, to be more accurate, they’ve created a sign that says ‘Gun-Free School Zone.’ And, like a loopy medieval sultan, they thought that simply declaring it to be so would make it so."- Mark Steyn

"Those seeking the perfect politician seem to have forgotten that we’d have better luck finding a Sasquatch living in downtown Manhattan."- J.B. Williams

Jay Leno: All the big candidates were out campaigning on the big Earth Day weekend. They had some good ideas. John McCain suggested we bomb Iran using hybrid planes. ... Sanjaya was voted off ‘American Idol.’ Experts say that America wasn’t going to vote for a guy who spends that much time on his hair, which is more really bad news for John Edwards. ... Edwards got two $400 haircuts in Beverly Hills. He said he only went to the expensive stylist because they are friends. Friends? What kind of friend charges $400 for a haircut? ... During appearances in Denver, John Kerry re-opened the door to running for president in 2008. You know, somebody should really lock that door. It just keeps swinging open and closed. ... Mitt Romney has announced that his son Tagg Romney has joined the campaign. No word from the other kids- Skip, Jump Rope and See Saw. ... FEMA told Congress this week that a revised emergency response plan it was ordered to develop after Hurricane Katrina will not be ready by hurricane season. Well, there’s a shock. It’s only been two years. I’m surprised FEMA even knows when hurricane season is. ... According to a news report out today, on average, 2006 was the safest year for airlines. It’s mostly due to JetBlue. You can’t have an accident if you never leave the runway.

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"[W]hereas, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them; nor does it follow from this, that all promiscuously must go into actual service on every occasion. The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle; and when we see many men disposed to practice upon it, whenever they can prevail, no wonder true republicans are for carefully guarding against it."

-- Federal Farmer (Antifederalist Letter, No.18, 25 January 1778)

Reference: The Complete Anti-Federalist, Storing, ed., vol. 2 (342) The Founders Constitution

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I finished The Enemy at Home:The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11 by Dinesh D'Souza tonight. It was a pretty good book, but not without its flaws.

One of his major points is to attempt to answer the question "Why do they hate us?" Many people before have tried to answer this question and haven't provided a satisfactory answer, and I think Dinesh finally provides one. They don't hate us because of our global power, after all they didn't hate the Soviet Union during its period of imperialism and they were far more aggressive about invading or subjugating nations than we have ever been. They don't seem to hate Europeans as much as they hate us, even though Europeans are far more culturally decadent than we are. It can't be just about our support of Israel; if Israel were the issue, they would be the "Great Satan," not us. It's not about pornography, homosexuality or anything like that, after all, those things exist in all cultures.

What D'Souza suggests, and rightly in my opinion, is that it's not just our morally decadent culture, it's the fact that we celebrate our decadence and seek to export it to other nations. We use the United Nations and other international organizations to try to impose our moral values on societies that don't want them. So, we have Planned Parenthood handing out condoms to thirteen year old girls in sexually conservative countries. We have other liberal organizations filing lawsuits to overturn abortion laws in historically Catholic nations. Our TV shows are broadcast overseas glorifying sexual promiscuity and other lifestyles that traditional cultures (who make up the vast majority of the world) find abhorrent. (As D'Souza states, if a couple is shown having sex on TV they're probably not married, and if they are, it's not to each other.) In most societies, pornographers are outcast from society and shunned; in America, we celebrate them and make movies about them

He takes this further, though, and I believe it's from this are that he received much of the wrath he's getting over the book. He charges that the Left in America has entered into a de facto alliance with the radical Muslims who seek to attack America. He also makes the claim that Bin Laden recognizes this and appealed to the American Left in his pre-Election Day message in 2004. He urged them to defeat their common enemy, Bush. I do tend to think that while many liberals have entered into such an alliance, many are doing it unknowingly out of an exaggerated fear of Bush. (For example, those who argue he is the real enemy, as opposed to those who seek to kill innocent Americans.) Others, though, I think have consciously and knowingly accepted this bargain with the Devil, so to speak. They feel that if Bush can be defeated the terrorists will leave us alone and allow them to maintain their lifestyle here. After all, we're in no danger of falling under Muslim oppression anytime soon, so the worst they can do to us here is kill a few thousand people every now and then. And these liberals aren't concerned by 1.3 million abortion deaths a year, what's a few thousand more in their mind?

I do have some concerns about his proposed solution, however. To begin with, he rightly draws a distinction between radical Islam who is at war with us and traditional Islam who shares the values of radical Islam, while not wishing to engage in a war with us. He argues that traditional Islam can be our ally in our struggle with radical Islam if we don't upset them. We need to stop belittling and attacking Islam and casting all Islam as hopelessly violent. As D'Souza points out, Islam in many ways has done a better job in maintaining its values in its society, whereas in the West, it's doubtful whether we can truly be called a Christian society any more.

He then proposes that rather than viewing the Culture War and the War on Terror as separate conflicts, they should be viewed as one and the same since one can't be won without winning the other. As long as the Left in America seeks to impose their values, not just on Americans, but on the world, we will have traditional societies of all religions hating us.

D'Souza suggests conservatives reach out to traditional Islam by pointing out that we, too, have issues with the Hollywood lifestyle and coming up with a common strategy to counteract it. This can help conservatives win the culture war, and in turn keep traditional societies from deepening their dislike for us. This part of the strategy makes perfect sense. It will let Muslims know that there are many Americans who are willing to work with them and help protect their societies from American cultural imperialism. It's the second part of the strategy I have issues with, though.

He argues that we need to expose Leftists who are actively working to undermine American success in the War on Terror, hurting the country in favor promoting their own lifestyle. He acknowledges that this runs the risk of charges of McCarthyism, but he points out that McCarthy's main theme was correct, despite the falsehood of some of his specific claims. (As it was put in "A Beautiful Mind": "McCarthy's an idiot, but he's right.") This risks undermining the conservative cause domestically and giving the liberals what they want: power. I think the first part of the strategy is more likely to help us, and will pay electoral benefits domestically as well.

Overall, a good, but somewhat flawed, book that should make conservatives and liberals rethink their positions if they read it with an open and honest mind. Worth the read.

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According to Ryan over at Jokers to the Right, this is going around facebook right now. Basically, you pick your eleven favorite movies (or in my case, movies I both like and could think of while doing this) and post the Plot Keywords from the Internet Movie Database and let people guess.

Have at it. (The plot keywords make #3 sound like a gay porn flick, but I assure you it's not.)

1. Loose Cannon / Suspense / Accident / Shoot / Car

2. Hanging / Elephant / Card Playing / Guilt / Breakup

3. Character's Point Of View Camera Shot / All Male Cast / Locker Room / Shower Scene / Prisoner Of War

4. Gymnastics / Bloopers During Credits / Championship / High School / Plagiarism

5. Intense Violence / Good Versus Evil / Melodrama / Judas / Roman

6. Time Reversal / DC Comics / Supernova / Reverse Footage / Convertible

7. Quirky / No Opening Credits / Unlikely Hero / Scientist / Friendship

8. Baseball Player / Guitar / Pitcher / Baseball / Bathtub Scene

9. Brief Nudity / Voodoo / Sports League / Baseball / Farce

10. Teenage Boy / Agility / Crime Fighter / Guilt / Hate

11. Corruption / Showgirl / Brother / Quirky / Mother

(I skipped putting Patton on my list since Ryan already did that one.)

Posted by Paul Smith Jr at 3:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Rae Stabosz has writen an excellent post on the dangers that embryonic stem cell research poses to poor women who will doubtlessly be exploited by corporations looking for them to donate their egg cells. But this exploitation is okay since it's anti-life, apparently. She's gotten some decent linkage from thew blogosphere on it, including from The Curt Jester.

Posted by Paul Smith Jr at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One baby in 30 left alive after medical termination | News | This is London

One in 30 babies aborted for medical reasons is born alive, a study has found.

They lived for an average of 80 minutes - although in some cases foetuses survived for over six hours.
...
Researchers looked at the outcome of 3,189 abortions performed on seriously handicapped foetuses at 20 hospitals between 1995 and 2004.

It showed that 102 - or around one in 30 - aborted for reasons such as Down's Syndrome and heart defects, were born alive.

So, not only are babies born alive being allowed to die, they're also presumably suffering a great deal while lying neglected and unattended by their killers. This is the sort of action that leads to executions when done to people whose lives we value. But since it's abortion, it's apparently to be celebrated as an exercise in women's freedom....

This is what we're talking about:

(Source)

Nope, nothing remotely human in that picture. Well, maybe that finger, but definitely that "thing" at the center of the photo.

The other thing I found interesting about this article is that it's referring to children who suffer from some medical issue. It seems to me that the statistics would be even higher among healthy unborn children.

Posted by Paul Smith Jr at 5:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe.” - Noah Webster

"There are those in America today who have come to depend absolutely on government for their security. And when government fails they seek to rectify that failure in the form of granting government more power. So, as government has failed to control crime and violence with the means given it by the Constitution, they seek to give it more power at the expense of the Constitution. But in doing so, in their willingness to give up their arms in the name of safety, they are really giving up their protection from what has always been the chief source of despotism- government. Lord Acton said power corrupts. Surely then, if this is true, the more power we give the government the more corrupt it will become. And if we give it the power to confiscate our arms we also give up the ultimate means to combat that corrupt power. In doing so we can only assure that we will eventually be totally subject to it.” - Ronald Reagan

"Clearly, there remains to this day a horrible, condescending attitude toward armed American citizens. Haven’t the British yet gotten over the fact that a ragtag, often disorganized force of American colonials, wielding their own arms, was able to defeat what at the time was the most powerful armed force in the world? Our forefathers, armed with their own flintlock rifles and pistols, and an assortment of muskets- the ‘assault weapons’ of their era- threw off the yoke of oppression under which they were forced to live. When British broadcasters today demand to know just what it is about gun ownership that Americans defend so vigorously, the answer is too simple for them to comprehend. Simply put, we defend this individual civil right because without our own guns two centuries ago, we would still... likely be British subjects...” - Alan Gottlieb

"In its proper constitutional sense, the term [militia] means all the able-bodied people who can be trained and disciplined to act in the community’s defense when it’s attacked. Since it encompasses every able-bodied person, it does not refer to those- such as the police, the military, or even the National Guard- who formally compose the official defense forces of the nation. Every citizen able and willing to act in an emergency becomes a potential defender against attacks aimed at the general population. Unfortunately, because of the anti-gun folly of the leftist media and politicians, we have lost sight of this vital element of our defense... The anti-gun crowd seeks to establish a modern version of [the medieval era], a kind of bureaucratic feudalism, in place of the republican self-government established by our Constitution... The answer is not gun control, but self-government, self-defense, and self-control. We must act to live as free people, else like sheep for the slaughter, we will die, and freedom with us.” - Alan Keyes

"The trouble with gun control laws is they target the law abiding. ‘If you disarm good people but not the criminals, instead of making things safe for the potential victims you may unintentionally make them safe for the criminals,’ said Dr. John Lott, coauthor of a massive study on guns and crime... Both crime rates and shooting deaths have declined in most states which have adopted ‘concealed carry’ laws, says Dr. Lott. The decline in ‘multiple victim public shootings’ has been especially pronounced, he said. ‘Bill Landes of the University of Chicago law school and I examined multiple-victim public shootings in the U.S. from 1977 to 1999 and found that when states passed right-to-carry laws, the rate of multiple victim public shootings fell by 60 percent. Deaths and injuries from multiple victim public shootings fell even further, on average by 78 percent, as the remaining incidents tended to involve fewer victims per attack,’ Dr. Lott said... In applauding the defeat last year of a measure in the Virginia legislature to permit those with concealed carry permits to have a gun on campus, Associate Vice President Larry Hinckler said Virginia Tech’s strict gun control policy made students feel safer. But there is a difference between feeling safer and being safer, as Virginia Tech has learned to its sorrow.” - Jack Kelly

"I have always been fond of the West African proverb: ‘Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far’.” - Theodore Roosevelt

"[F]or many Europeans, faith is increasingly irrelevant. Europe has the lowest church-attendance in the world. Not coincidentally, the continent is in a demographic tail-spin. Of the 10 nations with the lowest birthrates, nine are in Europe (the 10th is Japan). Currently, 1.5 children are born for every woman in the EU. In some countries, the rate is as low as 1.1. It takes 2.1 births per woman merely to replace current population. If present trends continue, Europe’s population could decline by 88 million in the next 15 years- a loss of 23% of its 2000 population. Why not coincidentally? From religion comes hope for the future and a sense of societal obligation (i.e., a non-hedonistic worldview). No faith, no hope. No hope for the future, no sense of obligation- hence, no children.” - Don Feder

Posted by Paul Smith Jr at 1:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Robert D. Novak - The Democrats' Partial Pro-Lifers - washingtonpost.com

Thomas Carper, the low-profile junior senator from Delaware, tries to walk the middle of the road on abortion. He was rated at 55 percent pro-choice by NARAL in 2006, but he was one of the 17 Democrats who voted to ban partial birth abortion three years earlier. Carper said after the court upheld the 2003 bill: "I think a number of people who voted for it thought that the court would ultimately strike it down."

I have no doubt that Carper is right. I immediately thought of how Bush reversed his campaign pledge to veto McCain-Feingold. He figured it was popular and he could get some good publicity by signing it, figuring it would overturned by the Courts. Oops.

While on partial-birth abortion, it is largely Democrats who this describes, it applies across the board without party distinction. Too many politicians are willing to take actions they believe to be opposed to America's best interests just to maintain popularity with the voters come re-election time. This is where term limits might help, even though I retain a visceral aversion to them. If politicians didn't have to worry about re-election, perhaps they'd actually focus on what's best for the country.

For another example, on the GOP side, I have little doubt that there are some pro-life Republicans who would vote differently on a secret ballot. I have no way of knowing who they are, so I can't name names, but politicians being what they are, there's got to be at least a few.

Let this decision be a warning for politicians of the sort Senator Carper referred to: don't vote in favor of a position you oppose, it might come back and bite you in the ass.

Hat Tip: The Corner

Posted by Paul Smith Jr at 1:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Ryan's post reminded me of a Bad Thing I went through yesterday morning. This past weekend was the Annual Catholic Appeal, wherein we ask Catholics to support the operations of the diocese through contributions. I was the person at my parish responsible for leading people through the process of filling out their pledge cards during Mass.

Attending the 9:30 Mass (the family Mass), I was reminded why I don't usually attend the 9:30 Mass. Speaking directly into the microphone, I still couldn't hear myself at some points of the Mass due to noise of children, especially one baby who reminded me of nothing as much as Damien from "The Omen".

I'm convinced that if I am unfortunate enough to experience Hell, it will remind of the 9:30 Mass.

And when I'm Absolute Dictator, parents who make no effort to get a screaming child out of Mass until they're calm will be denied Communion.

Posted by Paul Smith Jr at 9:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself."

-- James Madison (Federalist No. 51, 8 February 1788)

Reference: Madison, Federalist No. 51.

Posted by Paul Smith Jr at 8:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

"How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg." -- Abraham Lincoln

There's a truth in that statement that many people forget nowadays. In their zeal for a certain cause, they misuse terms and language to promote their point of view, without regard for the actual meaning of those words. Hence, we have "choice" to refer to the killing of an unborn child. (The child is not given any "choice" in the matter.) We have "death with dignity" to refer to suicide. These euphemisms are often used to distract people from what someone is really trying to accomplish.

We have another example of that in this morning's News-Journal and in the comments on their site about the article. The problem with this article is not so much its blatant lobbying for passage of the non-discrimination bill in the Senate. (Although at what point will the News-Journal admit it's long since dropped any notion of objectivity in its reporting? And what do those people who think the News-Journal is biased towards conservatives have to say about articles like these?) The main problem I have with this bill is not that it would outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation; it is, after all, common decency not to discriminate against others for actions that do not affect their work performance. It's the fact that once this bill does become law, it will almost certainly be used as the basis for a lawsuit arguing that the definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman violates the terms of the bill, even if the bill explicitly were to state that it required no such action.

This is where the five-legged dog comes in. The basis of this lawsuit will be that the definition of marriage in law, and in practice everywhere in the history of the world until the last decade or so discriminates against same-sex couples. It will be claimed, as we have seen often in the past, that as a man (or woman) is not allowed to marry another man (or woman), the marriage law is discriminatory against same-sex couples.

The idea that the true definition of marriage is discriminatory is incorrect. After all, it treats all people the same under the law. Any two people of the opposite sex, regardless of sexual orientation, can get married. If people choose not exercise this right, that is their choice. So, we're responding to a false claim of discrimination.

A relationship between two members of the same sex cannot be a marriage, by definition. Calling a relationship between two members of the same sex a "marriage" no more creates an actual marriage than calling a tail a leg gives a dog five legs.

Given that many advocates of redefining marriage argue that it's necessary to do so in order to handle certain issues like inheritance and hospital visitation rights. Redefining marriage in order to handle these issues is like using a nuclear bomb to kill a fly. After all, both of those issues and others of the same sort can be dealt with narrower, targeted legislation without approaching anything on the scale of creating the legal fiction of same-sex marriage.

So, creating a fictional "marriage" is neither necessary nor honest.

Legislative action creating civil unions would at least be more honest than pretending we can redefine marriage. These would have many of the appearances of a marriage without making the law pretend that it was. The problem with civil unions, though, is that because they look like a marriage, people will mistake them for a marriage. It is hard to believe that couples in civil unions will introduce themselves as "partners" or what-have-you instead of "spouse." They'll view themselves as being in a marriage and will refer to it as such.

Marriage is in enough trouble in today's society without confusing the issue even more.

Posted by Paul Smith Jr at 9:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) |