Sorry for another grab-bag post, but even with all that’s going on in the U.S. and abroad I just don’t have the “bandwidth” to do much writing at the moment. (It may not be until I’ve recovered a bit from Monday’s surgery that things will get back to normal around here.) I’m also so fatigued with politics and this tottering society that it’s hard for me to gin up any enthusiasm right now for discussing it; my attention is on family, work, and getting ready for next week. So, with a hat tip to the tireless Bill Keezer for some of these links, here’s another salmagundi (it is, I confess, a pretty dark one):
‣ Diana West argues, pace Mark Levin and Andrew McCarthy, that Ted Cruz’s standing as a “natural-born” candidate is a legitimate question.
‣ The penalties behind the Oregon brouhaha. I’ve written before about the problem of overcriminalization; I’ll recommend again Douglas Husak’s excellent book on the subject.
‣ Speaking of books, I’ll also recommend Thomas Sowell’s scathing The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy, which I’ve just read. (Thomas Sowell is now 85 years old, and I hope he’s taking very good care of himself.)
‣ If you’ve been thinking Europe is in serious trouble these days, you’re mistaken. Europe is not in trouble, it’s dying. We are watching the highest civilization that human history has ever produced commit suicide.
‣ While we are on the topic, here’s a sharp item on this slow, corrosive, and apparently inexorable jihad, written by “Kafir” over at Gates of Vienna. (I’m really starting to wish my own daughter didn’t live in Vienna.) GoV has been in fine form lately, so browse the homepage too.
‣ Here, too, is a hot and rousing post by Mark Steyn on the ostentatious “solidarity” expressed for the Charlie Hebdo massacre, both at the time and on its recent anniversary. This is, I think, one of the best things Steyn’s ever written, and that’s saying something. Read it and boil.
‣ Also, we had another example of the blessings of Islam — the gift that keeps on giving — in Philadelphia yesterday, where a jihadist attempted to execute a police officer. (The officer was badly wounded, but survived.) To steal a phrase from our political clerisy, we also got a “teachable moment”: a textbook example of Auster’s First Law of Majority-Minority Relations in Liberal Society, which says:
The worse any designated minority or alien group behaves in a liberal society, the bigger become the lies of Political Correctness in covering up for that group.
In this case, the jihadi proudly declared his motive; about this there appears to be no dispute. He announced that he was acting in the name of Islam. Nevertheless, Philadelphia’s mayor, Jim Kenney, who clearly imagines us all to be imbeciles, assures us that this assault “does not represent this religion in any way shape or form or any of its teachings … It has nothing to do with being a Muslim or following the Islamic faith.”
Read that a time or two, friends. Roll it around in your mind. Think of how a person’s mind must be configured to utter such a thing. Ask yourself: who might actually be better acquainted with the Koran and the “teachings” of Islam — the Irish, Catholic Mayor of Philadelphia, or a dedicated Muslim who has has made the teachings of Islam his universe, and who has probably read the Koran many times over? Next, ask yourself, after consulting 1,400 years of history and the latest news from Europe, whether violence against the kuffar is not “in any shape or form” a manifestation of the teachings of Islam? (In other words, ask yourself this: who are you going to believe, Jim Kenney, or your lyin’ brain?)
Then reflect again on Auster’s law, pour yourself a stiff one, and drink to the memory of the West.
Well, that’s enough for now. There are some topics I’d like to dig into more deeply, including our “new normal” government-by-executive-caprice, of which President Obama’s latest gun-control ukase is just the latest example, and the deep and disturbing ties that connect the Hillary Clinton to the Saudis and the Muslim Brotherhood, but I think this will have to do for today.
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We had our annual Che Guevara dinner down at the Ho Chi Minh Club last week. It’s a fancy affair, so I went dressed to kill. (I thought the keffiyeh, ski mask, and backpack would be a big hit, but it bombed). We started talking about the YallQaeda group in Oregon.
One person pointed out how they followed in the footsteps of other great revolutionaries: after all, didn’t Lenin get started by taking over a bird sanctuary?
We chuckled over their tweet requesting that followers bring them snack foods. They’re armed and dangerous. Can’t they go out and hunt their own Cheez Doodles and Twizzlers?
We all wondered what would have happened had a group of heavily armed Muslims or Black Panthers seized a government facility, blocked the legitimate users of the facility from its use, refused to leave, caused nearby schools to close, and greatly irritated those who live and work in the area. We asked how such an uprising would be covered by Daily Caller, Breitbart, and Fox News, or what Donald Trump would say. Never let anyone tell you that white Christians don’t get a break in this society.
Whatever you think of these pusillanimous patriots – because what better way to display your patriotism than trying to take down the government? – over-criminalization has nothing to do with it. The Hammonds were poachers and arsonists, who deserve to spend a few years living as guests of the US government.
JK: how nice to hear from you! I’ve always been enthralled and fascinated by your astute, witty, and erudite posts, which are invariably expressed in a breezy and engaging manner. To be sure, the intellectual history of Western man is a straight line from Socrates to JK. We are honored and grateful to have you among us.
Malcolm, I hope your recovery goes well. What I find amazing is that someone with your views (which are fairly close to mine) could survive and prosper in the music industry over the past few decades.
JK, are you going to be ok? You’ve mentioned VA a couple of times.
How could we ever muddle through without the lame sarcasm of the OEM? His radiant self-satisfaction with his pathetic little life in Pelosi Land gives us hope that comes the Big One along the SAF we can all enjoy surcease. Of course, he might luck out by serving as a human shield in Gaza when the Big One strikes. But then again, there could also be an IAF strike while he’s on duty in Gaza.
There is always hope. Now where did I put my pack of Lucky Strikes?
[img]https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR8AkncQY83dkuF7lyE-qiXG_OMuveXaTotcspJ8BKaTb_4pfXgvA[/img]
Malcolm, Agree with you on the Steyn piece. Andrew McCarthy wrote a very interesting piece on Bosch Fawstin, the winner of the Garland, TX Mohammed cartoon-drawing contest, where Fawstin explains growing up Muslim and how 9/11 challenged him to defend his American values:
“Contrary to the blame-America-first storyline, it was the jihad that provoked his determined response, not the other way around. And it is the threats he’s received because of his work that inspire him to persevere.
The enemy is no match for America on the military battlefield. Nor can they compete in the battle of ideas, where their tactic is suppression precisely because their repugnant ideas cannot bear examination. As terrorists, their only power lies in paralyzing us, instilling in us a fear to defend our principles, like free speech. Obama and Clinton loudly signal a readiness to surrender those principles, theorizing that the enemy will be appeased. Bosch Fawstin defiantly lives those principles, reckoning that if we all did, the enemy would not stand a chance.”
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/429175/draw-mohammed-cartoonist-speaks-out-why-i-entered-garland-contest?target=author&tid=900151
Thank you all.
Peter, at the moment I haven’t the energy or the inclination to respond to your remarks, or to participate in any comment-thread squabbles. I do, however, have this to say:
Don’t be fooled by JK’s rustic, unconventional (and indeed sometimes downright incomprehensible) style. After communicating with him both online and off for many years now, I assure you that he is a man of quite extraordinary, at times even intimidating, knowledge and intelligence — on topics, both practical and highly esoteric, about which you have not even the slightest inkling. (And you know, I hope, that I would not say such a thing lightly.)
If ever there was a book belied by its cover, he is it.
JK, well bless your heart! Four hours can be something to behold….
@ The Big Henry, JK, Whitewall
Lucky Strike . . . So round, so firm, so fully packed.
EE, well there you are! I thought you had misplaced yourself. You might have heard, way back then, the acronym for Lucky Strike-LSMFT. Naturally I am too much of a gentleman to say what that meant in locker room talk.
Lucky Strike means fine tobacco, no?
EE, on television commercials-yes. Think high school age boys making up their own version.
Depart? Misplaced myself?
I am beginning to fear the gentlemen of Man Chat may know more about my whereabouts than I do myself.
Gentleman, if you see me, won’t you please give me my best regards?
LSMFT — we all agree that on TV it stood for “Lucky Strike means fine tobacco”. I suppose EE didn’t spend much time in the boys locker room (or did she?). But I did (though I don’t recall what WW is referring to). I can guess what words replaced “fine” and “tobacco”, but not the other words. Care to fill us in, Robert?
I live about three miles from the San Andreas Fault, and have no fear about the Big One. I always throw a quarter in whenever I go by, just to be generous to a fault.
As any eight year old boy growing up in the 1960’s can tell you: L.S.M.F.T.= Loose Straps Means Floppy Tits.
OEM, you are truly a man of refinement! You got it.
JK,
I know you’re a big boy and hardly need my help defending yourself. I just wanted to remind the schmucks (Yiddish for “peckers”) in Pelosi Land that, comes the revolution, they would be well advised to recall the words of the great Satchel Paige: “Don’t look back. Something may be gaining on you”.
BTW, JK, if (God forbid) you do experience the dreaded “4-hour experience”, here is your remedy:
[img]http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wtPU8Y61LEs/VnM4fHnoytI/AAAAAAAAoFQ/_vLa39JY-7Q/s230/12314089_593232340815560_645699310128904529_n.jpg[/img]
Oh my. Well, well. Oh golly.
Our mothers taught us well how a Lady never understands a blue comment, so I do believe the Ladies and I must depart ourselves indeed. Perhaps you gentlemen believe we Ladies might all suddenly feel the urgent desire to, in some vainglorious attempt to elevate the focus of this discussion, bend at the waist as Mother taught us and, um, shake ourselves into our underpinnings.
Gentlemen, the Ladies and I can only wonder if this is what Whitewall intended when he suggested Eugenia had misplaced herself.
Well, Robert, I got the “F” wrong. But in my defense, I was already in college in the 1960s. Sigh …
JK,
When addressing ladies like EE, you should avoid using the words “rectify” and “omission” in the same sentence. The lady is likely to misconstrue your implication, if you catch my drift (so to speak).
Henry, as my late grandmother used to say…”you’re a mess”:) Granny was born in 1877 and had some odd saying in her arsenal.
I just read the astonishing Artic ice surprise link. Weather has got to get on the same page as climate. And ice at the south pole is growing? Clearly there is a “failure to communicate”. Somebody with a major paper in NY or London just recently informed us there would be “snowless winters”. He/she must not have attended the Paris climate-beggars banquet a few weeks ago. The attendees let forth some flatulence…I mean a statement about their good intentions on climate. It’s solved?
Cash matters. “Cash is king” has been a long time saying in finance. ZIRP has been a boon to politicians as they can easily pay the carrying cost of our national debt thus underwriting bad public and economic policy. Why bother to reform Entitlements when it is easier to just pay the carry price and keep the status quo? NIRP may be even more devious as it removes the small measure of freedom we the people still have in matter finance. Hoarding cash may be better than hoarding precious metals. The metals depend on available cash at some value to be redeemed.
My apologies, JK. I routinely correct what I think are typos in comments here. (At no extra charge!)
I thought that was one. I have restored the original orthography. (I’m not touching “might a Friend to do so” just above, either, just in case.)
Ted Cruz should release any and all birth documents soon, especially if he wins Iowa which he might. Do it soon and fully. There are no step and fetch lackeys in the major media for him like greased the skids for Obama.
Speaking of schmucks, consider Chuck Schumer (Ew!). If you replace the “u” in his last name with the homophone “ew”, his full name becomes an anagram for “schmuck chewer”.
Note also that the shooter of the Philadelphia police officer used a stolen police gun to do it.
http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Islam-Shooter-Stolen-Police-Gun-Jessie-Hartnett-Officer-364664771.html
The dust up in Oregon is another in a long running flare up between ranchers and an over reaching Federal government. The father and son are one part and didn’t seem to want outside intrusion from the Bundy group. There are thousands of Bundy types across the West. Their complaints are valid. As for the Bundy group Occupying that building, so far, nobody has been hurt. If authorities mess up and assault that group, they know full well that a hundred militia groups will form and show up. The cops sure as hell don’t want that
Besides, if the Bundy group sitting in an empty building is troubling to anyone, well, just think of them as SJWs. That’ll make it ok.
I read that Gates of Vienna article yesterday. The low level slow rolling violence from Islam’s “culture enrichers” is exactly what we are seeing. Europe should be beyond disgust with their elites and start replacing them. Plenty of leaders will step up to defend their people, especially when a society’s women are deliberately targeted. For much of Europe, this is a war between the civilized man and the savage man. The acts of the savage are predictable. That idiot mayor of Philly is right there among the European elite. A damn ignorant fool.
In Philly, expect to hear a lot of trash about gun control, but it was just pointed out the “culture enricher” stole a cop’s gun and used it. How much more of these acts will it take for some people to get it? Maybe when their wives or daughters are assaulted?
Nah. Leftists would feel sad if that happened, but after a little while, they would console themselves that, you know, it’s worth it for the greater glory of multiculturalism. After all, rapists are people too, doncha know?
Everybody has a right to express themselves as they see fit. It’s really part of the free-speech Amendment as the Framers intended it to be. Ask any Supreme appointed by the Big 0. I am sure that the Wise Latina would agree.
Robert, you wrote:
I don’t think you’re au courant regarding Europe’s modern generation. If the women are cowed into submission, who’s going to protect the “men“?
See also this. (Money quote: “brought largely by women’s votes”.)
We are witnessing the entirely lawful and predictable end — the Omega point — of universalist, post-Enlightenment democracy.
Well Malcolm, if that creature is the last best hope of female kind, they are….let me use “done for”. As for the cartoon–much truth I’m afraid. Maybe in some quarters it isn’t too late to smuggle in some old John Wayne westerns. Men might have need of them. Women should hope.