THE ANCIENT ROOTS OF PLATONIST STATISM

"I see pieces of men marching, trying to take heaven by force;
I can see the unknown rider, I can see the pale white horse"
—Bob Dylan

The fight in this country is not between left and right, but between liberty and tyranny. Big government Hamiltonian progressivism vs small-government Jeffersonian democratic-republicanism.

It's nothing new. It's as old as the Nimrod vs Abrahamic styles of government.

—Ron Jones, The Jones Family

I remember early fall 2000, sitting in a fast food joint eating my burger when I overheard two old men chatting about the upcoming election. Neither were rock solid in their decision yet, although they seemed poised to split their vote between Bush and Gore. However, I heard one of them say that he didn't think he could vote for Bush because he didn't think that Americans should elect dynasties, pointing out the Kennedy family example with the presumption America would have been better off without that particular dynasty. They begin to act like kings, he added.

I left amused and enlightened by their conversation but voted Bush the younger that year. Will political truth always remain so compromised I wonder...
—Gabriel Thy

THE 28 PRINCIPLES OF LIBERTY

LOOK NO FURTHER. These 28 fundamental beliefs instituted in the Constitution for the United States of America by the Founding Fathers which they said and we confirm must be understood and perpetuated by every person who desires peace, prosperity, and freedom.

Sarah Palin on Glenn Beck...

“Who’d have thought a history buff with a quirky sense of humor and a chalkboard could make for such riveting television?” Palin wrote. “Glenn’s like the high school government teacher so many wish they’d had, charting and connecting ideas with chalk-dusted fingers—kicking it old school—instead of becoming just another talking-heads show host.”

UNMASKING THE MONSTER

Here is a short, simple, straight to the point essay penned by Steve Bussey on ResistNET, a visibly patriotic website dedicated to stopping, then rolling back the move to abolish the US Constitution inch by inch, word for word, and with it the freedom and liberty that so many have fought to preserve and enjoy for well over 200 years.

This is a site I've only recently discovered, so I am still treading lightly, trying now to rustle too many leaves before I find myself somewhere I do not wish to be. But Mr. Bussey's article offers a clear idea of what is simmering beneath the surface tension that passes for political dissection discussion all across this great land of ours. Our nation's free citizenry and our elected leadership seem to have lost their way, and have been on this false path for several decades now.

I HAVE HEARD THE MODERN tea party movement mischaracterized and slandered over the past several months, and seen yellow journalism about vocal protestors disrupting town hall meetings hosted by politicians. These and other crocodile tears are shed by journalists, politicians and pundits who are either too stupid to understand, or are intentionally trying to villainize the new conservative activism.

Some of the knocks I hear against the tea party movement are that they are racist because they didn’t protest during the Bush years, but only now when there is a black president; shut up and pay your taxes; or cries of hypocrisy because tea party protestors love big government in the form of military spending, interstate highways, or the Veteran’s Administration and oppose programs that would help the poor and downtrodden - all hogwash.

Discontent among conservatives and libertarians has been festering for several decades since George H.W. Bush succeeded President Reagan and began to walk back conservative advances. Contrary to popular belief, that is the primary reason he was a one term president.

The discontent swelled with the advent of the Clinton Administration and his largest tax increase in the history of the free world, as well as Hillary’s attempted take over of our health care industry. The Republican Revolution lead by Newt Gingrich, however, temporarily tamped down the discontent. Enter George W. Bush.

Conservatives and libertarians began to squirm in their seats with Bush’s unconstitutional federal intervention into our local schools with No Child Left Behind. The squirm turned into foot-tapping and nail biting with the Medicare prescription drug bill, and we stood and began shouting at our televisions with the expanded State Children’s Health Program and TARP – all unconstitutional expansions of federal tyranny over sovereign States and free enterprise. Enter President Obama.

President Obama has removed the mask from the monster once and for all and exposed the true Progressive agenda for America—a reshaped America based on a new foundation – his words, not mine, by taking over car companies, insurance and investment companies, Cap & Trade and a national health care plan. With his actions there can be no further debate concerning the direction Progressives in America, Democrats and Republicans, wish to take.

Why is there a modern tea party movement? Is it racist? There is a modern tea party movement because as Thomas Jefferson so eloquently wrote in the Declaration of Independence, “. . . all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable. . .”

It began before President Obama, but certainly with him and his programs, evil in the form of federal infringement upon our liberties, Progressive disrespect for our Constitution, American history, traditions and political philosophies, has become insufferable.

They may name their movement "tea party" to invoke and evoke our Founding Fathers, but the movement is much more profound than just taxes. The movement is about freedom and liberty. It is about legalizing and respecting our Constitution once again.

Yes, indeed, Mr. Bussey. We must also remember that both the 43rd president and the current Obama administration have led us—the American people—to believe that government first resides with the executive branch. Each administration also believe, the other two branches participate at the President's discretion. The problem this presents is that few constitutional scholars or free citizens agree with them, since the Constitution clearly states otherwise. Afterall, by 43rd and 44th's way of thinking, the law is just a 'guideline', and can be ignored when it gets in the way. We can think of too many dark scenarios of how this progression will eventually lead to a person to try to remain in power.

HONORING THOSE WHO HAVE DIED

The first thing to know about World War II is that it was a big war, a war that lasted 2,174 days and claimed an average of 27,600 lives every day, or 1,150 an hour, or 19 a minute, or one death every three seconds. One, two, three, snap. One, two, three, snap.

In an effort to get our arms around this greatest calamity in human history, let's examine 10 things every American ought to know about the role of the U.S. Army in WWII.

The U.S. Army was a weakling when the European war began in earnest on Sept. 1, 1939, with the German invasion of Poland. The U.S. Army ranked 17th among armies in size and combat power, just behind Romania. It numbered 190,000 soldiers. It would grow to nearly 8.5 million by 1945.

When mobilization began in 1940, the Army had only 14,000 professional officers. The senior ranks were dominated by political hacks of certifiable military incompetence. Not a single officer on duty in 1941 had commanded a unit as large as a division in World War I. The Army's cavalry chief assured Congress that four well-spaced horsemen could charge and destroy an enemy machine-gun nest without sustaining a scratch.

The U.S. Army for a long time after we entered the war was not very good. Part of the WWII mythology is that all the brothers were valiant and all the sisters were virtuous. War is the most human of enterprises, and it reveals every human foible and frailty, as well as human virtues: cowardice and tomfoolery, as well as courage and sacrifice. The Greatest Generation appellation is nonsense.

In the first couple years of American involvement the Army was burdened with clearly inferior equipment and commanders. Those first couple years of war required a sifting out, an evaluation at all levels within the Army of the competent from the incompetent, the physically fit from the unfit.

It has sometimes been argued that in an even fight, when you matched one American battalion or regiment against a German battalion or regiment, the Germans tended to be superior, the better fighters. But who said anything about an even fight? Global war is a clash of systems. What matters is which system can generate the combat power needed to prevail, whether it's in the form of the 13,000 Allied warplanes available on D-day; the 10:1 American advantage in artillery ammunition often enjoyed against the Germans; or the ability to design, build and detonate an atomic bomb. What matters is which system can produce the men capable of organizing the shipping, the rail and truck transportation, the stupendous logistical demands of global war.

Germany could not cross the English Channel, which is only 21 miles wide, to invade Britain. The United States projected power across the Atlantic, the Mediterranean and the Pacific and into Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent. Power-projection, adaptability, versatility, ingenuity, preponderance—these are salient characteristics of the U.S. Army in WWII.

Read it all.

This is an important essay penned by Rick Atkinson for the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. Every young American whose mind has been mismanaged with great liberal skill needs to understand a few facts about her own nation. Please take a few minutes of your post-modernist attention span, and give Atkinson's full essay a chance to sink into your slippery post-American sensibilities. Our brave young men and women who died in WWII as well as other conflicts in which the nation stood battle deserve your consideration. Let's not continue to confuse the cold harsh reality as demonstrated by Dick Cheney this week with the rose-colored wishful thinking of President Obama.

We are now engaged in another war with an enemy just as pernicious as Nazi Germany. We must again stand firm and undivided against our enemies and produce this victory over a totalitarian machine. But like in those early days of WWII, America begins from a weak position, a position that the Islamic enemy exploits with well-honed strategic genius.

America this time staggers from a system whose industrial base has been abandoned in favor of an argumentative human resource and legal infrastructure that has been allowed to deteriorate. This war is not about silly romantic notions of relative values or moral egotism. This is about defeating an enemy that that been quite outspoken on the one hand that it wants to conquer, enslave, or annihilate the sorry House of the West, while on the other hand sends in its oil-rich infiltrators with manipulating claims of being either stealth allies and trading partners of the West, as well as relentlessly demanding victims of Western hospitality at every twist and turn in playing the system of political correctness to its own dualistic endgame.

Stand up. Be counted. Liberty must be defended, or it WILL be lost.

THE CONSTITUTIONAL REVIVAL

CONSTITUTIONAL SCHOLAR and nationally syndicated talk host Mark R. Levin is enjoying his third consecutive week at number one atop the New York Times Bestseller list with his book Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto. What's more, is the book has increased its lead over the number two and number three books with each successive week.

Mr. Levin is president of Landmark Legal Foundation. He has also worked as an attorney in the private sector and as a top adviser and administrator to several members of President Ronald Reagan's cabinet.

This book explores with distinction the critical identifying features that have made the United States of America integrally different from all other nations in the history of humanity. Levin draws a portrait of the founders and framers, not overlooking those intellectuals and thinkers who preceded and inspired them. The spark of genius which is overlooked and diminished in any collective or totalitarian statist approach to government, the USA was founded on the ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...

That we have these rights conferred on us, not by man or government, but by Natural Law, which originates with the Creator is not a trifling idea. Mr. Levin has written a commendable and compelling book, and will be remembered not only for its ideas but its timeliness.

Yesterday's Tax Revolt Tea Parties which were held in every state across the nation, despite the Democratic leadership and the MSM's dismissive coverage, appears to have been a rousing success as people of all demographic backgrounds turned out in surprising numbers.

The Congressional Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, dismissed the impact of the gatherings as highly financed astro-turfing, a coinage actually invented by President Obama's chief strategist David Axelrod in describing his own often-spectacular tactics during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Predictably, the media only reluctantly covered the tea parties on tax day and rather than report news as they found it, many took it upon themselves to express their frustration by mocking the events and the folks attending.

As Glenn Beck reports...

A truly amazing piece of audio—a CNN reporter (using that phrase very, very loosely) interviewing a man with his child, and seemingly personally offended that someone could actually criticize the government spending that's going on. She demonstrates her complete lack of understanding of history and instead reveals her pro-Obama views as she calls the protests 'anti-government,' 'anti-CNN' and the best for last... 'it's not family viewing.' Huh?

A LEARNING OPPORTUNITY FOR PEACENIKS

Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) will be holding a Washington DC rally on March 8 at the front of the Capitol Reflecting Pool beginning at 1 PM to address the global challenge of women oppressed and killed in the name of Islamic supremacism. Word is that the leaders of this group will demand that our legislators recognize the threat to women around the world by this supremacist ideology.

Excellent development. And as one particular conservative radio host might say, this is shaping up to be a fabulous "learning opportunity" for many of the peace junkies and other assorted pavement stompers to actually discover that not everyone thinks about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness the way they think, not even close, and that strong and principled opposition to those people might actually be a good thing.

Even unto war.

THE SOUNDS OF CAPITULATION

In 1984, KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov explains how Marxist ideology is deconstructing America's values, destabilizing the economy, and provoking crises in order to sovietize the free world.

Yep, what a difference a few decades make. Nobody wants to be an American anymore. Instead, everybody that comes here wants to take a piece of America back to the Old Country, or ummah, as the case may be. The people who need to watch this video are those decent, hard-working and compassionate Obama voters, who voted for every plank of the Communist Agenda. Sweetie, that's the "change" you voted for.

Make no mistake about it. Leftists have taken over our schools, colleges, media, movies, music, pop culture, et cetera, and we have now elected a Communist President. America needs to wake up. Western Marxism and Islam must be stopped.

"The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses.' She's got a baseball bat and she's yelling, 'You want a piece of me?'"

—Robin Williams

"I understand what Tolstoy meant when he said that the 'good' cannot seek power nor retain it'."

—Icarus Tull

SIGNS OF LIBERTY IN QUESTION

Why is the University of Mary Washington inhibiting free speech at today's Obama-Biden rally?

NOT ALL COUNTRIES guarantee their citizens the right to virtually unbridled freedom of speech. The United States does. Would someone please tell the campaign of Sen. Barack Obama? And the dozing guardians of liberty at the University of Mary Washington?

Mr. Obama, the Democratic nominee for president, is scheduled to speak at a rally at the university today. The public is invited to this forum, on property it, the public, owns. However, signs and banners will not be allowed, according to the organizers and compliant campus officials. Suddenly, UMW is a First Amendment-Free, or at least a First Amendment-Crippled, Zone, subject to the self-serving preferences of politicos.

Why does an Obama rally—or a McCain rally or a Nader rally—justify taking a little off the top of Americans' most fundamental rights?

A UMW spokeswoman says that the Obama campaign required the sign-and-banner ban. That campaign tells us that the ban is for "security" reasons. But a spokesman for the U.S. Secret Service, responsible for protecting presidential candidates, says that the service has no objection to signs at rallies, provided that no "part of the sign could be used as a weapon"—e.g., a heavy metal pole or a sharpened stick. Finally, the McCain campaign tells us, "We encourage people to make signs at our events."

Regarding today's event, one would expect better from a campaign bearing the name of a former professor of constitutional law. (See Ambrose Bierce's definition of a lawyer: "one skilled in circumventing the law.") And one would expect much better from a university that, in pursuit of a day of celebrity, a boost in prestige, and profits from its book store's planned commemorative Obama T-shirts (now scotched), shaves away an American liberty purchased by men who turned white snow red and dry dirt wet with their sacrificial blood. This is a lot to swap for a mess of pottage. Remarks the Rutherford Institute's John Whitehead, who has turpentined the Bush administration's civil-rights record, "The Secret Service has a better free-speech viewpoint than the college."

The First Amendment guarantees the freedoms of religion, speech, the press, peaceable assembly, petition of the government. Will one who aspires to the title Defender of the Constitution begin inhibiting these First Freedoms even before he is ushered into office—at a public university?

Read it all.

l was disgusted when l read last night that the Obama team are picking up buslaods of homeless in Ohio to register them, and at the same time vote! But don't tarry here, folks. There's much more to uncover in this startling and punitive grasp for absolute power by the Obama camp. Doesn't take a weatherman to know whivch way the wind blows. My prediction is that within one year of an Obama presidency, the same people who elected him will be howling for his impeachment.

The handwriting is on the wall, the internet is also under fire since it's just a little too free for some people. Here’s a frightening page that will interest. Its author accuses the Google’s Blogger folks of shutting down, or freezing anti-Obama blogs it hosts. Read with intelligence. Connect the damn dots. Wake up America!

Wife and I went to another DC event last night sponsored by one of the partners at her office. Several staunch Republicans I have known for years, senior citizens and a couple of thirty-somethings, have all either defected to Obama or declared that they will sit this one out. These people know government. They are Washington lobbyists, and those Republicans who now are voting for Obama claim to be protecting their jobs. I suspect the senior partners who have said they will vote for neither candidate, are doing so less because McCain is too liberal for them, but because they don’t want to go on the record. What in the cheesecake is happening to this country?

I feel like the Big Takeover is upon us. This is simply far too much change way too quickly. Something drastic, some Brave New World Order stealth maneuver seems to be happening…

Here's some friendly advice to our Obama-supporting friends—when your interests are aligned with those of Iran's President and Hitler-wannabe Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it's time to consider a re-assessment of priorities.

Democrat activists this week gave Ahmadinejad a huge gift that keeps on giving in his circle of despots by sabotaging a major bipartisan anti-Iran rally. More important to these cracked activists than Iran, apparently, was the slick opportunity to marginalize popular Republican vice-presidential candidate Governor Sarah Palin.

To recap, the rally was organized by wide coalition of mostly Jewish organizations, including the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, the respected non-partisan umbrella group that seems to be the closest thing the American Jewish community has to single and unified voice. They assembled an impressive protest of the presence of Ahmadinejad at the United Nations, to sound the alarm over his nuclear weapons program, and to urge world leaders gathered this week in New York to act strongly—and soon—to prevent a nuclear Iran which seems to be in the sole business of threatening Israel, America, and the world.

The organizers secured a number of high-profile speakers, including Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, recent Democrat presidential candidate Senator Hillary Clinton and Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin. It is not yet clear whether Clinton was coordinating with Democrat strategists, but when she found out Palin was also invited, she bailed out. Too bad-having America's two highest profile female politicians together on the same stage condemning the misogynistic (among its many attributes) Iranian regime would have been a powerful image.

Following Clinton's lead, two of the sponsoring organizations-led by left-wing Democrat activists-demanded that Palin be barred from speaking lest the rally be a "partisan" event. The organizers pleaded with both Joe Biden and Barack Obama to speak, but both declined. Although Congressman Robert Wexler, a prominent Obama surrogate, was available to speak, the Democrats (including members of Congress) relentlessly pushed to have the Palin invitation rescinded.

Their argument was part naked pretext and part veiled threat: that maintaining the invitation just might prompt the IRS to investigate all sponsoring organizations' non-partisan tax-exempt status-an interesting understanding of "partisan" considering the invitations to Clinton, Obama, Biden and Wexler. (Perhaps this gives a clue how an IRS run by Obama lieutenants might treat political opponents). In an effort to maintain an appearance of Jewish unity against the evil of Iran, the organizers were forced to cave; Palin was given the boot. Game over. The Democrats won.

And so did Ahmadinejad. This had the makings of rally with impact. Besides being a tremendous show of bipartisan unity opposing Iranian aggression, the massive media attention paid to Palin's appearances would have brought the Iranian danger to the forefront of American consciousness. The rally was also attended by Iranian dissidents, human rights activists, gays, Christians, Jews and Iraqis, all of whom suffer at the hands of the mullahs' regime. Their under-reported causes could have used the publicity boost. Deflating the event by removing its star power did all these groups a huge disservice. We're sure Ahmadinejad cannot believe his good fortune. Thank you, Democrats!

Don't the Democrats vainly claim to be the party of the powerless and the voice of the voiceless? Fighters for human rights and protectors of liberty? They shouldn't flatter themselves. How did they help those causes this week? By strong-arm tactics, stifling dissent and sacrificing their "principles" for some perceived marginal political gain? Aren't those the sorts of things they're supposed to be protesting against? Perhaps they should tell us which principles they won't trample in order to gain fleeting political advantage.

Read it all. And now because of his own draconian positions, wavering back and forth as he tends to do, Obama wants all NRA ads banned from the airwaves. The Obama camp has been threatening television and radio stations to keep them from airing anti-Obama ads. The latest target is the NRA and stations in Pennsylvania.

Earlier this week, the National Rifle Association's Political Victory Fund released a series of radio and television spots to educate gun owners and sportsmen about Barack Obama's longstanding anti-gun record. In response to the NRA-PVF ads, a clearly panicked Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) are doing everything they can to hide Obama's real record by mounting a coordinated assault on the First Amendment.

This camapign has gone to desperate and outrageous lengths to try to silence the NRA by bullying media outlets with threats of lawsuits if they run NRA-PVF's ads. Here is Obama's letter to station managers.

Obama cannot and should not be trusted. Let me remind you of what our Founding President had to say on this critical topic:

“If the Freedom of Speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”

—George Washington

TANCREDO INTRODUCES ANTI-SHARIA LAW

In America we call this police brutality, but Muslims demand sharia law...

IN THE WAKE OF BRITAIN'S recent capitulation to Sharia, this is just the kind of heads up legislation that we in the United States need, and should embrace wholeheartedly.

Let's be clear that Colorado Congressman Tancredo, despite his failed bid for the presidency, is exceptionally courageous—given the current political climate of cringing ignorance if not outright appeasement to accelerating Islamic demands—in introducing this bill, and The Two-Fisted Quorum hopes that it will, at very least, ignite a national debate on the dangers of unchecked Islamic immigration, aggression, and takeover aspirations.

From Borderfire Report:

WASHINGTON, DC—Amid disturbing revelations that the verdicts of Islamic Sharia courts are now legally binding in civil cases in the United Kingdom, U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo (R-Littleton) moved quickly today to introduce legislation designed to protect the United States from a similar fate.

According to recent news reports, a new network of Sharia courts in a half-dozen major cities in the U.K. have been empowered under British law to adjudicate a wide variety of legal cases ranging from divorces and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence.

“This is a case where truth is truly stranger than fiction,” said Tancredo. “Today the British people are learning a hard lesson about the consequences of massive, unrestricted immigration.”

Sharia law, favored by Muslim extremists around the world, often calls for brutal punishment—such as the stoning of women who are accused of adultery or have children out of wedlock, cutting off the hands of petty thieves and lashings for the casual consumption of alcohol. Under Sharia law, a woman is often required to provide numerous witnesses to prove rape allegations against an assailant—a near impossible task.

That specific number of MALE witnesses a Muslim woman needs to prove her rape case is FOUR! As if rape can't happen unless it is a gang bang, conducted by turncoats. This is an abomination, a miscarriage of justice, a fraud, a human rights atrocity going on around the world, and soon to a neighborhood near you, if you don't wake up! Do not be fooled by smiling taqiyya-spewing Muslims. They are a 1400 year old sadistic cult with no place in the West. Wake up you silly Americans. This is not a cute episode of South Park or The Simpsons. This is menacing blood and guts stuff. You need to wake up, and see what we are doing to ourselves by allowing this political machine masquerading as a religion to infiltrate our nation and our institutions.

“When you have an immigration policy that allows for the importation of millions of radical Muslims, you are also importing their radical ideology—an ideology that is fundamentally hostile to the foundations of western democracy—such as gender equality, pluralism, and individual liberty,” said Tancredo. “The best way to safeguard America against the importation of the destructive effects of this poisonous ideology is to prevent its purveyors from coming here in the first place.”

Tancredo’s bill, dubbed the “Jihad Prevention Act,” would bar the entry of foreign nationals who advocate Sharia law. In addition, the legislation would make the advocacy of Sharia law by radical Muslims already in the United States a deportable offense.

Tancredo pointed to the results of a recent poll conducted by the Centre for Social Cohesion as evidence that the U.S. should act to prevent the situation in Great Britain from replicating itself here in the United States. The poll found that some 40 percent of Muslim students in the United Kingdom support the introduction of Sharia law there, and 33 percent support the imposition of an Islamic Sharia-based government worldwide.

“We need to send a clear message that the only law we recognize here in America is the U.S. Constitution and the laws passed by our democratically elected representatives,” concluded Tancredo. “If you aren’t comfortable with that concept, you aren’t welcome in the United States.”

Of course, this will be contested by both the hard Leftists who say they don't believe that national borders of any kind should exist, except when THEY CONTROL the keys to the heated pool, and the equally inspired Muslims who agree to the same thought, EXCEPT WHEN THEY THEMSELVES CONTROL the lands of the ummah.

Oi vey! Pure diabolical non-sense.

MEMORIAL DAY 2008

A moment of silence, as we salute those who have fallen in the name of freedom, in the name of liberty, in the name of America the beautiful and the star-spangled banner. Please, a moment of silence...

NOT SO FAST, CONGRESSMAN

THE NETHERLANDS IS BRACING for a new round of violence at home and against its embassies in the Middle East. The storm would be caused by "Fitna," a short film that is scheduled to be released this week. The film, which reportedly includes images of a Quran being burned, was produced by Geert Wilders, a member of the Dutch parliament and leader of the Freedom Party. Mr. Wilders has called for banning the Quran—which he has compared to Hitler's "Mein Kampf"—from the Netherlands.

After concern about the film led Mr. Wilders's Internet service provider to take down his Web site, Mr. Wilders issued a statement this week that he will personally distribute DVDs "On the Dam" if he has to. That may not be necessary, as the Czech National Party has reportedly agreed to host the video on its Web site.

Excellent, sir. All details comport to known intelligence. Those first two paragraphs of a letter penned by Republican Congressman Peter Hoekstra state plainly the case against Islamic aggression and taqiyya. However, the good legislator then stumbles with typical Western appeasement in his next paragraph:

Reasonable men in free societies regard Geert Wilders's anti-Muslim rhetoric, and films like "Fitna," as disrespectful of the religious sensitivities of members of the Islamic faith. But free societies also hold freedom of speech to be a fundamental human right. We don't silence, jail or kill people with whom we disagree just because their ideas are offensive or disturbing. We believe that when such ideas are openly debated, they sink of their own weight and attract few followers.

Wait a minute. Not so fast, Congressman. Reasonable men in free societies have no trouble at all exposing the "religious sensibilities" of the Islamic faith, a supremicist faith which does not curry nor warrant the respect of the West. Neither does this so-called religion curry or warrant the respect of the West's concept of the freedom of religion because reciprocity is forbidden to them by their own holy books and traditions. This so-called faith is a complete totalitarian system and is itself the trouble. This totalitarian faith is a free society's declared enemy. And we are not fooled by your controlled acquiesence to this menace, sir. But let us allow the Congressman to continue:

Our country allows fringe groups like the American Nazi Party to demonstrate, as long as they are peaceful. Americans are permitted to burn the national flag. In 1989, when so-called artist Andres Serrano displayed his work "Piss Christ"—a photo of a crucifix immersed in a bottle of urine—Americans protested peacefully and moved to cut off the federal funding that supported Mr. Serrano. There were no bombings of museums. No one was killed over this work that was deeply offensive to Christians.

Criticism of Islam, however, has led to violence and murder world-wide. Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie over his 1988 book, "The Satanic Verses." Although Mr. Rushdie has survived, two people associated with the book were stabbed, one fatally. The 2005 Danish editorial cartoons lampooning the prophet Muhammad led to numerous deaths. Dutch director Theodoor van Gogh was killed in 2004, several months after he made the film "Submission," which described violence against women in Islamic societies. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former Dutch member of parliament who wrote the script for "Submission," received death threats over the film and fled the country for the United States.

The violence Dutch officials are anticipating now is part of a broad and determined effort by the radical jihadist movement to reject the basic values of modern civilization and replace them with an extreme form of Shariah. Shariah, the legal code of Islam, governed the Muslim world in medieval times and is used to varying degrees in many nations today, especially in Saudi Arabia.

Radical jihadists are prepared to use violence against individuals to stop them from exercising their free speech rights. In some countries, converting a Muslim to another faith is a crime punishable by death. While Muslim clerics are free to preach and proselytize in the West, some Muslim nations severely restrict or forbid other faiths to do so. In addition, moderate Muslims around the world have been deemed apostates and enemies by radical jihadists.

Radical jihadists believe representative government is un-Islamic, and urge Muslims who live in democracies not to exercise their right to vote. The reason is not hard to understand: When given a choice, most Muslims reject the extreme approach to Islam. This was recently demonstrated in Iraq's Anbar Province, which went from an al-Qaeda stronghold to an area supporting the U.S.-led coalition. This happened because the populace came to intensely dislike the fanatical ways of the radicals, which included cutting off fingers of anyone caught smoking a cigarette, 4 p.m. curfews, beatings and beheadings. There also were forced marriages between foreign-born al Qaeda fighters and local Sunni women.

There may be a direct relationship between the radical jihadists' opposition to democracy and their systematic abuse of women. Women have virtually no rights in this radical world: They must conceal themselves, cannot hold jobs, and have been subjected to honor killings. Would most women in Muslim countries vote for a candidate for public office who supported such oppressive rules?

Not all of these radicals are using violence to supplant democratic society with an extreme form of Shariah. Some in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark are attempting to create parallel Islamic societies with separate courts for Muslims. According to recent press reports, British officials are investigating the cases of 30 British Muslim school-age girls who "disappeared" for probable forced marriages.

While efforts to create parallel Islamic societies have been mostly peaceful, they may actually be a jihadist "waiting game," based on the assumption that the Islamic populations of many European states will become the majority over the next 25-50 years due to higher Muslim birth rates and immigration. [Emphasis added and note: This is precisely what happened in Lebanon]

What is particularly disturbing about these assaults against modern society is how the West has reacted with appeasement, willful ignorance, and a lack of journalistic criticism. Last year PBS tried to suppress "Islam vs. Islamists: Voices from the Muslim Center," a hard-hitting documentary that contained criticism of radical jihadists. Fortunately, Fox News agreed to air the film.

Even if the new Wilders film proves newsworthy, it is likely that few members of the Western media will air it, perhaps because they have been intimidated by radical jihadist threats. The only major U.S. newspaper to reprint any of the controversial 2005 Danish cartoons was Denver's Rocky Mountain News. You can be sure that if these cartoons had mocked Christianity or Judaism, major American newspapers would not have hesitated to print them.

European officials have been similarly cautious. A German court ruled last year that a German Muslim man had the right to beat his wife, as this was permitted under Shariah [emphasis added]. Britain's Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, stated last month that the implementation of some measure of Shariah in Britain was "unavoidable" and British Muslims should have the choice to use Shariah in marital and financial matters.

So explain to me again why we should respect this so-called religion?

I do not defend the right of Geert Wilders to air his film because I agree with it. I expect I will not. (I have not yet seen the film). I defend the right of Mr. Wilders and the media to air this film because free speech is a fundamental right that is the foundation of modern society. Western governments and media outlets cannot allow themselves to be bullied into giving up this precious right due to threats of violence. We must not fool ourselves into believing that we can appease the radical jihadist movement by allowing them to set up parallel societies and separate legal systems, or by granting them special protection from criticism.

And why Congressman, are you not convinced that Geert Wilders in correct in his assessment of Islam? You sir, are more politically correct than you give yourself credit. We did not allow Nazis into this country in the years leading up to and during World War II. Why do we persist in allowing Muslim immigration into this country, knowing what we know, knowing what even you seem to know?

A central premise of the American experiment are these words from the Declaration of Independence: "All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." There are similar statements in the U.S. Constitution, British Common Law, the Napoleonic Code and the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights. As a result, hundreds of millions in the U.S. and around the world enjoy freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion and many other rights.

These liberties have been won through centuries of debate, conflict and bloodshed. Radical jihadists want to sacrifice all we have learned by returning to a primitive and intolerant world. While modern society invites such radicals to peacefully exercise their faith, we cannot and will not sacrifice our fundamental freedoms.

Mr. Hoekstra, who was born in the Netherlands, is ranking Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

IN COPENHAGEN PROTESTORS ATTACKED

The attack was not covered by MSM

This is not 1773, and standing up to the Islamofascists in America will never be a Boston tea party, but Europe meanwhile already has its hands full of its own blood, evidenced this time as several SIAO members from Denmark suffered an attack on their lives by Leftist thugs in the lead-up to the October 21 demonstration against the Islamization of Europe. This is nothing new, of course. Just within the past week, David Horowitz is shouted down by ill-mannered and poorly educated students at Emory University in Atlanta and Robert Spencer is repeatedly interrupted with shouts at the University of Rhode Island by opponents of free speech there, and both must travel with their own security squads for personal protection. This scene in Denmark and those happening around the campuses of America this week should serve to remind us that resisting fascism in any form is not a picnic. There will be casualties. But do not meet violence with violence, otherwise you will play into the hands of the enemy and give them the ammunition they need to retaliate. It is not the Muslim community who should be the focal point of attack but our own political leaders who have brought us into the present mess with appeasements and blatant ignorance. These outrages among peoples without borders offers merely a glimpse of what is to come should our political leaders continue to mishandle the problem.

As is pointed out often anywhere outside the mainstream media, left-wing radicals and their heroes can come to any campus in America (Ahmadinejad at Columbia) and speak to great cheers without security being breeched even once, but conservative speakers like Brigitte Gabriel, Walid Shoebat and others who disagree with the jihadi left, face grave personal dangers with each speaking engagement they accept.

Of course, the Left will continue its infilading probe into the hornet's nest. Witness this week's Code Pink attack on Condoleeza Rice. The beat goes on.

So let's persevere with our campaign, continuing to clarify the issues relating to the Islamofascist threat, but we should never descend to the tactics of these "counter" aggressors here in the US, misdirected groups such as Code Pink and IVAW. We enjoy these liberties of free speech only because of the sacrifices made by our forefathers (forefathers who these radicals now despise) with their own self-loathing apotheosis of the Other. Yes, there is much wrong with American policy, both at home and abroad. We here at the Project just feel another tact is required of our dissenters.

What is happening in our institutions of higher learning is abominable. In fact, it is these same "liberal" liberties of free speech and freedom of assembly absent in so much of the world that the enemies of liberty wish to deny those of us less susceptible to their unprovable ideologies while using such "liberal" laws to gain an advantage, many by the institution of "political correctness" onward toward sharia law which are incompatible with democratic principles and the US Constitution.

Such insanity! Better to consider the very real oppression endured by the ordinary citizens of Islamic regimes.

Coming to a blog near you. Dare I say it, should we just stop globalization in its tracks right now! Yes, let's just recoil back in time and sanctimony to our own respective testaments in history, pick a date, any date, and demand that the rest of the world feel free to crawl back under the rock they first left with outstretched hand. That should clear all this mess up, nice and tidy, right?

FREEDOM AND LIBERTY CAST BEFORE US

I noticed the word "decency" but I could add another “respect”. Respect for one's nation and pride in one's nation. Our founding fathers had the decency and respect for themselves to tell the British where to shove their taxes. Was it the prudent or safe thing to do? Now way but they did anyway and thank god for it because today we live in a free nation were we bow to no nobles or kings. The anti-slavery movement had decency and respect for themselves which is why they opposed slavery. They could have sat around and ignored it. Let it just pass over the falls but they did not and resisted and fought. Was it the prudent and safe thing to do? No way for it led to a civil war but thank god for it.

Today no man is enslaved in this land. We can hold our head up with pride. Throughout our nation's history we have had people who did the unsafe thing so today we could be free and be proud. We did not do it for the adventure but because it was the right thing to do. Now we are faced with yet another example. It is a small one. The question before us is should we recognize the sufferings of the Armenians in the genocide of 1915?

Some say it is not needed because it is for the historians to ponder. I disagree, for if we had let the injustice of the past be pondered by historians of the future we would not be in America today and we would still have chattel slavery. Some say we will anger a supposed ally in the so called war on terror. I disagree, for would a real ally react as Turkey has reacted to simple words.

We are not threatening to wage war against Turkey yet they appear to be willing to kill Americans if we get in their way when they invade northern Iraq. Once again if they behave like this over a few words can they really be trusted for anything? Are they really an ally? Yes, there will be some fallout. Perhaps it will prevent Bush’s plan to unify Iraq and bring Democracy to the Islamic world.

However, it is clear that was not working anyway and if you accept that Islam is a political ideology and not just a faith then the Iraqi adventure was doomed to begin with. There are also some among you that think this a ploy by certain democrats to get us out of Iraq and to make Bush look bad. You maybe are right but I don’t really care. Bush does not need the democrats to make him look stupid as has been proven beyond count. Bush does this to himself. We are in Iraq today because of George W. Bush. This is his mess, so let him figure out how to fix it. That is what you get when you put your trust in nations like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan and others and allow them to play roles in your battle plan. This is why we will continue to pay a heavy price for doing economic and military deals with these nations. This is the price for us buying their oil, this is the price of freedom.

We are not free. If we were free we would not be pushing for a Palestinian state. If we were free we would not be thinking about thought crimes. If we were free we would not be begging Arabians to stop their war against our people. The Arabians proved their point on 9-11. They killed thousands of Americans and what did we do about it? Nothing. For we fear they might hurt our economy. That sounds like a slave to me. If you are a decent, proud and free man or woman you would have no problem with this bill for it is the truth no matter how silly or irreverent it might seem. However, it appears our master has screamed and some of you (along with our President and Congress) have jumped for Massa Turkey.

I am a free man so my response to Turkey is this is none of their business. This is between the United States and Armenia. We recognize their suffering in the 1915 mass murder of their people by the Ottoman Empire. End of Story…

—Great Comet of 1577

Great essay, and I agree with most of its tenets. However, as pointed out on another blog, this does nothing to end a war, but actually extends it which was not the Democrats original motive. And, this small detail is obviously why Speaker Pelosi has now backed off this airy resolution a mere day or two after the news broke she and her cronies were pushing their October Surprise up the Hill.