Harvard Law Review.

Community Development Block Grant grants are

"an important program that provides housing and creating jobs for low- and moderate-income people and places."

~Pres. Obama.

"Block Grants Forever. A deathless program and its long record of failure." By Steven Malanga, City Journal, Spring 2010 (bracketed comment omitted).

The reason for leftist panic.

I would suggest that one of the main reasons so many liberals are in a flop-sweating, bowel-stewing panic over Fox News and the Tea Parties is that they understand such developments are a real threat to epistemic hegemony of liberalism that has been unraveling for the last decade and half. . . .

. . . Since 1950, “vital center” liberals, and of course leftists, have looked for every conceivable excuse to delegitimize conservative dissent and criticism. For decades, liberal elites abused their monopoly on the media and their near complete control of the commanding heights of the culture to attack not just conservative ideas, but conservative motives . . . . That effort is still under way in the arts, in academia and in the few remaining bastions of the “legacy media.”

. . . [L]iberals have grown more shrill and desperate in their efforts to delegitimize conservative ideas, new and old.

Liberal reaction to conservative argument heads south after the first two or three sentences. Conservatives are racists, sexists, nativists, bigots, borderline paranoids, full-fledged paranoids, homophobes, or xenophobes. You see it everywhere.

Mr. Goldberg is right. Liberals go straight to vitriol and personal attack because they’re desperate at the loss of the monopoly and unaccustomed to doing the work to refute the substance of conservative arguments. The Supreme Court’s reversal of 140+ years of learning on the Commerce Clause was an atrocious betrayal and a lie from the word “The” on down. Yet, since the New Deal, this betrayal has been lauded as wisdom incarnate and served up as the mother’s milk of the unitary state.

Now conservatives have the outlets to proclaim leftist lies for what they are and leftists can do nothing to stop the threat to the foundation of their power. They try to foist hate speech laws, PC codes, Fairness Doctrine II, and net neutrality on us. But their real agenda is plain. They are attacking free speech and will do all in their power to demonize their hated enemies on the right.

Leftist hostility to liberty is clear.

"The Conservative Bubble and Liberalism’s Cargo Cult." By Jonah Goldberg, The American, 4/13/10.

The real Islam.

Thinking of Muslim realities in the West in the context of our opulence, overall rationality, and political control over Muslims is as useful as sending a squad of commandos to organize a baby shower. Think "exercise in futility."

Boys will be boys.

We see too much through the lens of our own culture, which is sane, responsive, accommodating, and ruled for the most part by laws that are sorta kinda rational and of our own choosing. We don't lash guys for stealing a kiss from a girl in public. We don't stone adulterers or hang homosexuals. And we don't force school girls back into burning buildings for dress code violations.

To escape this built in bias, it’s useful to rise for a moment about the pointless debates over (a) what moderate Muslims in Sheboygan are like and (b) how the First Amendment is vindicated by pandering to aliens whose “religion . . . aims to impose a system of laws that will end freedom of religion and freedom of speech.”^[1]

Let us, therefore, consider what Islam is like in the Shangri-La of the Sahara:

Racism was an integral part of Saudi society. My students often used the word “nigger” to describe black people. Even dark-skinned Arabs were considered inferior to their lighter-skinned cousins. I was living in the world’s most avowedly Muslim country, yet I found it anything but. . . .

* * * *

In supermarkets I only had to be away from Faye [my wife] for five minutes and Saudi men would hiss or whisper obscenities as they walked past. . . .

* * * *

We had heard stories of the abduction of women from taxis by sex-deprived Saudi youths. At a Saudi friend’s wedding at a luxurious hotel in Jeddah, women dared not step out of their hotel rooms and walk to the banqueting hall for fear of abduction by the bodyguards of a Saudi prince who also happened to be staying there.^[2]

Now that is 180-proof Islam. Stark. As practiced. Unfiltered.

What you see in Saudi Arabia is what you get when Muslims have absolute political power, unlimited funds, and

Not Halloween.

the daily opportunity to drink deeply from the fountain of the Holy Koran {Obama voice, short "o," trilled "r, emphasis first syllable"}. The blather about how Islam will work just fine in the West and how Islam is a fine religion worthy of respect from all civilized people can be seen for the vaporous BS that it is when you keep your eye firmly on how Muslims run things when no infidels are in the way.

A very insightful teacher once taught that “People usually are the way they usually are.” There's a whole lot of wisdom and common sense guidance in there and the concept is a great aid in avoiding self deception when desire or fear or laziness make us want to not see what's staring us in the face.

Applying the lesson, we see that there is no Western hybrid Muslim learned in the ways of the shariah but enthralled with ballroom dancing and questioning the old, stale verities. There is no moderate Muslim, and there is no assimilated Muslim. There are only Muslims, former Muslims, and dead Muslims for our purposes -- any purposes really -- and any compromise with Muslims is just another step in the direction of Saudi realities (on which the above has barely scraped the surface).

They expect us to compromise with them but Muslims intend to compromise with us the same way they plan on joining the Knights of Columbus.

Not any time soon.

In the immortal words of the Abu Musab al Zarqawi, Jordanian terrorist and Osama Bin Laden’s chief lieutenant in Iraq: "We have declared a bitter war against the principle of democracy and all those who seek to enact it."^[3]

Just how do you compromise with that? Answer: you don’t even try. There can be no compromise with this alien political doctrine.

None.

Even this little effort of mine to lift up the corner of the curtain on the real Islam is beyond inadequate. At least it's something. Weeks can pass on network news programs without mention of the tenets of this virulent enemy doctrine. Strike that. They never mention stuff like this. I have never heard the persecution of Christians in Muslim lands or death for apostasy from Islam discussed in the liberal legacy media. Oh, wait. Ramadan. Ramadan. Ramadan. Ramadan. And more Ramadan.

Rama lama ding dong. That you hear about. Yes, you do.

Now that death for apostasy deal. That's got a couple, three things about it that almost implicate the First Amendment, right? You'd think CAIR, every wahhabi imam financed by the Saudis here in the U.S. (a lot), and every moderate Muslim who was absolutely stone faced on the morning of 9/11 would be putting messages 24/7 on Jimmy Dean sausage wrappers how this abysmal medieval practice is so like history. But you'd be wrong. No. Americans have to bend our First Amendment around this rotting corpse of a religion like The Terminator wrapped that tire iron around the noggin of a robotic hound of Hell sent back from the 23rd century. This is all that our political class knows to do.

Americans will not face the truth. Not yet, they won’t.

Notes
^[1] "Sharia in a First Amendment Society." By William Kilpatrick, Right Side News, 8/1/10.
^[2] "How a British jihadi saw the light." By Ed Husain, Sunday Times, 4/21/07.
^[3] "Al-Qaeda Versus Democracy." James S. Robbins, The Journal of International Security Affairs, Fall 2005.

Western cowardice.

This video by Bill Whittle is superb. The insane tolerance for the intolerable we see every day here and in Europe is rooted in cowardice.



Bill Whittle: Ground Zero Mosque Reality Check

H/t: "Ciceronian Reflections." By Irish Cicero, Washington Rebel, 8/21/10.

Wellspring.

[A] substantial number of academic studies published since 2002, and a Pentagon briefing paper published in September 2006, titled “Motivations of Muslim Suicide Bombers”, [point] to the Koran as the main source of the pathological hatred that fills the mind and heart of every Muslim suicide bomber.^[1]

So there you have it – distilled hatred.

How George Bush could speak of Islam as a “religion of peace” is beyond me.

It is an accurate phrase if you parse it right. Under Islamic law, you’re theoretically left in peace if you grovel before Muslims or become one. If you resist the plans Muslims have for your particular corner of Dar al- Harb [0:37], well, it’s the peace of the battlefield for you, win or lose.

Not a bad concept in the context of the modern Islamic challenge, really. If you think about it.

That "peace of the battlefield" dealy bob

Notes
^[1] “The Koran: A ‘Holy Book’ or Hate Literature?" By Baron Bodissey, Gates of Vienna, 8/18/10.

The real U.S. foreign policy.

The apparent U.S. foreign policy isn’t the real one.

Nope. This is:

No study of Europe’s subjection to transatlantic elites would be complete without mentioning the use of Muslims to further divide and demoralize its peoples. For the past 30 years, beginning with covert U.S. support to the Afghan mujahideen, Washington has courted Islamic power as a vehicle of influence in Eurasia, and Europe is no exception in this regard. Through the course the 1990s NATO bombarded Serbs and introduced peacekeeping troops into the Balkans to create Muslim states Bosnia and Kosovo on the carcass of Tito’s Yugoslavia.

To locate the real U.S. foreign policy you’ve got to go down in the basement at midnight with a flashlight and a can of luminescent spray paint. If you lock the door to the kitchen and bring enough cans of paint you can go to work and pretty soon you’ll be able to see that ghostly apparition well enough. Once you do, it becomes clear why Bush hopped into his dressing gown and slippers and sprinted over to the Muslim version of OKW the morning after 9/11.

Yes, it does.

Mr. Hackard takes note of the bizarre phenomenon of “immigrants from wildly incompatible cultures like those of Pakistan or Morocco” and the counter intuitive “social chaos, insolvency and spiritual collapse that the liberal order brings.” On the latter point, whatever my prof in Western Civ. 101 said a half a lifetime ago, he sure didn’t make out that the West was host to any kind of a cancer like that.

But it was.

Huge numbers of very smart and educated people were infected with a brain-eating disease that made them see in totalitarianism’s march through the last century not horror, not poverty, and not human degradation but rather the sweet siren song of man’s liberation at the hands of the enlightened elite (as in guess who). Betraying the true liberal order of genuine freedom was but a small transgression in the service of that goal of liberation.

That same disease operates at this very hour to deny the degradation, backwardness, and destruction of the soul built into Islam. As a direct result, outwardly non-idiotic kuffar treat Muslims like they invented CinemaScope, the toaster oven, and Ginzu Knives all in the time of Shakespeare.

Maybe Mao was onto something when he sent the intellectuals "down to the country."

"The Rape of Europa. How the West is Overrun." By Mark Hackard, Alternative Right, 7/22/10 (emphasis added; link omitted). H/t: "Make way for your replacement population." By Elizabeth Wright, Issues and Views, 7/29/10.

Clever comments.

If the GOP gains control of one or both Houses of Congress in the November midterm elections, and then does not make good on its promises to reverse and counter the Democrats' socialist agenda, we could hear the death knell that signals the end of the Grand Old Party.

Establishment Republicans may act like idiots, they may sound like idiots and they may even look like idiots, but don't let that fool you, they really are idiots.

FeralCat commenting on "How A GOP November Victory Could Bring Its Death." By Lee Cary, American Thinker, 8/12/10.

Do you buy it, Pilgrim?

We have a government firmly committed to privilege and theft:

"Capitalism" is neither the Right-wing, crony-capitalism corporate-welfare economy, nor the anti-rich, wealth-redistribution social-welfare economy that we have today. In a truly capitalist society businesses never receive money or special privileges from government: they succeed if they please consumers in offering them what they want, and they fail if they do not. By the same token, in a truly capitalist society, individuals never receive special privileges or transfer payments. Instead, they have an abundance of jobs and of wages commensurate with the value of their work (more than a "living wage").^[1]

The Constitution offers no protection whatsoever.

First, a little background: the original federal scheme provided for in the Constitution was junked in the 1930s. (It was already compromised in other ways by that time but it is sufficient to consider here only this additional major subversion of the original scheme.)

Completely reversing 140 some years of its prior understanding of the Commerce Clause, the Supreme Court had a Great Karnak moment and arrived at a new “understanding” that the power of Congress to regulate “Commerce . . . among the several States” meant Congress could regulate “every @#$%g thing in sight.”

Who knew?

With few exceptions, the entire legal profession of the United States today treats the Supreme Court with a deference that ought to be nauseating to anyone who recognizes the betrayal that occurred in the 1930s. As a younger lawyer I was puzzled when Attorney General Meese said that the Constitution is what it says, not what the Supreme Court says it says. I had not yet come to the understanding I have now that the Court is no guardian of our liberties, the recent Second Amendment case to the contrary notwithstanding. Ever since the ‘30s, we have chosen to docilely accept The Great Betrayal and the subsequent congressional dilution of our liberties that it enabled. We assumed honor, which was a mistake.

Any way you slice it, the Court’s now on board for statism in a big way.

All of which is to say that the bastardized arrangement of deals, payoffs, exactions, takings, regulatings, posturings, and foreign adventurings that passes for the current U.S. “constitutional” system came about because the Supreme Court long ago threw in the towel on making principled interpretations of the Constitution and shows little inclination to ever cease from doing so. Clarence Thomas would have at it with a V-8 turbo Weed Eater^TM but there’s slight chance that originals like him will be appointed to the court to help out.

So we now have an all powerful federal government massively enriched by the income tax, unrestrained by a Supreme Court or by a Senate beholden to state interests, and backed up with an impressive panoply of federal criminal legislation that can distribute goodies to favored contractors and the underclass ad astra. The former reward the politicians with campaign contributions and the latter with their votes.

In short, we have a poisonous combination of unrestrained crony capitalism and dependency politics. Mostly the latter, though I suspect there's far more of the former than I or anyone has realized.

It’s not much of a trade for the system that the Founders set up but the Supreme Court and legal profession don’t shed any tears for its disappearance that I can see.

Why do we tolerate, even honor, the betrayal by the Supreme Court? Had it held to principle, the federal government would not have been in a position to do the grievous damage it has. Does ObamaCare have a constitutional basis? Nancy Pelosi thought it was an outrageously quaint question to ask.

One reason that we tolerate it is because we can’t see the underlying realities. The MSM is absolutely committed to preservation of political lies and the political class in general works hard to maintain illusions. Here, it’s the illusion that the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution is principled.

There are other illusions it is vital to maintain. One is that the present economic system in the U.S. is “capitalist” whose miseries can be avoided by adopting statists rather than free market solutions. Far from being a system characterized by economic freedom it’s an economic system that’s hampered by bureaucrats and regulations of all kinds. But how would you know if you depended on the MSM?

Another illusion is that “fascism” is a “right wing” phenomenon, not the twin separated at birth from (leftist) totalitarianism. If “fascism” is right wing, then so is Nazisim, and real right wingers who say they value freedom are actually Nazis who want to enslave you and your family. Stay hard left, citizens! Baron Boddisey has an excellent piece over at Gates of Vienna on "false fronts" which deals with the same phenomenon.

Is the Supreme Court really entitled to the honor and respect we accord it? Do we really buy the nonsense about ours being a “living Constitution,” one that can be amended by five Supreme Court justices instead of by the constitutionally-mandate procedure in Article V? The latter requires a huge amount of discussion and persuasion and the votes of a lot more citizens then merely five of them. The “living Constitution” idea advocated by a great many educated citizens -- and now operative -- gives us back an aristocracy.

Do you buy that? Is this what you honor on the Fourth? Rule by your betters? By people who have stolen your sovereign political power?

Notes
^[1] "Give Capitalism a Chance." By Kel Kelly, Mises Daily, 8/4/10 (reviewing his own book The Case for Legalizing Capitalism).

The mother of all lost opportunities.

In 2008, blacks enjoyed a truly historic moment to vote for black man for president. Older Americans could think back to the days of Selma and Medgar Evers and not be in any doubt about what enormous changes there have been. It's easy to understand how blacks felt when Obama appeared in the race. I felt the same way when McAmnesty chose Palin. Here was one of my own, not some overeducated twit.

But what have been the results of Obama's election? The credentialed Obama is more articulate than the less credentialed Palin -- but which of the two now would you count on to say something sensible or insightful? Which one, in your heart of hearts, do you know knows how to fix a flat tire on her car or how to exercise political authority beyond simply voting “present” or letting Nancy do it?

This is Obama's world view:

1. Black is the way to go to ride the gravy train.
2. The American past is worthless and offers no clue as to the proper ordering of political, social, and economic life.
3. Patriotism is having a vision of a formless future America with no connection to her past.
4. Amnesty, spend, elect.
   

Not one thing that Obama says convinces me that he knows what America is. In one of "his" books he makes clear that he sought out the company of radicals when he wasn't doing drugs and grinding out cigarettes in the hall carpets of his college dormitory. Actually, it was while he was doing drugs, etc.

My peeps!

But did he drink from the waters that flowed from Independence Hall so long ago?

A job for Columbo.

Palin was a thrilling choice because she was one of US, not someone who had to call Prince Janjaweed or George Soros to find out what she thinks on a subject. She was an original and she got it about America. Best of all, she'd made an end run around the Repub sifters, grifters, choosers, schmoozers, and losers. It was almost enough to make someone take up moose hunting.

So, God bless blacks who thought that they were seeing a national candidate just like them for a change, someone who hadn't (hah) been vetted by whites. Fine. I loved Palin because she too hadn't been vetted by whites.

On the simple matter of who understands America, it's Sarah hands down and Obama who comes across as doing the Alinsky two-step and preaching out of the latter’s sordid playbook. Which was dedicated to Lucifer, never forget. Now there’s a competing vision for you. Lucifer v. Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, Whitman, Twain, and a few others.

Which way to choose? Oh, Lord, which way?

It is the stuff of (ancient) Greek tragedy that the black who entered the White House as a truly historic figure with oceans of good will beneath his keel has proved to be a man whose intellectual arsenal was stocked with textbooks right out the 99¢ Bargain Bin at Dollar General. Obviouslyyyyy, the preacher and other blacks highlighted in this video have a greater personal understanding of the realities of the black experience than Obama and why America at any stage is just about as good as it can ever get.

However, it's anybody's guess what Obama's real experience has been and the search for his life’s paper trail will surely rank up there with Speke and Burton’s search for the headwaters of the Nile. So far, the searchers on that Kred Kwest are, figuratively speaking, just checking in to the Cairo airport Motel 6.

So the catalytic effect of Mr. Obama’s presidency has been zilch and the opportunity to get the self-pitying, dependent, or rejectionist portion of the black population to move away from reliance on government or asinine revenge fantasies in the direction of achievement and self reliance has been lost at this most propitious of times.

Worse, his fundamental lack of understanding of and affection for the American experience -- the whole American experience -- is doing great damage to the nation and his presidency. His vision of race reality forged in the crucible of shaped by the company of subversives and race haters threatens to drive home the lesson, not that the tremendous sacrifices made to make equal rights and opportunity a reality for blacks have paid off, but rather that even blacks who appear to be the essence of what we hoped would come from a multitude of opened doors, even they . . . cannot be trusted not to harbor resentful and destructive ideas and plans that are completely at odds with what America is all about.

The Allen Wests, Larry Elders, Elizabeth Wrights, David Almasis, Clarence Thomases, and Chris Rocks put the lie to that idea and the contrast between people such as they and the clowns here and there in the executive and legislative branch of the federal government today is painful to regard. The former people are black and have understanding, perspective, and appreciation.

Obama is black and a passable speaker.

Next!

"Do 88% of African Americans love Obama because they’re racist or stupid?" By Rachel Peepers, Eternity Road, 8/5/10.

First Amendment un-Islamic.

Moreover, one of the main purposes of the First Amendment is to prohibit the government from establishing a state religion. But the main purpose of Islam is precisely to establish itself as the state religion. In other words, the First Amendment is un-Islamic. Islam's raison d´etre is to be the established religion in every nation.

A related point to consider:

Is it desirable to maintain a strict neutrality between the religion on which your civilization is founded and the religion which aims to dismantle it?

Do we have to commit suicide as a nation or is possible for a whole lot of grownups in a leadership position to cut the Gordian knot and ask, “What part of unassimilable, hostile, killer, oppressive, sneaky, third-world joke of a pseudo-religion do you not understand? Do you doubt that Islam is just as elegant, coherent, and civilized as Santeria or voodoo? Get a grip, people! Islam means the death of every Western value that gives meaning, rationality, and security to your lives.”

"Sharia in a First Amendment Society." By William Kilpatrick, Right Side News, 8/1/10 -- a seminal article.

Victory or death.

H/t: Washington Rebel.

Mildly creative.

H/t: Joan of Argghh!

Who dunnit?

There’s an interesting exchange series of comments beginning with progressoverpeace’s comment on an article^[1] on Pajamas Media.

It’s a give and take on who’s to blame for the election of Pres. Jakarta Man -- voters or a rudderless GOP (with honorable mention for the media).

It’s nothing you probably haven’t seen before in its disparate parts but the commenters between them came up with a pretty good take on the 2008 election. “Smith” gets in some good licks on what might have been had Mr. Bush had more political acumen and actually dared to exercise some of his constitutional power as president -- beyond just wiretapping U.S. citizens who accidently dialed the phone numbers of Muslim terrorist dirtbags overseas.

Talk about “Wrong NUMber”!!!!

Notes
^[1] “Maureen Dowd and the Left: All Race, All the Time.” By Bernard Chapin, Pajamas Media, 8/1/10.