The Narrative of Hate

You hear a lot about the “hatefulness” of conservatives and Tea Party activists these days.  Lefty web sites were eager to pin the recent stabbing of a Muslim cab driver in New York on right wingers, since all opposition to the Ground Zero mosque is dismissed as vicious bigotry.  They were crushed to learn the perpetrator was a volunteer for an interfaith organization that supports the mosque.

Jim Treacher of The Daily Caller points out a hilarious post from Talking Points Memo, where the commenters cling desperately to The Narrative Of Hatred, even after learning the guy who urinated on a Muslim prayer rug was a garden variety drunk instead of a Tea Party storm trooper.  One TPM blogger was so upset by the blood-dimmed tide of right-wing fury that he ran off and firebombed Russ Carnahan’s office.

Ignoring this useless reality, MSNBC ties the wee-weed rug into “a spate of anti-Muslim incidents” and delivers the chilling warnings of a CAIR spokesman that fiery clouds of violent hatred are massing over the Religion of Peace:

FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko told msnbc.com that New York City has not seen a change in the number of hate crimes reported by Muslims so far this year, but every report is taken seriously.

But recent incidents — including the stabbing of a Muslim cab driver and the desecration of a California mosque — have some members of the Muslim community worried that crimes against Muslims could reach crisis levels.

“Without a significant response by mainstream political leaders, this disturbing trend will only continue to grow,” said Faiza Ali, a New York spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Even the Grand Old Party may fall victim of a hateful “insurrection,” as Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne sobs from his fainting couch:

Republicans are in the midst of an insurrection. Democrats are not. This vast gulf between the situations of the two parties — not some grand revolt against “the establishment” or “incumbents” — explains the year’s primary results, including Tuesday’s jarring outcomes in Florida and Alaska.

… That the deficit increased primarily because of two tax cuts and two wars was not part of most conservatives’ calculation because acknowledging this was ideologically inconvenient. In the meantime, the election of President Obama by a demographically diverse coalition anchored among younger voters helped unleash the furies inside an older, overwhelmingly white and Southern-leaning GOP coalition.

Leave aside the fact that only a complete idiot would believe the deficit has increased primarily because of tax cuts and wars, and heed the wisdom of Dionne’s warning to his beloved Republican Party.  Last Tuesday’s primaries were the most horrific bloodbath since Blade walked into a vampire disco.  Rick Scott ran a “brutal campaign” to become the Republican nominee for Florida governor.  A terrified Lisa Murkowski was crushed by “right-wing power” and is now huddled beneath her desk, waiting for the murderous avatar of Joe McCarthy to come and devour her soul.  John McCain barely survived his primary by “modifying long-held positions to appease hard-line conservatives,” and unleashing Darth Palin on the fearful voters of Arizona.  Meanwhile, Glenn Beck prepares to lead a horde of his followers across the sacred ground where only duly authorized heirs to the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. may walk.  They will spend the weekend dressed in ghoulish makeup and tattered baseball outfits, marching in circles around Congress and taunting Democrats to come out and play.

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Equality Before The Law

The Washington Post brings us news of an Obama Administration report to the United Nations, confessing our “less than perfect” human rights record:

In its first-ever report to the U.N. Human Rights Council on conditions in the United States, the State Department said Monday that some Americans, notably minorities, are still victims of discrimination. Despite success in reforming such inequities as slavery and the denial of women’s right to vote, the department said, considerable progress is still needed.

Those “successes in reforming the inequities of slavery and the denial of women’s right to vote” occurred 145 and 90 years ago, respectively.  Obama Administration functionaries must have a highly refined disdain for their own country, in order to bring them up as a way of giving a little pat on the head to an ugly, backwards nation.  There hasn’t been much progress on human rights in America since we passed the Nineteenth Amendment, but thank heavens Barack Obama is finally on the case!  He inherited the throne of a miserable country, but perhaps his enlightened leadership can work us up to a solid B+.

The Administration report lists the daunting issues it must overcome to reach the human-rights plateau occupied by China, Saudi Arabia, Libya, and the other deeply concerned members of the U.N. Human Rights Council:

High unemployment rates, hate crime, poverty, poor housing, lack of access to health care and discriminatory hiring practices are among the challenges the report identified as affecting blacks, Latinos, Muslims, South Asians, Native Americans and gays and lesbians in the United States.

As DrewM at Ace of Spades notes, none of these things are “human rights violations.”  The nature of the real violation is implied: resistance to the progressive agenda that will supposedly eliminate these unpleasant realities of life.  The essential absurdity of multiculturalism is the need to drag America down until it can be treated as equal to the thug states infesting the United Nations.  That’s how we end up with the Obama Administration moaning about “lack of access to health care” as a human rights violation, in a report submitted to a council that includes Saudi Arabia, where a court has ruled that a man’s spinal cord can be severed as punishment.

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The Phantom Priority

After the passage of his massive health-care plan, President Obama promised a “hard pivot” to dealing with our flagging economy.  Job creation was said to be his new “top priority.”  Politicians make a habit of declaring lots of top priorities.  Mark Knoller of CBS News recently put together an amusing list of thirteen items the President has declared to be his top priority.  The promise to put the economy first was repeated loudly and often.  It will still be ringing in the ears of voters when they clean Democrats out of Congress with an electoral leaf blower this autumn.

In reality, job creation and economic growth are nowhere to be found on this Administration’s list of priorities.  The “hard pivot” was actually the feeble ring of ruby slippers clicking together.

Anyone who seriously considered job creation imperative would, at a bare minimum, refrain from the wholesale destruction of industries.  Michelle Malkin gives us the bomb damage assessment from the Obama War on Jobs: dereliction of duty on border security, the offshore drilling moratorium, pulling onshore drilling leases, shutting down auto dealerships, and the burden of paying for health insurance “reform” which has become a sucking chest wound in the U.S. economy.  The offshore drilling industry will take decades to rebuild, as equipment begins to move permanently out of U.S. waters.  The Administration knew the ban it fought so hard to impose would kill 23,000 jobs.  Obviously the preservation of those jobs was not a “top priority.”

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The Sanctification of Awful Men

Saturday brought the bizarre saga of Sweden announcing a rape charge against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, then withdrawing the warrant within a matter of hours, downgrading the international media hurricane to a tropical storm of “molestation” charges.  Molestation isn’t “severe” enough to get you arrested in Sweden, so it was all much ado about nothing.

Some have speculated this was more than just a bureaucratic snafu.  Was the Swedish government co-operating with the military and intelligence services of the United States, hoping to discredit Assange with false rape charges?  I hope nobody working for the CIA is incompetent enough to believe that would work.  Even hard evidence of rape would not “discredit” a hero of the international Left.

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The Truth About America

Sometimes people say there’s no way America can pull out of its death spiral.  No matter what polls may say about the national mood turning against those pushing us into submission and bankruptcy… no matter what brilliant ideas for national renewal might be advanced… our character has become too flawed.  We’re too easily stampeded, too gullible, and too dependent.  The Left tells us we’re too bigoted and simple-minded to bear the leadership of the free world any longer.  We’ll end up pressed against the corpse of our insolvent government, furiously suckling our last droplets of benefit and subsidy, pausing only to snarl at any foreigner who approaches.

It’s not hard to find evidence against that dismal analysis.  With the official conclusion of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the truth about America is riding home with our returning combat veterans.

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November In Focus

The strands of the Internet hum with confusion, anger, and message manipulation from an increasingly desperate Left.  Their last-ditch strategy involves brewing up a petri dish full of viral memes about the conservative grassroots, in the hope of weakening their resolve, and perhaps frightening a few independents into staying home in November.  They hope to nourish the disgust of the “pox on both their houses” types into lethargy.

It’s not going to work.  The next two elections are vitally important, and we remain focused.  I hope we’ll also remember the lesson that all elections are important.  Today’s crisis is the output of many generations of error.

We are not “distracted” by debates such as the Ground Zero mosque.  Expressing opposition to this project is not a mind-melting exercise.  Islam is still infused with too much of the bloody darkness that terrorized the aisles of United 93, United 175, American 11, and American 77 with box-cutters gripped in its tendrils.  The organizers of the Cordoba House project have been unwilling to denounce that darkness without qualification.  “Outreach” and “tolerance” are vitally needed in the Muslim world, not the streets of Manhattan.  This only seems complicated to those who willfully blindfold themselves with ideology, or subordinate common sense to political calculation.

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Doctor Zero Podcasts: 100 And Counting!

The redoubtable Joe Koday has reached a milestone, and recorded his 100th Doctor Zero Podcast.  To commemorate the occasion, he penned the following ode to Lori Ziganto, which also happens to mention my work in passing.

Writing about current events is like whitewater rafting.  It’s amazing how much distance you can cover before you know it.  I’m delighted and honored that Joe continues to produce these excellent audio recordings!

Click here to listen to the Doctor Zero Podcasts

Follow Joe Koday on Twitter

Take a number behind Joe and stalk Lori at Snarkandboobs

Doctor Zero: Superhero by Joe Koday

Look!  Up in the sky!  It’s a bird!  It’s a plane!  No . . .it’s a plain bird.  That’s the best superhero joke I know.  Doc Zero once wrote that it was best to begin a composition with an arresting opening paragraph.  I always preferred to go for comedy over drama. Get the audience laughing and they’re yours.

My name is Joe Koday.  Since April 2010 I’ve had the honor and the pleasure of being the voice behind Doc Zero’s Podcasts.  I take Doc’s brilliant essays (read by millions in 170 countries and on the International Space Station) and produce audio recordings of them for a world wide audience of . . . six or seven.  This is Doctor Zero’s 100th podcast.

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Atonement and Absolution

The following facts about Islam are objectively true:

1.  Islam is the most violent religion in the world.  Almost every point of contact between Islam and other religions, or secular government, is damp with blood.

2. Most Muslims do not commit violent acts.  There are over a billion Muslims in the world, and several million living in the United States.  If the majority of them were killers, the situation would be far worse than it is.

3. Few Muslim leaders of any stature will unequivocally condemn violence in the name of Islam.  Those who do deserve great respect, but there aren’t nearly enough of them.  The imam behind the Cordoba House project, Faisal Abdul Rauf, is a Hamas sympathizer who refuses to describe them as “terrorists.”  Isn’t it striking that the man heading up the highest-profile Islamic project in the Western world has such nuanced views about a murderous terror organization which fires rockets at Israeli civilians, from behind Palestinian human shields?  Was there really nobody else who could have headed up this expensive exercise in outreach and understanding?

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The New Abnormal

Back in June, Vice President Joe Biden made one of the bizarre statements for which he has become famous, as reported by CBS News:

Vice President Joe Biden gave a stark assessment of the economy today, telling an audience of supporters, “there’s no possibility to restore 8 million jobs lost in the Great Recession.”

Appearing at a fundraiser with Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) in Milwaukee, the vice president remarked that by the time he and President Obama took office in 2008, the gross domestic product had shrunk and hundreds of thousands of jobs had been lost.

“We inherited a godawful mess,” he said, adding there was “no way to regenerate $3 trillion that was lost. Not misplaced, lost.”

There’s no possibility those jobs will ever come back?  Really?  The American economy simply decided to wipe out eight million positions?  The real unemployment rate, counting long-term discouraged workers who have dropped out of the labor force entirely, is over 16%.  Some metrics place it closer to 21%.  Does anyone really believe that the free market, of its own accord, would choose to leave a fifth of the working population idle?

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The Destiny of a Free Nation

In the comments to The Dominion of Liars, itzWicks asks:

The refrain that I hear over and over again at the conclusion of excellent essays such as this (as well as from the well articulated comments that follow on this blog) is sadly the same: “What are we going to do about it? What can be done now?”

That’s a great question.  It’s easy to react, analyze, and criticize.  It’s natural for a writer to spend much of his time doing so, when the philosophy he opposes holds all the power, and makes all the news.  Today’s current events are largely created by the Left.

I write essays like “The Dominion of Liars” because I believe every opportunity should be taken to present the case that statism is fundamentally flawed, from its mistaken premises to its corrupt conclusions.  It’s important to couple that prosecution with testimony about the power and virtue of freedom, along with a fair accounting of its dangers.

The scale of the challenge facing us is formidable.  Like all fearsome things, it is also exhilarating.  In the blood and bile of this dying statist economy, we can see the desperate future of an indentured nation… a truth many of us have refused to see, when displayed in bankrupt socialism around the world.  What is the destiny of a free nation?

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