Everything costs something

Is there's an observer on the socio-political scene with more useful insights than Theodore Dalrymple? In this brief column he dissects the problem with socialism/communism/fascism with a real life experience he had some 20 years ago while visiting North Korea.  It's inconceivable to us in the West that the kind of existence Dalrymple describes can be the case and yet we know it is throughout the Middle East, Africa, and the Far East.  And yet one senses that a version of this existence is where the Obama forces would eventually take us.  Freedom is a slippery slope and giving it up via Obamacare here, Cap and Trade there inevitably leads to dominance of the state and the enslavement of its populace who then become subjects.  Something, anything for nothing has a compelling appeal to many who would do well to remember that there really are no free lunches and that everything costs something even if its free.

Protestantism's weak link

For many years now mainstream Protestant sects, e.g., Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Lutheran, et al, have been losing communicants while Evangelical sects have been growing. There are no doubt many and complicated reasons for this development;  however,  at least one obvious explanation lies in thinking of the current Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who as the head of the Church of England putatively speaks as the religious voice of the state of England and its worldwide offshoot, the Episcopal Church.  Williams embodies the secular and politically correct "social justice" philosophy reflected in the leftist politics of Barak Obama and his minions.  Briefly this philosophy is anti the values embodied in the American Constitutional, anti the concept of American exceptionalism,  anti-Western values in general, specifically Capitalism's embrace of the importance of self interest, private property rights, competition, and all the rest that goes with an economic system that has raised millions of people out of poverty over the last two hundred years.  Communitarians like Williams and Obama want  an economic system that produces equal outcomes and a society in which all group political and religious rights and values are accepted and respected equally.  The only real difference between the Obama-Williams and communist philosophies is the acceptance of a role by religion by the former.  Of course those religions must embrace the relativism and social justice values inherent in communism to be acceptable. Clearly the protestantism of shared values with Capitalism, to wit: the importance and significance of the individual person and the attendant values of  hard work, self discipline, competitive spirit, individual good works, and the like, has given way in the Obama-Williams world to a group rights, non competitive cooperative feel good, equality above all else, Protestantism.  Roger Kimball provides some interesting insights into the thinking of Rowan Williams here.

Obama -- an analysis via the Claremont Institute

How to get the truth about Obama's past and his socialist roots, which are deep and wide, is the key to defeating him in 2012.  As can be seen from this Claremont Institute series here, much of Obama's past was disguised during and since the last election, but in the meantime there have been a number of books written that actually shed some light on who this guy is and where he comes from.  To expand on this information and get it out to the public at large is going to be a very big challenge, however it can and must be done otherwise he continues on for another four years doing grave harm to what's left of the Republic.  The Powerline link here provides further access to other important articles and reviews of books that have dealthwith aspects of The One's life.  All of the information available on these sites and through these links should be required reading for anyone who intends to vote in the next election.  Also everyone should be aware that the Communists, just like the Muslims, consider lying to further the interest of each's goals, to be not only justified, but smart policy.  That's why digging out the truth and exposing ist to the public is so crucial.  We can be subjugated to this vile philosophy if we don't react to the lies being perptrated about Obama and his cohorts and where the really want to take this country.  Beware!

The very similar isms: Communism and Islamism

It seems obvious that the liberals in the western world go out of their way to protect members of the Muslim faith from criticism and and are extremely conscious of ensuring that the "rights" of the Muslims are protected.  Witness the movement in GB to allow aspects of sharia law to apply to Muslim citizens of that country, and the great sensitivity to the feelings of Muslims in the US with regard to the terrorism issue.  Jonah Goldberg has written a book that discusses the natural affinity of liberals to authoritarianism, i.e., Communism and Islamism.  From this lengthy and fascinating article in Big Peace by Andrew Bostom one sees this affinity and connection in spades.  Bostom begins his narrative with the history of Wittakker Chambers and his conversion from communism in the 1930's, and the discussion of Islamism in Chambers's book, "Witness", in which he discusses authoritarian Islamism in the context of authoritarian Marxism, arguing that both of these "movements" represent the union of church and state that define stotalitarianism.  For those in the West who do not take the threat of the Muslim faith to our freedoms and way of life seriously, this piece should be a wake up call.  The Muslim faith is every bit the threat to the West that Communism did and still  poses.  Both isms are antithetical to the freedoms we have all taken for granted in the West for a long time.