Diana West Weighs In Again -- PTS

Diana West, who has been arguing for sometime that we should leave the Middle East entirely, seal off our country's borders and economy from Muslims from the Middle East now has an ally  for her position in  a prominent British Labor politician, Kim Howells, who made news in Great Britain this week with a proposal summed up under the Guardian headline: "It's time to pull out of Afghanistan and take the fight to Bin Laden in Britain."  As Diana says, coming from a former Foreign Office minister who has supported the war in Afghanistan, "this proposal is guaranteed to crack the UK war debate wide open, something that has yet to happen in the US". Read her article here.  In another recent article here, Ms West discusses the evolution of the current administration's policy regarding jihad and the Islamic faith, the US military's embrace of politically correct diversity in the army, and concludes Americans are at serious risk.  

Obama Hates America

American Spectator columnist Mark Hyman describes here, why he believes Obama viscerally hates America.  It seems quite clear, based on his past associations and what he wrote in his autobiography, that he does truly despise America.  Many warned from the  beginning of Obama's campaign for the presidency that not enough was known about his past, and what was known was deeply concerning.  Hyman has catalogued all these incidents prior to and since his election that lead him to the conclusion Obama truly despises America.  It is difficult to imagine how Obama supporters can refute this devastating recitation of evidence, to be sure they will try.  Obama is a fraud, a narcissistic strutting peacock, whose election to the highest office in the land will haunt this country for at least three more years.  The damage he is doing and can do is incalculable.  He and his administration must be resisted.

ADDED 5/16/10:  Victor Davis Hanson lays out his view of Obama's career here, rise to the presidency, and more.  The comments section of this post is an interesting read in that there are lots of theories as to what O is up to, how he got where he is, and what is going to happen in the future.

Pelosi/Obamacare what's really in the just passed outrageous bill -- PTS

The Wall Street Journal reporter Betsy McCaughey tells us here, what's in the bill just passed in the House.  Horrifying, unless you're a socialist or a government employee.  Forgive me, I repeat myself.  This bill has no redeeming features whatsoever. None.  While healthcare reform is necessary and desirable, the creation of 111 new bureaucracies to administer rules, regulations and prices is not the reform we need.  Market based incentives, beginning by eliminating the employer based third party payer system we now have, creation of HSAs for everyone, allowing interstate insurance company competition, tort reform with teeth, and cleaning up the fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid are a few starters.  Not one of these reforms are in the monster program created by the socialist in the WH and the HoR.  The Democrats are insane.

The Horror and Lessons of Communism -- PTS

 Click here, for a fascinating blog by C.J. Rummel, a political scientist of great repute (taught at Yale, among many other "elite" schools).   His subject is demotics or the murder of human beings by oppressive regimes, mostly communist.  This enlightening blog is replete with charts that provide the specific numbers of deaths caused by the various totalitarian regimes over the past century of the experiment with communism.  Mr. Rummel has written extensively on warfare, it's causes, results, and avoidance.  It's no surprise that he offers extensive evidence that democracies rarely, if ever,  attack one another and are, by far, the best antidote to general warfare.  His home page provides access to much of his work over many years in the study of war and it's cause.  Fascinating stuff.

The Left and the Hasan outrage -- PTS

In his most recent article here, J.R. Dunn, a regular contributor to The American Thinker emagazine, has captured the essence of the reaction of the leftmedia, its ennablers and assorted fellow travelers, to the Muslim Hasan's murderous rampage at Ft. Hood.  Dunn does a first rate job of providing the history of the leftists in this country dating back to the '50's McCarthy era and the "witch hunt" atmosphere then that gave them the "cover" ever since to undermine the legitimate efforts of various Republican administrations to provide for the security of the American people.  His message is a call to arms for those of us not infected with the deadly virus (pacifism, anti-Americanism, socialism) of the left to stand up to them, shuck our normal reluctance to be abrasive and confrontational, take down names and numbers and begin to call them out.  Much like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are no doing on their radio and TV programs.  No more Mr. Nice Guy.

The Lesson of Ft. Hood -- PTS

Before all is said and done, Diana West, who has spent her adult life studying and coming to grips with the many issues concerning the Middle East and the West, will have much to say about the significance of the Ft. Hood massacre.  What she will probably say is this tragic episode was predictable and is just another chapter in the clash of two irreconcilable civilizations.  Ms West has argued for many years that this clash between civilizations is inevitable, because it represents irreconcilable views of the value of individual life in civil society, and in general of the purpose of life here on earth.  She has written extensively about the gradual and relentless insinuation of Muslims into the economic and cultural life of European countries and Great Britain cautioning that individual assimilation into these societies is not occurring and what's more cannot for many reasons.  Paramount among these reasons is the Western concept of the separation of church and state, an issue that was resolved in the West over two hundred years ago. Most Muslims, no matter where they live, believe in Sharia Law, such as we see in Iran today.  Religious leaders dictate the terms and conditions of civil life, there is no toleration of dissent, freedom of choice, speech, or other individual freedoms valued in the West.  Fatwas, edicts from the Mullahs, determine customs, and proscribe how individuals are to lead their lives.  There is no room for compromise between these two opposite constructs for society.  There are, in this view, no moderate or liberal practicing Muslims with whom we in the West can identify or make common cause.  We will forever see eruptions like the Ft. Hood massacre as a consequence of the intolerance of Sharia law as the unifying force in the Muslim world.  An AP report describing the horror at Ft. Hood which appeared in the Minneapolis newspaper is here.

Where does the debt lead us? -- PTS

Robert Samuelson, a well-known and respected economist as far as I know, writes about the government debt here, in an article in this week's Newsweek Magazine.  The bottom line of his argument: because we are in unchartered waters, along with Japan and other Western industrialized countries, there's no way of knowing the consequences of this pileup of debt until we face a crises that provokes a sudden loss of confidence.  Samuelson doesn't say what this crises might be but presumably it would be the inability to continue selling debt in the amount required to keep financing budget shortfalls.  He does suggest that when the crises occurs the solution will be to default on the existing debt with consequences to be determined since we and other responsible countries have never done this before.  These are interesting times.