The further to the left or the right you move, the more your lens on life distorts.

Thursday, June 30, 2016

Thunder in the Distance

Prior to the Orlando radical Islamic terror attack, the elites on both the left and the right were only too happy to castigate Donald Trump for his less-than-nuanced suggestion (since amended) that we put Muslim immigration on hold until "we figure out what's going on." Trump's contention, backed up by every security expert outside the Obama administration, is that it's impossible to vet immigrants from Syria, from Libya, and from many other Middle Eastern locales, and that it's a virtual certainty that embedded into the immigrant flows are Islamist operatives, ISIS or otherwise.

After the attack, the elites (including Hillary Clinton) breathed a sigh of relief when it was determined that the Muslim terrorist was a 2nd generation immigrant who was a U.S. citizen. They gleefully spiked the football, indicating that Trump's "ban" wouldn't have worked in this case.

True, but what about future attacks that could be perpetrated by Islamists who enter with immigrant flows or cross unprotected borders—attacks that might use poison gas, or home-made bombs or anything other than a semi-automatic weapon. Oops, that lies outside the current elite narrative, so we really can't consider it.

Richard Fernandez writes about all of this:
... an article in the Washington Post by Rick Noack ... explains that the reason terror suspects involved in recent attacks have not been monitored is because there are simply not enough security personnel to do it. "It's impossible to monitor all terror suspects," he writes. "These charts show why." The charts proceed to show that Western police forces no longer have the manpower to track more than a small fraction of the suspected bad guys.

To cover the 3,000 terror suspects in the UK would take 40% of the entire police force, so the British cops track no more than 50. "If France wanted to observe all 11,000 terror suspects in the country, it would need its entire police force of 220,000 officers — or more." That is obviously out of the question, especially since ISIS has now taken to whittling down the number of French police by killing them. It would take 5/8 -- about 63% of the US police force -- to watch the 25,000 individuals on the watch list.

The developments that Megyn Kelly describes [from a tweet: "In the middle of #Orlando investigation, the Obama admin quietly announced it’s increasing the number of refugees coming to US"] doesn't make the security situation hopeless. It has been hopeless for some time. Yet the tragedy was entirely self-inflicted. A national security team of ex-novelists and campaign drivers sort of fell into it. The same crew that gave you the Arab Spring, the Reset and Benghazi now give you ... politicians in blind pursuit of virtue signaling who simply ran over the cliff.

One might ask how the Western elites could be so stupid as to get into a situation, where like Titanic, the threat is coming in faster than it can be pumped out. They may have even paid for some this influx from public funds. The Western elites first imported ISIS in the most expensive conceivable way and then proceeded to manage them through the most inefficient method imaginable. They imported a threat which as Foreign Policy points out is effectively a state-sponsored shock unit and now find they can't afford to monitor it. Why it's almost like promising pensions that can't be funded.

The only conceivable explanation for this fiasco is pure unadulterated arrogance and stupidity.
The Obama administration is the exemplar of "arrogance and stupidity" and it's third term continuation under a Hillary Clinton will continue the arrogance and stupidity and add a dollop of corruption along with a full measure of dishonesty.

For fifteen years, the elites have avoided any direct demand that the Muslim world police itself, even though that is our only hope at ridding the world of Islamic terror. They have equated any critique of Islam along with calls calls for an Islamic reformation with "Islamophobia." They have allowed political correctness to constrain policy, even when the results are ineffective or worse, dangerous. They have talked about profiling (the ONLY effective means for uncovering and tracking Islamists in our midst) as if it was akin to genocide. They have suggested that the ability of a nation to control its borders is somehow jingoistic and that the risk of embedded Islamists in immigration flows is unproven (even though it has been proven repeatedly in Europe).

And how has all of this worked out? Islamists are on the march across the planet. Islamic terror is increasing, not decreasing in frequency and ferocity. Mass Muslim immigration (in part, caused by the feckless policies of the Obama administration) are changing the social fabric of once great nations.

And yet, in their arrogance and stupidity, the elites continue to deflect attention from the core problem, trying to convince the little people that if we just ban the AR-15 or "fight against bigotry" there will be a magical solution to Islamic terror.

The elites correctly argue that we need the Muslim community to help us identify Islamists. But they then extrapolate that truism with an unproven contention that if we alienate Muslims with blunt but honest talk, they will abandon us and side with the terrorists. What does that say about the Muslim community if it is true, and what does it say about the soft bigotry of the elites if it's not?

Barack Obama—the king of elite arrogance and stupidity—smugly suggests that you're less likely to die from "violent extremism" than a lightning strike. When he leaves the presidency, Obama should buy a nice villa outside Kabul or Damascus or Mosul or Benghazi, move his family there, and be absolutely sure to never go outside when thunder can be heard in the distance. That way, he and his family will be safe, won't they?

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Boom!

As the elites of both the Left (and to a lesser extent) the Right continue to hyperventilate over Brexit, an anguished question is repeatedly posed—How could leaders throughout the West have misread the Brexit result so completely? Barack Obama got it wrong. Hillary Clinton, for all her vaunted foreign policy experience, got it wrong. The political leadership in the U.K and the EU, got it wrong. Why?

Instead of trying to fully understand why a majority of voters has rejected the lead of the elites, the Left, as it always does when it can't argue an issue rationally, descends into name calling. The far-left Guardian suggested that now "It's Okay for Britain to be Racist," and the word "xenophobia" is bandied about ad nauseum.

But let's get back to the why of Brexit and the why of the worldwide movement toward a more populist politics. It is true that uncontrolled immigration in both Europe and the United States is one of the forcing functions for a rejection of the elites. But it's a symptom, not the cause.

A significant percentage of British voters (along with the French and German electorate) viewed the immigrant flow not so much as a humanitarian crisis as a slow motion invasion that threatened the culture, the laws, and the politics of the EU. A majority of Brits wanted nothing to do with it. All of us watched the massive, uncontrolled Muslim immigrant flow out of Syria and surrounding countries and listened as European elites argued that nothing would change. We were told that these immigrants would be peaceful, even as they rioted. We were told that the millions of immigrants would integrate into European culture without any problems, even as we heard news of gang rapes in German cities and terror attacks in France and Belgium. The elites were lying to the "little people" and as events unfolded, those lies reached a tipping point.

For the last decade, the elites have learned that any event, any scandal, any social cause can be controlled through a thread of brazen lies, coupled with obfuscation and misdirection when the truth begins to surface, accusations of "partisanship" when a few brave politicians try to uncover the truth, and accusations of conspiracy theories when people get to close to the truth. Because the main stream media are the trained hamsters of the elites (on the Left), the lies can be made with impunity—no "journalist" wants to investigate an event that just might indicate that their anointed political icons are corrupt, dishonest, or venal. No media type wants to question the absolute idiocy of political correctness run amuck. So they remain silent, and a perfect storm is created.

And maybe, therein, lies an answer to the question: How could leaders throughout the West have misread the Brexit result so completely? The hard-working, tax-paying citizens of Western countries are fed up with being lied to. The result in the U.K. was a rejection of the elites—their politics, their remedies, their guidance.

Brexit was the proverbial canary in the coal mine. An explosion is coming, fueled by the elitist lies and elitist arrogance we're subjected to every day. Boom!

UPDATE: (6/30/16)
----------------------------
Danniel Henninger discusses Brexit and the subsequent progressive/elite reaction by first quoting Ronald Reagan, a president who upon first running for the office was vilified, ridiculed, and dismissed by an earlier generation of 'progressives' and elites:
[Reagan said] “We have been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. But if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?”

The political values of the American and European left—heard today in every sentence spoken by Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren—reside in an argument that is essentially this:

A good and just society comes through an economic and social compact between citizens and their government. If citizens will transmit sufficient tax revenue to the government, it will hire experts in public administration (to Reagan an “elite group”) who will deliver socially desirable benefits to everyone, and will do so with equity. It is an appealing promise.

People who believe this, and some still do sincerely, regarded Reagan’s inaugural formulation as the words of an antigovernment “ideologue.” Still, ideology matters, and they have their own founding ideologue, Woodrow Wilson.

The EU and in the United States, the Democrats represent the epitome of big intrusive government (BIG). At some level, the little people are beginning to recognize that the blue model that elevates BIG to the center of our political universe is a deeply flawed approach to governance. An approach that leads to massive debt, waste and abuse, economic instability, wide-spread dependency, uneven application of the law, over-regulation, intrusive violation of our family life and education, and worst of all, lies, stonewalling, and obfuscation that are used to protect BIG from charges of incompetence, fraud, vindictiveness, abuse, or the long, long list of its other failings.

Sunday, June 26, 2016

Another Try

When Bernie Sanders was the darling of the democrat left, I argued in many posts that his crypto-communist positions were extreme and unworkable, but worst of all, they were rehashed socialist ideas from the 1960s that had been tried repeated in countries around the word—in every case they had failed and brought hardship, shortages, a wrecked economy, and loss of freedom to the people socialists purported to help.

Now, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Professor Jack Stauder, a one-time Marxist who does research in cultural anthropology, has had an epiphany after traveling to 110 countries, researching, among other topics, the impact of socialism on those countries.

Kate Hardiman reports with a direct quote from Stauder:
“I gradually became disenchanted with Marxism by visiting many of the countries that had tried to shape their societies to conform to its doctrines. I was disillusioned by the realities I saw in … socialist countries – the USSR, Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, etc,” Stauder told The College Fix via email.

“I came to recognize that socialism doesn’t work, and that its ‘revolutionary’ imposition inevitably leads to cruelty, injustice and the loss of freedom,” the professor continued.

“I could see the same pattern in the many failed left-wing revolutions of Latin America and elsewhere. By combining actual travel with the historical study of socialism and revolution, I succeeded in disabusing myself of the utopian notions that fatally attract people to leftist ideas.”
Hmmm. All you have to do is spend a little time studying socialism (why not start with present day Venezuela and go back just 15 years) and it's pretty hard no to come to the same conclusion as Professor Stauder. Of course, that's only true if you don't live in the fantasy world of the Left, where utopia is just around the corner if we just give socialism another try.

Saturday, June 25, 2016

A Careful Balance

Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and most Democrats condemn those who insist that it might be time to call radical Islamic terrorists exactly that they are—radical Islamic terrorists. They argue that it makes no difference what they're called, and that the real problem—at least in the United States—is "gun violence." After all, the brave, virtuous Democrats staged a "sit-in" in the House of Representatives, showing us just how much they care about stopping people on the no-fly list from getting serious weapons—as if everyone else doesn't have that concern as well.

In their through-the-looking-glass world of political correctness, Democrats worry more about "offending" Muslims than defeating Islamic terrorists. Using a variation on Hillary Clinton's classic line about Benghazi, they ask, "What difference does it make what we call them."

A big difference, because a politically correct approach to combating Islamic terror permeates what little tactical actions this president and his probable successor will make. A case in point is described by Debra Heine:
The question of why the Internet still works in the Islamic State's stronghold of Raqqa, Syria, came up during the House Armed Services Committee hearing on the military’s cyber operations yesterday, and the answer was less than reassuring. At issue are concerns that President Barack Obama's bloated and politicized National Security Council is micromanaging the military -- including its cyber force -- to the mission's detriment.

Rep. Martha McSally, a retired fighter pilot, posed the question to the assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and global security, Thomas Atkin: “We have known cells in Raqqa that are directing training, that are directing operations very specifically targeting against Americans,” McSally said. “Why is the Internet not shut down in Raqqa?”

Atkin noted that he would give a more detailed answer during the closed-door hearing in the afternoon, but answered in general terms. “Certainly going after specific nodes to hamper and stop the use of the Internet by ISIS is important, but we also have to respect the rights of citizens to have access to the Internet,” he said. “So it’s a careful balance, even in Raqqa.”
What!?? It's a careful balance!??

Here we have Raqqa, a city controlled by ISIS, a place where much of their web-based propaganda emanates, and the Obama administration is worried about the right of Raffa's citizens to use Facebook and Twitter?  The Obama administration is worried about "a careful balance" that ensures Raffa's beleaguered citizens access to the web and at the same time allows ISIS to propagate its propaganda—you know, the same propaganda that the Dems wring their hands about as a tertiary cause (behind guns, and Islamophobia) of "home grown terror."  And here I thought that the Democrats were concerned about "lonewolves" or "self-radicalized violent extremists."

And back in Raffa, never mind that ISIS has imposed strict Sharia law, that any LBGT person in Raffa, if found, would be killed in a heartbeat, that any woman who wore a tank top would be beaten or killed, that meaningful human rights are zero for the innocent people under ISIS's control. Noooo.

And that's why attitudes matter, why a tough approach to our Muslim adversaries is necessary, why pushing a ridiculous right to internet access while ignoring the fundamental human of Muslims living under Sharia is a bad joke, why a PC approach to radical Islamic terror just might get hundreds or thousands of Americans killed.

Sometimes, you just can't make this stuff up. Unbelievable.

Friday, June 24, 2016

Brexit

The truly historic decision of the U.K. to leave the European Union, called "Brexit," was actually a referendum on the failure of political, academic, and media elites on both sides of the political spectrum. Brexit posed many complex issues. Liberal elites became agitated because the success of Brexit might raise serious questions about their dream of a 'world society' with centralized control, a broadly multi-cultural ethic, a milieu where the irresponsible actions of one element of the society (e.g., over-spending by one country or entity) would be compensated for by members of other elements of the society), where open borders would allow significant flows of immigrants, touted as a singularly positive because of "diversity." Conservative elites lobbied against leaving the EU because of the impact on business, money flows, trade agreements, employee status of non U.K nations, among many business and economic issues.

For the U.K electorate as a whole, the economic issues that concerned conservatives were far too arcane and abstract. It appears that the general electorate recognized that economic risks did exist. But the majority of voters (the elites would refer to them derisively as "emotionally-driven" voters) opted to "Leave" because the risks associated with the liberal agenda were deemed to be even more significant.

Tim Stanley writes this in the U.K Telegraph:
It’s impossible to overstate how remarkable this victory is. Twenty years ago, Euroscepticism was a backbench Tory rebellion and a political cult. It was a dispute located firmly on the Right with little appeal to Labour voters. It took Ukip to drag it into the centre of political life – given momentum by the issue of immigration – and slowly it has emerged as a lightning rod for anti-establishment activism.

Even so, the circumstances of the referendum were not ripe for victory. David Cameron only called it to hold his own party together; and once it was called, he decided to turn the British and global establishment against it. Out came the Treasury, the IMF, even the President of the United States to argue that Britain had to stay. This was textbook politics, how things used to be done – and it worked back in 1975 when the UK voted overwhelmingly on good advice to stay in the Common Market.

But this time the establishment consensus coincided with a historic loss of faith in the experts. These were the people who failed to predict the Credit Crunch, who missed the greatest economic disaster to hit us since the Great Depression. And we were supposed to believe them? Slowly the consensus came to resemble not just a conspiracy but, worse, a confederacy of dunces.
The key phrase is "a historic loss of faith in the experts." The use of the term "experts" is a stretch, in that most politicians are expert at nothing. The proper word is "elites"—the opinion leaders who until now could bend voters to their will.

No more.

If Brexit indicates anything, it indicates that the people are exerting their right to say "enough!" Tim Stanley writes:
People wanted to have their say and they did. Up and down the country they defied the experts and went with their conscience. Labour voters most of all: the northeast rebelled against a century of Labour leadership. I am astonished. Staggered. Humbled. I should never have lost faith in my countrymen. Those bold, brave, beautiful British voters.
The elites will fidget a bit over the next few months, but if past history serves, they will learn nothing—they never do. Instead they will continue to push an agenda that indicates just how virtuous they are, while setting in motion events that impact the 'little people' in ways that the elites cannot understand or even imagine.

Brexit = enough! Regardless of any negative consequences, that's a good thing.

Thursday, June 23, 2016

Terrifying

The progressive commentariat is all atwitter (no pun intended) reacting to Donald Trump's first organized, well-structured, and remarkably honest attack on Hillary Clinton. Here is a sample from Michelle Goldberg at Slate:
Donald Trump’s Wednesday morning speech about Hillary Clinton’s record is probably the most unnervingly effective one he has ever given. In a momentary display of discipline, he read from a teleprompter with virtually no ad-libbing, avoiding digs at Bill Clinton’s infidelity or conspiracy theories about Vince Foster’s suicide. Standing in a low-ceilinged conference room bedecked with square chandeliers in the Trump SoHo, a lawsuit-plagued hotel and condo development, Trump spoke for 40 minutes without saying anything overtly sexist. Instead, he aimed straight at Clinton’s most-serious weaknesses, describing her as a venal tool of the establishment. “Hillary Clinton gave China millions of our best jobs and effectively let China completely rebuild itself,” he said. “In return, Hillary Clinton got rich!” He added, “She gets rich making you poor,” and called her possibly “the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency.”
Of course, Goldberg, in true Clintonista fashion, labels most of Trump's comments as "lies" while suggesting that he is a deranged conspiracy theorist, but concludes with this: "it was terrifying to watch him succeed."

Heh. The reason it was "terrifying," Ms. Goldberg, is because a GOP candidate finally punched back—hard. The reason it was "terrifying" is that on balance, what Trump contends about Clinton is true. The reason it was "terrifying" is that Clinton is a target-rich environment. Her background is peppered with scandals, lies, self-serving politics, incompetence, personal enrichment that comes not from creating a private sector business, but from peddling influence by using her public positions. The reason it was "terrifying" is that even an uninterested observer will raise his or her eyebrow when told that Hillary Clinton went form "broke" (her own words) in 2000 to a net worth estimated at over $100 million in 2015. How did she accomplish that? Terrifying, indeed.

UPDATE:
-----------------------
Virtually every article written by the progressive commentariat on Trump's speech makes much of his use of a teleprompter—as if that somehow negates the content. That's particularly rich in the sense that the commentariate's gold standard for political excellence, Barack Obama, has trouble stringing 10 or 12 coherent sentences together without a teleprompter. Progressives can't have it both ways, even though they always try to do so.

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Which is Worse?

Neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump should be President of the United States.

Clinton is a congenital liar, doing everything possible to obscure, misdirect, or confuse when the truth hurts her political ambitions—and she has done this for over 30 years with relative impunity. Trump is a fabulist. He makes stuff up because it sounds good (to him) and serves his needs. When he doesn't have a grasp of the issues, he wings it with "facts" that he fabricates on his own.

Clinton is corrupt—not just a little, like all politicians—but a lot. Her tight association with the Clinton foundation while Secretary of State indicates that she has parlayed government favors for massive donations that flow not to the needy, but to her and her husband. And often, the "donations" come from foreign entities who are not our friends. Her actions often cost the taxpayers money, sometimes a lot of money, and if it weren't for her star celebrity among Democrats, her actions are indictable as criminal offenses. Many, many politicians have gone to jail for much, much less. Trump is unscrupulous, often screwing small business who have provided services to his many companies, declaring bankruptcy when convenient, and otherwise bullying business associates. There is nothing criminal in what Trump has done, but there's plenty that is unethical.

Clinton is incompetent. It is laughable that she claims impressive foreign policy "experience." America's foreign policy on her watch was an unmitigated disaster with failures in Eastern Europe, throughout the Middle East and in Asia. In fact, she herself is hard-pressed to name a single verifiable accomplishment (because there are none). Trump is unschooled. He appears to have no in-depth understanding of foreign policy, tends to shoot from the hip, and is, at best, one question deep.

The current meme is that Trump does not have the temperament to be president. That may be true, but there is clear and compelling evidence that Clinton is vindictive, mercurial, and two-faced, projecting an artificial calm that belies the rage of political entitlement.

Of late, Clinton has been questioning Trump's businesses and his business leadership, suggesting that if he can't run his companies, he can't run the country. The irony of this contention is delicious. Hillary has almost no private sector experience (and the experience she has is tainted by scandal). She has never run a company, never produced a product, never met a payroll in the private sector, never dealt with the regulatory maze. Over the past eight years, her party has driven the economy into the gutter, has stifled the growth of small businesses, has accelerated "income inequality," has crushed middle class wages. And she has the gall to suggest that she can run the economy!

To her credit, Clinton is politically disciplined and focused. Her handlers give her a meme, define a set of narratives, and she laser-focuses on them. Trump is the polar opposite. He seems incapable of disciple or focus, free-associating in front of audiences and failing to attack Clinton effectively. He goes so far off-topic that he muddles his message and created self-inflicted wounds.

We have two BAD choices. The question continues to be which is worse?

Sunday, June 19, 2016

Ignorant and Dangerous

As usual, the Islamic terror attack in Orlando has devolved into discussion of anything but Islamic terror. Working overtime to shape the narrative, Democrats and their trained hamsters in the media have refocused attention away from Islamic terror and toward gun control and "bigotry" against the LBGT community. They would prefer NOT to discuss who it was who used the weapons that they roundly condemn, NOT to delve into the Islamist ideology that precipitated the attack, and NOT to criticize a "religion" that advocates the murder of gay people. Nah ... that's uncomfortable and strays from the Democrat narrative, so as a nation, we absolutely, positively can't go there.

Democrats both inside and outside the Administration tell us the we have to better understand the "motivations" of Omar Mateen, as if his own words don't give us direct and irrefutable insight into why he perpetrated such horror. Democrats consistently refer to Mateen as a "lone wolf," or "lone actor," or "homegrown," or "self-radicalized" in an effort to deflect attention away from the problem we face. Paul Sperry reports on some of the early results of the FBI investigation:
Mateen likely absorbed more anti-gay and anti-US messaging at the small Fort Pierce, Fla., mosque his father helped run. Authorities say the radical Islamic center has been a “breeding ground” for terrorists, including the first American suicide bomber in Syria, alongside whom Omar Mateen prayed. Mateen worshipped there for more than a dozen years, praying up to four times a week. State incorporation records show the senior Mateen served as the mosque’s vice president and sat on its board for several years.

Seddique Mateen insists he did not know his son was radicalized and was angered by his actions. “If I did know, 1 percent, that he was committing such a crime myself, I would have arrested him myself,” he claimed. Also serving on the board of his pro-Taliban nonprofit, The Durand Jirga Inc., are two daughters and an Afghan-born son-in-law, who’s also active in politics in Afghanistan.

Just weeks before the attack, property records I’ve obtained show Omar Mateen transferred his interest in a Fort Pierce condo over to one of the sisters and and the Afghan brother-in-law, a possible indication the family could have had some knowledge of his martyrdom plans. Authorities say the fatally wounded Mateen clearly was prepared to die in a gun battle.

The mysterious brother-in-law — Mustafa Abasin, aka Mustafa Aurakzai, who shows an intense hatred for Donald Trump on social media — has been questioned by federal investigators, along with other family members. I’m also told FBI agents have expanded the investigation overseas to family connections in Afghanistan. On Friday, both Mateen’s widow and father were placed on the federal no-fly list.
Democrats seem unable or more likely unwilling to connect the dots, because connecting them leads to one irrefutable common thread—radical Islam and Islamist ideology, aided and abetted by at least a few members of the immediate, local Muslim community act as a springboard for each Islamic terror attack, including Orlando.

Today, we learn from Attorney General Loretta Lynch that the DoJ plan to release written transcripts of Omar Mateen's text and phone conversations during the attack, but the Obama administration plans to excise any words that proclaim his allegiance to ISIS. The stated reason—they don't want his ranting to become a catalyst for other young Muslims. Hmmm. Could it also be that they want to obfuscate the underlying "motivation" so they can keep the public focus elsewhere.

With regard to "violent extremism," the prevailing Democratic memes are these:

  • Connecting the terror perpetrated by radical Muslims to Islam is an invitation to religious war.
  • Suggesting that Islam has some culpability in any of this is an invitation to religious war. 
  • Arguing that Islam has not done enough to stop Islamist ideology is an invitation to religious war. 

Let's unpack this.

Connecting the terror perpetrated by radical Muslims to Islam is an invitation to religious war. And here I thought that young members of the religion of peace were "peaceful and moderate." If that's true, then isn't it "racist" to believe that young Muslims are just not stable enough to differentiate between Islamists and the mainstream of Islam? When they they hear a pro-ISIS rant, will young Muslims strap on the hated AR-15 and shoot up a mall or ballpark or whatever? If the answer is yes, what does that tell us about Islam in general?

Suggesting that Islam has some culpability in any of this is an invitation to religious war. The simple reality is that Islamist groups quote directly from the Koran, using a literal interpretation of the holy books. If that interpretation is perverse, isn't it up to Islam's holy men (Imams) to rise up and reject it and to suggest reforms to the holy books and to the religion itself? After nearly two decades of violent Islamic terror, why have no reforms been recommended or adopted? I have yet to encounter a fatwa offered by a prominent Islamic cleric against say, the leader of ISIS or al Qaeda or al Nusra or Boko Haram. Why is that?

Arguing that Islam hasn't not done enough to stop Islamist ideology is an invitation to religious war. When the Catholic church was found to disregard warnings about pedophile priests among its clergy, progressives demanded action and demanded it immediately and without compromise. Why was it okay to make demands of the Catholic church, but it's not okay to make demands of Islam? And please, spare me the numbers game. There are 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide, yet no one ever suggested that criticism of the religion would lead to a holy war. Why is that?

Democrats can't have it both ways. If they're wed to their memes, they damn well better have good answers the questions I've posed. They don't, and that makes the memes that they promote both ignorant and dangerous.

Friday, June 17, 2016

Burning Building

What a mess this presidential campaign has become. Glen Reynolds writes:
The primaries are over, it looks like it’s going to be Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump, and a lot of people are unhappy.

“Don't let anyone steal that disgust from your heart," Michael Brendan Dougherty writes in The Week. "Don't let anyone tell you that the nearly uncontrollable urge to retch at the thought of this election is disproportionate, or somehow uncivil. When you contemplate the fate of your country in 2016, you have the right to be depressed, or even despairing.”

Well, as Adam Smith observed centuries ago, there is a lot of ruin in even a great nation. But it does feel like we’re putting that observation to the test right now.

Voter dislike for both Clinton and Trump is record-breaking. Now, being disliked doesn’t necessarily make you a bad candidate or a bad president. As writer Ashe Schow points out, the most-disliked candidate usually wins. And hey, Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan were both disliked by an awful lot of people.

Even so: It’s hard to look at Clinton and Trump and seriously believe that, out of a nation of more than 300 million people, these are the very best two people to lead the country.
This is one of those cases where the problem is the process. The seemingly never-ending quest for the presidency filters out good people or destroys them as interests with more money or more celebrity or more bombast rise to the top.

With tongue in cheek (I think) Reynolds suggests that maybe the president should be picked by national lottery of registered voters. After all, he writes, "How much worse could it be?" Hmmm.

On to the candidates ...

Donald Trump should NOT be President of the United States. On a daily basis the man demonstrates neither the temperament, the intelligence, the grasp of important issues, the depth of understanding, nor the political IQ or discipline to effectively lead this country. Trump is an extreme narcissist who looks at everything in the context of an inflated image of himself. Like Barack Obama, he views everyone who disagrees with him as an enemy that he can bully. Even though a few of his core ideas and principles have merit, he has succeeded in self-destructive behavior with words and actions that indicate a complete lack of self-awareness. He is not, as his many detractors assert, a racist or a bigot, but he is a fool.

Hillary Clinton should NOT be President of the United States. On a daily basis, the woman demonstrates a level of dishonesty that is so pervasive, it is breathtaking. She has built a 30-year career based on lies, obfuscation, and stonewalling, and leaving human wreckage in her wake, and she has done so with considerable success. She is corrupt. Her connections to the Clinton Foundation have enriched her (and her husband) in a ways that are at the very least unethical, but more probably criminal. She is currently under active FBI investigation by a Democrat administration. She is incompetent. Her most recent government job, as Secretary of State, hatched policy that led to a series of disastrous outcomes in the Middle east, Europe and Asia. She is not, as many of her admirers assert, an "experienced" government servant, unless by experience one means experience in the ability to enrich oneself at the expense of the taxpayers and the country.

Both the Republicans and the Democrats should be ashamed. The average independent voter should be infuriated that our choice for leadership leaves us with no viable options. In earlier blog posts I have argued that we all have a choice between the least-worst of our options, and I suppose that is still true. But that's a lot like saying that a man trapped on the 10th floor of a burning building can choose between being burned alive and plunging to his death.

If Clinton wins (something that is increasingly likely)—the country loses. If Trump were to miraculously win (something that is increasingly unlikely)—the country loses. Depressing.

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Through the Looking Glass—Part ?

In the through-the-looking-glass world of the American Left, every problem we face, every threat that rears its head, every attack that actually occurs can in some way be connected to a failing on our part. Well ... not on all our parts, but rather on the part of those who refuse to go through the looking glass.

In the aftermath of the Orlando terror attack by a radical Muslim who was "inspired" by ISIS, those who have stepped through-the-looking-glass do what they always do—try to blame those who haven't. Barack Obama did it yesterday when he threw a tantrum because Donald Trump asked blunt questions about why Obama refused to name our enemy—yes, "radical islam" is our enemy. You'd think Donald had called Obama a "war criminal"—oh wait, many on the left did just that with the previous President and Vice President, but no one in the through-the-looking-glass crowd seemed in the least concerned about that blunt assessment. No one worried that comments like that would help Islamists around the world. But Trump suggests that "something is going on," and that's beyond the pale.

Here's a typical example of the through-the-looking-glass mindset from David Ignatius in the WaPo:
The strongest remaining force that propels the Islamic State is the Islamophobia of Trump and his European counterparts, argue senior intelligence strategists for the U.S.-led coalition. Inflammatory, xenophobic statements about Muslims reinforce the jihadists' claims that they are Muslim knights fighting against an intolerant West. Trump unwittingly gives them precisely the role they dream about.

Trump doesn't seem to understand that the real danger for the West is not the isolated acts of terror by disaffected youths, such as Mateen's massacre in Orlando. That's a threat to Americans, but one that can at least be mitigated some with better security and intelligence. The bigger nightmare happens if Muslims, as a whole, conclude that their community is under threat and respond as a group.
Let's spend a moment deconstructing this idiocy. Ignatius claims that Trump's "islamophobia" is "The strongest remaining force that propels the Islamic State ..." Really? A fanatic belief in Sharia law, a virulent hatred of all things Western and non-Muslim, the tacit support of millions of Muslims sympathizers all shrink beside the "Islamophobia" of Donald Trump. If it wasn't for Trump, ISIS would stop its barbaric behavior, wouldn't it? And other Islamist groups—gosh, they would sit down with us and begin to sing "Imagine." It's all Trump's fault!!!

And then ... Ignatius drops this through-the-looking-glass bombshell: "The bigger nightmare happens if Muslims, as a whole, conclude that their community is under threat and respond as a group ..." But wait, I'm certain Ignatius would be the first to tell us that Islam is a religion of peace and that all Muslims (well, almost all) are moderates. Regardless, he concludes that a few non-PC comments will turn members of the religion of peace into blood thirsty savages who join other Islamist groups to eradicate the infidel. Isn't that a "racist" conclusion? Oh ... never mind. And besides, isn't Islam under threat by Islamists who according to moderate Muslims and Barack Obama himself, are perverting their religion? Or may Ignatius thinks that Muslums are too Stupid to differentiate between condemnation of a radical element and blanket condemnation of all. Again, isn't that just a little "racist?" At least as "racist" as Donald Trump.

But none of that matters for the "through-the-looking-glass" crowd. No matter what, they need someone to blame, but NEVER those who actually are to blame. After all, that would force them the return through-the-looking-glass, give up their fantasy world view, and face reality.

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Rorschach

In the aftermath of the latest Islamic terrorist attack in Orlando, it appears that Donald Trump's subsequent pronouncements about the attack and Barack Obama's response to it are generating a considerable uproar in the Left-wing commentariat. I submit that the Left's analysis of those pronouncements is a not-very-subtle Rorschach test. But first, a little background.

Let's begin with Obama's comments after meeting with his national security team. I'm going to take the liberty of fisking Obama's words—my comments are italicized:
First of all, our hearts go out to the families of those who have been killed. Our prayers go to those who have been wounded. This is a devastating attack on all Americans. It is one that is particularly painful for the people of Orlando, but I think we all recognize that this could have happened anywhere in this country, and we feel enormous solidarity and grief on behalf of the families that have been affected.

Well said, presidential and concerned. Wholly appropriate.

The fact that it took place at a club frequented by the LGBT community, I think, is also relevant. We're still looking at all the motivations of the killer, but it's a reminder that regardless of race, religion, faith, or sexual orientation, we're all Americans, and we need to be looking after each other and protecting each other at all times in the face of this kind of terrible act.

Agreed, but why refer to Omar Mateen as a "killer" as opposed to a terrorist? In some odd way, it deflects from the problem we face. Why suggest the "motivations" are unknown—Mateen's stated his motivation as the attack was on-going.


With respect to the killer, there's been a lot of reporting that has been done. It's important to emphasize that we're still at the preliminary stages of the investigation, and there's a lot more that we have to learn.

True, but we know enough to draw meaningful conclusions right now.

The one thing that we can say is that this is being treated as a terrorist investigation. It appears that the shooter was inspired by various extremist information that was disseminated over the internet. All those materials are currently being searched, exploited, so we will have a better sense of the pathway that the killer took in making a decision to launch this attack.

"Various extremist information"??? Would that be, say "information" from Basque separatists or a Cashmiri separatist group in India? Nope. Why is Obama being vague? Why is he unable to use appropriate adjectives to describe exactly what the "extremist information" is, what ideology it comes from, and who produced it?

As Director Comey, I think, will indicate, at this stage, we see no clear evidence that he was directed externally. It does appear that at the last minute, he announced allegiance to ISIL, but there's no evidence so far that he was, in fact, directed by ISIL.

And there also, at this stage, there's no direct evidence that he was part of a larger plot. In that sense, it is -- it appears to be similar to what we saw in San Bernardino, but we don't yet know. And this is part of what is going to be important in terms of the investigation.

Does this make any difference whatsoever. Whether the Islamic terrorist was directed externally or inspired by Islamist barbarians make not a whit of difference. In fact, this comment shows a relatively significant level of ignorance. The ISIS model is decentralized and networked. Their model is to radicalize Muslim citizens in Western countries, give them motivation to attack, broadly suggest targets and even time frames, and then sit back and wait. It seems to be working.

As far as we can tell right now, this is certainly an example of the kind of home-grown extremism that all of us have been so concerned about for a very long time.

Home grown extremism??? Somehow this implies that we have some culpability for the actions of Mateen. This is NOT "homegrown" in any meaningful sense. It is a Muslim male who has become radicalized by virulent propaganda from an Islamist group that uses a literal and perverse interpretation of Islam's holy books to inspire the radicalized Muslim to extreme violence.
Now ... on the Donald Trump. The Washington Post reports:
"Look, we're led by a man that either is not tough, not smart, or he's got something else in mind," Trump said in a lengthy interview on Fox News early Monday morning. "And the something else in mind — you know, people can't believe it. People cannot, they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he acts and can't even mention the words 'radical Islamic terrorism.' There's something going on. It's inconceivable. There's something going on."

In that same interview, Trump was asked to explain why he called for Obama to resign in light of the shooting and he answered, in part: "He doesn't get it or he gets it better than anybody understands — it's one or the other, and either one is unacceptable."
Later in his typically overheated and fractured speaking style, Trump expanded on his initial comments. Again from WaPo:
During an appearance on the "Today" show later Monday morning, Savannah Guthrie pushed Trump to explain what he meant in the earlier interview.

"Well there are a lot of people that think maybe he doesn't want to get it," Trump said. "A lot of people think maybe he doesn't want to know about it. I happen to think that he just doesn't know what he's doing, but there are many people that think maybe he doesn't want to get it. He doesn't want to see what's really happening. And that could be."
When taken literally, Trumps comments raise questions but provide no answers. He states "People cannot, they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he acts and can't even mention the words 'radical Islamic terrorism.' There's something going on.". He doesn't say what is "going on," leaving that for the listener to intuit. I find it interesting that the the left-leaning commentariat feels certain that they have the singular answer—that Trump is suggesting that Obama is a Manchurian candidate, somehow in sympathy with the Islamists. Obviously, there are many, many other more benign interpretations, but the commentariat chooses the most extreme. That might be as much of a Rorschach test on them as it is on Trump.

The left-leaning commentariat despises Trump, tells us on the one hand that he is a fool, a liar, a buffoon, a bigot, a racist, a mini-Hitler. But on the other hand Trump frightens them because despite his crude constructions, there's a element of truth in his words. Millions of people believe that Obama's handling of this and other terrorist incidents is odd and troubling. Millions more believe that the 'religion of peace' meme is ... well ... open to discussion. And tens of millions believe the country is on the wrong path. Maybe that's why a Donald Trump has become a presidential contender and why the commentariat is uneasy.

UPDATE:
------------------------------

In a follow-up speech today summarizing a meeting with high government officials concerning the Orlando terror attack, Barack Obama seemed to break from script and showed genuine anger and passion. But the anger and passion (which were palpable) wasn't directed at the Islamic terrorist who killed 49 people or Islamist groups that inspired him. Noooo. It was directed at his political opponents (and notably The Donald) for suggesting that his refusal to use the phrase "radical Islam" or describing what he calls "violent extremism" by the more precise phrase "radical Islamic terror" is somehow a lack of leadership on his part. This president was pissed! It looks like the Donald's comments got to him at a personal level. Can anyone say—thin skin?

Obama's logically challenged presentation conflated a phrase with a strategy, suggesting (with his typical strawman arguments) that calling Islamic terror by its proper name wouldn't eliminate Islamic terror. No one ever said that it would. He also stated repeatedly that using the phrase "Islamic terror" would work to the advantage of the terrorists but never provided a shred of evidence to demonstrate that his wild claim was true (Gosh, that sounds an awful lot like The Donald). Finally he argued that by using the phrase Islamic terror we would therefore signal that "We are at war with Islam." Abject. Nonsense. And then the coup de grace for his progressive admirers—that connecting Islam to Islamic terror is "against our values." Phew!

Let's jump in a time machine. It's 1942 and FDR refuses to call Nazis by that name. Instead, he calls them "violent extremists". He argues that calling them Nazis will rally the German people and all of Europe behind them and that's "what the Nazis want." I suspect that more than a few members of the greatest generation might have said, "Who gives a Sh## what the Nazis want, let's give them what they deserve.

Obama had the gall to suggest that his inability to say "radical Islam" had nothing to do with PC. That's like saying that the FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton has nothing to do with a private email server.

It looks like Obama finally realizes that his inability to name our enemy is an emperor's cloths problem. It illuminates that simple fact that he has long adopted a fantasy view of the threats we face, using vague abstractions like "violent extremist" to soften the threat. The big question is why?

UPDATE (06/15/16):
--------------------------
The Wall Street Journal comments further on Obama's rant:
Sunday’s massacre in Orlando contradicts President Obama’s many attempts to downplay the risks that Islamic State poses to the U.S. homeland, so it’s no wonder he wants to change the subject to something more congenial. To wit, his disdain for Donald Trump and Republicans.

“For a while now the main contribution of some of my friends on the other side of the aisle have made in the fight against ISIL is to criticize this Administration and me for not using the phrase ‘radical Islam,’” Mr. Obama said Tuesday, using his preferred acronym for Islamic State. “That’s the key, they tell us. We cannot beat ISIL unless we call them ‘radical Islamists.’ What exactly would using this label accomplish? What exactly would it change?”

Since the President asked, allow us to answer. We’re unaware of any previous American war fought against an enemy it was considered indecorous or counterproductive to name. Dwight Eisenhower routinely spoke of “international Communism” as an enemy. FDR said “Japan” or “Japanese” 15 times in his 506-word declaration of war after Pearl Harbor. If the U.S. is under attack, Americans deserve to hear their President say exactly who is attacking us and why. You cannot effectively wage war, much less gauge an enemy’s strengths, without a clear idea of who you are fighting.

Mr. Obama’s refusal to speak of “radical Islam” also betrays his failure to understand the sources of Islamic State’s legitimacy and thus its allure to young Muslim men. The threat is religious and ideological.

Islamic State sees itself as the vanguard of a religious movement rooted in a literalist interpretation of Islamic scriptures that it considers binding on all Muslims everywhere. A small but significant fraction of Muslims agree with that interpretation, which is why Western law enforcement agencies must pay more attention to what goes on inside mosques than in Christian Science reading rooms.

Mr. Obama’s refusal to speak of “radical Islam” leads to other analytical failures, such as his description of the Orlando terrorist as “homegrown.” The Islamic State threat is less a matter of geography than of belief, which is why it doesn’t matter whether Islamic State directly ordered or coordinated Sunday’s attack so long as it inspired it. This, too, is a reminder of the centrality of religion to Islamic State’s effectiveness.
It's as if Barack Obama, his progressive supporters, and his trained hamsters in the media are playing make believe. If they refuse to say "Radical Islam" then somehow the threat from some vague group of "violent extremists" is less severe.

As I have said many, many times, I am no fan of Donald Trump, but I will say that his ability to topple the walls of PC thought is refreshing. Trump's latest tirade got to Obama, that's obvious, because it peels away this president's moral preening and shows him for what he is—a man who has done little to stem the tide of radical Islam and absolutely nothing to call out all of Islam to do something about the radicals in their midst.

Monday, June 13, 2016

"Hate"

The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board summarized the horrific events in Orlando in the following way:
A young American Muslim pledging allegiance to Islamic State is now responsible for the largest mass shooting in U.S. history. Can we finally drop the illusion that the jihadist fires that burn in the Middle East don’t pose an urgent and deadly threat to the American homeland?

We hope so after the Sunday morning assault on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando that killed at least 51 and wounded 53 as we went to press. The killer was Omar Mir Seddique Mateen, the son of immigrants from Afghanistan who was heard shouting “allahu Akbar” (God is great) as he fired away. Mateen attacked a popular night spot for gays, who are especially loathed in Islamist theology.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, and it rarely does so unless it played some role. CNN and others reported that a U.S. official said Mateen made a 911 call during the attack in which he pledged allegiance to Islamic State and mentioned the 2013 Boston marathon bombing.

We’ll learn more about Mateen’s ISIS ties in the days ahead, but it hardly matters to the victims whether the would-be caliphate planned the attack or merely inspired it. As we learned again after December’s murders in San Bernardino, ISIS propaganda over the internet can all too easily reach Muslims alienated from American society. Young men who are second generation immigrants seem to be especially vulnerable to calls for jihad.
The response from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were wholly predictable. Although both deigned to use the word "terror" (surprising—but since that conclusion was a slam dunk, hard for even the most PC among us to avoid) but refused to attach a defining adjective (e.g., "Islamic") to it, they pivoted within seconds to a discussion of "hate" followed by calls for gun control. As usual, Obama lectured to country against Islamophobia, although indirectly with a warning against "hate" associated with a "religion."

I can see it now. A group of Obama and Hillary operatives, sitting around a table in some Washington meeting room on Sunday morning, discussing how to best frame a terror attack that works to the political advantage of their nemesis, Donald Trump.
Operative #1: Well, we could just call it Islamic terror—after all that is what it is. Add a little reality to the mix, a little toughnes—that would blunt Trump's approach.

Operative #2: Are you nuts!? We can't do that.

Operative #3: Well, we can always fall back on gun control.

Operative #2: Yeah, that has to be part of it, but I don't know ... not sure that will work with some of the demographic we're trying to poach from Trump.

Operative #1: Of course it won't work, but it will allow us to change the subject ... and the media will eat it up.

Operative #2: Wait a minute. What if we emphasize "hate."

Operative #3: Hate of what?

Operative #2: "Hate" as in "hate" crimes. The Orlando attack was a hate crime, right?

Operative #3: Yeah, that will allow us to characterize Trump's positions on Muslim immigration as nothing more than "hate"— he's no different than ISIS, really.

Operative #1: That's a little extreme, don't you think?

Operative #3: True, but it fit's right into our current narrative—Trump the racist, the bigot, the loose cannon and now, the "hater."

Operative #2: I like it! We can roll it out slowly. I'll get HRC's tweet-person to work up a couple of tweets -- see how they play. HRC can discuss "hate" in TV interviews tomorrow morning.

Operative #1: Let's do it. "Hate" is our new meme! Think about it—our candidate can condemn "hate" but never have to explicitly condemn what precipitated it..
I suspect I'm not the only person in this country who is experiencing deja vu. Rather than focusing on domestic versions of Islamic terror and real-world actions that might help us combat it, many Democrats try desperately to change the subject when they encounter a set of circumstances that make them uncomfortable. It looks like a "conversation about 'hate' " might be this event's diversion.

The GOP, more properly in my view, tries to keep the focus on Islamic terror in our midst, suggesting, correctly I think, that the politically correct group-think that pervades the national government is making it increasingly difficult for federal investigative agencies to find and neutralize potential threats. Hamstrung by existing laws and the PC approach that discourages aggressive enforcement, the FBI investigated the Orlando terrorist twice and allowed him to continue to roam the streets.

In an odd way, the meme-miesters are right—"hate" does sit at the core of all of this. Islamists hate the West, they hate our culture, our religions, our freedom, and our opportunity. They hate anything that is antithetical to Sharia law. They will kill to express that hatred, and they cannot be negotiated out of it.

Democrats think that if we tip toe around the problem, PC will prevail. Islamists see only weakness in that approach, spurring them on to even greater atrocities.

It's long past time to call out Islam, not out of hatred, but out of concern. To speak bluntly with words and actions. To tell this world religion that it MUST heal itself. That if it does not, the future will be ugly, just as it was for the 49 innocent young people who died in Orlando, Florida over the weekend.

Sunday, June 12, 2016

Laureate Education

The trained hamsters of the main stream media are only too happy to call Donald Trump a "racist" for his monumentally stupid comments about the Judge involved in the law suit associated with Trump University. As an aside, the trained hamsters tell us that Trump University committed "consumer fraud" by enticing innocent people to take real estate courses that some claim provided little benefit. Fortunately, little or no taxpayer money was involved, and even if the plaintiffs claims are true. There is little clear evidence that the goal was to defraud students any more than there is evidence that the hundreds of colleges and universities who put students into debt to gain worthless degrees  are committing outright fraud.

As all this is going on, the trained hamsters seem uninterested in Laureate Education—a for-profit online college with direct and very questionable ties to the Clinton money machine. Ashe Schow provides details:
Laureate is a for-profit online college that received an unusually large amount of money from the U.S. State Department. This happened while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state and after her husband Bill was named "honorary chancellor," a position that paid him $16.5 million over five years. His role included giving speeches around the world and lending his name to attract prospective students.

During the time, when Bill was acting as honorary chancellor, the U.S. State Department, under Secretary Clinton, gave Laureate Education a whopping $55 million in grants. Laureate Education had also received some grants under the George W. Bush administration, but the numbers exploded after the Clintons became involved.

In 2009, the year before Bill became the honorary chancellor (but Hillary was already secretary of state), Laureate Education "received 11 grants worth $9 million from the State Department or the affiliated USAID," according to a report from Bloomberg.

"In 2010, the group received 14 grants worth $15.1 million. In 2011, 13 grants added up to $14.6 million," Bloomberg authors Joshua Green and Jennifer Epstein reported. "The following year, those numbers jumped: IYF received 21 grants worth $25.5 million, including a direct grant from the State Department."

Like Trump University, Laureate Education has also been sued for fraud. Its Walden University Online subsidiary allegedly "worked like a scam designed to bilk students of tens of thousands of dollars for degrees," according to liberal professor Jonathan Turley, who recently documented the organization's ties to the Clintons. "Students alleged that they were repeatedly delayed and given added costs as they tried to secure degrees, leaving them deeply in debt. Sound familiar?
Sure does, with one fundamental difference. Once Hillary (as Secretary of States) and Bill got involved, significant amounts of taxpayer money were channeled in the "school." You'd think the trained hamsters in the media would be interested in Bill Clinton's $16.5 million compensation package as "chancellor." Since the median annual Chancellor salary in the United States is $260,307 (source: Google) for full time work, it would seem that Bill's annual average "pay" of $3.3 million (12 times the national average) might raise some eyebrows. Nah ... there's nothing to see here, after all, it's the Clintons.

So the next time you hear sanctimonious outrage about Trump University, think for just a second about Laureate Education and how Hillary used her influence as a government official to enrich her family with taxpayer money. Trump may not be right about much, but he's on target with the hashtag #CrookedHillary.

Saturday, June 11, 2016

Three-Pronged Dilemma

The Obama Team of 2s never misses an opportunity to participate in a "international conference" that is anti-Israel. Last week, John Kerry attended yet another "peace" conference sponsored by France's socialist President François Hollande. Caroline Glick comments:
France hosted yet another anti-Israel diplomatic pile-on. Hollande had hoped to show that France was stepping into the void left by the US’s abandonment of its position as world leader. But all the confab served to do was show how irrational and self-destructive France – and Western Europe – has become.

Neither Israeli nor Palestinian representatives were present at the conference which aimed to dictate Israel’s final borders. Their absence made the event seem like a throwback to the era of European colonialism. It was as if Hollande wanted to reenact France’s glory days in Syria and Algeria.

In his opening remarks, Hollande recycled the tired claim that the way to defeat jihad is by forcing Israel to give Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem to Islamic terrorists. The document the French Foreign Ministry circulated among participants ahead of the conference recommended setting a timetable for forcing Israel to give the PLO Judea, Samaria and large swaths of Jerusalem, for the benefit of global security.

The French planned their event before the mobs in Ramallah, Hebron, Jerusalem and Gaza publicly celebrated the cold-blooded massacre of Israeli diners at Tel Aviv’s Sarona Market on Wednesday night. But the latest massacre wasn’t necessary to show the absurdity of France’s plan to defeat jihad by empowering jihadists at Israel’s expense.

After all, Israel surrendered Gaza to the Palestinians 11 years ago. Far from ameliorating the problem of jihad – in Europe and throughout the world – the scourge of Islamic war has grown geometrically in the past decade.

France’s own recent experience shows that Hollande’s “peace” plan was a delusional.

In 2000, Muslims comprised 10 percent of the population of France.

That year, the state-owned France 2 television network invented the contemporary blood libel of Jews as baby killers with the release and dissemination of its deceptive film which purported to show IDF troops deliberately murdering Muhammad al-Dura.

The Dura libel unleashed the forces of Islamic Jew-hatred in France and throughout Europe. It paved the way for the rise in anti-Jewish violence unseen since the Holocaust. This violence in turn is causing the current exodus of Jews from France and from Western Europe as a whole.

But assaulting Jews didn’t satisfy the jihadists.

As last year’s events made clear, the state authorities’ desire to deflect Islamic extremism onto Jews – in Israel and in France – backfired.

Fifteen years after the Dura blood libel, Muslims now comprise at least 15% of France’s population, and 40% of the population of Marseilles.

And today, the same extremists who have terrorized France’s Jews for a decade and a half, have turned their guns on French society as a whole.

Last year’s Islamic killing spree, from Charlie Hebdo and Super Cacher to Bataclan made clear that as far as the jihadists are concerned, the French Jew-baiters are no different than the Jews.
The Left refuses to abandon the fantasy that forcing Israel to commit national suicide (and make no mistake—that is exactly what the Left wants) will somehow cause Islamists to make nicey-nice. The harsh reality is that Islamic terrorism worldwide has little, if anything, to do with the palestinians. And since that reality runs counter to the left's fantasy narrative, politicians like Holland, and Obama, and Kerry simply disregard reality and participate in meaningless "conferences" that accomplish nothing. The big question, assuming that Hillary wins election over Donald Trump, is whether Obama's third term will be any different than his first two with respect to Israel.

Watch the Democratic party very carefully in the run-up to the Democratic National Convention, during the convention itself, and after it. As the Dem party veers left, will it follow the lead of the Barack Obama and institute policy positions that are blatantly anti-Israel? Because Bernie Sanders and his hard-left base must be appeased, the Dems are faced with a three-pronged dilemma. Do they accede to the anti-Israel rhetoric of Sanders' appointees to the platform committee and risk alienating many Jewish supporters and donors? Do they cynically tone down the anti-Israel rhetoric to mollify the few remaining members of the Dem party who reject its new anti-Israel bent? Or do they reject the anti-Israel platform altogether?

Friday, June 10, 2016

Overwrought

Over the past few weeks, Donald Trump has been eviscerated by everyone on the Left, just about everyone in the media (but I repeat myself) and even some prominent Republicans. Unless you've living under a rock, you know that Trump violated every tenet of political correctness when he suggested that U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel's Mexican heritage (the Judge is an American) caused him to be biased in a lawsuit involving the infamous Trump University (you know, the school that took student money and provided them with little of benefit ... oh wait, that's what hundreds of colleges and universities across the country do every day). Depending on who was speaking, Trump was at best an outright racist or at worst, Adolph Hitler in pre-WW-II Germany.

James Taranto considers Trump's monumentally impolitic and politically moronic statements about Judge Curiel in the context of another statement on race, but this one made by a liberal woman who was to become a Supreme Court justice. He writes:
A kerfuffle had erupted over something [Judge Sonia] Sotomayor said in a 2001 speech, the substance of which (as we noted last week) was consistent with Trump’s comment about [Judge] Curiel, to wit: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman, with the richness of her experiences, would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

Newt Gingrich made an appearance in that column, too, in a CNN story:
On Wednesday, Gingrich tweeted: “Imagine a judicial nominee said ‘my experience as a white man makes me better than a latina woman.’ new racism is no better than old racism.”

Moments later, he followed up with the message: “White man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw.”
We [Taranto] thought the charge of “racism” overwrought: “Sotomayor’s statement is not racist, even assuming that ‘Latina’ is a racial category. She is quite clear that her belief in the superior decision-making skills of ‘a wise Latina woman’ as compared with ‘a white male’ is contingent on culture and experience, not rooted in some essential racial difference.”

That might have been a tad too charitable, as we missed another quote from the same speech: “Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences . . . our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.”

We thought Sotomayor’s statement was fairly described as “an expression of prejudice,” and we think the same of Trump’s recent remarks. But if she wasn’t a racist for stating the general proposition, how can he be one for applying it in a specific case?
There is, of course, a media double standard when it comes to GOP candidates' violation of PC as opposed to candidates from the Democrat party, but that's S.O.P., and there's little point in lamenting it—although it's very important to point it out. What Trump did was really stupid and arguably insensitive, but to suggest that he is akin to a grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan is overwrought in the extreme.

Thursday, June 09, 2016

Damage

The Democrat's trained hamsters in the media want the public to remain focused on Donald Trump and his self-inflicted problems. Although the hamsters still talk Trump and more Trump (after all, he's the guy who improves rating), they have done their predictable pivot and now have adopted Hillary's latest meme—"trump in 'tempermentally' unfit to be president. Although that actually might be true, the BIG question (which is verboten among the hamsters) is whether Hillary's dishonesty, corruption, and incompetence make her characteristically unfit to be president.

I had to laugh when the hamsters breathlessly noted the historic moment associated with the first woman gaining the nomination of a major party. There was another contemporaneous historic moment—Hillary if the first person under active FBI investigation who gained the nomination of a major party. Oh well.

Daniel Henninger identifies the real winner in this circus—Bernie Sanders. He writes:
The real claim to Democratic Party history belongs to Bernie Sanders. Sen. Sanders has recentered the Democrats, once and for all, as a party of the political left. He has reimagined the Democrats—almost with the force of his personality—as a party of the state, of government and of redistribution. Period.

Barack Obama himself became a Bernista in his June 1 speech in Elkhart, Ind., when he essentially proposed delinking Social Security’s benefits from any known economic reality.

The party of Franklin Roosevelt through Lyndon Johnson and its alliance with private-sector industrial unions made Democrats aware that their fortunes ultimately were joined to the success of the private sector.

The Democrats are now the party of Bernie Sanders, the progressive icon Sen. Elizabeth Warren and—make no mistake—of Barack Obama, a man of the left from day one. Rather than distrust the private sector, they disdain and even loathe it.
And therein lies the problem—left-wing ideologues like Sanders and Warren truly do "loath" the private sector. They despise profit, viewing it, I think, as some kind of social evil; they condemn wealth, considering it an affront to "social justice." They reject business, thinking it a soulless enterprise that focuses on success along with P&L as opposed to "saving the planet" or "changing the world."

They view their own country as an aggressor and elevate the "oppressed" (both inside this country and outside it) to a level where the "oppressed can do no wrong. They encourage a totalitarian form of governance where PC rules, and there can be no discussion that challenges their narrative.

Henninger expands on this:
The policies of John Kennedy and Bill Clinton, now in disrepute, ensured that annual economic growth remained at its postwar average of about 3%. Those Democrats understood the private sector, even if they distrusted it.

That understanding is gone, as proven by the seven-year Obama growth rate between zero and little more than 2%. If Hillary Clinton utters the phrase “corporate tax reform,” she will lose the election. The Sanders wing of the Obama coalition will walk away from her.

In the new Democratic Party, defined by the substance of Sen. Sanders’s campaign, the role of the private sector is to transmit revenue to the public purse. Private business has become an exotic abstraction, like the province of Cappadocia in the Roman empire.

As the Obama presidency made clear, this new relationship is not based on the tax code, which the new Democrats think of as a kind of dumb sump pump. The driver now is legal prosecution or the constant threat of it by government enforcement agencies—Justice, Labor, the NLRB, and the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, whose originator was Elizabeth Warren.
The Democratic party has now become a party of left-wing true believers—people who reject history, reject facts, embrace fantasy prescriptions for "social justice," and reject those who suggest a more moderate approach.

Given this crazy election year, the truth believers might very well take hold of the reins of power. And if that happens, history will repeat itself as it did in Cuba, Venezuela, much of Central America to name only a few local neighbors. As they say, when reality collides with fantasy, reality wins every time. But as the collision occurs, there can be massive, unrecoverable damage—and that's not something I want for my children or grandchildren.

UPDATE:
---------------------

In an unintentionally amusing example of moral preening, Andrew Rosenthal, wrings his hands and proposes to tell us "Why Republicans Won't Renounce Donald Trump?" The fact is that many prominent Republicans have, in fact, renounced Trump's ill-advised statements and policy proposals seems to have escaped Rosenthal.

What's amusing is that Rosenthal doesn't address the question of why Democrats don't renounce Hillary Clinton's lies about email, Benghazi or a dozen other important issues, why they don't renounce the operation of the illicit money machine that is the Clinton Foundation, why they don't renounce the pay-for-play influence peddling that was part and parcel of Hillary's sojourn as Secretary of State, why the don't question the competence of the Secretary of State who presided over the Russian reset, the China pivot, the debacle in Libya, and the beginnings of the Iran "deal."

By the way. as bad as trumps words may have been, they are only words uttered when he was running for office, NOT while he was in office.. Hillary's dishonesty, corruption, and incompetence are all associates with her time IN office. There is a rather big difference, but who's keeping score?

In fact, I can't recall a single prominent Democrat (with the possible exception of Bernie Sanders) who has so much as questioned these issues. But don't bother Andrew Rosenthal with any of that—he's too busy with his lame attempt to convince us that GOP members are moral midgets while Dems are, by comparison, moral giants. Heh.

Wednesday, June 08, 2016

Stolen

It appears that the Left and its many supporters in the mainstream media are relatively sanguine about violence and, yes, racism, when it comes from people that they have elevated into a near-sainted status. Those people are illegal immigrants and the Left-wing activists and agitators that support them. The people who perpetrate violence against attendees at Donald trump rallies seem to get a pass. Prominent Democrats, including big city mayors, have suggested that the riots that occurred last week in California were the fault of Trump, who has the temerity to offer a counter-narrative to open borders. That's a lot like suggesting that a woman who dresses provocatively or is fall-down drunk is the catalyst for a violent rape, but that level of irony escapes the oh-so sanctimonious activists and agitators.

At the riots and attacks that occurred last week in California, activists and agitators carried signs that read: "This is Mexico! You’re not welcome on Native/Mexican soil” suggesting that the state was "stolen" from Mexico and that their every grievance is justified. Hmmm. That sounds an awful lot like the claims of palestinians who argue without any justification and in direct conflict with historical fact that Israel has been "stolen" from them.

But wait. It looks increasingly likely that Bernie Sanders' appointees might hijack the Democrat platform committee and introduce a virulently anti-Israel platform. These pro-palestinian leftists, adherents to the despicable BDS movement, now have their chance to soil what was once a political party that was correctly and honestly pro-Israel. If the Dems accede to the Sander's appointees' demands, the party shouldn't stop there. Why don't they add language to their platform that California is Mexico and should be returned to the Mexico? But wait, following the logic of pro-Palestinian Democrats, maybe the Dems should add Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona to the deal, and give back those states as well. After all, they were, like Israel, "stolen," weren't they?

After all, in the through-the-looking-glass world of the hard left, "oppressed" people are always right, regardless of how outrageous and misdirected their claims might be.

Sunday, June 05, 2016

Time Will Tell

Over the past few months, Donald Trump has done nothing to make me change my mind about him. For example, in March I wrote:
I had and have considerable reservations about Donald Trump. Yet deep down, there is something refreshing about the way he blows up politically correct wisdom on the left and dismisses some of the tenuous and deeply held ideologies of the right. As much as I don't like his style; as much as I continue to believe that he does not have a deep grasp of the issues; as much as his shoot-from-the-hip approach could be problematic, his neo-centrist approach is worth another look. Trump upsets political and media elitists (on both the left and the right), and they're working very hard to demonize him.
My position and general feelings about Trump remain the same. Shrill accusations characterizing Trump as a fascist, a racist, or a bigot are nothing more than the usual Leftist rants — ad hominem attacks to defend their narrative when it is challenged. But more thoughtful criticism of Trump— his lack of campaign discipline, his thin skin when criticized, his seeming inability to grasp and enunciate key policy points, his lack of focus, and his overall bullying demeanor—is worth considering as we move forward.

Let's take one instance of his behavior to illustrate. In a recent press conference (by the way, when was the last time HRC gave a press conference?), Donald Trump correctly accused the main stream media of bias. He castigated a few reporters, calling one a "sleaze," but providing no evidence of that bias, even though it abounds.

The press conference focused Trump's delayed donations to veterans and on Trump University, a for-profit real estate school that some attendees claim bilked them out of hard earned money and provided little useful benefit to them.

Here is what a different, more intelligent, more informed Trump might have said to the assembled media:
Trump: "You have every right to question the workings and sales tactics of Trump university. We contend that we've done nothing wrong, but the matter is in the courts and will be adjudicated there, not in the media. By the way, I'm surprised that all of you [points to the media audience] haven't shown equal concern about the travesty that is college loans. Hundreds of thousands of young people go into debt for hundred of millions of dollars to pay for university educations that often provide them with few, if any, marketable skills. That means they can't get a good job and can't pay back their loans. Why don't I see more concern about this from all of you hypocrites [after all, this is Donald Trump] who seem oh-so concerned about our small real entrepreneurship estate training program? Do your job!

"And about your accusations that we delayed a $5.6 million donation to the Vets until this week. There are reasons for the delay that I've already explained. Again, I find it interesting that all of you [points to the media audience] haven't shown equal concern about the travesty that is the so-called charity—The Clinton Foundation. Why haven't you asked Hillary Clinton these questions:

[Ticks them off on his fingers]
  • "First. What percent of the hundred of millions that Clinton received have gone to the people who are deserving of charity? Some say that number is less than 10 percent of all dollars collected? Where's the rest of the money?
  • "Second. Who is donating the money? Are there foreign governments and corporations giving money? Were any of them granted favors by Clinton's State Department?
  • "Third. What salaries and other perqs do the Clintons get from this "charity?"  Given that have have no other businesses, how did they attain a net worth of over $100 million after Hillary claimed they were "broke" just 16 years ago?
  • "Fourth. Why did The Clinton Foundation have to revise five years of tax returns after Hillary announced for the presidency?
  • "Fifth. Did any of the so-called personal emails that Hillary herself says she deleted refer to Clinton Foundation business? And if she claims that none did, how credible is that claim?
"All of you [again points at the assembled press corps] should be asking those question ... but you don't. Why is that?

"Do you not think it's important or at least as important as my delayed contributions to the Vets?

"You're a bunch of hypocrites. Biased. Unprofessional. So please spare me the "just doing our jobs" routine. It appears to me that you only do your job when a Republican is the target. Marco Rubio was right when he referred to you as a Democratic SuperPac. You should be ashamed of yourselves, but that would require integity."
That's a Trump that just might win the election. But it takes depth, thoughtfulness, and intelligence to be that Trump. Is he hiding in there someplace, or is he just going to implode?

Time will tell.

UPDATE (6/7/16):
-----------------------

As the week progresses, it appears that Trump has taken the implosion route. This comment from Investor's Business Daily:
Election 2016: What exactly does Donald Trump hope to achieve by suggesting that a Mexican-American judge is biased against him solely because of Trump’s push for tough immigration policies? It’s not clear, but we don’t like dividing Americans by race — no matter who does it.

Trump suggested last week that Mexican-American U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel couldn’t be trusted to be impartial in a lawsuit involving Trump’s now-defunct school because he was “Mexican,” though Curiel was in fact born in Indiana. (His parents were born in Mexico.)

What’s more, Trump doubled down on that statement. When asked on CBS’ “Face The Nation” if a Muslim judge would be biased against him, too, because Trump called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country, Trump responded: “It’s possible, yes.”

Already, Republicans ranging from Newt Gingrich and Paul Ryan to Mitch McConnell and Jeff Flake of Arizona have expressed concerns about a noisy campaign based on race. Gingrich, who has been talked up as a possible Trump running mate, called it “one of the worst mistakes Trump has made” and said it was “inexcusable.”
Trump's comments aren't just inexcusable—they're monumentally stupid. They indicate a complete lack of discipline, focusing on issues that affect Trump and not the nation. By attacking a sitting Federal judge as opposed to his opponent—Hillary Clinton is nothing if not a target-rich environment, Trump is sure to alienate thoughtful Independents and many Republicans. If Trump can't pivot to: (1) address real issues of national importance at a level that requires more than a tweet; (2) effectively attack the dishonesty, corruption, and incompetence that exemplify Hillary Clinton; (3) demonstrates that he knows when to pick a fight and when to walk away, he will lose, and lose big. That wouldn't be so bad ... except that the country will also lose big if a third Obama term is in the offing.

Friday, June 03, 2016

Adaptation? Never!

Consider for a moment that you've established a strategy for increasing the success of a small business you're trying to build. You decide that you'll dramatically increase spending (on advertising, hiring more people , building nicer offices). You borrow and then borrow some more to fund all of this. Instead of improving your profitability, your business begins to struggle. Cash is flying out the door and you begin to lose money every month. So ... you increase spending on advertising even more, hire even more people, borrow even more. You double down on a failed strategy, disregarding its results and hoping that a miracle will happen and things will improve. You refuse to change course, to admit that your strategy was flawed, to adapt. Your business moves inexorably toward bankruptcy.

In essence, what I've just described for a small business is the blue model of governance at the federal, state, and local level, except that instead of suffering the consequences of their failed strategy, Democratic politicians place the burden on taxpayers.

Nothing exemplifies this more than the current state of affairs in my ex-home state of Connecticut. CT is true blue and has been for a long, long time. It does occasionally elect a GOP governor, but the legislature is always Democratic. For decades, CT has spent too much, taxed too much, borrowed too much, capitulated to the demands of public employee unions (think: generous pensions that are not adequately funded), and refused to adapt. The result is that this once vibrant and beautiful state is spiraling toward economic ruin. Business development is very weak, it's population is falling, it's infrastructure is crumbling. The Wall Street Journal reports:
Connecticut lost General Electric ’s headquarters to Massachusetts earlier this year, so Governor Dannel Malloy is now trying Illinois’s business model: Raise taxes, and then when businesses threaten to leave, write a check to other businesses so they’ll stay. Behold his $22 million taxpayer gift to Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater hedge fund.

Last week the Governor presented Bridgewater with $5 million in grants and $17 million in low-interest, forgivable loans to renovate its headquarters in Westport along the state’s Gold Coast. Mr. Malloy said that other states including New York were trying to lure Bridgewater, and Connecticut couldn’t afford to lose the $150 billion fund or its 1,400 high-income employees. We’ve got nothing against Mr. Dalio, but he could probably dig up $22 million from petty cash.

The Governor’s office says Nutmeg State tax revenues could shrink by $4.9 billion over the next decade if all of Bridgewater’s employees departed. After Appaloosa Management’s David Tepper escaped to Florida from New Jersey last year, Trenton’s budget gnomes sounded the public alarm.

“We see what happens in places like New Jersey when some of the wealthiest people move out of the state,” Mr. Malloy warned. This is the same Governor who has long echoed the progressive left’s claim that tax rates don’t matter. Maybe he was knocked off his horse by a vision on the road to Hartford.

Like other states with progressive tax codes, Connecticut is dependent on high earners. As recently as 1990, the state had no income tax and had long been a refuge for companies and employees fleeing high-tax New York. But as usual after an income tax is introduced, the political class keeps raising the rate.

Mr. Malloy’s Republican predecessor Jodi Rell raised the top marginal tax rate to 6.5% from 5% on individuals earning more than $500,000, and Mr. Malloy raised it again to 6.99%. Hilariously, Ms. Rell said last month that she’s also moving her residence to Florida because of the “downward spiral” in Connecticut that she helped to propel.
Now let's think for a moment about things at the federal level. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders tell us that we should all pay our "fair share." That the blue model is the only path forward. By that, they mean that a very small percentage of taxpayers should pay for the costs of Big Intrusive Government and the wasteful and ineffective programs it delivers. They further claim that increasing taxes has no negative effect on economic growth, and that government, not private enterprise, is the key driver for growing the economy. It's all a lie, but it's a lie that resonates with a non-trivial percentage of the populace. And when things get worse, when debt increases to dangerous levels, when government services get more and more sketchy, corrupt and ineffective, they double down on their blue strategy.

Adaptation? Never!




Thursday, June 02, 2016

PC and Psychological Reactance

Donald Trump is nothing if he is not impolitic. Unlike 99.9 percent of those on the political scene, Trump seems unafraid to violate the tenets of political correctness and in so doing, demonstrates (however crudely) that the PC emperors have no clothes. Glen Reynolds discusses this when he writes:
Back in February, analyzing Donald Trump’s appeal, David Gelernter wrote: “Political correctness. Trump hasn't made it a campaign theme exactly, but he mentions it often with angry disgust. Reporters, pundits, and the other candidates treat it as a sideshow, a handy way for Trump (King Kong Jr.) to smack down the pitiful airplanes that attack him as he bestrides his mighty tower, roaring. But the analysts have it exactly backward. Political correctness is the biggest issue facing America today. Even Trump has just barely faced up to it. The ironic name disguises the real nature of this force, which ought to be called invasive leftism or thought-police liberalism or metastasized progressivism ..."

I thought Gelernter was onto something at the time, and I thought about this passage again when reading the thoughts of a 22-year-old Trump supporter quoted by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic. Fridersdorf’s correspondent (whose name is redacted) is a prosperous post-collegian in the San Francisco Bay area — someone who should be backing Bernie, or Hillary, or maybe Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson. But instead he’s backing Trump, and so is his Asian fiancée. And the reason he gives is political correctness. “For me personally, it's resistance against what San Francisco has been, and what I see the country becoming, in the form of ultra-PC culture. That’s where it's almost impossible to have polite or constructive political discussion. Disagreement gets you labeled fascist, racist, bigoted, etc. It can provoke a reaction so intense that you’re suddenly an unperson to an acquaintance or friend. ... This is a war over how dialogue in America will be shaped. If Hillary wins, we're going to see a further tightening of PC culture. But if Trump wins? If Trump wins, we will have a president that overwhelmingly rejects PC rhetoric. Even better, we will show that more than half the country rejects this insane PC regime.”

It’s not a coincidence that when leftist protesters showed up at a conservative event at Rutgers University, students responded to the leftists’ chants with ”Trump! Trump! Trump!”
As the Democratic Party, the preponderance of all major media sources (that unofficially support the Dem party), the entertainment industry, and many college students veer to the Left, our society is inundated with Leftist ideology (think: Bernie Sanders), often masquerading as political correctness.

Conservative writer, Theodore Dalrymple (h/t: Instapundit) dissects the PC world, comparing the current tyranny of PC to the much older use of communist propaganda:
Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.
Dalrymple (a pen name for Anthony Daniels) is not suggesting that PC-speak is communist propaganda, but rather, that PC is like propaganda in the sense that it forces many people to parrot beliefs that they know (deep down) are wrong, fantastical, and even dangerous. In essence, advocates of PC argue that any speech that questions deeply help PC orthodoxy represents an "micro-aggression" and should be stifled or outright eliminated.

Thomas Edsall, writing in The New York Times suggests that "psychological reactance" against PC is at the heart of Trump's support. Reactance is defined as: "the feeling you get when people try to stop you from doing something you’ve been doing, and you perceive that they have no right or justification for stopping you. So you redouble your efforts and do it even more, just to show that you don’t accept their domination." The "domination" that many people feel is the imposition of politically correct ideas that does not stand up to reason, common sense or objective proof. For example, is "multiculturalism" really the road to a utopian society or is it a recipe to a fractured, dysfunctional society? There are arguments on both sides of this question, but the PC brigade would brand one a bigot for arguing the latter.

Many of my progressive friends argue that political correctness encourages civility, discourages bigotry, and otherwise leads to a "nicer" society. Well ... that may have been its original intent, but PC has morphed into something ugly—an near-totalitarian attempt to control speech, and indirectly, to control people's thoughts. As Dalrymple states, its intent is to force people to remain silent when they are confronted with flawed thinking or risk being labeled "racist," "fascist," or "bigoted," or uncaring or ... you know the list.

None of those accusations are is true, and given that, it's high time to confront the subtle intimidation that is part and parcel of PC.  If that's "psychological reactance," so be it.