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by Jeff Johanson |
7:59:00 PM |
Here's an article from the NYT by Jared diamond another clueless liberal 'expert' on why societies live or die. He suggests the U.S. should reappraise it's unwise tendency to utilize "short-term" military measures to fix it's international problems. Money Quote:A genuine reappraisal would require us to recognize that it will be far less expensive and far more effective to address the underlying problems of public health, population and environment that ultimately cause threats to us to emerge in poor countries. In the past, we have regarded foreign aid as either charity or as buying support; now, it's an act of self-interest to preserve our own economy and protect American lives.
The thing is, I'm pretty sure Jared would never recognize the establishment of democracy and a free-market economy (by force of arms if necessarry) as the only genuinely effective ways to "address the underlying problems" he discusses. His implied prescription for the problems of public health, population and environment is to simply send more "foreign aid", that is, more of America's money. |
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by Bruce McAllister |
7:04:01 PM |
| The left routinely slants discussion of its positions by defining them in terms that prejudice the argument, to the point of intellectual dishonesty. For example, nothing is to me more egregious than calling the pro-abortion position as “pro-choice? or “respecting a woman’s right to choose? A human life, a child, begins at the moment of conception. To argue otherwise is sophistry. To intentionally interrupt this life is simply akin to murder. It sounds plausible that women should have the right to govern the use of their own bodies. But we are not only concerned about her body, from conception forward the child also has a right to its life. After all a woman does not become pregnant because a random bolt of lightening happened to strike the ground in her vicinity. Pregnancy is the result of a very specific act. For most, without surgical intervention, sexual activity always carries some risk of pregnancy and the responsibilities that go with it. This is when “choice?is truly exercised. No, the “pro-choice?position does not respect a woman’s right to choose, it seeks to escape responsibility for choices made. |
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by Jeff Johansen |
7:25:14 PM |
| Something tells me this incident involving an ostensibly dead or wounded Fallujah "insurgent" will not recieve quite the attention it deserves. |
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by Jeff Johansen |
8:06:50 PM |
Here's a thoroughly predictable (and rather inchoate) opinion from Henk Spaam at the Guardian on the cultural friction brought on in Holland by Theo Van Gogh's murder. Most Guardian-like quote:Frankly, I'm not very optimistic. I watch television and await the attack on a very ordinary house in The Hague, supposedly a safe house for terrorists, full of explosives, surrounded by autochtone (native Dutch) neighbours. Few are aware that in the near future as much as 15% of the Netherlands' population will be Muslim. The old Dutch society so craved by Pim Fortuyn no longer exists. We will have to live with the one we've got. Apparently the greatest fear aroused in Spaam’s mind by the recent violence, is not the fear of further Islamic violence, nor the fear that Muslims will continue to insist upon retaining their “traditional” attitudes toward women (which Van Gogh's film criticised), but that innocent Muslims will be falsely accused of terrorist activities. Here’s another laughable sentiment: One motivation behind Van Gogh's obsessive fight for freedom of speech, which he tested to its limits and beyond, was mentioned in his father's televised speech yesterday. He recalled another Theo, his brother, killed by the Germans for his resistance to the occupation more than half a century ago. Theo may have seen fundamentalists - with their beliefs about women, homosexuality, arranged marriages and hatred of western liberalism - as a similar threat. Far-fetched as this psychoanalysis may be, the fear of a cultural battle is becoming commonplace in our deeply shocked society Far-fetched indeed! Honestly, the thought that there might be any similarity between Nazis and people who believe that women should be shrouded head-to-toe in sheets, that homosexuals should be killed, that alcohol-drinking, sex-before-marriage-loving, movie-going, rock n’roll-playing Westerners are all infidels, and who all hail from countries run by Islamic dictators, how could any analysis be more far-fetched?! |
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by Jeff Johansen |
6:29:45 PM |
| Here’s a rather depressing article about how the re-election of President Bush has caused the winds of Arab Opinion to turn against the U.S. It’s funny how most of the sources he quotes are from countries other than Iraq. Indeed articles like this often drive me to the various Iraqi blogs I’ve discovered over the last several months. Though a perusal of these blogs in no way constitutes a scientific appraisal of broad Arab opinion, I’m often refreshed at how at least some Iraqi’s seem to “get it”. That is, they seem to understand and appreciate, to one degree or another, what the US is trying to do in their country. Have a look for yourself at: By the way, all these sites are permanently listed in my "Links" sedtion. |
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