Posts Tagged → Iran
Simple formula about life on Earth escapes many people
After World War I, “the war to end all wars,” antipathy towards anything military related ran so deep in England and France, that both countries practically disarmed to both cut costs and to symbolize their break with “militarization.” America followed suit to some extent.
England’s Neville Chamberlain was famous for his “peace in our time” mis-statement, as he allowed the alligator of German aggression to eat more and more of Europe, in the hopes that eventually the alligator would become full and not go after England, too.
Obviously Chamberlain’s approach of appeasing evil tyrants Hitler and Stalin did nothing to stop them, and barely delayed their ambitions. England suffered terribly from German attacks, and only survived because America awakened from her slumber and engaged. Militarily. As in, sending troops, boats, bombs, bullets, planes, guns, and tanks to England to both defend England and to use England as a launching ground to take the fight back to Germany.
Winston Churchill holding the very American Thompson submachine gun is a famous icon of Western resolve to withstand tyranny.
Fast forward to Ukraine, now being invaded by a reinvigorated Russian empire…like the old evil Soviet empire. You know, the one that fell apart from sustained Western military, economic, and diplomatic pressure.
Now, where is that pressure? Obama is using appeasement and laughingly empty threats against a tyrannical, militaristic, imperialistic would-be emperor, Vlad Putin. It won’t work. All that appeasement does is make the inevitable military clash all the worse, because it gives the bad guys all the time they need to build up their military strength, while the good guys wring their hands, and dither.
Question here is, Do people learn from history, so that they can survive? Answer here is, No, not those people whose ideology or religion (sometimes it is impossible to tell the two apart) inclines them to ignore what is in front of their faces. To wit:
Yesterday I was in the Washington, DC, area for an event, and had plenty of opportunities to talk with long-time liberal politicians and activists gathered there. Yes, I was one of the few conservatives/ traditionalists present. So the liberals felt comfortable speaking from their hearts, and it was a fascinating experience. One man, Hal, presently on a large city council and deeply involved in Congressional oversight, asked me what my number one problem with Obama was, from a functional perspective, not values or ideological view. “A lack of accountability for Obama’s actions and misdeeds,” was my response.
Naturally, Hal asked me what those were, and I could not get past pointing out that ObamaCare has received thousands of politically -based waivers from the White House, not to mention the many delays in implementing it, so that the pain felt by Americans would not be translated into punishing Democrats at the polls. When I pointed out that none of these waivers or delays are permitted by the law, Hal simply and repeatedly said “Yes, but it is his signature effort, his defining law.”
As if that excuses unconstitutional actions by an out-of-control, out-of-bounds executive. But in Hal’s mind, it does excuse Obama. And I am positive Hal is representative of liberals everywhere: The ends justify the means. Because the ends are pure (they think), any means of achieving those ends is acceptable, including violating the Constitution. A young student named Ms. Korn, now being indoctrinated at Harvard, recently wrote an essay in the Harvard Crimson where she declared that the First Amendment rights of conservatives are getting in the way of her (and Obama’s) version of “justice,” and that in the name of achieving that justice, the First Amendment should be vacated. Ms. Korn is probably representative of her generation, having been indoctrinated by people like Hal.
And thus we see the deficiency of liberalism going inter-generational. Pragmatism is something used only if it advances the liberal agenda, not if it defends Americans or democracy. And seeing what is going on in Ukraine (and Syria, and Iran, and and and…), one must wonder what Obama’s agenda is? And do a majority of Americans care, even if the basic rules of successful life on this planet are violated?
Ukraine: Obama batting zero, his cheering section still loud
Math was not always my strongest interest (although I did self-learn calculus in graduate school), so disregard the headline here. Obama’s foreign policy is such a catastrophic failure that he is way in the negatives; he is not at zero. Being at Zero would actually be a success.
Here is a partial list of countries and peoples seeking freedom from tyranny who have had the rug of American promises pulled out from underneath them by Obama:
Poland (defensive missiles).
Georgia (South Ossetia, invaded by Russia).
Israel.
Iranian citizens.
Syrian citizens.
And now it’s Ukraine that has learned the hard lesson of Obama’s recklessness. Whatever promises were made to get Ukraine’s nuclear weapons, like protecting Ukraine from Russian imperialism, have been openly tossed out the window by an Obama administration bent on destroying America from within. Wrecking America’s international standing is one way to destroy America at home.
Allowing aggressive imperial powers like Russia, China, and Iran to willfully expand their spheres of influence and domination lets Obama off the “aggressor” hook. He can claim he’s no “warmonger.” But his inaction and failure to live up to his own red lines and promises of American protection have created a vacuum into which the aggressors, the real warmongers, have stepped.
Growing up in a pacifist household, I used to ask the hard questions that no one could answer, like Why should someone not actively oppose an Adolph Hitler and a Nazi Germany? Answers were hard to come by, because there are no substantive answers to these questions.
Pacifism is evil because it legitimizes evil. Pacifism equates doing nothing with active aggression, imperialism, domination, subjugation, tyranny and all the barbaric cruelty that goes along with them. By failing to act, by failing to confront evil in a meaningful way, pacifists lend credibility to the aggressors. If Russian imperialism in the form of subjugating Ukraine is not confronted and thwarted, then it must not be so bad. Such is the message from Obama and other pacifists, intended or unintended.
This unwillingness to act creates a vacuum, and this vacuum is seen correctly as weakness. It invites even more aggression. History is replete with examples, so an Obama would have to willfully ignore the obvious historical truth in order to do what he is doing (and not doing) now.
I know Obama has his cheering section. That is the greatest sadness of all, because those same people claim to be ethical, humane, loving. So strong is the messianic love for this charlatan among his believers, that they will forgive and forget his greatest deceptions, his greatest failures, the trail of destruction and misery in his wake. Other people, other families, then pay with their lives, at best to be the subjects of pity by groups like OxFam and Rotary, intent on picking up the few broken pieces later on.
For shame.
Obama abandons western civilization
If anyone had any questions left about Obama’s loyalties, tonight’s state of the union speech should have clarified that this man is at war with western civilization.
Pledging to veto stronger sanctions on Iran means that Obama is now openly aiding and protecting Iran in its rush to build nuclear bombs.
Obama has now openly broken his pledge to faithfully defend America. Time is now for this dangerous charlatan to go.
At what point does this crash and burn?
You can keep your health care plan and your doctor, if you want to. Oops, lie.
Iran can be negotiated with and our unilateral easing of the sanctions slowing their maniacal drive to create nuclear weapons is OK. Oops, lie.
At what point do Americans ask what kind of a person Obama is, really?
Meanwhile, Obama hands off US relationships to Russia
Amazingly, Obama has managed to hand off a great number of America’s most important relationships to Russia and China.
By engaging Iran in meaningless negotiation, and easing sanctions with nothing in return, Obama has managed to alienate Saudi Arabia and Egypt, isolate Israel, and drive everyone towards China and Russia as the new sources (!!) of stability and strength.
Growing up Quaker did nothing for my ability to see reality. The Quaker discomfort with conflict is legendary (with the exception of making genocidal war against Israel), and that pacifism informs the foolishness now passing as “peace” in Obama’s relationship with evil Iran.
The longer Obama is in power, the less stable the world becomes, the stronger evil nations like Iran and evil groups like the Muslim Brotherhood become. And Obama’s supporters wonder why people like me question if Obama really is a Christian and really is pro America. You can’t do what Obama is doing and make those claims. America is becoming more vulnerable every day under Obama.
September 11th, A Day of Remembrance, Reflection & Resolve
September 11th, A Day of Remembrance, Reflection & Resolve
September 11, 2012
By Josh First
September 11th is an American day of national remembrance and reflection. We remember the attacks on our defenseless civilians by Muslim terrorists, who used our freedoms against us on this day.
We reflect on American heroism, an innate trait seen most graphically on Flight 93, now memorialized at the crash site in Somerset County, Pennsylvania (which I had the honor to help create, leading the first two years of real estate protection there with the National Park Service, Somerset County, the local townships, the Families of Flight 93, PBS Coals, CONSOL Energy, the Mellon Foundation, and others, not to mention the many supportive landowners).
Should the American character of inclusiveness be continued in a way that invites these kinds of attacks? An inclusiveness at any and all costs?
Based on his experience in both world wars, British leader Winston Churchill quipped after World War II that the Americans wouldn’t show up to a fight until it was almost too late to win it. Will our generation of Americans languish in our non-judgmentalism, uber-inclusiveness, and moral relativism until it is too late?
The “too late” will be when Iran obtains nuclear bombs, which is in the end-process of happening with an American and European acquiescence that is exactly how the West dealt with Hitler before 1940. Pacifists call this avoidable prelude to widespread death “peace,” but what do they call it after the bombs start going off? They call it someone else’s failure.
Many people believe that those Iranian bombs will be directed at Israel only, but Iran fears and hates America more than Israel. To Iran’s Muslim leaders and most of its citizens, America is the epicenter of everything they oppose. It’s a clash of civilizations that they intend to settle with nuclear bombs and that we currently intend to resolve through endless discussion.
America’s porous borders and inability to fight back against Islamic supremacism at home or abroad mean that at least one Iranian bomb will find its way into a large American city. The devastation and economic fallout will be unimaginable. What if two or three bombs are snuck in, and detonated? Is it “peace” to ignore these questions, and is it “warmongering” to ask them?
The oft-quoted historian George Santayana said “Those who forget history are destined to repeat it,” which in the context of September 11th means that Americans who are forgetting what happened that day, and why, will be surprised the next time we experience a huge domestic attack. The problem is that the next attack will be with a nuclear bomb, maybe several, America may not be able to recover from the damage, and we don’t have to be surprised; we can take steps to stop it from happening.
So on September 11th, the modern equivalent of remembering the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, let us not just recall the pain that we felt, but rather also resolve that it won’t happen again. Let us take the small and big steps necessary to ensure that it doesn’t happen again, the personal ones, the professional ones, and the political ones.
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One-Minute World-Wide Racism Round-Up
One-Minute World-Wide Racism Round-Up
July 12, 2012
By Josh First
www.joshfirst.com
Racism is a significant fault. Judging an individual or groups of individuals, or ascribing to them inherent flaws or evil character because of their skin color, ethnicity, or religion, is a most primitive human trait. It has no place in the civilized world. Well, let’s be accurate: According to the Left’s political correctness, judgmentalism, racism and discrimination are acceptable if the person doing them is a purported victim, or a member of certain classes of purported victims. Arch-racists Louis Farrakhan and Jeremiah Wright are two good examples of this double standard; they oppress people because of skin color, but get a free pass. However, in general, to accuse someone of racism is the highest form of criticism in free societies, because free societies are supposed to hold all citizens to an equal standard and equal treatment under the law. To be racist is to stand against everything that makes free societies great.
America is supposedly a terribly racist place, according to the Left. Certainly it was, 150 years ago, and even 50 years ago. Now? No. The greatness of America is that the ability to change, evolve, and improve is built into its political system. Reverse racism is the main source of racism today in America. For purposes of comparison, let’s do a quick trip around the world and sample some of the racism on display, and see how America stacks up.
Let’s start in the lovely, free, butterflies-and-bunny rabbits Iran, where freedom protestors were gunned down en masse in the streets just two years ago, allegedly gay men are slowly hung to death in public (go online and watch the videos), and famous women’s rights advocates are personally tortured to death over weeks by high-ranking political leaders. I was being sarcastic before. Iran is not a great place; Iran is a swamp of sadistic racists. But because it is a Muslim nation, and therefore a member of one of the purported victim classes, the Left hardly lifts a finger against them. This week, Iran’s annual “International Wall Street Downfall Cartoon Festival,” an officially-run cartoon competition, resulted in first prize being awarded to brutally anti-Jewish cartoon. That ranks a 10 on any racism index you care to use. Muslims who convert to Christianity are put on trial and killed. That ranks a 10 on any racism index you care to use. Iran: Racist place.
A few hundred miles to the West, the minority Muslim Alawite community, which controls Syria, is on a serial killer’s dream rampage across Syria, hacking, hanging, burning, drilling, kicking, sawing, beating, bombing, and shooting the population into submission. Again, go on YouTube and watch the videos. It is pure savagery. Syria is officially, by law, run by the Alawite Muslim population. But, Muslims can’t be racists, so…well, by now you know the Left’s story on dealing with Islamic discrimination. In any case, no one on the Left really says anything about it. But it is a racist place. Incidentally, all of Syria’s Jews were dispossessed and kicked out, despite living there far longer than anyone identified as Arab or Muslim. Syria: Racist place.
A few miles more to the west, the Palestine Authority has once again officially rejected the notion of any Jews ever living in a state of Palestine, even Jews whose families and communities have lived in Judea and Samaria for thousands of years. Adolf Hitler also said that there was no place for Jews in his country. Is Israel, or any other nation for that matter, allowed to say that no Muslims will ever live within its political boundaries? No. But then again, the Palestine Authority is mostly Muslim, and despite a nearly two-to-one Jewish refugee to Arab refugee disparity, Jews are considered the bad guys and Arab Muslims are the purported victims there. Thus, arch-racist PA leader Mahmoud Abbas is given a pass by the Left (Abbas wrote his PhD thesis on the ‘falseness’ of the European Holocaust, even as the Arab ethnic cleansing of nearly a million Jews from across the Middle East was in full swing. Talk about a double standard…), and racist ethnic cleansing is now official policy of the Palestine Authority. That ranks right up there with Exceptional Levels of Racism. By contrast, even appearing to ‘Redline’ a home in America can get a bank, an appraiser, and a realtor in hot water. Palestine Authority: Really racist place.
Over a thousand miles to the west, Bosnia’s constitution explicitly institutionalizes racism. Remember Bosnia, the place where Europeans were once again joyously killing each other in droves just 20 years ago? Well, the Bosnian constitution only allows “constituent peoples,” which are Bosniaks (Muslims), Croats, and Serbs, to serve in elected posts. Jews, Gypsies (“Roma”), and other minorities are classified as “others” in that constitution, and they may not serve in Parliament. Recall that these were the same Bosnians who were subjugated by the Serbs in the 1990s, and who, in a sane world, might have learned a thing or two about the evils of racism from their own recent experience. But recall that they are….Muslims, and therefore above criticism and way off the Left’s radar screen. On our radar screen here, constitutions that officially prevent minorities from serving in government ring the bell on “Most Racist Places,” and thus Bosnia ties Iran, Syria, and the Palestine Authority on its racism index. Bosnia: Racist place.
A few thousand miles more to the west, presidential candidate Mitt Romney is booed several times at the annual NAACP conference. Romney made the pledge to repeal “ObamaCare,” and immediately reaped the heaped scorn of most of the thousands of blacks in the audience. Now, if a mostly white audience booed a black speaker, would that be racist? Well, it would surely be represented by the Left to be racism. If that’s the case, then why isn’t it racist for the NAACP attendees to boo a white speaker?
Even more to the point, NAACP leader Charlotte Stoker-Manning (chair of Women in NAACP ) was quoted this week in BuzzFeed and The Daily Caller with the following golden nuggets: “I believe [Romney’s] vested interests are in white Americans”; and, “You cannot possibly talk about jobs for black people at the level [Romney is] coming from. He’s talking about entrepreneurship, savings accounts — black people can barely find a way to get back and forth from work.”
Charlotte doesn’t appreciate how racist she sounds. Ascribing racist intentions to Romney because of the color of his skin is…racist, pure and simple. Second, why does Charlotte have so little faith in the black community? In the years following Emancipation, blacks thrived. Some of America’s great inventors from the 1870s through the early 1900s were black. During that period, whites elected blacks to higher office across the country; blacks proved themselves to be the intellectual and entrepreneurial equals of their European neighbors. Today, Prince George’s County in Maryland is loaded with middle-income blacks. Entire communities there are black, safe, and thriving, populated by people who have entrepreneurial small businesses and savings accounts. They are breaking with Charlotte’s racist portrait of blacks as incapable dependents.
So, in our one-minute world-wide tour of racism, we see that there are whole nations whose constitutions give sole political power to select ethnic or religious groups. There are groups who abused, robbed, and ethnically cleansed religious minorities from their midst and yet now complain that that same minority found another place to live near them. But despite all this, according to the Left, America has a racism problem. I might agree, because the racism here in America may not be from the usual sources, but it’s racism nonetheless.
Do I think the self-appointed guardians of anti-discrimination are onto it?
Nope.
Neither do you.
Up Next: Why Conservatives Love African Americans…
Ron Paul’s tinfoil hat
U.S. Congressman Ron Paul is a candidate for the U.S. presidency, a serious endeavor with big implications.
But if you listen to his foreign policy positions, as I did in last night’s Republican debate, you realize that he is not a serious candidate. Ron Paul is in the same category as racist David Duke and other wackos who run for office to promote their extreme, bizarre beliefs, not to win.
Ron Paul blames America for why Muslim leaders around the world hate America. It’s a flawed position, but it plays to a group of angry citizens on both the far left and far right of the political spectrum.
Ron Paul’s position on American foreign policy may be flawed, but it is more than that. It is a potentially fatal flaw that could spell the end of the United States as a nuclear-armed Iran uses conventional and unconventional nuclear bombs to destroy our great nation.
Cartoons that capture Ron Paul’s awkward, dangerous policy positions might show a man wearing a tinfoil hat, the kind of “protection” lunatics need to keep the CIA from reading their minds.
Ron Paul is a cartoon of a candidate. Enjoy your tinfoil hat, congressman. We believe you, sure we do…..