RUTHFULLY YOURS

Hillary Clinton is being pilloried by pundits on the right for saying, at a recent speech at Georgetown, that America’s leaders should “empathize” with America’s enemies. But what’s so wrong about that?

“This is what we call smart power,” she said, using the phrase that was supposed to define her tenure as secretary of state. “Using every possible tool and partner to advance peace and security. Leaving no one side on the sidelines. Showing respect even for one’s enemies. Trying to understand, in so far as psychologically possible, [and] empathize with their perspective and point of view.”

As a matter of politics, “empathize” was a lousy word choice, a reminder that Mrs. Clinton is as tin-eared as she is ambitious: Expect a GOP political attack ad if and when she runs for president.

But empathy isn’t sympathy. Understanding an enemy’s point of view does not mean taking their side. Respect is not solidarity. “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles,” Sun Tzu teaches in “The Art of War.” “If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

It’s good advice. Mrs. Clinton isn’t wrong to adopt it. Her problem is that she appears to be a singularly lousy empathizer.

In April 2005 Vladimir Putin said the collapse of the Soviet Union was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” In 2006 a Russian dissident in London was poisoned by polonium—a nuclear attack in miniature—leading to a breakdown in relations between London and Moscow. In 2008 Russia invaded Georgia. That same year, educational manuals for Russian social-studies teachers took the view that Joseph Stalin was “the most successful Soviet leader ever.”

What about the Great Terror of the 1930s, in which millions of Soviet citizens were killed by Stalin’s henchmen? That, according to the manual, happened because Stalin “did not know who would deal the next blow, and for that reason he attacked every known group and movement.” Commenting on the Terror, Mr. Putin allowed that the killing was terrible “but in other countries worse things happened.”

Mary Landrieu ’s defeat in Saturday’s Louisiana Senate runoff was no surprise, but that doesn’t mean it should be ignored as inevitable. Ms. Landrieu was a widely liked three-term incumbent, and her GOP foe was hardly a juggernaut, yet she lost by 14 points after Washington Democrats all but wrote her off. Think of Ms. Landrieu as one more Democrat who has sacrificed her career to ObamaCare.

It’s hard to find another vote in modern history that has laid waste to so many political careers. Sixty Democrats cast the deciding 60th vote for the Affordable Care Act in 2009 and 2010, but come January only 30 will be left in the Senate. That’s an extraordinary political turnover in merely three elections, the largest in the post-Watergate era. As it happens, the law has been nearly as politically catastrophic for Democrats as Watergate was for Republicans.

Three of the ObamaCare 60 died in office, while 19 declined to run for re-election. Some of the retirees left for reasons such as becoming Secretary of State ( John Kerry ), but others left because their own re-election prospects were hardly stellar. Think Chris Dodd of Connecticut in 2010 or Virginia’s Jim Webb in 2012. At least Democrats succeeded them.

Yet no fewer than eight of the retirees handed their seats to Republicans: They include Ben Nelson, of Cornhusker Kickback fame, who deprived his state of the pleasure of returning him to private life in 2010. After five terms, Jay Rockefeller was increasingly out of step with West Virginia, not least on ObamaCare. Max Baucus (Montana), Tim Johnson (S.D.) and Byron Dorgan (N.D.) would have had rough rides had they tried to stick around.

When they got the chance, voters dumped eight ObamaCare incumbents who dared to seek re-election. In addition to Ms. Landrieu, four are moderate-in-name-only Democrats who went along with President Obama ’s lurch to the left: Mark Begich (Alaska), Kay Hagan (North Carolina), Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor (Arkansas).

Islamic Literary Sources, Part II: Their Application — on The Glazov Gang
A religion’s teachings and their earthly incarnations.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/islamic-literary-sources-part-ii-their-application-on-the-glazov-gang-1/

During his recent visit to Washington to meet with President Obama, King Abdullah II of Jordan was interviewed on “CBS This Morning.” Displaying his keen sense of the terrible neighborhood in which his kingdom is embedded, he identified the war against ISIS jihadi terrorists as “clearly a fight between good and evil.”

Believing that they threaten “a third world war by other means,” he boldly called upon Arab and Islamic nations “to stand up” and demonstrate their resolute opposition to this “war inside of Islam” by “fighting back.” It was a rousing – perhaps unrivaled – appeal by an Arab leader for a demonstration of wisdom and courage in confronting the virulent Muslim poison within their midst.

But the King, as his survival strategy requires, played both sides of a volatile issue. He pointedly identified two possible resolutions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: a one-state or two-state solution. But he erroneously cited “the demographic threat” to Israel, with a Palestinian majority west of the Jordan River eventually outnumbering the Jewish population. Then he posed the dilemma that Israel presumably confronts: the choice between a democratic or “apartheid” (i.e. Jewish) state. “The two state solution,” he concluded, “is the only solution.” It would, however, be a three-state solution, comprising Jordan, Israel and Palestine-on-the-West Bank.

The King chose not to mention that Palestinians have rejected every two-state solution since 1937, when the British Peel Commission proposed the second partition of Palestine. The first came fifteen years earlier, when British Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill lopped off three-quarters of Mandatory Palestine as a gift to Abdullah’s great-grandfather for his wartime loyalty to the Allied cause. But unwilling to tolerate a Jewish state of any size in their midst, Arab leaders rejected the Peel proposal, the UN partition plan that followed a decade later, and even the dangerously generous two-state offers, involving huge Israeli land concessions, offered by Prime Ministers Barak and Olmert.

King Abdullah also chose (understandably) to ignore the demographic reality in Jordan, which poses a significant threat to the stability of his own regime. For obvious reasons, his kingdom provides no official census data about its Palestinian inhabitants. Best estimates (including by the U.S. State Department) indicate that they comprise more than half, and perhaps as high as two-thirds, of the Jordanian population.

As a democratically elected politician I name the problems that I see…. That is my duty. That is why I have been elected. I rely on objective facts and figures…. Because they are the truth.

I do not intend to hurt or offend people either… Already for over 10 years, I have lost my personal freedom.

In my fight for freedom and against the Islamization of the Netherlands, I will never let anyone silence me. No matter the cost, no matter by whom, whatever the consequences may be.

To speak with the words of Martin Luther King: “I close by saying there is nothing greater in all the world than freedom. It’s worth going to jail for. It’s worth losing a job for. It’s worth dying for.”

The Hague, December 8, 2014.

Today, Dutch parliamentarian and PVV leader Geert Wilders made a statement during his interrogation by the Dutch State Police. The State Police interrogated Mr Wilders on behalf of the Dutch Public Prosecutor, who is considering to prosecute Mr Wilders because the politician had asked his voters during the election campaign whether they wanted more or fewer Moroccans in the Netherlands.

Our freedom is being threatened. Threatened by a violent totalitarian ideology – Islam – that brings with it death and devastation. Threatened by a politically correct elite that does not tolerate criticism of Islam and mass immigration, and that nurtures cultural relativism.

I rise up against this.

As a democratically elected politician I name the problems that I see. I name the dangers and disadvantages that we experience in the Netherlands as a result of cultural relativism, mass immigration and the ongoing Islamization. That is my task. That is my duty. That is why I have been elected. That is the reason why I am in politics and why I founded the Party for Freedom (PVV).

Billingsgate Island once comprised fifty acres and was home to thirty homes, a school and a lighthouse. The island was part of a chain off Wellfleet on Massachusetts’ Cape Cod. In the early 1940s, Billingsgate Island, like Atlantis before it, disappeared under the sea. In 1872, erosion was first noticed. By 1912, the island’s residents had left and the lighthouse abandoned. Today it is but a sandbar at low tide. Its sinking beneath the waves was never thought of as a “man-caused” disaster; it was seen as a manifestation of the power of “Mother Nature.”

Thousands of representatives from 190 nations descended on Lima, Peru over the weekend for the 20th “Conference of Parties” to discuss measures that UN negotiators hope will lead to a legally enforceable global climate pact in Paris next year. The goal of this UN sponsored meeting is to keep global temperatures within 2° Centigrade (3.6° Fahrenheit) of the pre-Industrial period. To achieve that end, all fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas – would have to be phased out by 2050. In many respects, the gathering is reminiscent of Bill Murray’s “Ground Hog Day,” except for the costs and the fact it dispels more hot air and other waste products into the biosphere.

No one but an idiot would claim that man has had no effect on climate. But, also, no one but a numbskull would say that natural factors like continental drift, volcanoes, ocean currents and the earth’s tilt have had no impact. Thus, we should be able to place “climate deniers” and the most mulish of climate-change advocates – like, for example, the New York Times and Al Gore – outside the room, so that an intelligent conversation and debate can be had within. Unfortunately, the decibels of the discourse on this subject have risen to such levels that there are very few left to quietly and civilly discuss climate change and to debate what actions man should take to limit emissions, but also to prepare for a changing future. In his 2007 classic, Cool It, Bjorn Lomborg made the same point: He asked: “Why [has] the debate over climate change stifled rational dialogue and killed meaningful dissent?”

On December 8, 1941 the United States Congress declared war on Japan as response to the attack on Pearl Harbor the prior day. Following the declaration, Japan’s allies, Germany and Italy, declared war on the United States, definitively bringing the United States into World War II.

On December 11, 1941 Congressional Joint Resolution Declaring That a State of War Exists Between The Government of Italy and the Government and the People of the United States and Making Provisions to Prosecute the Same, thereby declaring war against Italy ” Whereas the Government of Italy has formally declared war against the Government and the people of the United States of America. Therefore be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the state of war between the United States and the Government of Italy which has thus been thrust upon the United States is hereby formally declared; and the President is hereby authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and military forces of the United States and the resources of the Government to carry on war against the Government of Italy; and, to bring the conflict to a successful termination, all of the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States”

On December 11, 1941, the United States Congress declared war on Germany, only hours after Germany declared war on the United States following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Congressional Joint Resolution Declaring That a State of War Exists Between The Government of Germany and the Government and the People of the United States and Making Provisions To Prosecute The Same.

“Whereas the Government of Germany has formally declared war against the Government and the people of the United States of America: Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the state of war between the United States and the Government of Germany which has thus been thrust upon the United States is hereby formally declared; and the President is hereby authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and military forces of the United States and the resources of the Government to carry on war against the Government of Germany; and, to bring the conflict to a successful termination, all of the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States.”

(Signed) Sam Rayburn, Speaker of the House of Representatives
(Signed) H. A. Wallace, Vice President of the United States and President of the Senate
Approved December 11, 1941 3:05 PM E.S.T.
(Signed) Franklin D. Roosevelt[2]

I’ve borrowed Kathy Shaidle’s headline because I think that sums up John Derbyshire’s column better than the one he and his editors chose: “The Impotent Eagle.” It’s not that we are incapable of doing anything, it’s that we can’t rouse ourselves to do anything.

John was my colleague at National Review for many years, where I regarded him as a gloomier version of me, and he regarded me as a hopeless Pollyanna. Nevertheless, much of what he writes today will be familiar to readers of both After America and The [Un]documented Mark Steyn, personally autographed copies of which make kind and thoughtful Christmas presents and really aren’t as suicidally depressing as you might think. Derb’s mournful refrain was taken from a throwaway line a correspondent made re immigration:

Replied my friend:

‘I think that withdrawing birthright citizenship from the children of illegals would be a good move, and highly appropriate. I don’t see why we couldn’t do it going forward. But of course we won’t, because we can’t do anything.’

It was that closing phrase that stuck in my mind. We can’t do anything. It’s so damn true.

John focuses on the big headlines: the Afghan war… immigration… law enforcement in Ferguson… America can’t win wars, enforce its borders, prevent looting. He could have added a bazillion others: build a flood barrier that prevents one measly not-so-Superstorm Sandy ruining people’s lives for years after… replace the dingy decrepit dump of LaGuardia with an airport that isn’t a total embarrassment to one of the world’s great cities… upgrade the most primitive bank cards in the developed world… stiffen Republican spines to come up with plans for debt reduction that kick in before the middle of the century…

But I’m increasingly struck by how “we can’t do anything” applies to all the small stuff, too. If you’ve ever spent hours on the phone going round in circles with your health insurer over some nothing little thing, you’ll be aware that “we can’t do anything” is not a monopoly of the big geopolitical strategists. The whole joint seems to be seizing up, and it bothers me. Americans now have less health-care freedom and less banking freedom than many Continental Europeans. But let’s not get all comparative about this. In absolute terms – and certainly in comparison with the America that was – too much of daily life has become over-complicated and over-regulated and over-sclerotic, and too many people are content to string along with it. From The [Un]documented Mark Steyn:

At half-time at my standup gigs these days, I ask the audience to tweet me, and sometimes I read out these tweets in the second half, in the hope they might lead somewhere funny. On Monday, at Newcastle’s Theatre Royal, someone tweeted me – and I’m not going to name them, as I have no interest in bringing the Twitter pitchfork mobs down on anyone’s head – “Can you do something about the bar prices here being so antisemitic?”

I read this one out, even though I knew it wasn’t funny. I was interested in how someone who watched the first half of my show, which has got a fair bit in it about antisemitism, could still send me a clearly antisemitic tweet – could even include the word – and, crucially, not realise it. That tweet says: the drink prices here are too high; that will particularly upset Jews – won’t it? – because Jews love money. And the idea that Jews love money – that Jews are greedy, that Jews are misers – isn’t just a persistent myth: it’s one of the very few racist stereotypes that people will still offer up without realising that it is a racist stereotype. They just think it’s true. Isn’t it?

Which brings us to Malky Mackay, Dave Whelan and now Mario Balotelli. Mackay said: nothing like a Jew that sees money slipping through his fingers. Dave Whelan said: Jewish people chase money more than anyone else. And Balotelli reposted a tweet in which Super Mario is compared to a Jew because he’s good at grabbing coins.

These observations do not require much deconstruction. More interesting is Mackay, Whelan and Balotelli’s reaction to the trouble they got into. If I were to sum up this reaction in one word, it would be: what? As in, what’s the problem? Come on, we all know this is true. Dave Whelan in particular had a kind of injured what’s-the-world-coming-to-when-you-can’t-even-say-this attitude in his various semi-apologetic interviews, doing his best to turn the comment into a compliment – Jews, he said, are “shrewd people” – and even bringing out, hilariously, the “some of my best friends are Jewish” defence.

This is characterised as a problem in football, but I don’t think it’s in any way restricted to the sport. My brother was looking to buy a flat once, and the estate agent said to him: “Oh, I’d like to buy around here but the prices are too high and I’m not Jewish enough.” Perhaps he didn’t realise my brother was Jewish. Or, more probably, he did, and thought therefore he would appreciate the remark more.

There was a time when fat was in and thin was out. Obesity was the privilege of wealth and being thin meant being poor. In simpler societies, before slumming became a romantic pose, there was nothing attractive about not having enough to eat.

To be fat was to be part of the leisure class. Thin meant you were on the road to the poorhouse or to consumption, which meant your body was being consumed, not that you were the one doing the consuming.

Then agriculture was revolutionized and the values flipped. No one in the West was starving to death and the poorest man could still grow fat. By the time the social programs kicked in, weight no longer meant leisure.

With packaged foods widely available and jobs shifting from the factory to the desk, it was entirely possible to work hard and get fat.

On the other side of the aisle, exercise meant leisure time. The standard was set by movie stars who struggled to meet unrealistic standards because they had the time and disposable income to do it.

Fat no longer meant upper class gentry. Instead it meant lower class peasant. As with art, the widespread availability turned minimalism, and eventually the worthless and overpriced, into class signifiers. Conspicuous consumption of that which was widely available was lower class.

The overflowing table made way for micro portions and exotic but barely edible foods. Thin was in on the plate and the waistline.
In many Third World countries where feudalism never ended, the values never flipped. Instead of anorexia, teenage girls suffer from being force fed to make them more marriageable. The wealthy are fat and the feasts at the top never end.

In the West, weight stands in for class, at a time when explicit classism has become politically incorrect. When Europeans sneer at how fat Americans are, and American coastal elites sneer at the rest of the country for being fat, it’s a class putdown.