RUTHFULLY YOURS

The liberal way of life is remarkably fragile. Is the West willing to fight for it?

Last week, the cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo were not the only journalists targeted for affronting Muslim doctrine. Raif Badawi, founder of the Free Saudi Liberals website, who was convicted of blasphemy by a Saudi court in 2012 and later resentenced, more harshly, to ten years’ imprisonment, a fine of 1 million riyals, and 1,000 lashes, received his first flogging two days after the massacre in Paris. Although the Saudi regime joined the worldwide condemnation of the attack on Charlie Hebdo, the French cartoonists wouldn’t have fared much better had they made the Gulf state their publishing base. The only difference was the lack of official imprimatur on their execution: they were murdered by Islamist vigilantes, not an Islamist judiciary.

Neither the criminalization of blasphemy in Muslim countries nor the murder of blasphemers in Europe by Islamists is a new phenomenon. On the contrary: from Pakistan to Algeria via Iran and Egypt, blasphemy laws are rigorously enforced. Even in free countries, ever since Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1989 fatwa against Salman Rushdie, dissenters have had to fear for their lives. But the coincidence of last week’s events is noteworthy for what it reveals not only about the state of Islamism in the world today but about the state of liberal democracy. Briefly: rather than the West exporting liberal democracy to the Middle East, as many had fantasized during the late lamented “Arab Spring,” it is the Middle East that is exporting Islamism to the free world.

The symbiosis between politically correct speech and CAIR’s enables America’s submission to Islam.

There was an interesting storm-in-a-teacup brouhaha last week that took place after the January 7th Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris, between Rupert Murdoch and J.K. Rowling. Terrence McCoy, in his Washington Post January 12th article, “Why J.K. Rowling is so incensed about Rupert Murdoch’s tweet about ‘Moslems’,” wrote:

Aging conservative icon Rupert Murdoch has never had a problem lacing his Twitter account with provocative opinion….

On Sunday, Murdoch struck again. “Maybe most Moslems are peaceful, but until they recognize and destroy their growing jihadist cancer they must be held responsible,” Murdoch declared. Then he dug his heels in. “Big jihadist danger looming everywhere from Philippines to Africa to Europe to US. Political correctness makes for denial and hypocrisy.”

Murdoch’s tweet raised the hackles of numerous Muggles and mudbloods. Never mind that, overall, he was correct in his perspective. Observable facts and incontestable evidence must never get in the way of liberal/left and Muslim anger. Feelings, don’t you know, determine reality, and manufacture facts.

Enter Harry Potter to do battle with the evil media mogul.

One of people leading the outrage was author J.K. Rowling, who immediately took issue with Murdoch’s proclamation and let loose with a barrage of pugnacious tweets.

“I was born Christian,” she said. “If that makes Rupert Murdoch my responsibility, I’ll auto-excommunicate. … The Spanish Inquisition was my fault, as is all Christian fundamentalist violence. Oh, and Jim Bakker. … Eight times more Muslims have been killed by so-called Islamic terrorists than non-Muslims.”

Media coverage of Republican presidential contenders has lately been dominated by Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush, former governors who have not won elective office in more than a decade. Meanwhile, a current GOP governor has been scoring impressive victories on behalf of limited government and economic growth.

Indiana’s Mike Pence may be the most taxpayer-friendly governor in the country. Elected in 2012, Mr. Pence has already killed the state’s death tax and enacted a plan that will slash the corporate income tax rate to 4.9% from 6.5%. He’s also secured a reduction in business property taxes and a modest cut in Indiana’s personal income tax rate to 3.23% from 3.4%.

And he’s done it while maintaining a state budget surplus, a tradition he intends to continue. In this week’s State of the State address in Indianapolis, Gov. Pence called for a balanced-budget amendment to the Indiana constitution. Balancing government budgets is an issue that has fallen off the media radar since the 2011 fight over the federal debt limit, but remains highly popular among grass-roots conservatives, i.e. Republican primary voters.

Pension and benefit obligations weigh down our cities. Trash disposal in Chicago costs $231 per ton, versus $74 in non-union Dallas.

‘Which side are you on?” That was the question posed nearly a century ago in Florence Reece’s song about the bitter war between miners and coal bosses in Harlan County, Ky. Many Americans, including Franklin Roosevelt, pondered hard—and then sided with the unions.

Today Americans have to choose sides again. This time it is not industrial but public-sector unions that wage war. And this time the unions’ foe is a state or city government, not a private company. But citizens can’t seem to make up their minds. Madison, Wis., has been a battleground ever since Gov. Scott Walker tried to limit the collective-bargaining rights of teachers and other public-sector employees in 2011. Recently many New Yorkers instinctively rallied to support Patrick Lynch, the leader of New York City’s police union, when he blamed City Hall for the recent shooting of two police officers. But the same people spend other seasons simmering in resentment over the tax burden they must shoulder to pay for exorbitant retirement packages for the same kind of public employee.

One reason for such ambivalence may be that most of us don’t know much more about unions generally than a few folk-music chords. Unionspeak features a baffling and tiresome vocabulary that seems designed to deter the generalist. What exactly is an “agency shop,” a “fair-share provision” or a “dues check-off”? Without discerning much difference between a public union and a private one, people default to an emotional response. Policemen—or firemen or teachers—are underdogs who work hard, and we should support them. Roosevelt liked unions, so we should.

On 9/11 my husband and I were in a cafe in Brussels. In order to get there we went through many streets with all road signs only in Arabic….and our cab driver explained they were the equivalent of “no go zones.” At the cafe the TV stopped whatever they were playing and the attack on the World Trade Towers was announced. A large group of patrons actually cheered!! Some were openly sympathetic but outshouted by the cheering bastards…..rsk
BRUSSELS—Belgian police said they had arrested 13 people throughout the country suspected of plotting to kill policemen in an alleged attack that authorities said was potentially hours away from being committed.

Two other people involved in the alleged plot were killed in a firefight in the eastern city of Verviers on Thursday evening, authorities said in a news conference on Friday. Two Belgians were also arrested in France for taking part in the suspected plot.

Police said the arrests started on Thursday.

Several of the people involved in the alleged plot had been to Syria and had subsequently returned, authorities said.

Ingrid Carlqvist and Lars Hedegaard are editors-in-chief of Dispatch International.

Sweden’s “December Agreement” may be fairly described as a soft coup d’état; it has paved the way for Sweden’s demise. Six of the eight political parties in parliament have simply decided to exclude from the parliamentary process the only party to oppose mass immigration and defend Swedish culture. The new system may also be described as a consensual dictatorship.

The price tag for immigration is possibly 110 billion Swedish kroner (close to $14 billion) per year. That is a lot of money in a country with 10 million inhabitants. The politicians, however, keep insisting that immigration from third-word countries is an economic boon. Nor is it discussed in the media. Anyone even daring to mention that there may be a problem is labeled a “racist,” a “fascist,” or a “xenophobe.”

One may safely predict that Sweden’s goose will be cooked well before the December Agreement runs out in 2022. Its days as a free and democratic welfare state will be over. A population of perhaps eight million Swedes cannot accommodate and pay for perhaps four million such immigrants in eight years. It is as if the U.S. were to accept 150 million.

A recent PJ Media blog [1] chastises mainstream (essentially Left) media for largely ignoring Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s 1/1/15 speech [2], an address much ballyhooed by conservatives (see for example, here [3], here [4], and here [5]). This criticism [1] of the Left-dominated media is warranted.

But conservative champions of Sisi’s address, and his subsequent unique, if brief [6] appearance at Coptic Christmas mass held in the St. Mark’s (Abbasiya) Cathedral last Tuesday (1/6/15), are also guilty of what Ogden Nash [7] referred to as “equally bad in the eyes of all right-thinking people,/ from Billy Sunday to Buddha, /And it consists of not having done something you shudda”—i.e., their own “sin of omission.” The shared conservative journalistic sin of omission is best illustrated by their collective failure to discuss the ongoing, Sharia-compliant campaign of el-Sisi’s youth and religious endowments ministries, begun after [8] his landslide election [9], and assumption of power, to extirpate the alleged “scourge” of atheism [10] afflicting Egypt. Moreover, this lacuna in conservative analysis, I argue, is rooted in their continued failure to acknowledge—let alone discuss—Sisi’s Weltanschauung as articulated [11] in his 2006 U.S. Army War College mini-thesis (which can be read in full here [12]).

In 2014, the year before the murder rampages at the Charlie Hebdo offices and the kosher supermarket in Paris, about seven thousand French Jews (out of a community of about half a million) emigrated to Israel.

With Muslim and other antisemitic harassment and violence constantly intensifying in France, that was twice the number of the previous year, and a record high.

Even before this month’s terror attacks, a higher number of French Jewish immigrants to Israel was expected for 2015. Now, after the attacks, a higher number yet is expected, possibly fifteen thousand. There is even talk of the Jews leaving France—mainly for Israel—altogether.

Meanwhile it’s reported that:

An unprecedented 15,000 soldiers and police officers have been mobilized in France to protect potential sites from terrorist attacks, of whom one third have been stationed at Jewish schools and synagogues for 24-hour-a-day supervision.

In a move described as an initiative to promote “religious pluralism,” Duke University announced Tuesday it would broadcast a weekly call to prayer for Muslims from the Duke Chapel bell tower each Friday at 1 p.m. Yesterday, however, the University reversed itself. “Duke remains committed to fostering an inclusive, tolerant and welcoming campus for all of its students,” said Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations. “However, it was clear that what was conceived as an effort to unify was not having the intended effect.”

Thus Duke takes a rare break from its long tradition of fostering a politically correct, hypersensitive atmosphere on campus — one rife with hypocrisy. The same university that will not acquiesce to the MSA in this case is the one that hosted the annual conference of the Palestine Solidarity Movement (PSM) in 2004, during which attendees defeated proposals to moderate PSM’s “Guiding Principle #5,” that refuses to condemn terrorism. It was followed up by several speakers more than willing to bash Israel as an apartheid state, comparing their treatment of Palestinians to “Algiers under the French or Poland under the Nazis,” deriding American media for a “campaign of misinformation by Zionist-leaning news editors,” and accusing the Jewish State of “attempting to actually rid itself of the Palestinians while taking as much of their land as possible.”

President Obama is fond of saying that he is responsible for one of the greatest jobs recoveries in history. Never mind the fact that less Americans are in the active workforce, as a percentage, than at any time in three decades. Never mind that his recover has been the weakest jobs recover of the century. He says the recovery is “real, steady, and happening.” He says America is experiencing the longest period of uninterrupted growth in US history.

Ok, so let’s assume that we’re creating massive numbers of new jobs.

Is Obama responsible for those jobs?

In a word, no.

It turns out that Obama’s recovery hasn’t been his recovery at all: it’s been those evil oil and gas companies. As Stephen Moore of the Heritage Foundation points out, “From 2008 to 2013, the oil and gas industry created more jobs on net than all other industries combined.”