RUTHFULLY YOURS

The trump card of suffering might be politically useful, but using it is a dishonest tactic that inhibits informed deliberation and debate. Relying on emotion and sentiment, no matter how understandable they are as a response to suffering, have since ancient Athens been the agents of bad policies and dangerous political decisions, and tactics for pursuing political advantage at the expense of the public good. They have no place in our already conflicted and divisive public political discourse.

Gabby Giffords, the former Democratic Congressman from Arizona who was shot in the head at a campaign rally in 2010, has come under fire recently for exploiting her horrific experience for political gain. Using her celebrity as a famous victim of gun violence, Giffords has created a Super PAC, Americans for Responsible Solutions, focused on gun control legislation. Her group has produced political ads for Democratic candidates that feature other victims of gun violence, and that suggest the candidate’s opponent supports policies that contribute to such violence.

Even supporters of Giffords’ own party are uncomfortable with this electoral tactic. At Politico, Alex Isenstadt wrote recently that Giffords “has unleashed some of the nastiest ads of the campaign season, going after GOP candidates in Arizona and New Hampshire with attacks even some longtime supporters say go too far. And Republicans on the receiving end are largely helpless to hit back, knowing a fight with the much-admired survivor is not one they’re likely to win.”

Exploiting one’s personal experiences is, of course, nothing new in politics. Ancient Roman candidates were expected to show off their scars earned in fighting for Rome. Marc Antony fired up the Roman people after the assassination of Julius Caesar by brandishing his bloodstained and torn toga. During Reconstruction in the United States, “waving the bloody shirt” became common among radical Republicans who used the casualties and suffering of the Civil War as a weapon against Southern Democrats.

In those cases, however, it was service and sacrifice in war that were used for political advantage. Today, any sort of suffering from any cause, especially on the part of those considered victims of historical oppression, is used to obscure rational discussion and debate with clouds of pathos and emotion.

At a campaign rally in Massachusetts, Hillary Clinton did her best to prove that she could out-Warren Warren by declaring, “Don’t let anybody tell you it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs.”

If the organizations that actually hire and pay workers don’t create jobs, who does?

Some leftists say that if you leave a glass of milk and a plate of cookies out on the table overnight along with a neatly spaced resume on recycled paper, elves will sneak in and create a job for you.

“You know that old theory, ‘trickle-down economics,’” Hillary smirked. “That has been tried, that has failed. It has failed rather spectacularly.”

Speaking of things that have failed rather spectacularly, aside from Hillary’s time as Secretary of State, her latest memoir or Martha Coakley whose rally was the platform for Hillary’s tripe, there’s the old theory that government central planning creates jobs.

That theory has been tried in the last six years and it has failed rather spectacularly.

It has failed so spectacularly that Martha Coakley once again can’t beat a Republican in Massachusetts. Coakley is claiming that it’s a dead heat when polls show that she’s losing by 9 points. But while Hillary insisted that her husband “brought arithmetic” to Washington (someone had to count rental costs on the Lincoln Bedroom and presidential pardons for international fugitives), leftists are really bad at math.

Their theory failed so miserably that Hillary’s party is about to lose the Senate and no Democratic candidate wants to be seen with her old boss out of fear that his stench of failure will cling to them.

Hillary Clinton is attacking Reagan while campaigning for Carter. She’s having Mondale acid flashbacks. But despite Marx, Obama and Warren, businesses actually do create jobs. Lefty politicians who have never worked for a living while claiming that businesses don’t create jobs… don’t create jobs.

The fact that we still can’t explain Kim Jong Un’s recent absence should be unsettling.

Although North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has allegedly reappeared after disappearing from public view for six weeks, we still can’t explain his absence. Was he gravely ill, facing a possible coup or enmeshed in something far more exotic? One theory is as good as the next for assessing what actually happens inside North Korea. But the real issue for the U.S., South Korea and Japan is what Kim’s absence (or a future one) portends for Pyongyang’s steadily progressing nuclear-weapons program.

Right now the U.S. does not seem to be paying attention. North Korea has conducted two of its three nuclear tests during the Barack Obama presidency. Rumors of a fourth circulate constantly. Yet the White House has no apparent strategy, diplomatic or otherwise, to restrain Pyongyang’s continuing enrichment and weaponization activities. Nor is there a plan for dealing with its menacing ballistic-missile program, intended to provide delivery vehicles to reach targets world-wide, most notably in the U.S.

To be fair, President Obama correctly dropped the George W. Bush State Department’s approach of constant attention to North Korea, believing it signaled erroneously that we valued a deal no matter what its terms. But six years of inattention isn’t an effective alternative. If Mr. Obama didn’t want to pursue diplomacy, he should have devised another way to eliminate North Korea’s nuclear efforts. He did neither. Inaction inevitably meant that both the North’s nuclear arsenal and its ballistic-missile capabilities continued to grow.

The contrast between Mr. Obama’s obsession with negotiating with Iran and his indifference toward North Korea could hardly be greater. Despite his famous “pivot” from the Middle East to Asia, Iran has constantly eclipsed North Korea in the president’s priorities. Explanations for the disparity are hard to come by.

This is especially troubling because Tehran and Pyongyang have worked together for more than 15 years on long-range ballistic missiles. Their nuclear cooperation is nearly certain. Focusing on one threat while ignoring the other makes no sense, especially since Mr. Obama’s greater attention to Iran has produced no positive results. Both rogue states continue advancing toward possessing deliverable nuclear weapons.

The White House pushed back against the governors of New York, New Jersey, Illinois and other states that instituted procedures to forcibly quarantine medical workers returning from West Africa, deepening an emotional debate brought on by recent Ebola cases in the U.S.

A senior administration official said Sunday that new federal guidelines under development would protect Americans from imported cases of the disease but not interfere with the flow of U.S. health workers to and from West Africa to fight the epidemic there.

“We have let the governors of New York, New Jersey and other states know that we have concerns with the unintended consequences… [that quarantine] policies not grounded in science may have on efforts to combat Ebola at its source,” the official said.

It wasn’t clear what action the Obama administration could take to end the quarantines.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Sunday night gave the first new details about how his state’s quarantine would work, noting that individuals would be allowed to stay in their homes for 21 days. State and local health-care workers would check on quarantined people twice a day to monitor for Ebola symptoms. Those with symptoms would be taken to a hospital. People whose jobs won’t compensate them during their quarantine would be paid by the state.

Travelers who have had no direct contact with Ebola patients wouldn’t be subject to confinement at home, but they would be consulted twice-daily by health officials over the three-week period.

New York officials said the new protocols still went further than those recommended by the federal government.

More problematic is that it reaches a point where discussion or debate is impossible because the questions themselves become a crime.

Such laws not only run counter to the basic principles of democracy; they are, in many instances, representative of a duplicitous selective application of the law. Why are the prosecutors not going after Yasmina Haifi, who tweeted that ISIS is a Zionist plot? Is the criminalization of hate speech now dependent only on whom you hate?

The people are entitled to a country in which they can voice their frustration and be heard.

Last March, Geert Wilders, the controversial right-wing Dutch Parliamentarian best known for his stance against Muslims and Muslim immigration, stood before supporters at a campaign rally and asked a simple question: “Do you want more Moroccans, or fewer?”

He expected the question to raise enthusiasm among the crowd, and drive his party to greater Parliamentary success. It has also possibly landed him before the courts, to be tried for “hate speech” — a crime in the Netherlands, which, despite its claims of “freedom of speech,” still criminalizes speech that “offends” on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation, or even personal convictions and ideology.

Wilders, however, didn’t make a statement: he simply asked others what they wanted. It was the Dutch people themselves who, in response, cried out, “Fewer! Fewer!”

As in every dictatorship, the government’s only fear is of its own people.

Today, China’s authorities are going back on their promise of maintaining Hong Kong’s special political status, inherited from Britain. Hong Kong, however, is moving the Arab way: it is choosing democracy.

Such movements do not die; they just take shelter to let the storm pass. The Arab Spring will arrive in these lands with the sweetness of democracy, equal opportunity, and the promise of freedom for everyone.

In 2010, the tiny North African nation of Tunisia rejected patriarchy, nepotism and tribalism and opted for Arab democracy. Soon its call for overthrowing absolutism engulfed the Arab world and ushered in a new beginning — only soon to find itself undermined and overwhelmed, like Egypt, by organized, well-funded autocracies.

The democrats’ movement was often swamped by blood and atrocities, but still the hope for democracy and freedom is alive and waiting for the next wave of uprisings — sooner rather than later; no one can resist the call for democracy, freedom and human rights.

The Arab Spring Tsunami Goes Global

For the first time ever, an Arab-born movement reverberated in democratic countries such as Spain, with the Outraged Movement 2011-2012 (Indignados or Moviemente 15-M). It kicked off on May 15, 2011 in Madrid and 58 other Spanish cities, and called for more democracy and more youths represented in politics.

In America, there are also calls for more economic freedom and the opportunity for all Americans to make choices free of government incompetence, interference and control.

It’s only a matter of time before the Islamic State tries to attack Americans here at home. That’s according to James Chaparro, a former senior official at the Department of Homeland Security who spoke at length with National Review Online about the country’s vulnerabilities to the terrorist group, from the visa system to homegrown sympathizers.

Chaparro spent more than two and a half decades working in the federal law-enforcement and intelligence communities, where his duties included managing intelligence efforts across DHS. He left his position as the assistant director of intelligence at Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the summer of 2013.

“I think that we were caught flat-footed with ISIS,” Chaparro says. “I don’t think that we were nimble enough to organize ourselves in a way that would have allowed us to put together that sort of comprehensive plan of attack — and not just military attack, but with all the instruments of national power.” He says a plan could have included using the Treasury Department, intelligence community, immigration and customs authorities, and the military to strike back at the Islamic State.

Because the rapid ascension of the Islamic State caught the federal government off-guard, American intelligence agencies don’t know enough about the group, Chaparro says. The lack of intelligence has many ramifications, but chief among them, it has made it difficult for officials to effectively update the terrorist watch list to prevent terrorists from exploiting the visa-waiver program or applying for non-immigrant visas.

He’s not the first to sound the alarm about loopholes in the visa system. Ronald Colburn, a former director of law enforcement on the White House Homeland Security Council, told NRO in August that members of the Islamic State could use visa waivers to enter the U.S. “Members of Hamas, Hezbollah, and potentially in the near future, if not already, ISIS, [could come] over on visa waivers from places like Great Britain,” Colburn said. Many intelligence sources believe that the terrorist who beheaded American journalist James Foley has roots in Great Britain and, as a result, could enter the U.S. without a visa.

In the fall of 1991, the relatively small and quiet university of Alfred University in New York State was engrossed in controversy. Indignant professors led students in protests, heated debates raged throughout the divided campus, editorials filled the school and local papers. At the heart of the controversy was the newly-installed statue of King Alfred, the medieval English monarch after whom the town and school was named. Ten years prior, when the monument was commissioned, no one could foresee the controversy it would eventually cause. Yet, its placement offended the sensibilities of the university’s history professors.

By the strong and negative reaction one would think that Alfred must have been a tyrant, an oppressor of his people, a man deserving of the title Alfred the Terrible. Surprisingly, it is the opposite that that is true.

From 871 to 899, Alfred was the King of Wessex, one of the four kingdoms that would eventually become England. During his reign he revived the tradition of learning that had died with the fall of the Roman Empire. He required all of his nobles be literate and increased their education by translating the great Latin texts into English. Additionally, he has the honor of being the first king in English history to write a book, preceding King James by eight centuries. Thus, he is known as the “education king.”

More significantly, for the first time, English law would be written and would establish the tradition of England being a land ‘ruled by laws’ rather than by the whims of powerful men. Within these laws we find the genesis the principles of due process, trial by jury, and respect for the individual; no matter how lowly. His laws protected the commoner from arbitrary and excessive punishment. Even slaves were protected by his laws. There were limits on the number of hours they could be forced to work and were granted 37 work-free holidays per year. Furthermore, the slaves were allowed to work on their own behalf and retain all proceeds from their endeavors. Through the church, Alfred created a system that fed the poor and provided them with medical care.

It has been a good year for that misunderstood and once oppressed Zionist philosophy known as Revisionist- Zionism and the legacy of its protagonists, Ze’ev Jabotinsky and Menachem Begin. Aside from left-wing Israeli politicians like Tzipi Livni celebrating the legacies of Jabotinsky and Begin, two books were published this year on these two right-wing figures by centrist authors.

Yet those who still revere the master and teacher and his star pupil may have little to be happy about, since the mainstreaming of these two founding fathers appears to come at the price of the principles they fought for.

Published in May, Hillel Halkin’s concise and highly readable Jabotinsky: A Life analyzes portions of Jabotinsky’s life and thought which other Jabotinsky biographers paid less attention to, such as certain non-political themes in Jabotinsky’s writing and his relationship with his wife. Halkin also touts Jabotinsky’s literary achievements, commitment to individual rights and his interesting personality.

“If I could raise any of the great figures of Zionist history from the dead for an hour’s conversation,” Halkin writes in the epilogue, “I would choose Jabotinsky,” who “would chat affably over a beer… .”

With an emphasis on Jabotinsky the artist, Halkin thus makes the man once called “Vladimir Hitler” more palatable to the liberal American Jewish audience.

While lacking Halkin’s literary talents, Daniel Gordis’s Menachem Begin: the Struggle for Israel’s Soul, published in March, is still enjoyable and provides a more in-depth basic text on Begin as compared with Harry Hurwitz’s short Begin biography.

Gordis similarly proffers a Menachem Begin more acceptable to the American Jewish community that once denounced him as a fascist, by grounding Begin’s decisions, from his granting asylum to the Vietnamese “Boat People” to his fiery opposition to reparations from Germany, in his Jewishness or “Jewish soul.”

Israel cannot expect to earn the world’s respect until it learns to respect itself.

This murder would be different. So we thought. There can be no justification. A 3-month-old Hebrew baby was slain in Jerusalem.

Her sweet name runs longer than the coffin in which she was buried, Chaya Zisel Braun.

Her sweet name runs longer than the coffin in which she was buried, Chaya Zisel Braun.
Her killer was a Palestinian Arab who answered the call from his leader, Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas, a man who provokes a new blood libel each day with cries that grow increasingly shrill and hysterical as if coming from a raving lunatic who needs to be locked up.

This time Abbas shrieked about “Jewish encroachment” on the Temple Mount, referred to Jews as a “herd of cattle” and demanded vengeance “by any means.”

Chaya Zissel paid the price. (Most unbearable is to think of the parents and grandparents who waited and prayed for this precious child.)

Someone else drove the car that purposely bulldozed into a crowd, but Abbas needs to be arrested.