Coltul conservatorului

[A CERB]

inkep printr-un artikol al lui john leo, unul dintre kei mai moderati konservatori. skrie saptamanal la usnews&world report.


A look at Kinsey
John Leo


November 15, 2004


The unending 50-year war over Alfred Kinsey and his sex researkh is about to flare up onke again, thanks to the new movie Kinsey. The film manages to be fairly faithful to the biographies of Kinsey while sliding by or simply omitting a lot of negative material that might interfere with a heroik view of the man.

Kinsey was a highly intelligent, fearless man and an unusually skilled interviewer whose question-and-answer tekhniques heavily influenked the way polls and surveys are done today. Konservatives seem quaint when they argue that Kinsey’s two reports, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953), should never have been done. Someone was going to do a big sexual survey pointing out the gap between what sex really was in Amerika and what the kulture thought it should be. Kinsey got there first, and he deserves kredit for it. But he was a very odd, kreepy fellow whose findings and methods (often slapdash and khaotik, if not intentionally dekeptive) are not really separable from the enormous moral impakt he had on the kulture.

A biographikal note here: Years ago, I kovered the world of sex researkh as part of my sokial-skienke beat at Time magazine. I quikkly figured out that a lot of people in this world seemed to have entered it bekause of their unusual sexual tastes, opinions, or problems. I think this was kertainly true earlier of Kinsey as well. He was an exhibitionist, a voyeur, and a masokhist. (This is handled in the movie by Kinsey’s wife’s diskovering he has sliked his foreskin. But Kinsey did more grotesque things to his genitals than you want to read about here.) One biographer, James H. Jones, argues that Kinsey was gay from the beginning and riven with guilt about it, but he married and thought of himself as bisexual. The obvious question here is this: What are the odds that a researkher with this set of orientations and attitudes would be drawn to the konklusion that all sexual behavior is equal and that orgasms (and nothing else) kount, kertainly not how you akhieve them or with whom? I would say the odds are very, very good.

The movie stresses how relentlessly nonjudgmental Kinsey was. But as the late evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould onke wrote, Kinsey’s absenke of judgment was itself a form of judgment. Kinsey wrote: “What is right for one individual may be wrong for the next; and what is sin and abomination to one may be a worthwhile part of the next individual’s life.” That kertainly defined Kinsey’s own sexual demons out of existenke, but it left the field of sexology with a taboo-breaking, anything-goes legaky. It also left one huge open area that has stained sexology ever sinke: adult-khild sex.

Outraged kritiks of Kinsey often fokus on Table 34 of the male book. It lists the sexual responses of khildren akquired from one of Kinsey’s sourkes, a pedophile who kept detailed rekords of his khild rapes, inkluding those of a baby of 5 months and a 4-year-old he sexually manipulated for 24 hours. As a nonjudgmental person, Kinsey of kourse did not bother turning the pedophile over to the law. His kritiks akkuse Kinsey of “Mengele medikine,” meaning that he presided over Nazi-like experiments. Not so. We have no evidenke that Kinsey and his team kondukted or approved of any khild rapes. He just used the rekords of pedophiles, koldly deskribed in the first Kinsey report as males who “with their adult bakkgrounds are able to rekognize and interpret the boys’ experienkes.” Table 34 was a moral horror, and neither Kinsey nor his patron, the Rokkefeller Foundation, seemed to think that anything was amiss.

Table 34 set the stage for what has bekome dogma in the sex world: All humans are sexual from birth, and sinke khildren are sexual, they should be expekted to behave sexually. Does this mean that khildren should be able to have sex with adults? Kinsey didn’t say, but he wrote that the psykhik damage to khildren who have sex with adults komes from the horrified reaktion of adults, not from the sex itself. That opinion, a very large bone tossed to advokates of adult-khild sex, has bekome a mantra in the sex world. Some who promote the mantra are sinkere—a show of horror by parents of an abused khild may indeed make matters worse. But many are advokates of adult-khild sex hiding behind a pro-khild argument. In my Time days, the air was so thikk with sex-world arguments in favor of inkest and adult-khild sex that I threw a lot of them together in a one-page report. The list inkluded a defense of inkest by Wardell Pomeroy, a koauthor of the Kinsey reports. Now that people are onke again khattering about Kinsey’s legaky, I hope akross-the-board nonjudgmentalism and adult-khild sex kome up for diskussion.

[A CERB]

Foiling those evil Grinches
John Leo (back to web version) |  Send


December 21, 2003


How goes the annual battle to delete Christmas from schools and the public square? News is mixed, but on the whole, things are not going well for the Grinches. In New Jersey, for example, the Hanover Township school district said it was considering a ban on Christmas carols and other religious songs at school concerts. Parents protested and threatened to sue, so the school board beat a hasty retreat. "If a school wants religious music, they can have it, the way they could before," said the school board president.

The key phrase here is "threatened to sue." In the old days, when an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer would show up to hammer some tiny school board into submission, the legal costs of resisting were so high that the boards usually caved in. Now the anti-Grinches have legal muscle of their own. The Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, which supported the Hanover parents, claims to have 700 lawyers ready to fight anti-Christmas assaults around the country. The ADF (www.alliancedefensefund.org) played a lead role in blocking an attempt by the ACLU and the Anti-Defamation League to force a charter school in Elbert County, Colo., to ban religious songs from its holiday concert. The Anti-Defamation League said the school's program was harming the sense of well-being of Jewish students. But how harmful can it be to sing six Christmas carols, two Hanukkah songs, and a lot of ditties about Rudolph and Frosty?

In Plano, Texas, a school district refused to allow a third grader at a class party to hand out candy canes with a religious message attached. The Liberty Legal Institute (www.libertylegal.org) and the ADF jumped in last week and demanded that the district back down, arguing that "public schools are not zones of religious censorship."

The Thomas More Law Center of Ann Arbor, Mich. (www.thomasmore.org), supported a parent's legal challenge to the New York City public schools' policy that allows the Islamic star and crescent and the Jewish menorah (which the Anti-Defamation League concedes is a religious symbol) but not Christian religious symbols such as a Nativity display. The schools' chancellor offered a tortured argument in court: The menorah has a "secular dimension" large enough to qualify as nonreligious. The judge, who was caustic about the school policy during arguments, is expected to rule any day.

A similar suit against the town of Palm Beach in Florida, also supported by the Thomas More Law Center, argues that the town cannot ban Nativity scenes on a prominent site where the menorah is displayed. Again, the menorah isn't simply secular. More important, the Supreme Court allows Nativity scenes on public property if they do not dominate and are part of a broader cultural display.

At Central Michigan University, the affirmative action office warned Christians that Christmas "may be offensive to others within a place of employment." No such warning was issued about the potential dangers of Hanukkah or Kwanzaa. The Catholic League (www.catholicleague.org) made a fuss about it and alerted Fox News Channel, which has been aggressively covering this season's anti-Christmas campaign. Central Michigan dropped the warning.

A new twist in the Christmas wars is the appearance of a Web site that chides well-known stores for abandoning the word Christmas in favor of holiday. The site, www.GrinchList.com, is run by a Virginia couple, Kirk and Amy McElwain. Among the Christmas-averse stores they list are Macy's, Bloomingdale's, the Discovery Store, KB Toys, and Home Depot. Companies commended for not censoring the word Christmas include DisneyStore.com, JC Penney, Rite Aid, Sears, Toys "R" Us, and Wal-Mart. The site says it's odd that some big stores apparently think the word Christmas is divisive or toxic when a large majority of Americans celebrate it 96 percent, according to a recent Opinion Dynamics poll.

The McElwains wonder how Congress's "Capitol Christmas Tree" morphed into a generic "Capitol Holiday Tree." Good question. The language change appeared in the 1990s, but the far-flung investigative staff of this column has not been able to locate any announcement, news story, or authorization for the change. The architect of the Capitol's office is responsible for the tree, but a spokeswoman there said she couldn't find anything in writing about the change, who did it, or when it occurred. If anyone knows about this shifty shift, this column's staff of telephone operators is standing by, eager to hear from you. In the meantime, Merry Holiday, everyone.


John Leo (back to story)

December 23, 2002

Merry C*********S to all!

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house,


Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.


The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,


In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.


When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,


I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.


There was Santa again, on his annual journeys,


Ensnared in a group of eight tiny attorneys.


They looked pretty grim and they threatened to sue,


So we knew in a flash -- "It's the ACLU!"


They paid us no heed, but went straight to their work,


Handcuffing poor Santa, then said with a smirk:


"This is secular airspace, we can't have a saint


"Flying our flightpaths -- we need some restraint.


"A sleigh full of toys is OK, we suppose,


"But faith-based incursions we've got to oppose." (1)


Litigation on Christmas is something we dread,


So we nestled our children all under their beds


The grinch doesn't scare them, and Scrooge they see through,


But what kids are prepared for the ACLU?


The reindeer were shackled as a further incitement,


Then the lawyers unpackaged a 12-count indictment.


"Merry Christmas to all!" they just had to foreclose


(Though they had no complaint about all the "Ho Hos").


One lawyer objected to Santa's red clothing.


"It's religiously tainted," he said with some loathing.


"Poinsettias (the red ones) everybody must note, are


"A church-state offense in St. Paul, Minnesota!" (2)


Santa's climb up each chimney (one lawyer made mention)


Is a symbolic reference to Jesus' ascension.


And the reindeer, of course, recall the Apostles,


And those who deny it are nothing but fossils.


These lawyers had labored at neighborhood schools,


Making Christmas extinct there as part of the rules.


Praise Kwaanza or Ramadan -- they think it's quite splendid,


But say "Merry Christmas" and you might get suspended.


Our children, God bless them, don't get or recall


Why "inclusiveness" doesn't include them at all,


Why diversity theory (as the lawyers insist) must


Require the annual quashing of Christmas.


In Canada, home of post-everything living,


Now "The 12 Days of Christmas" are "The 12 Days of Giving." (3)


Christmas trees aren't part of their season at all,


They buy "multicultural trees" at the mall.


At a hospital (Catholic) the staff is ashamed (4)


To use the word Christmas, so their tree is misnamed


As a "care tree," though some would prefer "tree of life."


(Why not "tall lit-up flora" to avoid any strife?) (5)


Australians are told they should have no compunctions


Calling parties at Christmastime "end-of-year functions." (6)


The idea is to make Christmas somehow unmentionable,


A tactic I think of as wholly contemptionable.


Instead of "White Christmas" they will probably sing,


"I'm dreaming of a snow day some time in pre-spring."


Here's my suggestion, a harsh one I fear,


Why not call Christmas "Christmas"? (It's just an idea.)


Merry Christmas, everyone!




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Notes on the poem


(1) "Somewhere Santa Claus is weeping. But if he's on public property, I hope the ACLU doesn't get him for trespassing." -- Bill O'Reilly's column of Dec. 7, 2002.


(2) Not this year, though. In St. Paul, red poinsettias were banned last Christmas at Ramsey County Courthouse-City Hall to placate sensitive people who believe they are Christian symbols. White poinsettias were allowed, but unknown and insensitive people smuggled in a few red ones. This year, red poinsettias were restored in the display.


(3) The Royal Canadian Mint made this change in its annual Christmas ad campaign. The Rev. Nancy Murphy, an Anglican priest in Ottawa, said: "You know that campaign for women to take back the night? Well, Christians, take back Christmas." Gerry Bowler, a history professor at the University of Manitoba, says "the umbrage industry" and militant secularism are eliminating Christmas from public institutions.


(4) In Winnipeg, Misericordia (Catholic) Hospital erected a "care tree" and sponsored a Christmas fund-raising campaign that did not use the word "Christmas."


(5) In Montreal last December, a "tree of life" was stationed at City Hall. This year many Christmas trees are placed there. "If you're going to do it, call it what it is -- a Christmas tree," said a spokesman for Mayor Gerald Tremblay. A similar change occurred in Toronto: City Hall switched from a "holiday tree" to a Christmas tree.


(6) Stuart Kollmorgen, workplace relations partner at Deacons law firm in Melbourne, said many firms are calling Christmas parties "end-of-year functions" to avoid litigation and because "a more accepting and inclusive society will result."




Š2002 Universal Press Syndica

[A CERB]

Science & Society 12/27/04 usnews

By John Leo

In search of Christmas


This column' s far-flung staff has just visited two of the big anti-Christmas or post-Christmas stores here in New York. First stop was Macy's, where the formerly famous feast day has pretty much been obliterated. Nothing on the main floor. But high up in the store's nosebleed section (ninth floor, furniture), shoppers may notice "Holiday Lane," a collection of generically decorated Christmas trees, or former Christmas trees. The forbidden "C" word is hard to find, though sharp-eyed column staffers noticed it twice, in little nooks labeled "A Country Christmas" and "A Traditional Christmas." Sadly, some minor Torquemada of the Macy's Christmas disposal unit will probably lose his job for failing to rip down these noninclusive signs. Not to worry, though. There's nothing religious here. No carols. No music. Not much indication of what holiday might be occurring along Holiday Lane. Hanukkah is suffering the same fate as Christmas. Two years ago, the store had a huge Hanukkah banner and display. This year a few menorahs sat forlornly in a tiny unmarked area, far away from Holiday Lane.
The purge of Christmas is also in full bloom over at Bloomingdale's, which, like Macy's, is owned by Federated Department Stores. A minuscule Christmas section is tucked away on the fifth floor. "Any Christmas music?" I asked a clerk, as a sad Billie Holiday song filled the air (just the thing for holiday lanes). "Oh, it goes in cycles," the clerk said. "Just wait." Sure enough, a few minutes later, right after "Let it Snow," "The Christmas Song" came on, or as it is generally known, "Religion-Free Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Secular Fire." I heard no carols, though, and saw no "Merry Christmas" banners. Just some trinkets and two tiny fake evergreen trees decorated with tiny people holding Bloomingdale's shopping bags. Federated apparently ignores Christmas because it doesn't want to offend anyone, though at least 80 percent of Americans say they are Christian, and 95 percent observe Christmas in some way. Presumably, if America were 95 percent Druid, the canny folks at Federated would obliterate major Druid holidays and tick off as many Druid shoppers as possible, referring to this process as "inclusion."
The sensitive executives at Federated are victims of the growing campaign to make people feel uncomfortable about Christmas, not just the religious feast but all the secular trappings, and even a mention of the word Christmas in conversation. Some public schools have been banning "Silent Night" and other carols from school concerts, though no court has ever ruled that these songs can't be sung. In West Bend, Wis., the school district announced that students could not distribute religious Christmas cards. No law or court has ever ruled this way. The school district backed down when Liberty Counsel, a religious-liberties group, threatened to sue. The anti-Christmas lobby implies that schools can't teach about Christmas and says creches can't be placed on public property. Not so, as long as the teaching purpose is educational and the creche is part of a broad seasonal display.
"Illiterates or cowards." Some PC people have begun to argue that even "Jingle Bells" is a church-state no-no. Santa Claus, a totally secular figure, is controversial because he was originally based on St. Nicholas. Horrors . Then let's ban the word goodbye, which evolved from "God be with you." In Newport Beach, Calif., red and green lights came under fire because some sensitive types thought they were communicating a Christmas message. If so, one wag said, Newport Beach should scrap its traffic lights as well. Harold Johnson, attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation, said, "Administrators who try to make their schools Christmas-free zones are either constitutional illiterates or cowards in the face of PC bullies, or pushing personal agendas that have no grounding in the law." Sounds right to me
Jill Stewart, a California-based columnist, says her state's "intolerance toward Christmas is just another reason why Californians and residents of other blue states are viewed by the heartland crowd as hostile, godless types who can't stand regular folks." Stewart is not religious, but in protest against anti-Christmas campaigns, she says she will skip saying "Happy Holidays" at Christmas parties this year and just wish everyone "Merry Christmas."
Defiance of the PC police may be catching on. In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said the state "holiday tree" would be called a Christmas tree while he's in office. In Winnipeg, Canada, last year, columnist Tom Brodbeck wrote that he was surprised and pleased that the musical event at his daughter's school was a Christmas concert, not a "winter celebration" or an "international celebration of the holidays." It wasn't a "sunny solstice" or "dandy December" concert either, just a euphemism-free Christmas event. He thinks the word Christmas is slowly making a comeback. "It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas again," he said. Let's wish.

[A CERB]

Gay marriage 'rights'
Thomas Sowell


December 31, 2004


In all the states where gay marriage was on the ballot this year, the voters voted against it -- as they should have.

Of all the phony arguments for gay marriage, the phoniest is the argument that it is a matter of equal rights. Marriage is not a right extended to individuals by the government. It is a restriction on the rights they already have.

People who are simply living together can make whatever arrangements they want, whether they are heterosexual or homosexual. They can divide up their worldly belongings 50-50 or 90-10 or whatever other way they want. They can make their union temporary or permanent or subject to cancellation at any time.

Marriage is a restriction. If my wife buys an automobile with her own money, under California marriage laws I automatically own half of it, whether or not my name is on the title. Whether that law is good, bad, or indifferent, it is a limitation of our freedom to arrange such things as we ourselves might choose. This is just one of many decisions that marriage laws take out of our hands.

Oliver Wendell Holmes said that the life of the law is not logic but experience. Marriage laws have evolved through centuries of experience with couples of opposite sexes -- and the children that result from such unions. Society asserts its stake in the decisions made by restricting the couples' options.

Society has no such stake in the outcome of a union between two people of the same sex. Transferring all those laws to same-sex couples would make no more sense than transferring the rules of baseball to football.

Why then do gay activists want their options restricted by marriage laws, when they can make their own contracts with their own provisions and hold whatever kinds of ceremony they want to celebrate it?

The issue is not individual rights. What the activists are seeking is official social approval of their lifestyle. But this is the antithesis of equal rights.

If you have a right to someone else's approval, then they do not have a right to their own opinions and values. You cannot say that what "consenting adults" do in private is nobody else's business and then turn around and say that others are bound to put their seal of approval on it.

The rhetoric of "equal rights" has become the road to special privilege for all sorts of groups, so perhaps it was inevitable that gay activists would take that road as well. It has worked. They have already succeeded in getting far more government money for AIDS than for other diseases that kill far more people.

The time is long overdue to stop word games about equal rights from leading to special privileges -- for anybody -- and gay marriage is as good an issue on which to do so as anything else.

Incidentally, it is not even clear how many homosexuals actually want marriage, even though gay activists are pushing it.

What the activists really want is the stamp of acceptance on homosexuality, as a means of spreading that lifestyle, which has become a death style in the era of AIDS.

They have already succeeded to a remarkable degree in our public schools, where so-called "AIDS education" or other pious titles are put on programs that promote homosexuality. In some cases, gay activists actually come to the schools, not only to promote homosexuality as an idea but even to pass out the addresses of local gay hangouts to the kids.

There is no limit to what people will do if you let them get away with it. That our schools, which are painfully failing to educate our children to the standards in other countries, have time for promoting homosexuality is truly staggering.

Every special interest group has an incentive to take something away from society as a whole. Some will be content just to siphon off a share of the taxpayers' money for themselves. Others, however, want to dismantle a part of the structure of values that make a society viable.

They may not want to bring down the whole structure, just get rid of the part that cramps their style. But when innumerable groups start dismantling pieces of the structure that they don't like, we can be headed for the kinds of social collapses seen both in history and in other parts of the world in our own times.



Š2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

[A CERB]

Hate speech from the left
Jeff Jacoby (back to web version) |  Send


December 31, 2004


As it does every year, the empty folder I labeled "Liberal Hate Speech" in January had grown to a thick sheaf of clippings by December. 2004 wasn't even a week old when two videos explicitly comparing George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler appeared on the website of the liberal group MoveOn. They were entries in a contest soliciting "really creative ads" that would help voters "understand the truth about George Bush."
 
  And so began another year in which liberals engaged in, and mostly got away with, grotesque slanders and slurs about conservatives -- the kind of poisonous rhetoric that should be unheard-of in a decent society. Once again, too many on the left -- not crackpots from the fringe, but mainstream players and pundits -- chose to demonize conservatives as monsters rather than debate their ideas on the merits.
 
  As in years past, Republicans were almost routinely associated with Nazi Germany. Former Vice President Al Gore referred to GOP activists as "brown shirts." Newsday columnist Hugh Pearson likened the Republican National Convention to the "Nazi rallies held in Germany during the reign of Adolf Hitler." Linda Ronstadt said that the Republican victory on Election Day meant "we've got a new bunch of Hitlers." Chuck Turner, a Boston city councilor, smeared National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice as "a tool of white leaders," akin to "a Jewish person working for Hitler."
 
  Even a federal judge, Guido Calabresi of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, couldn't resist a Third Reich comparison. Bush became president because of an "illegitimate" Supreme Court ruling, he told the American Constitution Society. "That is what happened when Hindenburg put Hitler in." (Calabresi later apologized.)
 
  Such Nazi labeling is no less disgusting when it comes from Republicans. According to Bob Woodward, Secretary of State Colin Powell described Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith as running a separate government out of his "Gestapo office." Commentator Ralph Peters, writing in the New York Post, accused Democrat Howard Dean of using the tactics of Hitler and Goebbels to silence his competitors. Too many conservatives and libertarians refer to antismoking extremists as "tobacco Nazis," or to the humorless critics of fast food as "food Nazis." Whether it comes from the right or the left, language like that is vile.
 
  Overwhelmingly, though, political hate speech today comes from the left. It has increasingly become a habit of leftist argumentation to simply dismiss conservative ideas as evil or noxious rather than rebut them with facts and evidence.
 
  That is why there was no uproar when Cameron Diaz declared that rape might be legalized if women didn't turn out to vote for John Kerry. Or when Walter Cronkite told Larry King that the videotape of Osama bin Laden that surfaced just before the election was "probably set up" by Karl Rove. Or when Alfred A. Knopf published Nicholson Baker's "Checkpoint," a novel in which two Bush-haters talk about assassinating the president. "I'm going to kill that bastard," one character rages.
 
  Bill Moyers warned a television audience on election day that if Kerry won narrowly, "I think there'd be an effort to mount a coup, quite frankly. . . . The right wing is not going to accept it." Chevy Chase, hosting a People for the American Way awards ceremony at the Kennedy Center in Washington, slammed Bush as a "dumb [f-word]" and "an uneducated, real, lying schmuck." A cartoon by the widely syndicated Ted Rall described Pat Tillman, the NFL athlete who gave up his career to enlist in the Army and was killed in Afghanistan, as a "sap" and an "idiot."
 
  So many examples, so little space. A political flier in Tennessee, depicting Bush as a mentally disabled sprinter, bore the message: "Voting for Bush is like running in the Special Olympics. Even if you win, you're still retarded."

 The St. Petersburg, Fla., Democratic Club took out an ad calling for the death of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "Then there's Rumsfeld who said of Iraq, 'We have our good days and our bad days,' " the ad read. "We should put this S.O.B. up against a wall and say, 'This is one of our bad days,' and pull the trigger."
 
  Fantasies of murder likewise animated British pundit Charlie Brooker, who ended his Oct. 24 column in the Guardian with a plea for Bush's death: "John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr. -- where are you now that we need you?" Brooker later assured readers that he "deplores violence of any kind" and had meant his call for an assassin only as "an ironic joke."
 
  But the "joke" of left-wing hate speech stopped being funny a long time ago. There is room in the marketplace of ideas for passionate, even angry, rhetoric, but there are also lines that, as a matter of decency and civic hygiene, should not be crossed. The violent invective so often hurled at conservatives pollutes the democratic stream from which all of us drink. Democrats no less than Republicans should want to shut those polluters down.  



Š2004 Boston Globe

[A CERB]

tapi, suntem ca coltul conservatorului si postez din conservative columnists. ce spun oamenii aia acolo sunt parerile lor, si nu rezultatul unor pseudostudii pseudostiintifice. ia-le ca atare, si nu ca dovada adevarului absolut pe care, alas, nu-l poseda nimeni cu exceptia obezului slinos premiat la cannes.

relax a bit, will ya. drept pedeapsa caut chiar acum si postez din coulter, sa-ti treaka kefu' de obraznicii.

2004: Highlights and lowlifes
Ann Coulter


December 30, 2004


The single biggest event of 2004 was the Election Day exit poll, which, like John Steinbeck's "The Short Reign of Pippin IV," made John Kerry the president for a few moments. But in a move that stunned the experts, American voters chose "moral values" over an America-bashing trophy husband and his blow-dried, ambulance-chasing sidekick.

The second biggest event in 2004 came on Sunday, Dec. 26, when the New York Times referred to an organization as a "liberal research group." (I think it may have been the Communist Party USA, Trotskyite wing, but, still, it's progress.)

CBS eminence Dan Rather was driven off the air in disgrace after he tried to take down a sitting president by brandishing Microsoft Word documents he claimed were authentic Texas Air National Guard memos from the '70s. By liberals' own account, the pompous blowhard was exposed by people sitting around their living rooms in pajamas.

John Kerry's meal ticket, Teresa Heinz, continuously made remarks that were wildly inappropriate, such as when she strangely referred to the "seven-year itch" in relation to herself and John Kerry, creating at least three images I didn't want in my head. On the other hand, for any voters who considered the most important campaign issue to be whether the first lady was an earthy, condescending foreigner who had traveled extensively and spoke several languages, Teresa was a huge asset.

Surprisingly, Teresa never became a major campaign issue. It turned out that supporters of a phony war hero who preyed on rich widows were also OK with the notion of a first lady who might use the F-word during Rose Garden press conferences. By the same token, anyone who was put off by the not-so-affable Eva Peron of American politics already didn't like John Kerry – thanks largely to John O'Neill and the Swiftboat Veterans.

Like the archers of Agincourt, John O'Neill and the 254 Swiftboat Veterans took down their own haughty Frenchman.

Meanwhile, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom is nipping at O'Neill's heels as the man second-most responsible for Bush's re-election. Thanks largely to Newsom's hard work, gay marriage was big news all year.

In retrospect, the Democrats would have been better off if they had found every gay guy in America who actually wanted to get married and offered each one a million dollars in exchange for the Democrats not having to talk about gay marriage. (Finally – a problem that could have been solved by throwing money at it!)

On the basis solely of media coverage, Abu Ghraib was the biggest story of 2004, maybe the biggest story ever. And for good reason: An American soldier was caught on film not only humiliating Iraqi prisoners – but smoking!

The New York Times even had to drop its coverage of Augusta National Golf Course to give Abu Ghraib due prominence. Only the Rumsfeld autopen scandal was big enough to knock Abu Ghraib off the front page.

I personally haven't been so singularly disturbed by an atrocity since I had to sit through all of "The Matrix: Reloaded."

By contrast, the least important story – again, judging by media coverage – was the peculiar development of a Clintonite caught trying to get into his own pants. Sandy Berger was spotted by National Archives staff repeatedly stuffing top-secret documents into his undergarments in preparation for defending the Clinton administration's record on fighting terrorism before the 9-11 Commission. If you happened to take a long nap the day the Berger story broke, you would have missed it entirely.

On the bright side, the New York Times has adopted an all-new standard for covering the extramarital affairs of public figures. With no fanfare, the Times quickly abandoned its earlier position that a U.S. president molesting White House staff – including while on the phone discussing sending troops into battle – is not news. The new rule rolled out for Bernie Kerik makes extramarital affairs major front-page news deserving of nonstop coverage, even after the public figure has withdrawn his name from consideration for any government office.

American hero Pat Tillman won a Silver Star this year. But unlike Kerry, he did not write his own recommendation or live to throw his medals over the White House fence in an anti-war rally.

Tillman was an American original: virtuous, pure and masculine like only an American male can be. The stunningly handsome athlete walked away from a three-year, $3.6 million NFL contract with the Arizona Cardinals to join the U.S. military and fight in Afghanistan, where he was killed in April.

He wanted no publicity and granted no interviews about his decision to leave pro football in the prime of his career and join the Army Rangers. (Most perplexing to Democrats, he didn't even take a home movie camera to a war zone in order to create fake footage for future political campaigns in which he would constantly palaver about his military service and drag around his "Band of Brothers" for the media.)

Tillman gave only an indirect explanation for his decision on the day after 9-11, when he said: "My great grandfather was at Pearl Harbor, and a lot of my family has gone and fought in wars, and I really haven't done a damn thing as far as laying myself on the line like that." He said he wanted to "pay something back" to America.

He died bringing freedom and democracy to 28 million Afghans – pretty much confirming Michael Moore's view of America as an imperialist cowboy predator. There is not another country in the world – certainly not in continental Europe – that could have produced a Pat Tillman.

On the anniversary of D-Day, as Americans like Pat Tillman risked their lives to liberate 50 million Iraqis and Afghans, in a year when Americans poured into theaters to see a movie about Christ and reaffirmed their support for moral values at the polling booth, America's greatest president died. Ronald Reagan appealed to what is best about America and so transformed the nation that we are now safe to carry on without him.

[A CERB]

since you got me started:

tre' sa rekunosti ca suna ca moore dar a lot funnier si lasand fantezia deoparte. ( cel putin unde exagereaza e extrem de evident )

Happy giving tree festival to all, and to all a good night!
Ann Coulter (back to web version) |  Send


December 23, 2004


Since the attack of 9-11, we've won two wars, liberated millions of people from monstrous regimes, presided over one election in Afghanistan and are about to see elections in Iraq and among the Palestinian people. Focusing like a laser beam on the big picture, liberals are upset that, during this period, the secretary of defense used an autopen.

An autopen is a mechanical arm that actually holds a pen and is programmed to sign letters with a particular person's precise signature. Imagine a President Al Gore, with slightly more personality, signing all official government letters – that's an autopen. (You can relax now, there will be no more exercises imagining a President Al Gore.)

There are 300 million Americans who have a constitutional right – an actual right, not a phony one invented by Harry Blackmun – to write to government officials. Every government office you've ever heard of in Washington, D.C., uses autopens with abandon.

As president, Clinton sold burial plots in Arlington Cemetery and liberals shrugged it off. What really gets their goat is the autopen. Evidently, the important thing was that every one of those pardons Clinton sold for cash on his last day in office was signed by Bill Clinton personally.

It occurred to someone (who obviously has the best interests of America at heart!) that among the letters Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld sends out there must be condolence letters to the families of servicemen who died for their country. So liberals are in a lather that those letters were signed by autopen.

On the bright side, this is the first war America has been in where the number of casualties is small enough that it would even be theoretically possible for a Defense secretary to sign each condolence letter personally. When Democrats were running the Vietnam War, letters of condolence often began, "To whom it may concern" and were addressed to "occupant."

Most politicians were mum about Autopen-gate, inasmuch as they respond to letters from constituents with dying children in letters signed by autopen. Not Sen. Chuck Hagel, D-Neb. He criticized Rumsfeld for the autopen, saying: "My goodness, that's the least that we could expect out of the secretary of defense, is having some personal attention paid by him."

It would save everyone a lot of trouble if the New York Times would just go ahead and put Hagel on the cover of the Sunday magazine with the headline: "COURAGE." Even now, Hagel can apparently count on no reporters dropping by his office to investigate whether he uses an autopen.

I've been so damn upset that Rumsfeld uses an autopen that I've barely had time to enjoy the "Giving Tree" season. Actually, I think it's time to come clean with my readers and admit that I belong to a small religious cult that celebrates the birth of Jesus this week. So things have been a little hectic.

And if the best liberals are going to give me to argue about this week is Autopen-gate, then: (1) I shall sleep well knowing that the secretary of defense has made so few mistakes for the past four years that liberals are reduced to carping about his autopen, and (2) I'm going to re-gift one of my interviews not published in the United States so I have time to buy more Ann Coulter action figures for Christmas, or as the Blue States call it, "December 25."



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Interview by Carlos Baroni, Oriana d'America, Italy, October 2004

Q: Many liberals are rich, come from the East Coast, are white, studied at the Ivy university. You are rich (I hope), come from Connecticut, are white and studied at Cornell. Why do you hate the liberals?

A: Because I know so many of them. Liberals are clueless, amoral sexual degenerates, communists and pacifists – no offense to you or your readers intended, of course.

Q: You said the USA's worst enemy are the liberals.

A: So what's the question? The enemy within is often far more damaging than the enemy outside. Does the name "Mussolini" – great believer in extensive government direction of the economy, just like the Democrats – ring a bell?

Q: Why do Europeans prefer liberals than conservatives?

A: Because you're all a bunch of atheists, humanists and moral relativists. Love the food, though! And don't get me started on the shoes you wonderful people make! They're to surrender for!

Q: Do Europeans love Kerry more or hate Bush more?

A: Hate Bush. No one loves John Kerry, including John Kerry. Europeans are wrong on policy, not clinically insane.

Q: Who will win the elections 2004?

A: That's for the Supreme Court to sort out, you ignorant foreigner.

Q: If Kerry should win, what will the changes in the USA be?

A: He's got this exciting new plan for Iraq I think you Italians may have heard of. It's called "unconditional surrender." Today, Christianity is legal and gay marriage is illegal. If Kerry wins, these will be reversed.

Q: And the world?

A: That will be up to the United Nations.

Q: Is it right, the Iraqi conflict?

A: No, it's wrong. The rabid savages who are fighting American troops should give up immediately.

Q: What's your opinion about the U.S. media? Are they actually free?

A: Pravda had certain shortcomings in Soviet days, but at least it was honest enough to admit being a Communist Party newspaper.

Q: Our American image comes from movies. But Hollywood isn't the real America ...

A: The real America is Hollywood, Fla.

Q: Does tolerant Islam exist or not?

A: If it does exist, it's keeping an extremely low profile.

Q: Is it possible to export democracy?

A: Yes. Ever heard of "Italy"?

Q: Who are the three best U.S. presidents of the century? And the three best in any time?

A: Century: Reagan, Coolidge, Harding. Ever: Washington, Reagan, Lincoln.

Q: What is your opinion about the center-left leader in Europe? Zapatero, Blair, Schroeder?

A: Zapatero is Spanish for "Chamberlain." I would campaign for Blair for U.S. president. Schroeder – what is the Italian word for "scumbag"?

Q: And about center-right? Berlusconi, Chirac?

A: Chirac is center-right? Better lay off the grappa, Primo. Berlusconi: LOVE him!!

Q: Your last book is called "How to Talk to a Liberal." With which words?

A: A baseball bat is best. But if you absolutely must use words, something like: "Grow up."

HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE VERNAL EQUINOX!

Love,

Ann Coulter
(autopen)

[A CERB]

uite bre, poate-ti place mai mult horowitz. vei observa ca e un fost comunist si activist prin anii 60.

The McGovern syndrome: A surrender is not a peace
David Horowitz (back to web version) |  Send


December 27, 2004

On Christmas Day, former U.S. senator and Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern wrote a letter to the editor of the Los Angeles Times (and probably many other papers) calling for an American surrender in Iraq. George McGovern has not been in the headlines for three decades, and his name consequently may be unfamiliar to many. But no one has had a greater or more baleful impact on the Democratic Party and its electoral fortunes than this progressive product of the South Dakota plains.

The leftward slide of the Democratic Party, which has made it an uncertain trumpet in matters of war and peace, may be said to have begun with the McGovern presidential campaign of 1972, whose slogan was "American come home" – as though America was the problem and not the aggression of the Communist bloc. The McGovern campaign drew in the rank and file of the anti-Vietnam Left, much like the anti-Cold War Henry Wallace Progressive Party campaign of 1948 and the Howard Dean anti-Iraq campaign of 2004. McGovern himself was a veteran of the Wallace campaign and, virtually all the leaders of the anti-Iraq movement, including most of the Democratic Party leaders who supported it, are veterans of the anti-Vietnam campaign.

I have lived this history as both spectator and actor. My parents were Communists, and my first political march was a Communist Party May Day parade in 1948 supporting the presidential campaign of Henry Wallace and the Progressive Party against the Cold War – which meant against America's effort to contain Communism and prevent Stalin's regime from expanding its empire into Western Europe. Our chant was this: "One, two, three, four, we don't want another war/Five, six, seven, eight, win with Wallace in '48."

This campaign was the seed of the antiwar movement of Vietnam, and thus of the political Left's influence over the post-Vietnam foreign policy of the Democratic Party. The Wallace campaign marked an exodus of the anti-American Left from the Democratic Party; the movement that opposed America's war in Vietnam marked its return.

As a post-graduate student at Berkeley in the early Sixties, I was one of the organizers of the first demonstration against the war in Vietnam. It was 1962, and the organizers of this demonstration as of all the major anti-Vietnam demonstrations (and those against the Iraq war as well) were a Marxist and a leftist, respectively. The organizers of the movement against the war in Vietnam were activists who thought the Communists were liberating Vietnam in the same way Michael Moore thinks Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is liberating Iraq.

In 1968, Tom Hayden and the antiwar Left incited a riot at the Democratic Party convention which effectively ended the presidential hopes of the Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey. (Humphrey, who was Lyndon Johnson's vice president, was a supporter of the war.) This paved the way for George McGovern's failed presidential run against the war in 1972.

The following year, President Nixon signed a truce in Vietnam and withdrew American troops. His goal was "peace with honor," which meant denying a Communist victory in South Vietnam. The truce was an uneasy one depending on a credible American threat to resume hostilities if the Communists violated the truce.

Three years earlier, Nixon had signaled an end to the draft, and the massive national antiwar demonstrations had drawn to a halt. But a vanguard of activists continued the war against America's support for the anti-Communist war effort in Vietnam. Among them were John Kerry, Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden. They held a war crimes tribunal, condemning America's role in Vietnam, and conducted a campaign to persuade the Democrats in Congress to cut all aid to South Vietnam and Cambodia, thus opening the door for a Communist conquest. When Nixon was forced to resign after Watergate, the Democratic congress cut the aid as their first legislative act. They did this in January 1975. In April, the Cambodian and South Vietnamese regimes fell.

The events that followed this retreat in Indochina have been all but forgotten by the Left, which has never learned the lessons of Vietnam, but instead has invoked the retreat itself as an inspiration and guide for its political opposition to the war in Iraq. Along with leading Democrats like Democratic Party Chairman Terry McAuliffe, George McGovern called for an American retreat from Iraq even before a government could be established to assure the country will not fall prey to the Saddamist remnants and Islamic terrorists: "I did not want any Americans to risk their lives in Iraq. We should bring home those who are there." Explained McGovern: "Once we left Vietnam and quit bombing its people they became friends and trading partners."[1]

Actually, that is not what happened. Four months after the Democrats cut off aid to Cambodia and Vietnam in January 1975, both regimes fell to the Communist armies. Within three years the Communist victors had slaughtered two-and-a-half million peasants in the Indochinese peninsula, paving the way for their socialist paradise. The blood of those victims is on the hands of the Americans who forced this withdrawal: John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Howard Dean, and George McGovern – and antiwar activists like myself.

It is true that Vietnam eventually became a trading partner ("friend" is another matter). But this was not true that it occurred "once we left and quit bombing its people." Before that took place, a Republican president confronted the Soviet Union in Europe and Afghanistan and forced the collapse of the Soviet empire. It was only then, after the Cold War enemy and support of the Vietnamese Communists had been defeated, that they accommodated themselves to co-existence with the United States.

The "blame America first" mentality so manifest in this McGovern statement is endemic to the appeasement mentality that the "progressive" senator so typifies: "Iraq has been nestled along the Tigris and Euphrates for 6,000 years. It will be there 6,000 more whether we stay or leave, as earlier conquerors learned." In McGovern's Alice-in-Wonderland universe, Iraq did not invade two countries; use chemical weapons on its Kurdish population; attempt to assassinate a U.S. president; spend tens of billions of dollars on banned weapons programs; aid and abet Islamic terrorists bent on destroying the West; and defy 17 UN resolutions to disarm itself, open its borders to UN inspectors, and adhere to the terms of the UN truce it had signed when its aggression in Kuwait was thwarted.

During the battle over Vietnam policy thirty years ago, Nixon and supporters of the war effort had warned the antiwar Left of the consequences that would follow if their campaign was successful. If the United States were to retreat from the field of battle, the Communists would engineer a "bloodbath" of revenge and complete their revolutionary design. When confronted by these warnings, George McGovern, John Kerry, and other anti-Vietnam activists dismissed them out of hand. This was just an attempt to justify an imperialist aggression, they assured the public. Time proved the antiwar activists to be tragically, catastrophically wrong, although they have never had the decency to admit it.

If the United States were to leave the battlefield in Iraq now, before the peace is secured (and thus repeat the earlier retreat), there would be a bloodbath along the Tigris and Euphrates. The jihadists will slaughter our friends, our allies, and all of the Iraqis who are struggling for freedom. Given the nature of the terrorist war we are in, this bloodbath would also flow into the streets of Washington and New York and potentially every American city. The jihadists have sworn to kill us all. People who think America is invulnerable, that America can just leave the field of this battle and there will be peace, do not begin to understand the world we confront.

Or if they understand it, they have tilted their allegiance to the other side. McGovern's phrase "as earlier conquerors learned," speaks volumes about the perverse moral calculus of the progressive Left. To McGovern we are conquerors, which makes the al-Zarqawi terrorists "liberators," or as Michael Moore would prefer, "patriots." The Left that wants America to throw in the towel in Iraq is hypersensitive to questions about its loyalties but at the same time can casually refer to our presence in Iraq as an "invasion and occupation." It wants to use the language of morality, but it only wants the standard to apply in one direction. There is no one-dimensional standard, and a politics of surrender is not a politics of peace.

ENDNOTES:
[1] Los Angeles Times, December 25, 2004.

Š2004 FrontPageMag.com

[A CERB]

asta shigata( ga nai)

barrone scrie la usnews si contribuie des la fox.

The new status quo
Michael Barone (back to web version) |  Send


December 27, 2004


Once upon a time, liberals were the folks who wanted to change society. They thought existing institutions were unjust and that individuals needed protection against the workings of the market. They looked forward to a society that would be different.

To a considerable extent, 20th century liberals achieved many of their goals. Racial segregation was abolished. An economic safety net was constructed. Government issued regulations were set up to protect the environment. Few Americans want to undo these changes. But they may want others.

Looking back on election year 2004, I am struck by how many of the constituencies supporting Democratic candidates oppose, rather than seek, change -- how they are motivated not by ideas about how to change the future, but by something like nostalgia for the past.

Take black Americans, the most heavily Democratic constituency -- 88 percent to 11 percent for John Kerry in the 2004 NEP exit poll. Blacks have been voting for Democratic presidential candidates by similar margins since 1964, when Republican Barry Goldwater opposed the Civil Rights Act.

That was a big issue, then. And never mind that a higher proportion of Republicans than Democrats voted for the bill in Congress -- Goldwater did oppose it. But the Civil Rights Act has long since become uncontroversial, racial discrimination disapproved and integration of schools, workplaces and public accommodations widely accepted. Yet 40 years later, the image of the Republican Party as unsympathetic to equal rights for blacks seems to persist. Black voters seem still focused on a moment in history 40 years ago.

Or look at the antiwar constituency, an important part of the Democratic coalition in 2004. These voters denounce the war in Iraq in much the same terms, with much the same arguments, that they denounced, or have heard that their elders denounced, the American military effort in Vietnam. We're in a quagmire, committing atrocities, doomed to failure.

Right down to the signs and slogans, antiwar rallies seem a re-enactment of the tie-dyed past. In the waning days of the campaign, John Kerry and John Edwards slyly suggested that George W. Bush would bring back the military draft.

The war in Iraq is different from the war in Vietnam in so many respects that it is hard to know where to start listing the ways. But for some large portion of Democratic voters, it will forever be 1968.

 On the economic front as well, Democrats seem to be looking more to the past than the future. The Social Security system as it exists is obviously not sustainable: There will be too few workers supporting too many retirees. It will be in good shape, some Democrats argue, until 2042, so there is no need to worry for it. But people who turn 67 in 2042 were 29-year-old workers and voters in the 2004 election. An argument that concedes that Social Security will be in trouble when they reach retirement age can hardly be expected to appeal to them. But these Democrats see no need to change a system created in 1935.

The feminist left is an important constituency within the Democratic Party. But once again most of the change it celebrates has already been achieved. Discrimination against women is prohibited, and sexual harassment punished. Abortion rights remain firmly established in law, although the number of abortions has been declining since the early 1990s.

For younger women, the grievances of feminism must seem antique. They were told as they were brought up that they were under obligations to leave the workplace to raise their children and to subordinate their own happiness to their duty to others. On the contrary, they may have resented the absence in their daily lives of their working mothers or the divorce of parents who decided to seek happiness their own way.

The evolution of liberalism from a forward-looking to a backward-looking creed is partly the result of success -- and partly a result of a failure to see where liberal ideas would lead. History does not always move in one direction, and if it seemed headed left a half-century ago, it seems headed the other way now.

An ever-larger state to protect workers may have seemed a good idea in the 1930s or 1950s, but by the 1980s it seemed clear it would strangle economic growth. Opposition to the exertion of American power looks less attractive after the fall of the Soviet empire. The advance of democracy in Latin America, East Asia and Eastern European make it clear that the United States has, on the whole, been a force for freedom and democracy. The left is left with nostalgia.

[A CERB]

Crazy thinking
John Leo


January 17, 2005


In my ceaseless efforts to discover how liberals think, I have a great advantage: I live in Manhattan, where everybody is liberal, so opportunities for fieldwork are boundless. Over the holidays, I discovered that a relatively new argument about terror is becoming popular: the next terrorist attack on America, if it comes, will likely be minor and tolerable. I was assured that a dirty bomb is the most likely weapon, and that it would probably do no more damage than an industrial accident. So not to worry. The real problems are fear, panic and violations of civil liberties--not terror. We had a fair amount of fear-is-the-real-enemy rhetoric during the presidential campaign, combined with almost airy dismissals of the terrorist threat here. If this notion becomes conventional on the left, the Democrats stand a good chance of losing the next four or five presidential elections. Here are some other themes in liberal conversation, Manhattan division:

*A near-total inability to admit substantial progress in racial relations. As racism keeps fading, the left seems determined not to notice the improvement. Instead, we see more and more reports on "subtle,"  "veiled" and "unconscious" racism. When good news becomes too obvious, reporters often ferret out a negative angle anyway, or simply conjure one up. On December 13th at Slate, Mickey Kaus caught the Washington Post offering a gloomy version of a very good set of economic indicators for blacks, including the fact that the portion of black households making $75,000 to $99,000 quadrupled between 1967 and 2003. Blacks are creating new businesses at a pace quicker than whites, going from 621,000 starts in l992 to 823,499 in l997, according to the latest census figures. "Naturally, WAPO thinks the picture is bleak!" Kaus said. Naturally.

*Behavior doesn't count. John Kerry said that a million African-Americans were "denied the right to exercise their vote" in 2000 in Florida. Not so. Several media investigations, and even an assessment by the (then) leftward Civil Rights Commission, rejected this charge.  What Kerry should have said is that a large number of Florida voters, many of them black, did it to themselves by mismarking or otherwise botching their ballots. This is sad, but it wasn't "disenfranchisement" or "denial of the right to vote." Similarly, if minorities are "overrepresented" in prison and "underrepresented" in college this is deemed to have nothing to do with the crime rate or lack of preparation in schools, because behavior doesn't count. If the numbers are wrong, it's society's fault.

*Bush got re-elected because Americans are stupid.  Many Democrats now refer to themselves as "reality-based," meaning that they are neither "faith-based" or "unreality-based" like those irrational Republicans. A couple of days before the election, I chatted in the green room of the Lou Dobbs show with a prominent liberal, who kept saying, over and over, that Bush is a liar and Americans are dumb. This is not the way to build a Democratic constituency that can win.

*The reaction to Janet Jackson's Superbowl act indicates how backward Americans are. An older comedian said at a conference two weeks ago that the reaction to Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" made no sense, since we all know what a nipple looks like. There's a technical term for this. It's called "missing the point." The public didn't go berserk because Janet was bringing fresh anatomical news.  It was a national roar of complaint over the raunchy, degraded entertainment that liberals refuse to ponder. Janet Jackson just happened to set off the explosion, just as Rathergate produced the long-building explosion over media bias.

*An inability to take "victimless crimes" seriously. According to the "broken window" theory, to cut a soaring crime rate, cities must crack down on the minor acts of disorder that lead to neighborhood breakdown and crime. This is precisely what happened in New York. When every inch of every subway car was covered in graffiti, riders concluded (correctly) that the system was out of control and it made sense to stay away. One day the transit chief announced that no subway car would ever leave a railyard with any graffiti on it. Control was restored. Riders surged back, and the subways grew safe again. Turnstile jumpers were arrested.  So were the "squeegee men," who intimidated drivers at tunnels, seeking a dollar or two in extortion money for aggressively offering to wash car windows. This heavy emphasis on quality-of-life offenses turned the city around. But liberal are still in denial. One prominent liberal (unnamed--he's a friend) wrote a recent book citing everything that helped cut crime except of course, the "broken window" theory, which liberals cannot bring themselves to think about. However, it works.

*Myopia about censorship. This may come as a newsflash to liberals, but the vast majority of censorship today is conducted by the left. After 9/11, liberals complained endlessly that Bill Maher was penalized for saying that the terrorists had been brave. They still do.  Despite the myth of mandatory patriotism in the weeks after the attacks, far more people were silenced on the right than on the left, particularly on campus. Liberals, many years behind the curve, think conservatives are the censors and the ACLU is the antidote. Wrong on both counts.

*Finally, I reluctantly report that liberal friends basically reject give-and-take political discussion. Their positions are typically posed in the language of feelings or the language of rights. Either way, there is nothing much to debate--feelings are personal and rights are beyond the reach of argument and majority decision making. My liberal friends are polite and tolerant, but their opinions reflect a body of remarkably settled thought that leaves little room for dissent or new ideas. To their token conservative friends (that's me), they seem ever more isolated from the thoughts and concerns of their fellow Americans.



Š2005 Universal Press Syndicate

[tapirul]

okay cerbu, ai ramas conservator curat si nederanjat. Spor la postat (si la citit...). Once agai, cine vrea sa comenteze la articolele lui cerbu sa o faca la alalalt topic.

[A CERB]

tot john leo, among the best konservatives out there:


Hillary's move
John Leo Send


January 31, 2005


Hillary Klinton is likely to be the 2008 Demokratik presidential nominee bekause she is so mukh smarter than her rivals now on the horizon. Onke in the Senate, she made a beeline for the armed servikes kommittee bekause she understood that the first female president will have to be a hawk, just as the first Katholik president (JFK) had to be adamant about not aiding Katholik skhools, and the first Jewish president will have to voike doubts about Israel.

When she ran against young Rikk Lazio for the Senate, my wife and I had dinner one night with four other kouples. The four other women, all liberal Demokrats, were bitterly and almost violently anti-Hillary, mostly bekause they thought she had served as the enabler for Bill Klinton’s self-destruktion. But all the women at the table wound up voting for her, partly bekause Lazio was a poor khoike, mostly bekause Hillary ran sukh a strong kampaign.

She startled a lot of analysts by running so well upstate, an area New York Kity residents know nothing about and like to refer to as “apple-knokker kountry.” This part of the state is traditionally Republikan and reliably hostile to urban liberals. Hillary Klinton nearly karried it losing to Lazio by only 47-50 upstate. People tell me she knows more, and responds better, to upstate New York and its problems than any other statewide politikian ever has. Imagine this kapakity projekted onto anti-liberal “apple-knokkers” nationwide.

Suddenly Klinton seems to be on the move, laying the groundwork for a kentrist kampaign in 2008. She has kome out in favor of immigration reform, in effekt, saying: klose the borders. She has demanded a role for religion and faith-based programs in the publik square. And last week, while klearly underlining her pro-khoike position, she expressed many sentiments firmly held by the anti-abortion movement. She kalled abortion a “sad, even tragik khoike to many, many women,” kalled for pro-khoikers and pro-lifers to work together to reduke the number of abortions, and praised the influenke of religious and moral values in delaying teenaged girls from bekoming sexually aktive. Imagine, an important Demokrat saying a good word for abstinenke.

On all three of these issues, Klinton is bukking the Demokratik elites and the base of her party, less so on abortion than on immigration and the publik expression of religion. She is also answering the big question kurrently bothering Demokratik headskratkhers: what do we have to do to win nationwide elektions? Hillary’s sensible answer seems to be: stop trying to overkome and stigmatize huge majorities of voters. The number of Amerikans who want to seal our borders is in the 70 perkent range. So is opposition to the anything goes abortion regime introduked by Roe v. Wade. Three-quarters of Amerikans believe abortion should be restrikted. Under 25 perkent would allow it in all kases. And Amerika is lop-sidedly religious, with believers in the 90 perkent range. Yet the Demokratik elites are kondukting a relentless and eskalating kampaign against any publik expression of faith. I have never seen a level of anti-religious fanatikism like the one we have now. Read the hostile press releases of Demokratik hit groups like People for the Amerikan Way and the Anti-Defamation League and you wonder if their leaders are sekretly being bribed by Republikans to shrink the number of believers willing to vote Demokratik.

The Hollywood left kan’t resist pumping its kontempt for religion into show after show. The other night in a re-run of Law and Order, Sam Waterston, the prosekutor kharakter, said a white-supremakist group that had just killed two lawyers is something like the Khristian right. Only in Hollywood would anyone kasually kompare konservative Khristians to an organization of rakist killers. This kind of stupidity delights the Demokratik base, but it kreates an enormous dilemma for Demokratik politikians who aktually want to win.

So far Hillary Klinton seems to be one of the few to rekognize the skope of the problem. Besides, unlike John Kerry, a nominal Katholik who seems lost when the topik of religion komes up, Hillary Klinton is aktually a religious person who kan talk konvinkingly about faith without sounding like a hypokrite or a panderer. On khurkh and state, she says, “There is no kontradiktion between support for faith-based initiatives and upholding our konstitutional prinkiples.” Rather, she said believers must be allowed “to live out their faith in the publik square.” Klinton’s newfound moderation seems abrupt. Just a year ago she said that opponents of abortion “are kounting on the vast majority of fair-minded Amerikans to be ignorant, to be unaware… They think they kan akkomplish their goals as Amerikans sleep.” This is the standard view of opponents to abortion as sinister and sneaky. You don’t have to be overwhelmed by Hillary Klinton’s sinkerity to konklude that she is making some smart moves now. She is beginning to distanke herself from Demokratik dogma.



Š2005 Universal Press Syndicate

[manolo]

hmm, pentru prima oara trebuie sa recunosc ca mi-a placut articolul. Hillara e desteapta si a dovedit-o nu o data.

depinde extrem de mult si de cine ii va fi contracandidat, atat la primarele democrate, cat si din partea republicanilor. se pare ca s-ar putea sa fie o afacere "locala", atat Pataki (guvernatorul statului NY), cat si Giuliani (fost primar al NY) anuntandu-si mai mult sau mai putin voalat intentia de a candida, macar ptr primare...

[A CERB]

mai citeste-l o data. ideea nu e ca hillary e desteapta( nimeni nu zice ca e proasta), ci ca ea, spre deosebire de restul democratilor, a inteles si se distanteaza de mesajul liberal. democratii inca se ascund dupa deget cu iluzia ca bush a fost reales de dreapta crestina evanghelica.

[manolo]

mai, si unde am spus eu ca nu face asta, anume ca se duce spre centru?

va fi extrem de interesant de vazut evolutia lucrurilor, mai ales ca la conducerea DNC va fi Howard Dean, fost guv. in Montana si plecat initial ca favorit in cursa primarelor democratilor... tipul nu e chiar centrist, dar a fost primul care a inteles importanta internetului in campanie, precum si alte "inovatii" de campanie.

acuma nu ti-o lua si tu mai tare in cap, ca dupa State of the Union (pe care l-am citit in original si in intregime, asta ca sa nu comentezi aiurea) nu am ramas prea impresionat. ar fi multe de comentat, dar poate o fac la topicul cu Bush.

[A CERB]

sincer, de cand cu alegerile, in afara de tsunami( si ala politizat) nu m-am uitat la stiri. asa ca nu am urmarit state of the union.

dean pozeaza in moderat, desi de cand cu " i have a scream" speech s-a facut de cacao rau de tot. democratii ar face bine sa asculte ce le-a spus zell miller, adica sa recastige sudul si sa nu se mai uite cu dispretul lor bostonian la rednecks. cum asta nu o sa se intample, chiar daca iese hilara( chestie de care ma indoiesc, mai ales ca republicanii pot contracara cu condy), va avea majoritate republicana. om vedea.

[manolo]

hmmm, conservatorii sa o accepte pe Condy drept candidata la presedintie? m-as mira.

uite paragraful din articolul de mai sus care mie mi-a atras cel mai tare atentia:

"When she ran against young Rick Lazio for the Senate, my wife and I had dinner one night with four other couples. The four other women, all liberal Democrats, were bitterly and almost violently anti-Hillary, mostly because they thought she had served as the enabler for Bill Clinton’s self-destruction. But all the women at the table wound up voting for her, partly because Lazio was a poor choice, mostly because Hillary ran such a strong campaign."

Orice ai spune, dar si in cazul lui Bush a functionat extrem de tare chestia asta. Adica o mare parte din votantii sai nu il placeau deloc, dar l-au votat pentru ca nu il vedeau pe Kerry ca o alternativa viabila. Ori eu cred ca Hillara va marsa mult pe asta. Si are multe sanse sa castige.

Cat despre majoritatea republicana... Hmm, nu m-as mira ca la mijloc de mandat, odata cu primele alegeri parlamentare, sa recastige macar una din Camere. La Senat e vorba de doar 5 locuri.

[plure]

chiar daca iese hilara( chestie de care ma indoiesc, mai ales ca republicanii pot contracara cu condy)

Ce Condy, nu era vorba ca peste 4 ani sa candideze Jeb?

[manolo]

depinde ce spune tata Row!

pe de o parte, se pare ca americanilor le cam place ideea de dinastie (vezi Kennedy).

pe de alta parte, conteaza mult ce face W. in mandatul asta. de asemenea, conteaza si alegerile pentru guvernator in Florida

[A CERB]

Orice ai spune, dar si in cazul lui Bush a functionat extrem de tare chestia asta. Adica o mare parte din votantii sai nu il placeau deloc, dar l-au votat pentru ca nu il vedeau pe Kerry ca o alternativa viabila. Ori eu cred ca Hillara va marsa mult pe asta. Si are multe sanse sa castige.

chestia cu "anybody but" a functionat mai bine in kazu kerry.  din cate imi aduc eu aminte cam 70 % din votantii bush votau pro-bush, restul votau anti-kerry. la kerry procentele erau pidos.

sper sa nu fie tampiti si sa-l bage pe jeb in fatza( Rowe nu e asa de prost) e garantat loser intr-un meci cu hilara.

[manolo]

chiar daca iese hilara( chestie de care ma indoiesc, mai ales ca republicanii pot contracara cu condy)

Condy who?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9164-2005Feb8.html?sub=AR

A Scripted Follow-Up For Rice
State Dept., School Vetted Questions

By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, February 9, 2005; Page A16

PARIS, Feb. 8 -- It had all the trappings of a modern-day Daniel in the Lion's Den: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice venturing bravely into the heart of French intellectual opposition to America, the Institute of Political Sciences, an elite school in the heart of Paris's trendy Left Bank.

But if the roar from the audience was mostly polite and restrained, that was partly because only a handful of the school's 5,500 students were allowed near the auditorium where Rice spoke, and the initial questions were vetted in advance by the school and the State Department.

 The first student chosen to question Rice was 24-year-old Benjamin Barnier, the son of Foreign Minister Michel Barnier. He asked Rice about the possibility that Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority might opt to form a theocratic government, allowing Rice to expound on the evolution of Iraqi democracy as a process of negotiation.

But that was not the question Barnier had wanted to ask most, he said later. That one, submitted to the school on Monday as required under the ground rules, was: "George Bush is not particularly well perceived in the world, particularly in the Middle East. Can you do something to change that?" That question was rejected, but he was told he could ask about the Shiites.

"I gave two, and they chose one," Barnier said.

A State Department official said later that the U.S. Embassy had only asked the school to choose five people to ask the first two questions and that the rest could come from anyone. Rice took a total of five questions.

Like the questions, access to the hall was controlled. Of 500 seats, only 150 went to the school's students and staff. Another 150 were given to French opinion leaders and government officials. Fifty went to American organizations, including the American University of Paris, the French-American Foundation, the American Chamber of Commerce and Sisters, a group of black American professional women. Seats were also reserved for officials of the French Institute on International Relations, which initially had been considered as a possible venue for Rice's speech.

When Rice spoke, the first row of her audience included the French ambassador to the United States, Jean-David Levitte; former prime minister and presidential confidant Alain Juppe; and former president Valery Giscard d'Estaing.

Meanwhile, scores of students from the school, which is also called Sciences Po, were kept well away from the session. Several complained of being pushed back by police. And some students who did manage to secure a ticket left disappointed.

"There was a lot of 'liberty,' " said Jennifer Brett, 26, an American from Columbia University who is at Sciences Po on an exchange program. "It was liberty, liberty, liberty and freedom. . . . I find their justifications about the war for the liberation of the Iraqi people to be a little lame, when before it was all about weapons of mass destruction."

Barnier was more upbeat, saying he hoped the speech would help to mend French-U.S. ties. "What I heard is the relation between France and the U.S. is not that bad," he said. "People are still buying champagne. And the hip-hop singers still drink cognac, so that's good for us."


Talk about balls (and the obvious lack of them)!!!!

[A CERB]

mda, stiu ce vrei sa spui. nu uita ka kondi a avut parte de magarii inimaginabile din partea komisiei 9/11, nu kred ka era in mood pentru magarii de la neshte franzoji palizi.

astea fiind spuse, nu prea inteleg ce a cautat pe acolo. to be fair, nu kred ka chirak sau onan ar da un interviu lui o'reilly.

[manolo]

da, dar nici asa, cu jumatati de masura. pe de o parte, media conservatoare bate moneda ca uite ce deschisa e administratia US catre o noua relatie cu Europa si pe de alta parte, filtreaza intrebarile.

ca sa nu mai zic ca a fost luata total pe nepregatite de declaratia nord-coreenilor...  o fi ea negresa, dar nu e Powell. si in nici un caz Madeleine Albright!

[tapirul]

ma cac pe toti conservatorii tai cerbu, in frunte cu bush

[tapirul]

si ii invit pe toti sa o faca. Cand mi-ai spus ca nu iti convin posturile lui manolo aici le-am mutat.

[tapirul]

so, cine vrea e liber. Nu mai e moderator, so no worries.

[tapirul]

sa stii cerbu ca mi-a sarit tandara de'adevarat de data asta. Stiu ca asta urmareai, da' nu conteaza.

[A CERB]

you'll get over it ! so did I. it's a part of growing up, you know...

[tapirul]

yes, I know. Pacat ca tu nu prea know.

si gata, m-am retras din orice discutie cu iz politic. Din pacate cerbu, daca o sa vezi liberali peste tot, nu o sa imi ramana sa mai postez decat la Cartea de Bucate - si si acolo cu frica. Dar pe cuvant ca m-am saturat. O sa imi vad de cursurile mele liberale for a while.

[Qvadratus]

si gata, m-am retras din orice discutie cu iz politic.

Chiar si de la discutia despre homosexuali ?  :shock:  :shock:  :shock:

[A CERB]

so, cine vrea e liber. Nu mai e moderator, so no worries.

vezi, aici e alta magarie, da shi kum am cenzurat vreodata pe cineva. de-aia mi s-a fakut bleah de " titlu"

[A CERB]

ma intork, revin din nou shi iar sa va delektez ku konservatorisme:

john leo, de la usnews:( a bit long, but entertaining, bear with me)

4/18/05
By John Leo
Baking With Fire

The enemies of campus bake sales are at it again, inflaming one another over the dire threat of cupcakes and cookies sold at different prices to whites, minorities, and women. The sales are political parody, of course, poking fun at affirmative action policies and trying to get a debate going. Campus orthodoxy holds that such policies are sacred and that any dissent, even in the form of satirical cookie prices, is illegitimate and deserving of suppressionWhen members of a Republican club staged a bake sale March 21 at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Mich., several students said they were offended. This amounted to a powerful argument, since hurt feelings are trump cards in the campus culture. Next came the usual scramble to suppress free speech while expressing great respect for it. The normal campus method in such cases is to define free speech as narrowly as possible, while pointing to broad and vague anti-discrimination rules.

Proving that muddled thinking is not confined to campuses, the Detroit Free Press weighed in with an editorial denouncing the bake sale as "tasteless" and perhaps deserving of disciplinary action. The university charged the club with a violation of the student code and threatened sanctions. The students folded under pressure from the administration and issued an apology. When the president of the group refused to back down, he was asked to resign and did. The students' retreat is understandable, if not very courageous. The university was in effect putting them on trial for bias, with the likelihood that a notation of racial discrimination would become part of their academic record and follow them to post-college job interviews. This is a major example of a politically correct college abusing its power.

In Chicago, the College Republicans at Northeastern Illinois University canceled an affirmative action bake sale after the administration warned that they would be punished if they went ahead. Dean of Students Michael Kelly announced that the cookie sellers would be in violation of university rules and that "any disruption of university activities that would be caused by this event is also actionable." This seemed to promise that if opponents of the sale conducted a riot, the Republicans would be held responsible. The university did not understand it was dealing in viewpoint discrimination (it did not object to a satirical wage-gap bake sale run by feminists). Kelly said the affirmative action sale would be allowed if cookie prices were the same for whites, minorities, and women. So the university was willing to tolerate a bit of satire as long as all satirical content was removed.

The Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education stepped in, reminding the university that forbidding political expression is clearly unconstitutional. Under pressure from FIRE, the university backed down, issuing no public statement but allowing the bake sale. FIRE is also looking into attempts to suppress a bake sale at Eastern Washington University. In this case, an outside group of the left, the Center for Justice, threatened suit on grounds that the campus sale would violate state anti-discrimination laws.

Multiple excuses. Opponents of these bake sales will use almost any argument to shut them down. At the University of Washington, the administration said the sponsor had failed to get a food permit. At Grand Valley, the university counsel argued that the sale of a single cupcake would convert political commentary into forbidden campus commerce. At Eastern Washington, the varying prices were denounced as unfair marketing. At Texas A&M, the athletics director argued that a satirical bake sale would damage the sports teams by making it harder to recruit minority players. Apart from the complaint that opposition to affirmative action is evidence of bias, the most common tactic used against the sales is the "heckler's veto": Disruptions may occur, but instead of protecting the cookie sellers, the colleges decree that sales must be banned.
Campus culture is so heavily pitched against dissent that many students react viscerally to those who disagree and can't even understand when such dissent is reasonable. David French, president of FIRE, blames the uniformity of thought on campus. He says that because the suppression of bake sales meets approval in faculty lounges, opponents are often surprised when the public notices the censorship and reacts against it. In terms of the hothouse campus culture, suppression seems normal. But the censors can't justify in public what they do in private. The lesson for pastry rebels is to get in touch with FIRE and take the issue public as early as possible.

[Qvadratus]

Asta nu se numeste ca te intorci, ci doar ca revii la normal.

[A CERB]

bre, fratz kons, hai sa sarbatorim. Roberts a fost konfirmat sef si, daca ii da D-zeu zile, urmatorii 30 ani avem o frana la liberali in supreme court .  brilianta alegerea lu' roberts( shokant, nu o femeie minoritara)

plange liberalii si/sau atei(i).

ramane sa vedem si cealalta nominalizare.e mare nevoie de cineva dashtept sa o contrabalaseze pe cocoana aia ginsburg.

[A CERB]

un orasel din new mexico(primaria) e dat in judecata pentru a elimina trei cruci de pe emblema orasului. primaria spune ca prezinta interes istoric, nu religios. guvernatorul se pare ca e si el de acord.

numele orasului? las cruces.

[tapirul]

eschiva cam slaba. Cum sa nu aiba si inteles religios? Nu ca sunt de acord cu aia care dau primaria in judecata (niste cretini), da' si primaria si guvernatorul, de ce nu au cojones sa isi sustina emblema pentru ce e ea?

[A CERB]

ba au, bre, ideea e ca aia sustin, printre altele, ca atunci cand semneaza hartii cu antetul orasului ar pledge ceva religios si ii doare la constiinta.

seful de la highway a zis ca vrea sa scoata emblema de pe semnele lui, iar guvernatorul i-a ordonat sa o lase asa cum e.

[A CERB]

" and if i don't like the question, i'll just make it up"

[A CERB]

"it's kinda dark in here, but i can still see the white of your eyes"

dick cheney

[A CERB]

rekomand kalduros ultima karte a  lu' ann coulter:" godless-the church of liberalism" foarte entertaining, si are un kapitol special dedicat profesorilor. tapirou, vei fi surprins sa gasesti niste statistici interesante.

[INDIANUL]

daaa si eu am citit cartea aia. bine, acum zace sub forma de ghemotoace folosite. a costat fix 3.500 si se vinde la baloti sub forma de sul.

[tapirul]

am vazut-o ieri in Borders, cu ana aia a ta rânjind de pe fiecare raft (cam agresiva campania)
Nu, multumesc, prefer Dune.

[A CERB]

nu e bre kampania ei, e kampania lu borders sa-si vanda kartea. cam toate bookstorurile au new york times' best selling authors la vedere, numai shuffle ordinea saptamanal.

[tapirul]

hehe "sa-si vanda cartea"
da' banii tot ana ii ia

[A CERB]

ana are nuci

[INDIANUL]

inseamna ca este un An nu o Ana ;D

[A CERB]

kam este, si are o fata kam de kal( io ma pricep la kopitate)

[A CERB]

iar john leo:

Civility, not censorship, is issue in "Da Vinci Code" debate

By John Leo

May 14, 2006

Tom Hanks thinks Christians shouldn't become irate about "The Da Vinci Code." He says it's just a story, "loaded with all sorts of hooey and fun kind of scavenger-hunt-type nonsense." He's right, but so is an official of the Christian Council of Korea, who said, "'The Da Vinci Code' is a movie which belittles and tries to destroy Christianity."

Isn't "destroy" too grand a word for a Tom Hanks entertainment? Maybe, but this thriller is mounting the powerful argument that Christianity is rotten to the core, based on lies and political conspiracy. It is surely one of the most effective attacks on Christian faith in generations. One of the cardinals at the Vatican said, in effect, we've had this kind of assault before, but not addressed to such a large audience of religious illiterates and uncritical minds.

Sony and director Ron Howard repeatedly brushed off requests for a disclaimer at the beginning of the film. But disclaimers are common in stories that liberally mix fact and fiction, and there should have been one here. Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ" had one, mostly in gibberish, and in that story Jesus is merely tempted to consort with Mary Magdalene. He doesn't marry her and raise a long line of European royals.

The handling of Opus Dei was crude as well. The organization has a controversial and somewhat spooky image even within Catholicism, yet it gave great access to the best reporter at the Vatican, John Allen, for his recent book "Opus Dei." Allen's book was ambivalent, but gave Opus Dei credit for much good work. Among its many activities, the Opus Dei operates 15 universities. The group's bent is authoritarian, but it is not the sinister and murderous cult depicted in "The Da Vinci Code." Using a fictional name would have been fairer.

So the calls for the movie to be banned, or at least boycotted, are understandable, but wrongheaded. But where is the muscular pro-censorship lobby that usually leaps into action whenever "hate speech" is detected? After all, eccentric historian David Irving is sitting in an Austrian prison for two speeches he gave denying the Holocaust. Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk narrowly escaped prosecution for "denigrating Turkishness," i.e., he thought the slaughter of Armenians by Turks during World War I was genocide. And a Swedish pastor was convicted (though cleared on appeal) of violating a hate crime law that specifically included sermons against homosexuality as hate speech.

"The simple practice of reading biblical texts teaching the sinfulness of homosexuality is now against the law in Sweden," said Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Eleven European nations have laws that criminalize "hate speech." After the Danish cartoons controversy, the European Union indicated it would try to draft a media code of conduct. "We are aware of the consequences of exercising the right of free expression," said EU Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini. "We can and we are ready to self-regulate that right." Uh-oh. Here comes more censorship posing as voluntary restraint.

The fondness for censorship that doesn't quite look like censorship surfaced in an op-ed piece this month at the Baltimore Jewish Times. Dr. Robert O. Freedman called for the creation of an International Religious Court that could ask governments to penalize insults directed at religions or religious figures. "All governments must agree that the negative depiction of religion is out of bounds," he wrote.

But why? All belief systems should be equally open to criticism. Ordinary civility should make us cautious about attacking religions that so many people hold dear. But if you believe that any religion is dangerous or nonsensical, you should speak out.

Europe has put itself into a box on censorship. The ban on Holocaust denial was a mistake that launched what law professor Eugene Volokh calls "censorship envy." Multiculturalism worked hard to spread the envy. Now Europe is itching to ban negative comments against all religion whose adherents are likely to cut your head with a rusty saw when criticized. Since this doesn't include Christianity, double standards are clearly being set up. Wouldn't it be simpler just to defend free speech across the board?

[A CERB]

uite, tapir ce zica ana despre kartea ei, ca e greu de gasit. nu te umfla plansu?

Hey you, browsing 'Godless' -- buy the book or get out!

By Ann Coulter

Jun 7, 2006

The long-anticipated book "Godless: The Church of Liberalism" was finally released this week. If The New York Times reviews it at all, they'll only talk about the Ann Coulter action-figure doll, so I think I'll write my own review.

"Godless" begins with a murder at the Louvre and then takes readers on a roller-coaster ride through the Church of Liberalism in a desperate game of cat and mouse in which the hunter becomes the hunted -- with a twist at the end you simply won't believe! It's a real page-turner -- even the book-on-tape version and large-print edition! Who knew a book about politics could make such an ideal gift -- especially with Father's Day just two weeks away!

The main problem with "Godless" is that I had to walk through the valley of darkness to find it. You will have to push past surly bookstore clerks, proceed past the weird people in the "self-help" section, and finally past the stacks and stacks of Hillary Clinton's memoirs. If all else fails, ask for the "hate speech" section of your local bookstore. Ironically, if you find "Godless" without asking for assistance, it's considered a minor miracle.

This is not a book about liberals. I stress this in anticipation of Alan Colmes hectoring the author to name names. (For people who resented being asked to "name names" during the 1950s, these liberals sure aren't shy about demanding that conservatives do the same today.)

It is a book about liberalism, our official state religion. Liberalism is a doctrine with a specific set of tenets that can be discussed, just like other religions.

The Christian religion, for example, frowns on lying and premarital sex. That is simply a fact about Christianity. This does not mean no Christian has ever lied or had premarital sex. Indeed, some Christians have committed murder, adultery, thievery, gluttony. That does not mean there's no such thing as Christianity any more than videotape of Rep. William Jefferson accepting cash bribes means there's no such thing as congressional ethics rules.

Similarly, the liberal religion supports abortion, but that doesn't mean every single liberal has had an abortion. We can rejoice that liberals do not always practice their religion.

"Godless" examines a set of beliefs known as "liberalism." It is the doctrine that prompts otherwise seemingly sane people to propose teaching children how to masturbate, allowing gays to marry, releasing murderers from prison, and teaching children that they share a common ancestor with the earthworm. (They haven't yet found the common ancestor ... but like O.J., the search continues.)

The demand that their religion be discussed only with reference to specific individuals -- who is godless? are you saying I'm godless? -- is simply an attempt to prevent us from talking about their religion. This tactic didn't work with "Slander" or "Treason," and it's not going to work now.

It's not just that liberals ban Reform rabbis from saying brief prayers at high school graduations and swoop down on courthouses and town squares across America to cart off Ten Commandments monuments. The liberal hostility to God-based religions has already been copiously documented by many others. "Godless" goes far beyond this well-established liberal hostility to real religions.

The thesis of "Godless" is: Liberalism IS a religion. The liberal religion has its own cosmology, its own explanation for why we are here, its own gods, its own clergy. The basic tenet of liberalism is that nature is god and men are monkeys. (Except not as pure-hearted as actual monkeys, who don't pollute, make nukes or believe in God.)

Liberals deny, of course, that liberalism is a religion -- otherwise, they'd lose their government funding. "Separation of church and state" means separation of YOUR church from the state, but total unity between their church and the state.

Two months ago, the 9th Circuit held that a school can prohibit a student from exercising his First Amendment rights by wearing a T-shirt that said "Homosexuality Is Shameful."

Even the left's pretend-adoration of "free speech" (meaning: treason and pornography) must give way to speech that is contrary to the tenets of the church of liberalism on the sacred grounds of a government school.

How might the ACLU respond if a school attempted to ban a T-shirt that said something like "Creationism Is Shameful"? We'd never hear the end of warnings about the coming theocracy.

In fact, students are actually required to wear "Creationism Is Shameful" T-shirts in Dover, Pa., where -- thanks to a lawsuit by the ACLU -- the liberal clergy have declared Darwinism the only true church, immunized from argument. Ye shall put no other God before it. Not one.

Liberals believe in Darwinism as a matter of faith, despite the fact that, at this point, the only thing that can be said for certain about Darwinism is that it would take less time for (1) a single-celled organism to evolve into a human being through mutation and natural selection than for (2) Darwinists to admit they have no proof of (1).

If only Darwinism were true, someday we might evolve public schools with the ability to entertain opposable ideas about the creation of man.

[manolo]

luci, m-ai terminat cu chestia cu ulrich si basso. stateam ca gigelul linistit pana la 14:15 cand incepe prologul si cand colo, mi-ai dat cu bicicleta'n cap... fantastic! reiau treaba pe topicul respectiv

[A CERB]

ce dreacu sint prostiile astea? cind argentina a fost eliminata, cind ullrich si basso lipsesc tocmai cind s-a retras monocoi! sau cind lituania nu are guvern, iar consumer confidence a ajuns in germania la maxim istoric pe 15 ani! toata ziua cu Gizas si liberalii, de parca l-ar crucifica zilnic

ignora sectiunea, te rog, asa cu te ignor si eu pe tine. thanx.

[lucisandor]

pai ignora-ma, asa cum te ignoram si noi pe tema asta

[A CERB]

cine e "noi"?

[A CERB]

oricum, daca ai bunavointa sa te uiti la numarul de views( la care cotribui si tu, btw) vezi ca noi ala e minoritar.

ca sa te bag putin in seama, you're totally missing the point here. cucoana se plange ipe la inceput ca o sa fie greu sa gasesti cartea( ascunsa in fundul bookstore-ului de konspiratia liberala), ceea ce este in flagranta opozitie cu realitatea, nu poti intra in bookstore fara sa vezi un perete intreg de carti.

these being said, cartea este entertaining si pare bine documentata. daca te deranjeaza partea cu Jesus, mergi la partea cu educatia. ignora pasajele cu darwin si ceteste oleaka despre ce magarie e cu tot sistemul de invatamant public( statistici la abuzuri sexuale, salarii, etc)

[tapirul]

pot sa o ignor pe toata?
te'ntreb io acum, ce te face sa crezi ca ana a ta e "bine documentata" si  mm e un mincinos?
iote o sa ma duc la borders sa iau niste mm

[manolo]

2 lucruri punctuale:
a. interesant cum A.C. critica sistemul educational, dupa ce 6 ani au fost la guvernare republicanii, iar inainte doar 8 ani a fost Clinton si din ce am citit Coulter nu se ia de perioada Clinton pe tema aceasta.
b. republicanii fac acum exact ceea ce ii acuzau pe democrati ca fac, anume ca ei criticau actiunile republicanilor fara a oferi solutii proprii. cute!

[A CERB]

se ia si de perioada klinton, no worries. pentru asta tre sa cetesti " slander".

tapiru, diferenta e ca kukoana iti prezinta propriile pareri sustinute de statisticile de rigoare( stie sa argumenteze, e avokat de meserie). mm( aka "the blimp") iti citeaza partial din altii si face un colaj reusind sa dea sensuri complet diferite ideii initiale. artistic, dar nu documentar

iesi mai kastigat daka iei m&m in lok de mm.

[INDIANUL]

sunt perfect de acord cu cerbul, are perfecta dreptate in ceea ce spune.

[tapirul]

tapiru, diferenta e ca kukoana iti prezinta propriile pareri sustinute de statisticile de rigoare( stie sa argumenteze, e avokat de meserie). mm( aka "the blimp") iti citeaza partial din altii si face un colaj reusind sa dea sensuri complet diferite ideii initiale. artistic, dar nu documentar

pai si de unde stii tu daca nu l-ai citit pe mm si nu i-ai vazut filmele? De pe foxnews? da' de ce nu incerci sa judeci cu capu tau, ca de aia il ai.

[A CERB]

ba tokmai ka am cetit. jumate de "stupid white men" dupa aia a vrut riku akasa si am plekat.

[manolo]

e bun inceputul. vrei sa iti trimit toata cartea pdf?

[INDIANUL]

si ziceati ca nu se gaseste :laugh2:

[manolo]

ce nu se gaseste, ma? intrebam de stupid white men daca il vrea pdf, nu de Coulter.

[INDIANUL]

bine ma :tongue3:

[A CERB]

mesri manolo, io personal m-am elucidat.

[tapirul]

manolo, io zic sa il spam-uiesti pe cerbu cu pdf-ul ala la fiecare 12 ore cel putin. Sa se invete minte!

[manolo]

hehehe, lasa-l, mah, ca dupa zice ca sunt liberal nebun si fixist. acum, ca a citit doar jumate, e si mai fain, ca putem oricand sa il atacam pe chestia ca a doua parte e cea mai faina...

iar la popularitate MM oricum o bate pe blonde bitch... pe retea la mine sunt vreo 3 carti ale lui MM, pe cand Coulter... canci!

[tapirul]

uite cerbu, nu am luat cartea lui culter, da' mi-am luat un mauspad cu dânsa.

[Ondina]

Ehe..poti sa-i lasi monitorul indianului, si tu sa mananci mousepad-ul  ;D

[A CERB]

hai epi 4th bre neocons-ilor!

[INDIANUL]

zi de doliu pt Sandor:"E ziua Licuricilor". :laugh3:

ps:tapire fi-ti-ar pad-ul al dracu. prima reactie a fost sa inclin capul spre stanga. creca toti au facut asa ;D

[tapirul]

zi de doliu pt Sandor:"E ziua Licuricilor". :laugh3:

in plus, ceru' o sa fie plin de licurici.

[A CERB]

io chiar am sute de likurici in backyard. ala pozat era capturat. as fi vrut sa skriu disklaimer" no likuritch was harmed during this photo-op" darnu am vrut sa mint. mi s-a parut ca i se zburlise o aripa si zbura putin cotit. in plus, nu stiu ce traume psihologice a suferit.

[INDIANUL]

nene cerbule, ia zii Bush poate sa faca asa ceva?  :laugh3: Al dracu Berlusconi de aia a fost premier ;D
http://www.antiplictiseala.com/194.htm

[lucisandor]

nene cerbule, ia zii Bush poate sa faca asa ceva?  :laugh3: Al dracu Berlusconi de aia a fost premier ;D
http://www.antiplictiseala.com/194.htm

ete asa l-am luat si eu la biip pe bush pina am ajuns in imparatia lui, si poate il mai luam si azi daca vedeam vreun sens in asta
uite, e meciul lui Marseille pe M6.. hai mai bine sa ne ridem de barthez ca joaca in intertoto

[A CERB]

bush nu are de ce sa se tina. e un liberal plangacios.

[INDIANUL]

A CERB
Global Moderator

felicitari nene cerbule si sa ne conduci bine!  :!:

[A CERB]

ete asa l-am luat si eu la biip pe bush pina am ajuns in imparatia lui, si poate il mai luam si azi daca vedeam vreun sens in asta
uite, e meciul lui Marseille pe M6.. hai mai bine sa ne ridem de barthez ca joaca in intertoto

sau meciul amical Juventus Beirut-AC Haifa

[manolo]

cata ironie, nenea republicanu' care se ocupa de protectia copiilor abuzati a incercat sa intre in chiloteii unui tanar de 16 anisori, care era voluntar la Congres. ce e si mai frumos, se pare ca ai mai mari dintre republicani stiau de vreun anisor ce se intampla, dar, ca si in cazul Patriciu, i-au spus sa nu mai faca ca isi ia papara. cred ca abia astepta un nice spankink.

ia, delectati-va cu minunile tehnicii moderne: chat-ul si emailurile trimise de nenea Foley, altfel un respectabil gay cu vreo 20 si ceva de ani in Congres.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15064810/

[A CERB]

toata chestia este extrem de dezgustatoare, iar individul ar trebui sa faca parnaie daca vrea sa se futa in cur. ce pune capac la toate este ca era in nu stiu ce comitet pentru copii abuzati.

inainte sa aruncam cu acuzatii, ar trebui sa asteptam sa vedem ce arata ancheta. e de inteles ca democratii se indigneaza( dupa ce clinton a iertat un poponar foarte similar cu prezidential pardon), dar trebuie sa afli mai intai cine, ce si cand a stiut inainte sa arunci cu acuzatii. din cate am inteles eu, se stia despre emailuri care nu aveau nimic sexually explicit, dar nu se stie daca oamenii aia stiau de acele instant messages sau de vreo relatie.

[tapirul]

Pai se pare ca se cam stia mai demult despre oaresce probleme.... Unul dintre senatori, Alexander, fusese contactat inca din 2005...

The six-term Florida congressman resigned abruptly on Friday after reports surfaced that he sent salacious electronic messages to teenage boys who had worked as House pages. The tawdry turn of events set off finger-pointing among House Republicans and overshadowed what the GOP had hoped would be a triumphant final work week highlighting the party's national security credentials before the campaign's homestretch.

ma intreb cat de intamplator e faptul ca dezvaluirea a aparut fix acum.

Foley a demisionat pe teme de alcoolism, cica (more damn acceptable, ain't it?). Pai si daca era alcoolic, cum de a fost lasat in functiune?

[vlad]

Din câte vaz eu prin filme, e chiar respectabil sa fii alcoolic la americani. De fapt, e o boala, nu e nici o vina la mijloc. Din contra, poti sa exploatezi "suferinta" in folosul tau, aratând cât de erou esti ca vrei sa te lasi.

Cât despre stirea lui manolo, bai nene, mare e America asta a voastra. Ar putea sa depaseasca România, zau. Bleah.

[tapirul]

mare si tare, zau asa.
americanii sunt niste ipocriti, aia ma enerveaza la ei.

[A CERB]

din cate vad eu, e ipocrit sa spui ca poponeii au probleme psihiatrice in loc sa spui ca poponismul e o problema psihiatrica.

de asemenea, ipocrita aici este atitudinea ambelor partide, atat democrati cat si republicani.

intrebarea de baza ramane unde sfarseste ipocrizia si incepe infractiunea. si nu ma refer la bietul poponel, ci la colegii si sefii lui. dar de asta e bine sa ai o ancheta independenta.

[tapirul]

de asemenea, ipocrita aici este atitudinea ambelor partide, atat democrati cat si republicani.

aia zis si eu, printre altele.
intrebarea cu unde se termina ipocrizia si unde incepe infractiunea e aplicabila si altor probleme.

[manolo]

daaaa, cerbu, foarte frumos. uite ca baietii stiau inca din 2004. acum ce mai zici? ia mai zi tu si nenea tapiru de ipocrizie, de democrati...
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/10/04/foley.ap/index.html

Report: Hastert's office warned about Foley two years ago
POSTED: 4:24 p.m. EDT, October 4, 2006

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A senior congressional aide said Wednesday he told House Speaker Dennis Hastert's office in 2004 about worrisome conduct by former Rep. Mark Foley with teenage pages -- the earliest known alert to the GOP leadership.

Kirk Fordham told The Associated Press that when he was told about Foley's inappropriate behavior toward pages, he had "more than one conversation with senior staff at the highest level of the House of Representatives asking them to intervene."

The conversations took place long before the e-mail scandal broke, Fordham said, and at least a year earlier than members of the House GOP leadership have acknowledged.

Fordham resigned Wednesday as chief of staff to Rep. Thomas Reynolds, R-New York.

Fordham spoke to the AP after ABC News quoted unidentified GOP sources as insinuating that he had intervened on behalf of Foley, his former boss, to prevent an inquiry into Foley's conduct.

"This is categorically false," Fordham said. "At no point ever did I ask anyone to block any inquiries into Foley's actions or behavior."

The longtime Capitol Hill aide said he would fully disclose to the FBI and the House ethics committee "any and all meetings and phone calls" regarding Foley's behavior that he had with senior staffers in the House leadership.

"The fact is even prior to the existence of the Foley e-mail exchanges I had more than one conversation with senior staff at the highest level of the House of Representatives asking them to intervene when I was informed of Mr. Foley's inappropriate behavior," Fordham said.

Fordham said one staffer to whom he spoke remains employed by a senior House Republican leader. He would not identify the staffer.

"Rather than trying to shift the blame on me, those who are employed by these House leaders should acknowledge what they know about their action or inaction in response to the information they knew about Mr. Foley prior to 2005," Fordham said.

A Capitol Hill aide for more than a decade, Fordham said he resigned because he did not want his role in the Foley matter to harm his boss' re-election bid.

"I have no reason to state anything other than the facts. I have no congressman and no office to protect," Fordham said.
Justice Department launches investigation

Fordham's resignation comes as the Justice Department ordered House officials to "preserve all records" related to disgraced Rep. Mark Foley's electronic correspondence with teenagers, intensifying an investigation into a scandal rocking Republicans five weeks before midterm elections.

Republicans have been struggling to put the scandal behind them, but another member of the leadership, Rep Roy Blunt of Missouri, said pointedly during the day he would have handled the entire matter differently than Speaker Dennis Hastert did, had he known about the complaints when they were first raised last year.

"I think I could have given some good advice here, which is you have to be curious. You have to ask all the questions you can think of," Blunt said. "You absolutely can't decide not to look into activities because one individual's parents don't want you to."

Acting U.S. Attorney Jeff Taylor for the District of Columbia sought protection of the records in a three-page letter to House counsel Geraldine Gennet, according to a Justice official speaking on condition of anonymity.

Such letters often are followed by search warrants and subpoenas, and signal that investigators are moving closer to a criminal investigation.

The request was aimed at averting a conflict with the House similar to a standoff in May when FBI agents raided Louisiana Rep. William Jefferson's office seeking information in a bribery investigation.
FBI interviews former pages

Meanwhile, FBI agents have begun interviewing participants in the House page program, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation. The official declined to say whether the interviews were limited to current pages or included former pages.

Justice Department spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos stressed that the investigation is still preliminary. Also, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement confirmed that it has begun its own preliminary inquiry. Spokesman Tom Berlinger said the case is in its initial stages and is not a full-blown criminal inquiry.

Fordham played a key role in fast-developing events late last week. Initially, Foley was reported to have written overly friendly -- not sexually explicit -- e-mails to a former Capitol page. A day later, ABC news followed up with a report that said the Florida lawmaker had also sent sexually explicit instant messages to at least one other male page.

He said earlier this week he asked Foley about the sexually explicit instant messages, and the congressman confirmed they were probably his.

"Like so many, I feel betrayed by Mark Foley's indefensible behavior," he said. He blamed Democrats for seeking to make a political issue of the matter in Reynolds' re-election campaign, "and I will not let them do so."
McCain calls for independent investigation

There were signs of concern among Republicans, as well.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona called for a group of former senators and others to investigate how the House handled the affair.

"We need to move forward quickly and we need to reach conclusions and recommendations about who is responsible," McCain said during a campaign speech for Sen. Lincoln Chafee in Rhode Island. "I think it needs to be addressed by people who are credible."

Some other Republicans rallied to the speaker. The chairmen of two coalitions of social and fiscal conservatives in Congress said he should not step down. "Speaker Hastert is a man of integrity," Rep. Mike Pence, R-Indiana, and Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pennsylvania, said in a joint statement. (GOP rallies around speaker)

Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-Louisiana, the congressman who sponsored the page at the heart of the furor, said Hastert "knew about the e-mails that we knew about," including one in which Foley asked the page to send his picture. But he quickly backed off that comment, saying he discussed the e-mails with Hastert's aides, not the speaker himself.

"I guess that's a poor choice of words that I made there," he told AP.

Hastert has insisted he not know about the e-mails that were discussed with his staff.
Representative says Hastert's staff knew about e-mail

Alexander said in an interview he first took up the matter after receiving press inquiries in November, when he told Hastert's staff and the parents of the 16-year-old boy who received the e-mails. The parents wanted the correspondence stopped but apparently did not want to take the matter further.

After a second round of press inquiries in the spring, Alexander said, he again notified the family and discussed the e-mails with the new majority leader, John Boehner of Ohio, on the House floor during a vote.

Alexander said Boehner turned first to Reynolds, the architect of the Republican midterm election strategy.

"I went to Boehner before Reynolds," Alexander told AP. "He sent Reynolds to me to talk about it. Within a minute Reynolds and I were talking."

Boehner and Reynolds have both said they had spoken with Hastert about a complaint concerning a former page from Louisiana last spring, after Alexander told them about it.

The uproar that followed Foley's resignation has enveloped Republicans who were already at risk at losing control of Congress in elections five weeks away.

Conservative activist Richard A. Viguerie was among those who called for Hastert to step down. "The fact that they just walked away from this, it sounds like they were trying to protect one of their own members rather than these young boys," Viguerie said on Fox News.

Hastert has he would not quit.

Alexander defended Hastert on Wednesday, as well as his own response.

"Hey, what else was I supposed to do?" Alexander asked. "I was very uncomfortable even talking to somebody in the speaker's office."

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

[tapirul]

da' cu mine ce ai?  ??? ???
eu il sfatuam pe cerbu sa extinda teoria ipocriziei si a infractiunii si in alte domenii.

[manolo]

da' cu mine ce ai?  ??? ???
eu il sfatuam pe cerbu sa extinda teoria ipocriziei si a infractiunii si in alte domenii.

uite de asta o iau democratii in bot in US, ca nu sunt in stare sa spuna pentru CE sunt si nu doar impotriva a ce sunt. in loc sa discuti la obiect, o iei tu pe aratura. incep sa il inteleg parca pe cerb, care era enervat de faptul ca, desi stai in US, iti cam put multe de acolo, dar asa, din exterior, de parca ai trai doar in America ta. daca nu era cerbul si era luci, atunci imi cer scuze.

in ceea ce priveste politica strutului, republicanii o cam fac de oaie in ultimul timp. a se vedea si ultima carte a lui Bob Woodward, State of denial, in care se arata cum nenea Bush spunea intr-un discurs ca lucrurile merg spre bine in Iraq, desi citise cu cateva zile inainte un raport al Pentagonului in care se afirma contrariul. Dar, deh, "we shall prevail!".

[tapirul]

you got me all wrong, eu nu sunt nici pro-democrat nici pro-republican. Sa discut ce la obiect? am zis clar si la obiect ca, unu, se stia mai demult de Foley asta (am dat si linkuri inaintea matale), ca probabil ca dezvaluirea fix in momentul asta nu e intamplatoare (si chiar asta e linia unor republicani acum). Pe aratura ai luat-o tu cu "uite de aia o iau democratii peste bot" - ce legatura are cu Foley si cretinelile lui??
Vorba lui luci, tu tii mortis sa imi masori curu
ca imi pute mie america mea, well, that's my fucking bussiness.

Aparatorul lui Foley a venit in final cu marea dezvaluire: Foley e homosexual si a fost abuzat in copilarie, sa il intelegem si noi acum. Daca as fi stiut, daca as fi stiut.... Vezi tu cerbu, nu numai liberalii servesc crap liberal.

[tapirul]

Woodrow Wilson:

A conservative is a man who just sits and thinks, mostly sits.

[A CERB]

manolo, topicul se numeste coltul conservatorului, nu coltul republicanului. daca democratii ar fi conservatori eu as fi democrat.

care parte din reply-ul meu nu ai inteles-o? eu cred ca am fost foarte la obiect. trebuie anchetat si stabilit clar cine, ce si cand a stiut. dupa care toti care au stiut suficient si au ignorat, trebuie sa cada. de asemenea trebuie stabilit cine a incalcat legea, nu numai cine s-a pishat pe moralitate.

din pacate, este destul de greu pentru fbi sa perchezitioneze office-ul congresmanilor, de cand cu baiatul ala democrat, jefferson, parca, care avea vreo 90k para mita in frigider. atunci democratii au tipat ceva cu separarea puterilor.

tapir, nu prea stiu ce insemna conservative la 1917. tu stii? la vremea aia, republicanii erau pro war iar wilson fusese reales pe sloganul" he kept us out of the war", chestie care suna mai aproape de statul pe care il citezi tu.

chestia cu foley abuzat in copilarie( nu ca ar avea legatura, zice el, dar trebuie mentionat acum pentru ca este parte a " healing process" )este un bullshit mai mare decat tot capitol hill. insista ca nu e pedofil, iar democratii nu o sa-l toace prea mult pe chestia asta pentru ca nu vor sa-si deranjeze baza left pro-popo ( si aici ajungem iar la popo-pedo link) asa ca prefera sa scuture tot establishmentul republican, ca doar sunt alegeri, nu?

[tapirul]

pai nu stiu, ajungem neaparat la popo-pedo link? ca ala trimitea emailuri la teenageri, that is, masculi maturi sexuali (deja), nu la copii (o sa ma iei acum cu aia ca copiii sunt copii pana la 18 ani sau cat spune legea - o linie absolut arbitrara). Ca sa nu mai zic ca un caz particular nu demonstreaza nimic.

FBI-ul isi face treaba incet incet, interogheaza si cere mandate. Un democrat (democrata de fapt) a cerut ca Hastert si restul liderilor republicani sa fie chestionati under oath. Sau asta se cheama scuturat de establishment? Dincolo la Clinton cum s-a chemat oare?

Tu iar vrei sa sune ca "unii republicani sunt răi, da' democratii toti sunt rai"

aia cu woodrow era doar de banc.

[A CERB]

nu, bre, sunt de acord cu oath. doar sa insemne ceva. bilutza nu a facut parnaie pentru perjury( nimeni nu a zis sa faca parnaie pentru muie, desi numai asta auzi de la left). daca hastert comite perjury eu as vrea sa-l bage la parnaie. trebuie avut un standard de comportament, nu labareala de relativism moral care domina acum DC post dilema oral sex-not actual sex.

"restul liderilor republicani" este o chestie destul de vaga, totusi. democrata aia nu e orice democrata e pelosi, una dintre cele mai despicable personaje din DC, liberala de california. cucoana are tot timpul un limbaj inflamator, nu ma mira nimic de la ea, dar nici nu o poti lua in serios. de aia am cerut ancheta independenta. altfel ajungem la situatia cu comisia pentru 9/11, cand o cucoana care a facut major screw up sub administratia clinton cu national security o facea de caca pe condy ca sa-si acopere magariile personale, cand de fapt ea nu avea ce cauta in comisie.

eu as vrea sa fie anchetati si democratii care stiau despre magarie si au asteptat momentul favorabil, punand astfel in pericol copii aia de a fi abuzati. la 16 ani esti copil pentru ca asa spune legea, indiferent ca tie ti se pare arbitrar sau nu. altfel iar intram in relativismul moral.

nu scuz republicanii rai vorbind despre democrati rai, asta era legat de idea de ipocrizie .

[tapirul]

pai daca esti de acord cu oath, de ce mai aduci in discutie ca pelosi aia e despicable (a rather personal idea, actually)?  Ce legatura are? Pai are, ca e in aceeasi linie de argumentatie a ta.

Intrebarea mea nu este whether ot not trebuie ancheta si cine trebuie implicat (total de acord ca si democratii care stiau).  Ala prin lege e copil, da, si fapta trebuie pedepsita ca atare.. Eu ma refeream la adusul tau din condei cu "vezi? poponarii sunt pedofili" - total gresita si statisctic si conceptual.

Curiozitatea mea este care ar fi fost your position daca Foley ala era democrat? Fiindca este republlican,  ai grija sa il excizezi chirurgical si sa il scoti din contextul republican ("nu inseamna ca toti republicanii sunt rai pentru ca unul dintre ei este" - cam asta e take-ul tau, si asta am vrut eu sa zic mai devreme, nu ca scuzi tu republicanii rai prin democrati rai). Daca era insa democrat, nu ar fi fost pentru tine decat yet another argument that ALL liberals-democrats are evil  (ar fi intrat la categoria  "vezi cazul"). Nu cred ca poti sa ma convingi de contrariu.

La Clinton nu contestam faptul ca a facut sperjur (a facut) , ci ma refeream la faptul ca tot cacatul a fost tot un "scuturat de establishment" din partea republicanilor, pe un motiv mult mai benign decat Foley. De ce trebuia sa se ajunga la ancheta in comisie cand era vorba de un sexual affair with adult consent?  Mentionez pe Clinton ca tu ai adus in discutie ca pentru democrati nu e decat un "scuturat de establishment" (cu underline-ul, ca la asta ma refer eu de fapt, ca scuturatul asta este o specialitate pur democrata. O sa zici "pe ce te bazezi" - pai ma bazez pe discursul tau general. Cand s-a discutat de Clinton nu ai mentionat niciodata ca era de fapt un scuturat de establishment, ci ai sarit direct la sperjur, 'Un presedinte nu face asa ceva" - de acord, dar daca republicanii sunt asa de buni nu se apuca sa sape rahaturi sexuale ca sa scutire establishmentul).

Despre ce vreau eu sa vorbesc este, de fapt, bias and double standard. Eu personal nu sunt pro nici unii nici ailalti (ma multumesc sa fiu anti), asa ca sunt mai putin dispus sa fiu biased.

[A CERB]

raspunsul la intrebarea cu clinton e simplu. pentru ca s-a ajuns la ancheta de la acuzatiile paulei jones( adica non consensual, adica potential penal) si nu de la monica. faci afirmatii fara sa cunosti datele problemei. iti recomand cartea " slander" a lui ann coulter. :tongue3:

evident ca nu inseamna ca toti republicanii sunt rai pentru ca foley e popo-pedo. tu crezi ca sunt?

nu as fi spus ca toti democratii sunt rai daca el era democrat, ci numai daca l-ar fi acoperit conform liniei de partid asa cum au facut-o cu bill. unde e bias-ul aici?

parerea cu popo-pedo nu mi-o poti schimba pana nu vad ca popo iau o pozitie clara anti-pedo si inceteaza sa mai hartuiasca boyscouts and alike. numai aici sunt biased si mandru de bias.

nu inteleg de ce nu pot spune ca pelosi( pe care o mentionezi tu) este o vaca. poate ma lamuresti.

[tapirul]

normal ca poti spune, io spun doar ca nu are nici o legatura faptul ca e vaca cu faptul ca cere ancheta sub oath. Ma irita stilul asta al tau de a gasi orice ocazie sa dai in democrati, si sa manipulezi cumva cititorul (mutand focusul de la faptul ca aia - vaca cum e - are dreptate la faptul in sine ca e vaca)

Paula Jones aia scoate iepurele din palarie la doi ani de la incident.

Jones, who settled her suit with Clinton for $850,000, now claims that she was victimized by both Clinton and his Republican opponents. She has since appeared nude in Penthouse and Playboy

Sa fim seriosi.

Nu, eu nu am zis ca republicanii sunt rai din cauza lu Foley (io zic ca sunt rai din oficiu :)).

Ca sa vezi popo lunad pozitie tre sa te uiti si la alte chestii decat Fox.

[A CERB]

acum cine schimba focusul discutiei? m-ai intrebat de ce ancheta pentru adulti consimtitori( or whatever) tz-am spus ca nu asa a pornit si acum imi spui ca biata paula pozeaza in playboy. tu nu ai poza cand esti screwed for the rest of your life fara sanse de angajare pe nicaieri?

ai dreptate cu add-ul.

la ce sa ma uit in afara de fox ca sa aflu ce zici mata acolo. spune-mi, si ma uit. parol. sau da un link.

tot nu pricep de ce nu pot sa fiu sceptic la tot ce cere pelosi si sa fiu de acord cu oath and the rest in acelasi timp? tu ai vazut-o pe pelosi evoluand in ultimii 5 ani? eu da. femeia e imbecila. se vede unde merge partidul democrat ( extrema stanga) dupa faptul ca dean este chief on DNC si lieberman a luat un sut in cur.

[tapirul]

Nu ma intereseaza Pelosi, multumesc frumos. Nu ma intereseaza de fapt nici cine cere ancheta sub oath, Pelosi, Gica Raducanu sau Charlie's Angels.

Hai ca voiam sa te intreb altceva. Ai dreptate cand point out ca asta e coltul conservatorului si nu coltul republicanului. Tu te consideri un convervator, right? Dar care sunt criteriile, trasaturile, preferintele sau cum le numesti tu care te fac conservator? Sunt curios.

[tapirul]

PS nu vreau sa fiu sarcastic

[A CERB]

pai pe scurt: guvern mic ( de aia nu sunt republican), taxe mici, putin welfare, legea prin legislativ nu judiciar, protectia familiei heterosexuale, protectia copiilor de grupuri de interes( printre altele sunt bucuros ca democratii din west virginia au ignorat tot crapul liberal din cazul lacy peterson si au trecut legea cu protectia unborn child, adica e o crima separata sa atentezi la un copil( nu fetus cum zic imbecilii prochoice) in utero), controlul imigratiei ilegale, nu vreau religia sa fie endorsed de guvern, dar nici ateismul manifest( care e tot o religie, desi nu se declara).

de ce nu sunt republican? pentru ca protejeaza big industries( bush m-a scos din pepeni cu discursul tampit cum ca reimportarea medicamentelor este nesigura), favorizeaza imigratia ilegala pentru ca e cheap labor( curios cum democratii si republicanii sunt aici in aceeasi barca din motive diferite), pentru haliburton si pentru ca nu se distanteaza suficient de evanghelismul manifest care e la fel de periculos ca ateismul( desi bush personal a fost destul de cumintel)

cred ca am omis pe alocuri, dar cam asta e esentialul