A postscript To Yesterdays Blog

If you still think that we don't have to get our ducks in a row regarding our enemy - Iran read this link(Our Fallout-Shelter Future).

Differentiating Between Freedom and Democracy

"Hezbollah, which has been waging war on Israel, and America, for years is the immediate cause of the current fighting in the Middle East. The broader cause, though, is the United States government." (Peter Schwartz)

In my last post I discussed the importance of defining the objective or object and then setting the criteria for action. Two words which are used interchangably in the minds of most people are the terms democracy and freedom. These two terms desperately need to be defined and differentiated. In an Op-Ed, Peter Schwartz (The Newsletter of the Ayn Rand Institute) does just that (ari.org).

The United States government makes a hugh mistake by declaring that freedom would be advanced by allowing Hezbollah participation in the elections. Mr. Schwartz writes that we granted them "something it could never achieve on its own: moral legitimacy". Other terrorist organizations also came to power because of elections promoted by the United States: Hamas in the Palestinian Authority and theocrats in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The premise behind the Bush administration's policy is the hopeless view that tyranny is reversed by holding of elections-a premise stemming from the widespread confusion between freedom and democracy."

Mr Schwartz continues by writing that "the essence of democracy is unlimited majority rule." This means that there is no contraints on the government as long as the majority voted and will it so. The majority rule. When Arabs line up and vote into office Hezbollah party members this act of democracy does not mean they are voting for freedom they are voting for tyranny.

In contrast, what defines America is freedom. And freedom exists precisely because America has LIMITATIONS on government which is backed up by the principle of INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS. The Irans, Syrias and North Koreans of the world do not have limitations on government because they do not recognize such a principle as individual rights.

So just because a whopping number of people line up to vote and a theocratic dictator is given power does not mean it is legitimate or moral or that the people are free! In fact, by obfuscating the meaning of freedom with democracy we make the world a more dangerous place to live in and it prolongs the job of fighting evil.

Our politicians must be clear on what freedom and democracy mean or we will continue to make costly political decisions regarding The Middle East and its terrorists who want to rule and those that already do.

With nuclear weapons becoming more and more available to every wanna be dictator The West must understand what our Founding Fathers were attempting to do. They were trying to prevent tyranny in government. Their crowning achievment was writing a constitution that limited government action to protecting the rights of the individual. When voting our objective should be to vote for those politicians who are promoting and defending the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Do you see this in the Middle East?

The Criteria For Going to War Must Be Set

It occurred to me that the the debate among astronomers this week concerning the reclassification and redefinition of the planet Pluto is a good example of what our politicians in the US and Irsrael (forget about Europe they are beyond hope) ought to be doing regarding this eternal war with the irrational Middle East. Here was a congress of scientists who decided that it was time to update their definition of what constitutes a planet.

"…After years of wrangling and a week of debate, astronomers voted for a sweeping reclassification of the solar system. In what many of them described as a triumph of science over sentiment, Pluto was demoted to the status of a “dwarf planet.” ...

"Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology, who discovered UB 313 three years ago and so had the most to lose personally from the downgrading of Pluto and Xena, said he was relieved.

“ 'Through this whole crazy circuslike procedure, somehow the right answer was stumbled on,' Dr. Brown said. “It’s been a long time coming. Science is self-correcting eventually, even when strong emotions are involved.”...

"Under the new rules, a planet must meet three criteria: it must orbit the Sun, it must be big enough for gravity to squash it into a round ball, and it must have cleared other things out of the way in its orbital neighborhood. The last of these criteria knocks out Pluto and Xena, which orbit among the icy wrecks of the Kuiper Belt, and Ceres, which is in the asteroid belt." (Pluto)

In order to make decisions about anything from classifying an object in space to what vacation to take this year you have to define the objective or object and then set the criteria for action. For example if I want to go on vacation I have to define what constitutes a vacation for me. Do I like to visit exotic places or do I like to engage in physical sports adventures like white water rafting. Once I have defined what is a vacation then I set the criteria for taking one away from home such as how much money can I spend, how far away can I go, do I have someone to take care of the house and pets etc.

Well I think it's time to make a decision about whether we are at war or not and if the answer is yes then we should set the criteria necessary for winning it. Anything else would be called suicide.

Olmert Is the Wrong Man for Israel

Unfortunately, we all found out that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was not made of the stuff that makes a great leader. He is no Sharon. Caroline B. Glick has a strong and courageous article in the Jewish World Review (Read) that says it like it is and current leadership had better heed her call for upping the ante in the terrible confrontation that will inevitably face the West.

"Behind the Palestinians and the Syrians lies Iran, the guiding light behind the present jihad. Iran, with its burgeoning nuclear weapons program is the single greatest danger to international security. It is the single greatest danger to Israel's survival. To date, Iran has sufficed to fighting Israel through its proxies, to great advantage. But Iran has made it absolutely clear that it intends to join the fray directly — when it is good and ready. And of course it will be good and ready when it has nuclear weapons.

"…As all of Israel's leaders have been quick to point out over the years, the threat of a nuclear armed Iran is not just dangerous for Israel but for the entire world. Iran has its Persian Gulf neighbors in its gun sites. It has directly threatened the US and Europe.

"…In the not so distant future, we will find ourselves at war with Iran. Today, the choice of whether we fight that was in our own time, and before Iran gets nuclear weapons is in our hands. If we hesitate, if we and the rest of the free world waste precious time with worthless diplomatic wrangling with the ayatollahs, war will come to us, but on the enemy's terms. And we will have only ourselves to blame.

"…Militarily, we must not relent in targeting our enemies. The IDF must target every Palestinian terrorist. It must reassert control over the international border between Gaza and Egypt. Israel must accept the reality that the PA is a terrorist organization not a legitimate regime and stop viewing Abbas and his associates in Fatah as potential peace partners. Obviously, Israel must give up the idea of transferring Judea and Samaria to Palestinian control and take all necessary measures to stabilize the situation on the ground in a manner that neutralizes the threat of Palestinian jihad.

"…Finally, Israel needs a political leadership that will be capable of telling the Israeli public the truth that has been ignored for the past decade and a half. We are not a "normal" nation and we are not going get peace in the coming years. We are an abnormal nation in our neighborhood and in the world and will always remain so, as is our right. Our people must be ready to sacrifice for the survival of the state and the defense of our freedom to be abnormal. We need leadership that will tell the Israeli people that a struggle awaits us but that our democracy, our freedom, and our values give us the power of creative thought that will allow us to beat the dull forces of jihad that surround us."

Faking Reality by The first Wall against Tyranny

Thanks to websites like LittleGreenFootballs a hugh scandal has been uncovered during the past few weeks involving fake and posed photos from Lebanon depicting dead children and the use of props in bombed out buildings to elicit sympathy from Westerners for Hizbollah and rage against the Israelis (Read). One picture of billowing smoke from bombs dropped by Israel jets apparantly wasn't bad enough, so it was edited by adding more smoke to the image creating the impression that the bombing was worse than it really was.

Then you have the "green helmet guy", apparently a wanna be screen director anxious to get his day in the sun. He is seen in various footage posing a dead child for the camaras. This video footage by the "green helmet guy" is particulary disgusting (Read).

David Perlmutter, a professor of Journalism concludes correctly: "The stakes are high. Democracy is based on the premise that it is acceptable for people to believe that some politicians or news media are lying to them; democracy collapses when the public believes that everybody in government and the press is lying to them. And what of future victims of war? Will the public deny them their sorrows because we will dismiss all smoking rubble and dead children as mere digital propaganda? Photojournalism must live, but not if its practitioners and owners are determined to jump into the abyss" (read).

A famous philosopher once wrote - "The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles".

Ayn Rand wrote this during the last century but her words will always ring with truth. The basic principles today are man has a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of freedom. Israel is a nation who respects these principles. Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Iran (especially Iran), Egypt do not. Israel is constantly being attacked precisely because it is an oasis of Western values in a cesspool of evil. But it may lose the battle because we, the West, are constantly compromising our values in order to appease the purveyors of evil.

Your know we have lost our rudder when the news establishment publishes doctored up pictures. Maybe this will be the last straw that the West will take before it decides to really confront evil. Maybe the West will say enough of lies, murder and mayhem by these Islamic terrorists. The Western news outlets form the first wall against evil and tyranny. Israel was right in retaliating against an act of war started by the kidapping of two of their soldiers by Hizbollah which everyone knows is backed by Iran and Syria. Maybe it's time the West didn't botch every effort at vanquishing this relentless evil that is in our midst.

Maybe it's time to do something really simple - think, decide who is the evil and who is the good and then act accordingly without cowardice and without appeasement. We need people who can see through the fog of lies and misinformation not just by our enemies but by our own western news outlets.

We need people who are brave in the face of incredible assault on the truth. We need Churchill not Chamberlain in order to win this World War.

To Kill An American - by an Australian Dentist

"You probably missed it in the rush of news last week, but there was actually a report that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper an offer of a reward to anyone who killed an American, any American. So an Australian dentist wrote an editorial the following day to let everyone know what an American is. So they would know when they found one. (Good one, mate!!!!)"

"An American is English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Cuban, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. An American may also be Canadian, Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani or Afghan or any other. An American may also be a Comanche, Cherokee, Osage, Blackfoot, Navaho, Apache, Seminole or one of the many other tribes known as native Americans. An American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim. In fact, there are more Muslims in America than in Afghanistan. The only difference is that in America they are free to worship as each of them chooses.An American is also free to believe in no religion. For that he will answer only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God.

"An American lives in the most prosperous land in the history of the world. The root of that prosperity can be found in the Declaration of Independence, which recognizes the God given right of each person to the pursuit of happiness.An American is generous.

"Americans have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need, never asking a thing in return. When Afghanistan was over-run by the Soviet army 20 years ago, Americans came with arms and supplies to enable the people to win back their country! As of the morning of September 11, Americans had given more than any other nation to the poor in Afghanistan. Americans welcome the best of everything...the best products, the best books, the best music, the best food, the best services. But they also welcome the least. The national symbol of America, The Statue of Liberty , welcomes your tired and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the homeless, tempest tossed. These in fact are the people who built America.

"Some of them were working in the Twin Towers the morning of September 11, 2001 earning a better life for their families. It's been told that the World Trade Center victims were from at least 30 different countries, cultures, and first languages, including those that aided and abetted the terrorists.So you can try to kill an American if you must. Hitler did. So did General Tojo, and Stalin, and Mao Tse-Tung, and other blood-thirsty tyrants in the world. But, in doing so you would just be killing yourself. Because Americans are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American."

V-J Day by Kurt Wiehle

Since this event will most likely go unreported, I thought I'd point out that in the United States, August 14 is V-J day. Sixty-one years ago Monday, Emperor Hirohito announced Japan's surrender.

Thus, the world's bloodiest conflict was brought to an end; 62.5 million people died during WWII. Including the Holocaust victims, 38.1 million of those who died were civilians.
While Germany and Japan had a very real chance at world domination, the Islamic fascist enemies we are fighting in the Middle East today have no chance in hell of achieving their own obvious desires of world domination.

Iran and its minions have brought war to our front door. The longer the West continues its policy of dithering and appeasement, the greater the chance that more blood will be spilled.
It is unfortunate, but inevitable, that men, women, and children will die in the current conflict.

But the only way to lower the number of casualties in the long run is to prosecute war against Iran and its allies sooner rather than later—time will only allow for a greater military buildup on their part and more opportunities for them to wreak destruction.

We need to take a lesson from our fathers and grandfathers and ruthlessly eradicate our enemy until he surrenders unconditionally. (read)

James Bond Where Are You?

It is frustrating to venture into the surreal landscape of politics where up is down and what is black and white is turned into grey. The world we live in today is one where the initiator of a war does not have to bear the consequences of his "raison d'etre", i.e. to kill Jews and Westerners. Instead, the victim - Israel - is accused by most of the mealy mouthed European leaders and sundry Arab dictatorships of "disproportionate self-defense". But to hear the leader of the greatest nation on earth talk the talk but not walk the walk is truly disheartening and bodes ill for the future of the Western world. James Bond where are you when we need you?

Danielle Pletka at the American Policy Institute for Public Policy Research writes this:

"Throughout the Middle East, American priorities have lost steam. Mr Bush's signature issue democracy promotion has been thrust aside by resurgent dictators, with few real consequences. Egypt's abrogation of municipal elections and a brutal crackdown on civil rights and press freedoms, for example, brought a threat from the US Congress to cut Egyptian aid but little more than limp language from the administration.

"When America is perceived as weak, challengers will not hesitate to take up arms. Can US capitulation to Iran and to North Korea have been far from the minds of extremists in both Hamas and Hizbollah when they chose to escalate conflict in the Middle East? Will al-Qaeda be far behind?

"So what accounts for the "kinder, gentler" Bush administration? The fighting in Iraq has certainly wearied both the administration and Congress; it could be that there is little stomach for further confrontation. Or, America's mid-term elections are approaching and the administration does not need a new crisis to worry the voting public. Or perhaps a new foreign policy team at the state department simply prefers a pre-September 11 2001 approach?

"No one knows for sure. Without doubt, alienating allies for the sheer pleasure of it offers little reward for the US. Yet embracing allies without achieving results is hardly better. Similarly, plain speaking and diplomacy are almost always preferable to sanctions and war, but only if diplomacy yields a real outcome. The goal in the case of both North Korea and Iran is to end their nuclear weapons and missile programmes. It is not to keep the parties talking while Pyongyang and Tehran continue to develop weapons of mass destruction.

"At the end of the day, Mr Bush may revert to his cowboy roots and exert American power to deny our enemies the weapons they long for. But, statecraft is not poker and pretending to have no cards to play can lead to dangerous misjudgments by friends and enemies alike.
(Read)

An opportunity has been afforded to the West to finally confront the backers of Hizbollah - Iran and Syria. The question is why is Bush throwing this away to continue with diplomatic mumbo jumbo?

1. Hizbollah initiated a daring and incontrovertible act of war against Israel.

2. It is common knowledge that Hizbollah and Hamas are tools for Iran and Syria.

3. We are supposedly determined to crush Islamist fascists - wasn't that our goal?

I believe most of us yearn for a real hero larger than life. We are tired of slimey appeasers everywhere we turn from the United Nations greatest appeaser of them all Kofi Annan to our our own two bit politicians in Washington looking for the next vote. A James Bond right now would do just fine - thank you.

"... James Bond's popularity is rooted in the fact that he is on a crusade for the good in a morally gray world. The world of James Bond is the stalemated battle of the Cold War. Many of its elements are morally gray, filled with glad-handing politicians and dyspeptic bureaucrats - but the stakes are not. They are black and white - and Bond acts to make sure that good overcomes evil, usually on his terms, alone, with only his wits to carry the day.

"Even though the war Bond fought is long over, and we now know the outcome was assured all along, in this age of new threats and new wars, Bond serves as a symbol that great evil can be overcome by one rational man acting morally." (The Real James Bond by C.A. Wolski in the June 2003 issue of The Intellectual Activist).

The West is the good. Fanatical, tyrannical muslims and the states that sponser them - Iran and Syria - are the evil. Mr. Bush is the leader of the West which means he is the leader of Western Civilization. It is time for him to step up to the plate and do what should have been done by Reagan, Carter, Bush Sr., and Clinton. If we value life, freedom and the future then the hard decisions must be made and the people of the west must put up or shut up. If we put up we have a resplendant future ahead. If we shut up then only death and destruction awaits us.

"The Bill of No Rights"

This famed "Bill of No Rights" was written in 1993 by Lewis Napper, a self-described amateur philosopher and from Mississippi who ran for a U.S. Senate seat in 2000 as a Libertarian. It still rings true today (Read)

"We the sensible people of the United States, in an attempt to help everyone get along, restore some semblance of justice, avoid more riots, keep our nation safe, promote positive behavior, and secure the blessings of debt free liberty to ourselves and our great-great-great-grandchildren, hereby try one more time to ordain and establish some common sense guidelines for the terminally whiny, guilt ridden, delusional, and other bed-wetters.
We hold these truths to be self evident: that a whole lot of people are confused by the Bill of Rights and are so dim they r equire a Bill of NON-Rights.

"ARTICLE I: You do not have the right to a new car, big screen TV, or any other form of wealth. More power to you if you can legally acquire them, but no one is guaranteeing anything.

ARTICLE II: You do not have the right to never be offended. This country is based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone -- not just you! You may leave the room, turn the channel, express a different opinion, etc.; but the world is full of idiots, and probably always will be.

ARTICLE III: You do not have the right to be free from harm. If you stick a screwdriver in your eye, learn to be more careful . D o not expect the tool manufacturer to make you and all your relatives independently wealthy.

ARTICLE IV: You do not have the right to free food and housing. Americans are the most charitable people to be found and will gladly help anyone in need, but we are quickly growing weary of subsidizing generation after generation of professional couch potatoes who achieve nothing more than the creation of another generation of professional couch potatoes.

ARTICLE V: You do not have the right to free health care. That would be nice, but from the looks of public housing , we're just not interested in public health care.

ARTICLE VI: You do not have the right to physically harm other people. If you kidnap, rape, intentionally maim , or kill someone, don't be surprised if the rest of us want to see you fry in the electric chair.

ARTICLE VII: You do not have the right to the possessions of others. If you rob, cheat, or coerce away the goods or services of other citizens, don't be surprised if the rest of us get together and lock you away in a place where you still won't have the right to a big screen color TV or a life of leisure.

ARTICLE VIII: You do not have the right to a job. All of us sure want you to have a job, and will gladly help you along in hard times, but we expect you to take advantage of the opportunities of education and vocational training aid before you to make yourself useful.

ARTICLE IX: You do not have the right to happiness. Being an American means that you have the right to PURSUE happiness which, by the way, is a lot easier if you are unencumbered by an over abundance of idiotic laws created by those of you who were confused by the Bill of Rights.

ARTICLE X: This is an English speaking country. We don't care where you are from, English is our language Learn it or go back to wherever you came from!(Lastly....)A

ARTICLE XI: You do not have the right to change our country's history or heritage. This country was founded on the belief in one true God. And yet, you are given the freedom to believe in any religion, any faith, or no faith at all; with no fear of persecution. The phrase IN GOD WE TRUST is part of our heritage and history and if you are uncomfortable with it, TOUGH!!!!

(NOTE: We should not have the phrase In God We Trust - it is irrational and a leftover from our past of mystism, it has no place in the modern world. The Muslim terrorists trust in God and look where we are today! Sarita...)

If you agree, share this with a friend. No, you don't have to, and nothing tragic will befall you if you don't. I just think it's about time common sense is allowed to flourish.Sensible people of the United States speak out because if you don't, insensible people will.

The Indispensable Condition of Peace in the Middle East by Onkar Ghate

"As Israeli soldiers reenter Gaza and bomb Lebanon, and Israeli citizens seek shelter from Hezbollah's missiles, the world despairingly wonders whether peace between Israel and its neighbors can ever take root. It can--but only if America reverses course.

"To achieve peace in the Middle East, as in any region, there is a necessary principle that every party must learn: the initiation of force is evil. And the indispensable means of teaching it is to ensure that the initiating side is defeated and punished. Decisive retaliatory force must be wielded against the aggressor. So long as one side has reason to think it will benefit from initiating force against its neighbors, war must result. Yet this is precisely what America's immoral foreign policy gives the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and Hezbollah reason to think.

"Israel is a free country, which recognizes the rights of its citizens, whatever their race or religion, and which prospers through business and trade. It has no use for war and no interest in conquest. But for years, Arafat and the Palestinian authorities, with the aid of Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and other states, sought not to learn the conditions of freedom, but to annihilate the only free nation in their midst: Israel. Did the United States demand that the Palestinian leadership be destroyed?

"No. Clinton invited Arafat to dine at the White House and Bush declared that peace requires Israel to give in to its aggressor's insistence on a state." (Read)

Thinking with Memory

"Tel Aviv may be the economic and cultural capital of Israel, Jerusalem its political and symbolic capital. But the Galilee is where Israelis come to play, the forested and breezy getaway from the sweltering coast and the incessant dramas of everyday life in this region. Israelis were prepared to give up sandy Gaza and might also have been prepared to do the same with the rocky West Bank, if only the Palestinians would behave themselves. Yet places make a nation as much as principles do, and the Galilee was one place no Israeli could part with if his country was still going to be worth living in.

"So even as terror-stricken residents of the north flee, the rest of the country is prepared to fight, whatever the cost: A recent poll found that 80% of Israelis support the present military operations, and three-quarters of those would be prepared to launch a full-scale invasion of Lebanon if that is what it takes to defeat Hezbollah. No similar consensus has existed among Israelis since the 1967 Six Day War.

"Up in his winery, Mr. Dalton fears that if the war continues, he will have no one to tend the vines and take in the harvest, and an entire season's worth of business will be ruined. Yet as we stand beside one of his fields, watching an Apache helicopter fire missiles at a Lebanese village visible in the far distance, he muses on what his decision to remain here means. "Being here is part of defending the country. If Hezbollah wins this, the terrorists win this war, and not just against us but against the free world. You think I'm coming down from here? Never" (Brett Stevens - Read)

"Imagine what the U.S. would do if, on its northern border, a terror state-within-a-state pledged to its destruction was established from which flurries of missiles were fired at Chicago, its third-largest city. With that in mind, to suggest, as some have, that Israel is not acting with restraint is preposterous. Unlike Hezbollah, which is indiscriminately launching hundreds of missiles at Israeli cities and towns to kill as many civilians as possible, Israel is using only a fraction of its firepower and is in fact acting with great care to minimize harm to civilians. But because Hezbollah not only targets civilians but also uses them as human shields by hiding its missile launchers in population centers, Hezbollah has deliberately placed innocent Lebanese civilians in harm's way." (Benjamin Netanyahu Read )

We all know how Winston Churchill warned of Hitler's rising power and the danger it posed to Europe. But today as in the 1930's most are blinded by the philosophy of appeasement and inertia. In a speech given by Enoch Powell in 1988 he describes Churchill: "It was not so much the triumph of distant deductive reasoning as the long vista of historical and personal memory which, when others were still blind, revealed to him the nature and inevitable outcome of the resurgent German empire. He was a man who thought with his memory." Read

Just as "talking" to Hitler to dissuade him from his irrational dreams of "empire" was useless so are we beyond the point of "talking", "negotiating" and mostly appeasing fanatical lunatics who crave for death and destruction. A lesson must be taught and it must be taught with infinite finality now before we too have to fight a "WWII" and lose millions of people in the process. These terrorists are serious with their designs of annhilating the west. We should be serious too about utterly defeating them. But for that we need leaders who think with memory.

The Self-Interest of Survival

"Israel's military invasion and naval blockade of Lebanon is being denounced in European capitals and at the United Nations as a "disproportionate" response to the kidnapping this week of two of its soldiers by Hezbollah. Israel's decision late last month to invade Gaza in retaliation for the kidnapping of another soldier by Hamas was also condemned as lacking in proportion. So here's a question for our global solons: Since hostage-taking is universally regarded as an act of war, what "proportionate" action do they propose for Israel?" (read)

How is it disproportionate to attack a country who foments acts of war against another country? Is constantly sending rockets into Israeli territory to be sloughed off? Is kidnapping Israeli soldiers to be shrugged at? How much terrorism and how many acts of war is enough before a country attacks its enemy? Is evil to be allowed to persist just because one side has overwhelming military capabilities? Is no one ever to call a spade is a spade but rather we must all cover our eyes and ears to the fact of Islamist evil?

Evil cannot be evaded by saying the "correct thing" or accepting humility as our only way to reconciliation. Evil must be confronted everywhere and anywhere and at any time. Although we live in a relativistic world that says modern art is just as good as representational art, that a malaria ridden country full of thugs is equal to a western country, that being poor and illiterate is just as good as being rich and that Islam is just as good a religion as Christianity - in the real world we don't live in a sea of relativity. Every second of every day an individual as well as a nation must make honest assessments of life as he encounters it. There are some things that are bad and some that are good and some that are neutral but a judgement is made about everything whether you want to admit it or not because it's a matter of survival.

Israel made a judgement call: They had enough of attacks and they decided to retaliate in their own self-interest. I applaud them for it.

Dixie Chicks in the Wilderness of Ignorance

"A lot of pandering started going on, and you'd see soldiers and the American flag in every video. It became a sickening display of ultra-patriotism."

"The entire country may disagree with me, but I don't understand the necessity for patriotism," Maines resumes, through gritted teeth. "Why do you have to be a patriot? About what? This land is our land? Why? You can like where you live and like your life, but as for loving the whole country… I don't see why people care about patriotism."

So whined Natilie Maines of Dixie Chicks fame showing us all her level of intelligence and awareness (read).
Maines is representative of a segment of the American population (who knows what their numbers are) that live complacent lives filled with the conveniences, rewards, pleasures and a full belly that are possible when a people are free to “pursue happiness”. Where and how did these things come to be so available to us when a great portion of humanity still live in utter poverty and oppression? Blank out by the Dixie Chicks. All that they have must have dropped from the sky somehow.

So why do so many people care about patriotism and love of country? Blank out. The Dixie Chicks just cannot make the connection between despotism and poverty and death on the one hand and freedom and the right to your life and pursuit of happiness guaranteed to us by the blood of our founding fathers on the other hand. We care about America because it was founded on a radical idea that has allowed us flourish beyond anyone's wildest dream in just 250 years. That idea is the notion that an individual should not have to submit to anyone and governments are instituted among men to protect the individual against despotism and criminality.

The Chicks just cannot comprehend why so many of us Patriots thank our lucky star for having been born or having immigrated to this land of bounty and opportunity. Their ignorance of America’s unique place in history and the shining star that it is tells the shame of our uneducated young of today. And I place the blame squarely on our dismal public education system.

Chicks – READ YOUR AMERICAN HISTORY – then you will come out of the wilderness of your ignorance.

The Palestinian/Israeli Laboratory

Robert Tracinski http://www.tiadaily.com writes a great article comparing Palestine and their morality of self-sacrifice - mayhem, destruction and death and the Israelis and their western morality of concern for the self - the business of living, production and happiness.

"It is only by understanding this worship of the suicide bomber that one can understand the political choices made by the Palestinians. Taking the suicide bomber as their moral model, they seek to emulate his fate: in their lust to destroy Israel, they are willing to accept the utter destruction and collapse of their own society.

"It is important to recognize that, aside from the cynicism of a few corrupt officials, for the great mass of Palestinians this worship of sacrifice is sincere and thoroughly un-self-interested. By rejecting every chance at peace and coexistence with Israel—breaking every truce and turning down every peace offer—they have lost everything and gained nothing. Their decisions are driven, not by any narrow, practical goal, but by a moral imperative: the morality of self-sacrifice.

"Look to the other side of the security barrier and you see a very different society. While the Palestinians raise their children on visions of blood and murder, the Israelis—like us Americans—are largely preoccupied by the business of producing, creating, making a living. Consider, for example, the vast Gaza greenhouses handed over from the departing Israelis to the Palestinians. In the hands of the society that "made the desert bloom," these greenhouses produced millions of dollars worth of produce. Under Palestinian control, they were looted and their products have literally been left to rot.

"As with the Cold War examples of East and West Berlin, Palestine and Israel offer side-by-side laboratories for opposing moralities. The contrast to America is even more vivid."

A Nation of Law-breaking People

"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "we want them broken. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. When there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted--and you create a nation of law-breakers -- and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon; that's the game and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."

Although Dr. Ferris of the State Science Institute speaks these words to Hank Reardon in Ayn Rand's famous philosophical novel
Atlas Shrugged you'd think it was something that Ted Kennedy would say to Bill Gates.

"When there aren't enough criminals, one makes them." If one tries just a little bit one can think of the following actual examples of how we are made to be criminals: substance abuse laws, antiporn laws, taxation laws, licences, racial quotas, environmental laws, or what about the biggest doozie of them all the antitrust laws. I'm sure you could come up with more off the top of your head if you really tried. A popular one today are the imminent new immigration laws.

What's going on in Washington with their firebreathing rhetoric on how Mexicans are pouring in here to work you'd think that work will be outlawed next. I know Mexicans, Colombians, and other South Americans who are more hard-working than many born and bred Americans and yet we would brand them criminals as well as the business owners who hire them for the mere desire to earn a decent living working in America. This is nothing but another form of power grabbing by our corrupt politicians who seem to have forgotton that our nation IS a country of immigrants.

This is how politicians gain ever more and more power - by creating a nation of law-breaking people. Pretty soon you wake up one day and find it hard just to get through the day without breaking some law. Sounds like Nazi Germany doesn't it?

Open Immigration by Harry Binswanger

This is a defense of phasing-in open immigration into the United States. Entry into the U.S. should ultimately be free for any foreigner, with the exception of criminals, would-be terrorists, and those carrying infectious diseases. (And note: I am defending freedom of entry and residency, not the automatic granting of U.S. citizenship).

An end to immigration quotas is demanded by the principle of individual rights. Every individual has rights as an individual, not as a member of this or that nation. One has rights not by virtue of being an American, but by virtue of being human.

One doesn't have to be a resident of any particular country to have a moral entitlement to be secure from governmental coercion against one's life, liberty, and property. In the words of the Declaration of Independence, government is instituted "to secure these rights"--to protect them against their violation by force or fraud.

A foreigner has rights just as much as an American. To be a foreigner is not to be a criminal. Yet our government treats as criminals those foreigners not lucky enough to win the green-card lottery.

Seeking employment in this country is not a criminal act. It coerces no one and violates no one's rights. There is no "right" to be exempt from competition in the labor market, or in any other market.

It is not a criminal act to buy or rent a home here in which to reside. Paying for housing is not a coercive act--whether the buyer is an American or a foreigner. No one's rights are violated when a Mexican, or Canadian, or Senegalese rents an apartment from an American owner and moves into the housing he is paying for. And what about the rights of those American citizens who want to sell or rent their property to the highest bidders? Or the American businesses that want to hire the lowest-cost workers? It is morally indefensible for our government to violate their right to do so.

Immigration quotas forcibly exclude foreigners who want not to seize but to purchase housing here, who want not to rob Americans but to engage in productive work, raising our standard of living. To forcibly exclude those who seek peacefully to trade value for value with us is a violation of the rights of both parties to such a trade: the rights of the American seller or employer and the rights of the foreign buyer or employee.

Thus, immigration quotas treat both Americans and foreigners as if they were criminals, as if the peaceful exchange of values to mutual benefit were an act of destruction.
To take an actual example, if I want to invite my Norwegian friend Klaus to live in my home, either as a guest or as a paying tenant, what right does our government have to stop Klaus and me? To be a Norwegian is not to be a criminal. And if some American business wants to hire Klaus, what right does our government have to interfere?

The implicit premise of barring foreigners is: "This is our country, we let in who we want." But who is "we"? The government does not own the country. Jurisdiction is not ownership. Only the owner of land or any item of property can decide the terms of its use or sale. Nor does the majority own the country. This is a country of private property, and housing is private property. So is a job.

American land is not the collective property of some entity called "the U.S. government." Nor is there such a thing as collective, social ownership of the land. The claim, "We have the right to decide who is allowed in" means some individuals--those with the most votes--claim the right to prevent other citizens from exercising their rights. But there can be no right to violate the rights of others.

Our constitutional republic respects minority rights. 60% of the population cannot vote to enslave the other 40%. Nor can a majority dictate to the owners of private property. Nor can a majority dictate on whom private employers spend their money. Not morally, not in a free society. In a free society, the rights of the individual are held sacrosanct, above any claim of even an overwhelming majority.

The rights of one man end where the rights of his neighbor begin. Only within the limits of his rights is a man free to act on his own judgment. The criminal is the man who deliberately steps outside his rights-protected domain and invades the domain of another, depriving his victim of his exclusive control over his property, or liberty, or life. The criminal, by his own choice, has rejected rights in favor of brute violence. Thus, an immigration policy that excludes criminals is proper.

Likewise, a person with an infectious disease, such as smallpox, threatens with serious physical harm those with whom he comes into proximity. Unlike the criminal, he may not intend to do damage, but the threat of physical harm is clear, present, and objectively demonstrable. To protect the lives of Americans, he may be kept out or quarantined until he is no longer a threat.
But what about the millions of Mexicans, South Americans, Chinese, Canadians, etc. seeking entry who are not criminal and not bearing infectious diseases? By what moral principle can they be excluded? Not on the grounds of majority vote, not on the grounds of protecting any American's rights, not on the grounds of any legitimate authority of the state.

THE MORAL AND THE PRACTICAL
That's the moral case for phasing out limits on immigration. But some ask: "Is it practical? Wouldn't unlimited immigration--even if phased in over a decade--be disastrous to our economic well-being and create overcrowding? Are we being told to just grit our teeth and surrender our interests in the name of morality?"

This question is invalid on its face. It shows a failure to understand the nature of rights, and of moral principles generally. Rational moral principles reflect a recognition of the basic nature of man, his nature as a specific kind of living organism, having a specific means of survival. Questions of what is practical, what is to one's self-interest, can be answered only in that context. It is neither practical nor to one's interest to attempt to live and act in defiance of one's nature as a human being.

Yet that is the meaning of the moral-practical dichotomy. When one claims, "It is immoral but practical," one is maintaining, "It cripples my nature as a human being, but it is beneficial to me"--which is a contradiction.

Rights, in particular, are not something pulled from the sky or decreed by societal whim. Rights are moral principles, established by reference to the needs inherent in man's nature qua man. "Rights are conditions of existence required by man's nature for his proper survival." (Ayn Rand)

Every organism has a basic means of survival; for man, that means is: reason. Man is the rational animal, homo sapiens. Rights are moral principles that spell out the terms of social interaction required for a rational being to survive and flourish. Since the reasoning mind cannot function under physical coercion, the basic social requirement of man's survival is: freedom. Rights prescribe freedom by proscribing coercion.

"If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, it is right to act on his own free judgment, it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work." (Ayn Rand)
Rights reflect the fundamental alternative of voluntary consent or brute force. The reign of force is in no one's interest; the system of voluntary cooperation by mutual consent is the precondition of anyone achieving his actual interests.

To ignore the principle of rights means jettisoning the principled, moral resolution of conflicts, and substituting mere numbers (majority vote). That is not to anyone's interest. Tyranny is not to anyone's self-interest.

Rights establish the necessary framework within which one defines his legitimate self-interest. One cannot hold that one's self-interest requires that he be "free" to deprive others of their freedom, treating their interests as morally irrelevant. One cannot hold that recognizing the rights of others is moral but "impractical."

Since rights are based on the requirements of man's life as a rational being, there can be no conflict between the moral and the practical here: if respecting individual rights requires it, your interest requires it.

Freedom or force, reason or compulsion--that is the basic social alternative. Immigrants recognize the value of freedom--that's why they seek to come here.
The American Founders defined and implemented a system of rights because they recognized that man, as a rational being, must be free to act on his own judgment and to keep the products of his own effort. They did not intend to establish a system in which those who happen to be born here could use force to "protect" themselves from the peaceful competition of others.

ECONOMICS
One major fear of open immigration is economic: the fear of losing one's job to immigrants. It is asked: "Won't the immigrants take our jobs?" The answer is: "Yes, so we can go on to better, higher-paying jobs."

The fallacy in this protectionist objection lies in the idea that there is only a finite amount of work to be done. The unstated assumption is: "If Americans don't get to do that work, if foreigners do it instead, we Americans will have nothing to do."

But work is the creation of wealth. A job is a role in the production of goods and services--the production of food, of cars, computers, the providing of internet content--all the items that go to make up our standard of living. A country cannot have too much wealth. The need for wealth is limitless, and the work that is to be done is limitless.

From a grand, historical perspective, we are only at the beginning of the wealth-creating age. The wealth Americans produce today is as nothing compared to what we'll have two hundred years from now--just as the standard of living 200 years in the past, in 1806, was as nothing compared to ours today.

Unemployment is not caused by an absence of avenues for the creation of wealth. Unemployment is caused by government interference in the labor market. Even with that interference, the number of jobs goes relentlessly upward, decade after decade. This bears witness to the fact that there's no end to the creation of wealth and thus no end to the useful employment of human intelligence and the physical effort directed by that intelligence. There is always more productive work to be done. If you can give your job to an immigrant, you can get a more valuable job.

What is the effect of a bigger labor pool on wage rates? If the money supply is constant, nominal wage rates fall. But real wage rates rise, because total output has gone up. Economists have demonstrated that real wages have to rise as long as the immigrants are self-supporting. If immigrants earn their keep, if they don't consume more than they produce, then they add to total output, which means that prices fall (if the money supply is constant).

And, in fact, rising real wages was the history of our country in the nineteenth century. Before the 1920s, there were no limits on immigration, yet these were the years of America's fasted economic progress. The standard of living rocketed upward. Self-supporting immigrants were an economic benefit not an injury.

The protectionist objection that immigrants take away jobs and harm our standard of living is a solid economic fallacy.

WELFARE
A popular misconception is that immigrants come here to get welfare. To the extent that is true, immigrants do constitute a burden. But this issue is mooted by the passage, under the Clinton Administration, of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity and Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), which makes legal permanent residents ineligible for most forms of welfare for 5 years. I support this kind of legislation.

Further, if the fear is of non-working immigrants, why is the pending aimed at employers of immigrants?

OVERCROWDING
America is a vastly underpopulated country. Our population density is less than one-third of France's.

Take an extreme example. Suppose a tidal wave of immigrants came here. Suppose that half of the people on the planet moved here. That would mean an unthinkable eleven-fold increase in our population--from 300 million to 3.3 billion people. The result? America would be a bit less "densely" populated than England (360 people/sq. km. vs. 384 people/sq. km.). In fact, it would make us less densely populated than the state of New Jersey (453 per sq. km.). And these calculations exclude Alaska and Hawaii, and count only land area.

Contrary to widespread beliefs, high population density is a value not a disvalue. High population density intensifies the division of labor, which makes possible a wider variety of jobs and specialized consumer products. For instance, in Manhattan, there is a "doll hospital"--a store specializing in the repair of children's dolls. Such a specialized, niche business requires a high population density in order to have a market. Try finding a doll hospital in Poughkeepsie. In Manhattan, one can find a job as a Pilates Method teacher or as a "Secret Shopper" (two jobs actually listed on Craig's List). Not in Paducah.

People want to live near other people, in cities. One-seventh of England's population lives in London. If population density is a bad thing, why are Manhattan real-estate prices so high?

THE VALUE OF IMMIGRANTS
Immigrants are the kind of people who refresh the American spirit. They are ambitious, courageous, and value freedom. They come here, often with no money and not even speaking the language, to seek a better life for themselves and their children.

The vision of American freedom, with its opportunity to prosper by hard work, serves as a magnet drawing the best of the world's people. Immigrants are self-selected for their virtues: their ambitiousness, daring, independence, and pride. They are willing to cast aside the tradition-bound roles assigned to them in their native lands and to re-define themselves as Americans. These are the people our country needs in order to keep alive the individualist, hard-working attitude that made America.

Here is a short list of some great immigrants: Alexander Hamilton, Alexander Graham Bell, Andrew Carnegie, most of the top scientists of the Manhattan Project, Igor Sikorsky (the inventor of the helicopter), Ayn Rand.

Open immigration: the benefits are great. The right is unquestionable. So let them come.

Copyright © 2006. TOF Publications, Inc. www.hblist.com/immigr.htm Permission hereby granted to republish, in whole or in part, provided no changes are made in the wording of material used, Harry Binswanger's authorship is stated, and this notice is carried.

We Must Act Now to Defeat the Central Enemy in the War on Terrorism - by Robert Tracinski

You can find this article at website.

Four and a half years after September 11—which was supposed to awaken us to the threat of devastating attacks by state-sponsored terrorists—America is finally beginning to confront the world's largest and most dangerous state sponsor of terrorism: the Islamic Republic of Iran.

For the past week, newspapers and magazines have been filled with discussion of possible military action against Iran. The debate, so far, is between those who merely want to "threaten" the use of force, and those who argue that the Iranian threat is illusory. No one is yet willing to face the fact that Iran is already at war with the United States—and that Iran is the central enemy we have to defeat if we are going to win the War on Terrorism.

In all of the obfuscation generated by the backward-looking debate over what happened to Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, it has been easy for some to claim that the Iranian threat is being blown out of proportion by the Bush administration. But grasping the case against Iran doesn't depend on secret dossiers and obscure intelligence reports. All it requires is that you open up your newspaper and read the pronouncements of Iran's own leaders.

In early April, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hosted a pep rally at which dancers in traditional Persian garb held aloft vials of refined uranium, while Ahmadinejad announced that Iran had succeeding in enriching uranium, the first step toward producing a nuclear bomb. Iran "has joined the club of nuclear countries," he boasted. An Iranian official followed up by announcing that Iran would immediately take the next step, expanding uranium enrichment to an industrial scale, allowing Iran to start building its nuclear arsenal as early as the end of this year.

Why does Iran want to enrich uranium? Ahmadinejad isn't interested so much in joining a nuclear club as he is in wielding a nuclear club. He has openly boasted that Iran wants to "wipe Israel off the map." Is Ahmadinejad just a wild-eyed "radical," out of touch with the rest of the Iranian regime? A few years ago, Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani—a man considered "moderate" by the standards of the Iranian regime—boasted that "a single atomic bomb has the power to completely destroy Israel." In case you don't think they're serious, Iran's religious establishment recently released a fatwa sanctioning the use of nuclear weapons.

But the biggest threat posed by an Iranian nuclear weapon is not in Israel, but in Iraq—where Iran is already fighting a proxy war against America and its allies.

In the Iraqi conflict, Iran has been playing both ends against the middle—that is, against the United States. In Western Iraq, the Sunni insurgency is supported by a flow of terrorists, weapons, and money from Syria—a key Iranian ally. In Southern Iraq, Shiite insurgents have been using sophisticated Iranian-built shaped charges in their bomb attacks on American convoys. But this is the least of the Iranian threat. Violent Shiite militias that seek to impose an Islamist dictatorship are funded, organized, and take their ideological inspiration from Iran. The leader of the most pro-Iranian faction, Muqtada al-Sadr, has publicly pledged to fight on Iran's behalf if it is attacked by America.

There is no need to invoke the doctrine of pre-emption against Iran. Iran is already fighting a war against the United States. We just haven't been fighting back. We have held our fire as if Iran were protected by a shield of nuclear weapons. How much more aggressive will the Iranians become when they are actually protected by such a nuclear shield?

Iran's reach is not limited to Iraq. Late last year, when Bashar Assad's Syrian dictatorship was reeling from the loss of Lebanon, Ahmadinejad made a trip to Damascus in which he urged Assad to stand fast and pledged Iranian support. The Assad regime, which had been sending up trial balloons about political liberalization, instead threw hundreds of dissidents into prison. At the same time, Ahmadinejad met with leaders of Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed terrorist militia in Southern Lebanon, and representatives of two Palestinian terrorist groups: Islamic Jihad and Hamas. Now that Hamas has won the Palestinian elections, it is looking for diplomatic and financial support from—where else?—Iran.

Iran's tentacles even extend beyond the Middle East. Iran has been cultivating an alliance with Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, including discussions about providing the anti-American firebrand and protégé of Fidel Castro with nuclear technology.

This expansionist pattern is no accident. The mullahs who rule Iran's system from behind the scenes maneuvered Ahmadinejad into power last year because they knew he had the fiery fanaticism to go on the offensive, pressing Iran's advantage in the face of American wavering on Iraq. Ahmadinejad has not disappointed them. Like the super-villain of a corny James Bond film—but one who commands actual armies and actual missiles—Ahmadinejad has a master plan for the domination of the world. In a document presented to Iran's parliament last year, he declared that the US is a fading "sunset power," while Iran is poised to become the "core power" of the Islamic world, the center of a totalitarian Islamic empire.

Everywhere you look in the Middle East, if you ask who is the biggest threat to America's interests, you will find the same answer—Hamas in the Palestinian territories, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Assad regime in Syria, the Sunni terrorists and Shiite militias in Iraq—directly or indirectly, Iran is supporting them all.

Iran's global ambitions are as grandiose as anything put forward by Osama bin Laden—but they are backed by control of a country of 70 million people with an army, navy, and air force, a vast network of terrorist organizations across the Middle East, and, very soon, nuclear weapons.

If America's failure to act against the comparatively minor threat from Bin Laden in the 1990s resulted in the horrors of September 11, we can expect far worse if we fail to act against Iran.

A war with Iran must begin with the destruction of its nuclear facilities, but it must not end there. Iran is likely to respond to any American attack by escalating, inciting an uprising in Southern Iraq, unleashing a wave of terrorist attacks, launching missiles against US targets in the Middle East, attacking oil tankers in the Persian Gulf. And even if we neutralize all of these threats, Iran's theocrats will not drop their global ambitions. They will merely wait for our attention to wander and attempt to strike us again. The goal of a war against Iran must be to topple the Iranian regime—and to support the rise of a new government formed by the secularist dissidents who now languish in Iran's prisons.

The wars we have fought so far, against the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Baathist regime in Iraq—were necessary, but they left the largest, most dangerous Islamist regime untouched. The Iranians know it. Sensing American weakness, they are moving against us on all fronts—and any further delay in pushing them back will only make the task more difficult. We have to act—and we have to act now.

There can be no victory in the War on Terrorism until we confront—and defeat—the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is the real war, and it's time we started fighting it.

The Road to Victory Goes Through Tehran - by Robert Tracinski

Below is the text of an op-ed Rob Tracinski wrote for the Ayn Rand Institute on May 14, 2003 (which was derived from "The Turning of the Tide," the cover article of the June 2003 print issue of TIA), making the case for a war against Iran.

President Bush has declared the end of "major combat operations" in Iraq, but he has not declared victory in the War on Terrorism—and that's a good thing, because the largest and most important battle in that war still remains to be fought.

The road to victory goes through Tehran.

An end to the threat of Islamic terrorism requires, not just the toppling of one state sponsor of terrorism in Iraq, but the toppling of the regime that is the Middle East's most active promoter of terrorism—and the most virulent center of the ideology behind Islamic terrorism: the theocracy that rules Iran.

The most recent evidence for the urgent need to confront Iran is the simmering conflict in southern Iraq. Post-war Iraq has been touted by the administration as an attempt to create a free, peaceful, and prosperous society as a model to be followed by dissidents in neighboring countries like Iran. But Iran also wants to turn Iraq into a model—a model for American humiliation and the triumph of Islamic fanaticism.

The evidence of meticulous Iranian planning is everywhere. Note that Shiite demonstrators showed up just days after the fall of Baghdad carrying elaborate, professionally made banners proclaiming their theocratic agenda—with slogans printed in both Arabic and English, for the benefit of the Western media. This is not the work of poor, uneducated Iraqi peasants. It is the work of well-funded political operatives. Indeed, US forces have already begun to capture Iranian agents in Iraq and believe that thousands more Iranian-backed fighters have flooded over the border in the past month.

A peaceful Iraq that respects the rights of its citizens—and allows the presence of US troops or military bases—is a grave danger to Iran and to its co-conspirator in terrorism, Syria. So these two nations are trying to turn Iraq into "another Lebanon"—a quagmire of terrorist attacks and guerilla warfare. Their hope is that the United States will be so afraid of looking like a "bully" imposing an "occupation" that we will withdraw and abandon Iraq, letting Iran set up its own Khomeini-style regime there—in the same way that we abandoned Lebanon, allowing it to be colonized by Syria.

If we let this Iranian strategy work, we will have achieved "regime change" all right—we will have exchanged a fascist anti-American regime for a theocratic anti-American regime.
The nascent guerilla campaign in southern Iraq is a clear hostile act against the United States. Yet Iran is hoping that America will refuse to recognize this as an act of war. The mullahs hope we will once again put ourselves in the impossible situation of having to fight bands of guerillas among Iraq's civilian population, while refusing to confront the terror masters they serve.
What makes them think they can get away with it? Ultimately, Iran is counting on the administration's loudly proclaimed refusal to "impose our values" or our form of government on Iraq. But fighting for liberty is never an "imposition." No one has a right to violate the rights of others—and so it is no limitation on the "freedom" of Iraqi Shiites or Iranian agents if we deny their ambition to impose religious strictures by force.

The vow that we will not try to influence the new Iraq is a declaration of America's unilateral moral disarmament—our failure to fight for and protect the crucial values at stake in this war.
America needs to recognize that this war is inherently a conflict between two opposing value systems. Our enemies are driven by the theocratic philosophy shared, despite minor sectarian differences, by Osama bin Laden and by the mullahs who rule Iran. The destruction of the Iranian theocracy would do more than just eliminate the world's largest supporter of terrorism; it would do more than end a nuclear-weapons program that is far closer to completion than Iraq's ever was; it would do more than stop the Iranian-staged Shiite agitation in Iraq. The end of the Iranian regime would destroy the Middle East's laboratory of theocracy—the leading example and exporter of a system of religious dogma enforced by terror.

President Bush called the military victory in Iraq "the turning of the tide" in the War on Terrorism. That may be true, but the tide won't stay with us—or carry us to victory—until we are willing to take the war to Tehran and topple the most important material and ideological supporter of Islamic terrorism.

Rot in the Belly of the Beast

"The gimcrack pedagogical notion that education should be 'relevant' to children's lives gained currency in England in the sixties. The thought that this would confine children to the world that they already know - and a pretty dismal world it was, too, as anyone with the slightest acquaintance with English working-class life will testify - apparently never occurred to those educationists who claimed such exceptional sympathy with the relatively disadvantaged. The result was that a route - perhaps the one most frequently traveled-to social advancement was substantially closed to them.

"Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to overturn these educational (or anti-educational) developments even now, when the central government has belatedly realized their disastrous consequences. Why? First, the teachers and the teachers of the teachers in the training colleges are deeply imbued with the kinds of education ideas that have brought us to this pass. Second, a huge education bureaucracy has grown up in England (one bureaucrat per teacher, pullulating like admirals in a South American navy) which uses every subterfuge to prevent change, from falsification of figures to willful misinterpretation of government policy......Thus it happens that Britain spends a higher percentage of its GDP on education than any of its competitors and ends up with a catastrophically ill-educated population, whose lack of intelligence is evident from their ruminant gaze to be seen on every street in the country, and which is remarked upon by all my foreign friends." (Life at the Bottom - The Worldview That Makes The Underclass by Theodore Dalrymple).

This could have been written about the USA. While we have to import engineers and scientists our children rot in the belly of the beast of American public education whose master, the NEA (National Education Association) refuses to allow the firing of unqualified teachers, or to allow any change in the curriculum that may require the teachers to actually teach something, or to allow charter schools where they can stop them. Meanwhile our own children graduate with very little knowledge of American history (I've read that some teenagers do not know who George Washington was!), poor math skills and reasoning skills - but our teenagers do know how to have fun. Spring break speaks volumes about our youth today - mindlessness passing for fun.

Everyone should read "Life At the Bottom" - it will open your eyes to our own underclass right here at home as well as our atrocious public schools.

Islamic Opinion Be Damned! by Richard Winkler

This opinion piece was first published in www.capitalismnow.com on February 12, 2006 and is being reprinted here.

When a person is physically threatened for expressing an opinion the police should be called in to arrest those issuing the threat. When a nation or group threatens another nation or group with physical violence for having expressed an opinion, then the very principle of freedom of speech is threatened. The first amendment was designed to protect that very thing – the right of any individual to express an opinion without fear of physical retaliation. That freedom of speech forms the cornerstone of any civilized society should hardly be a matter of debate anymore.

If the issue holds any confusion for anyone, it is due to multiculturalism (or simple cowardice), the idea that all cultures are equal and all ideas, including the murderous ideas behind the Islamist’s death threats, should be respected equally. The Islamists certainly have no confusion on the subject; these threats show their ideas for what they are (as if that was in any doubt after the Salmon Rushdie death edict and the regular beheadings, and worse, of “non-believers” by the Islamists).

Multiculturalism is completely at odds with the U.S. constitution, which is a political statement of principles or ideas that apply to all men anywhere and at any time. “All men are created equal” does not include the caveat, “except if they run afoul of Islamist dogma”.

For the U.S. government to uphold freedom of speech against Islamists who are threatening to kill anyone who prints the Muhammad cartoons, and in the same breath to reproach those who print the cartoons, pleading with them to respect religion, is such an abject and transparent surrender of principle that it is difficult to call it anything less then cowardice. It places the right of free speech on par with the “right” to murder, and abandons those brave souls that print the cartoons.

There is a clear clash of principles here that cannot be evaded. Islamist’s believe that reproducing the likeness of their prophet is a blasphemy, punishable by death. Freedom of speech is the principle that ideas are protected against physical retaliation. There is no reconciling these principles; a stand has to be taken. After all, the principle of freedom of speech was not created to protect speech that does not offend anyone. Its purpose is precisely to defend the type of speech represented in those cartoons.

Moral Self Confidence – Have We Lost It?

The following was written on August 13, 2005 and is being reprinted here from www.capitalismnow.com.

The man who refuses to judge, who neither agrees nor disagrees, who declares that there are no absolutes and believes that he escapes responsibility, is the man responsible for all the blood that is now spilled in the world. Reality is an absolute, existence is an absolute, a speck of dust is an absolute and so is a human life….(Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged).

Hand wringing and mea culpas abound on this the 60th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Buy why do we cry? We are cozy in our beds at night, with tummy full and a roof that does not leak. We did not cry or hand wring in 1945 as this 21 year old second Lieutenant related: “We learned to our astonishment that we would not be obliged in a few months to rush up the beaches near Tokyo assault-firing while being machine-gunned, mortared, and shelled, and for all the practiced phlegm of our tough facades we broke down and cried with relief and joy. We were going to live.”

“We were going to live”. Powerful words coming from a boy who knew that the Japanese were expected to fight to the death. Lives did not mean much by the Japanese moral code of the day as it hadn’t for centuries. Pride and victory were everything for these aggressors.

So Fat Man and Little Boy ended the Japanese dreams of conquest by terrorism and death. They surrendered unconditionally – Hirohito was allowed to remain a figurehead emperor. General Douglas MacArthur proceeded to institute democratic reforms and wrote their constitution. He was the boss in Japan and made sure that the people were westernized. What were the results of MacArthur’s tough guy stance and demands? Prosperity and peace for the Japanese for the past 60 years!

We have this very important lesson reminding us every anniversary, if nothing else that the good (the West for all you peaceniks) can only triumph over evil (Japan and Germany in 1945) if the good is willing to go all the way – no compromises and mealy mouth begging.

Some people decry the bomb as an evil thing. False! It is a good thing if it keeps America safe. Oh – some will say – the atom bomb kills hundreds of thousands in an instant and more die later of radiation. Yes true. But is that worse than a million of our 18-25 year olds dying and maimed over 5 years with bullets and explosives? I don’t see the difference. There is no contest. The 2 bombs were a good that allowed boys to return home, Japan to prosper and become a member of the community of free nations and eventually for the evil empire, the Soviet Union, to die.

Evil nations exist because they are populated by enough evil people or at least many people who hold the wrong ideas. The Japanese are a prime example of a people that wholeheartedly took up the nihilistic cause of expansionism and subjugation at whatever cost.

Wrong ideas lead me to the present. With the Islamo-terrorists, if we do not revisit WWII and relearn those lessons – the main one being that the west possessed moral self-confidence that we somehow lost over the past 60 years, we will be doomed to failure and an atomic bomb will one day and soon - devastate us. Do we deserve to be bombed? I don’t think so.

We must as a nation and individually decide whether we are the good. And if we are then we will maybe regain our moral self-confidence. With confidence in our being on the right side we will do the right thing concerning the Islamo-terrorists – annihilate them by doing whatever it takes. If that means dropping a bomb on Iran then so be it.

The following is a quote from Ayn Rand in Galt’s Speech in Atlas Shrugged and reprinted in “For the New Intellectual”.

There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. The man who is wrong still retains some respect for truth, if only by accepting the responsibility of choice. But the man in the middle is the knave who blanks out the truth in order to pretend that no choice or values exist.

Right now President Bush and Prime Minister Blair are the men in the middle. They are blanking out the truth that we are fighting rabid religious terrorists and they mean what they say and aim to get what they want: A paradise of Islamic fundamentalism on earth.

Clouds gather while the West fiddles with evasions and half truths. Just as the Japanese understood moral courage and certainty and not bargains and appeasement, so we should deal with these nihilists for whom death is everything. We are a culture of life and goodness on earth. Our continued existence depends upon our regaining our moral self-confidence and recognizing evil for what it is and wherever it is.

Kofi's Nine Year Milk Cow

“The most effective ambassadors I have known in this building are the ones who’ve been able to sit across the table, reach out to their colleagues and persuade them to take a course of action. And I would suggest to all ambassadors who want to make progress to go that route.”

This is what Kofi Annan said as he criticized U.S. Ambassador John R. Bolton’s tough negotiating style read.

Of course what Mr. Bolton wants is to see progress made on the long promised UN reforms and he is urging the United States to withhold the 22% it contributes to this organization.

But of course no one would expect Annan to ‘want’ to institute reforms in an institution that has been a milk cow for many members for the past nine years. Another not too widely noted incident among the many “incidents” (read scandals) that have plagued Annan’s tenure at the UN occurred a few days ago. It seems that Annan was very touchy about a certain question that UN correspondent for The Times, James Bone asked. Again it had to do with Annan’s son Kojo who bought a Mercedes Benz and shipped it to Ghana with the benefit of UN tax exemptions. Well Annan got furious with the reporter and instead of answering the question lashed out in a purple rage attacking Mr. Bone thus: “"You are an embarrassment to your colleagues and to your profession...Please stop misbehaving, and please let's move on to a more serious subject."

What could be more serious than being accused of using UN connections inappropriately? Remember the UN administered Iraqi “food for oil” scandal? So many countries were involved in that and there has yet to be any punishments meted out.

The UN is a conglomeration of nations led by evil and corrupt governments. It is time to either clean it up or let it rot in the ash heap of other good for nothing bureaucratic organizations.

Reviewing What Clinton Said Eight Years Ago About Iraq

Remember when Clinton initiated military attacks on Sadam Hussein? Of course he didn't finish the job (neither did the first President Bush) and so it goes that the piper must be paid. I thought it would be interesting to refresh our memories regarding what then President Clinton said to the American people in his justification for attacking Sadam almost eight years ago. I'm sure it will all sound familiar. Just goes to show if you don't treat the tumor properly it will grow and be more difficult to eradicate.

Portions of President Clinton's address to Joint Chiefs of Staff and Pentagon staff on Feb 17, 1998

Now, let me say to all of you here as all of you know the weightiest decision any president ever has to make is to send our troops into harm's way. And force can never be the first answer. But sometimes, it's the only answer.

Saddam Hussein's Iraq reminds us of what we learned in the 20th century and warns us of what we must know about the 21st. In this century, we learned through harsh experience that the only answer to aggression and illegal behavior is firmness, determination, and when necessary action.

In the next century, the community of nations may see more and more the very kind of threat Iraq poses now a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction ready to use them or provide them to terrorists, drug traffickers or organized criminals who travel the world among us unnoticed.

If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow by the knowledge that they can act with impunity, even in the face of a clear message from the United Nations Security Council and clear evidence of a weapons of mass destruction program.

Portions of President Clinton’s address to the nation from the Oval Office on December 16, 1998

Saddam (Hussein) must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons.

Earlier today I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces."

Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.

Along with Prime Minister (Tony) Blair of Great Britain, I made it equally clear that if Saddam failed to cooperate fully we would be prepared to act without delay, diplomacy or warning.

Instead of inspectors disarming Saddam, Saddam has disarmed the inspectors. If Saddam can cripple the weapons inspections system and get away with it, he would conclude the international community, led by the United States, has simply lost its will. He would surmise that he has free rein to rebuild his arsenal of destruction.

The best way to end that threat once and for all is with a new Iraqi government -- a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people.

Saddam Hussein and the other enemies of peace may have thought that the serious debate currently before the House of Representatives would distract Americans or weaken our resolve to face him down, but once more, the United States has proven that although we are never eager to use force, when we must act in America's vital interests, we will do so.

Che Chic and the Ladies in White

It is fashionable to wear T-shirts with Che’s mug plastered across it. From teens in small villages in northern Italy to those Hollywood intellectuals on the Left coast, Che is chic.

But who champions the Ladies in White of Cuba – wives, mothers and sisters and daughters of prisoners rotting in Fidel Castro’s prisons for a variety of crimes from expressing “forbidden opinions” to attempting to flee the hell hole of Cuban dictatorship.

A piece by Mary Anatasia O’Grady (read) describes how in 2003 Castro “ordered the lockup of 75 journalists, librarians and democracy advocates” calculating that after an initial outcry by the outside world all would be forgotten. After all, isn’t that how Castro has maintained his grip on power for fifty years? Well these women had had enough of repression and so for two years there have been weekly gatherings and processions in white in a kind of defiant, silent protest.

This has caused Castro’s heavenly worker’s paradise to be catapulted into the news – again - because these brave and persistent women were awarded the European Parliament’s Sakhorov Prize which honors freedom of thought.

And what about the Left coast Idol? Castro excels in taking political prisoners (estimated at 500,000 since 1959) and executing thousands of these. What are crimes according to the gospel of Fidelito? Meeting to discuss the economy, writing letters to the government, “to report on political developments, to speak to international reporters, to advocate human rights or to visit friends or relatives outside your local area of residence without government permission” (read).

As for Che, well he was just an evil and incompetent fool. “Che excelled in one thing: mass murder of defenseless men. In anything like a fair fight Che was consistently routed, stomped and humiliated” (read).

Will the world turn a blind eye again to Castro’s virtual imprisonment of 11 million Cubans after mumbling a few words of indignation? But daaahling, it’s so much more chic to wear Che and fawn all over the strongman of Cuba - Fidel Castro.

Budding Barbarians Among Us

George Melloan writes in the December 13 issue of the Wall Street Journal (There are Always Barbarians at the Gates read) that predators have walked among us since the dawn of man. In the twentieth century alone there was an endless gang of them including Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, Arafat, Sadam Hussein, the numerous African varieties and now the thug from Iran - what's his name.

Man has free will so there will always be those who would lust after wealth and power and use force to do it. But it is very difficult to understand this thuggery in the world we live in versus the world of the Inquisition for example. Prior to the Modern era the majority of the people spent their lives barely above that of the animals they lived with and death was always around the corner. But today we have the unimaginable wealth created by the freer countries of the world such as Hong Kong and the United States.

The shining examples of what man can accomplish when he is free to use his mind in production instead of destruction is there for everyone to see and study. It is not a secret. And still we allow and often times condone these mindless thugs their ascent to power. Why don't we nip these neer do wells in the bud before they blossom into their murderous reign? Isn't that why we have governments to protect us from those that would initiate force?

Mellon writes: "There is so much work left to do. The U.S. effort to convert Afghanistan and Iraq from failed tyrannies into thriving democracies needs an ingredient not always understood by bureaucrats and politicians, including some Americans. Energizing a society requires economic as well as political freedom. That means property rights, minimum bureaucratic obstacles to business formation and a legal system that can enforce laws and contracts. Iraq's leaders say they understand this, but one wonders if that understanding will overcome the usual temptations of power.

"There is also the question of whether the U.S. left and its organs of opinion -- not to mention some who would normally be regarded as holding right-wing views -- understand America's post-World War II history. The cries for disengagement from Iraq, and even from world politics, are dispiriting in light of what American engagement has accomplished in the last 65 years. They reflect not only a failure to understand U.S. history but a broader failure to understand the entirety of world history.

"That history tells us that rich nations will always be envied by the political leaders of have-not states. Rather than try to learn how America became rich and free up their own societies to follow the same road to riches, too many will do the opposite and plot to get those riches through theft. There's always a barbarian out there somewhere."

Every nation can become productive and enjoy the rewards of that productivity but first they have to recognize the barbarian when he is a small fry and then treat the cancer before it grows too powerful.

The Wealthiest Nation In History

I'm reading a remarkable book called "The Capitalist Manifesto" by Andrew Bernstein. In it he tackles the task of explaining what it takes for countries to be wealthy and why political and economic freedom are requirements. He delves into the philosophical basis for the wealth of the capitalist nations and the utter poverty and destruction in lives and property of the socialist nations. Here is an example of what Mr. Berstein writes:

"Imagine the horror of the anti-capitalist, socialist mentalities if it was said to them: what if there were a country in which the government stays out of the economy? One with no tariffs or other legal restrictions on international trade - with no regulatory agencies, no minimum wage laws, no price or wage controls. Imagine, it is said to them, that the government limits neither investment coming in nor profit going out. There's no capital gains tax, no interest tax, no sales tax and a pittance in corporate bailout for companies that fail to compete on a free market. This imaginary country has a 15 percent flat tax, enabling its citizens to retain the preponderance of their earnings. Further, it extends no unemployment benefits, enacts no labor legislation and provides no Social Security, no national health insurance and scarcely any welfare. The welfare statist would recoil in horror from such a proposal; he would drown his interlocutor with dire warnings regarding the misery of the numberless poor and exploited who would be the inevitable victims of such a heartless, callous system. But in fact, that country exists, it is real; it's Hong Kong, one of the wealthiest nations of history." ( Read)

If you want to understand, finally, the dismal economic failure of the Soviet Union, China, North Korea and Cuba, to name just the biggies, read this book. The writing is clear, organized and exciting, if you are interested in history and ideas. With an extensive notes section with references at the end of book it's a treasure trove of information. Berstein organizes a vast array of facts from different sources and makes them accessible to the layman. While many of these facts are known kind of hodge podge by most educated people, Bernstein gives us the philosophical analysis for the differences among nations in the past and today - in other words the "why".

If we as a nation want to avoid going down the path of self destruction this is a must read book.

The Ethics of Honor Killing

There is a quaint tribal tradition in the world of Islam called “Honor Killing” that was brought to our attention yesterday by a report on National Public Radio. This is how it works. If a male family member of tribe X is abducted and he is returned alive to his family – “a sheep is killed to celebrate”. If a female member is abducted and even possibly raped and returned alive to her family – “it’s a disgrace”. There is no celebration. Instead she is killed by a brother, a father or a cousin because she has brought dishonor to the tribe, to the family.

How do these men explain this perfidy? In the words of one who had murdered his 16 year old female cousin after being returned from an abduction “It’s in the blood – it’s tradition. How can it change?” The cousin did it because the father and brother couldn’t bring themselves to do it. They didn’t see anything wrong in it just that they couldn’t do it. The women don’t intervene because they are afraid for their own lives and many of them receive regular beatings with rubber hoses by their husbands.

Thousands of girls and women are murdered by male family members world wide but mostly in the Middle East. These honor killings are an ancient patriarchal custom used to control the family structure and hierarchy. So how can we understand this ancient, evil custom today? Why are honor killings based on the primitive concept of tribe being condoned by governments in the 21st century. Tribalism is a subset of a wider phenomenon called collectivism which is the idea that the individual is nothing – the tribe, the race, society is all.

The politics of collectivism are buoyed by the ethics of altruism be it via religion (Islamists) or mother earth (environmentalism) or the race (Nazi Germany). It is the idea that individuals must sacrifice for the greater good of “fill in the blank”. In the Middle East, besides being infected with the commandments of the Muslim religion, there are the mandates of the tribe. All must bow down to the dictates of tribal customs thousands of years old. So a girl is molested by her father – well she has dishonored the family so the child must be murdered.

Observe that there is no concept here of the individual only the tribe. The individual is nothing – the tribe is all. What drives these people to continue such a barbaric custom – the sacrifice of their daughters, sisters and wives? Irrationality or the anti-mind - the “act of unfocusing his mind, the suspension of his consciousness…the refusal to know” (The Objectivist Ethics by Ayn Rand).

When reason is not your guide to action or your means to knowledge then you are left with using emotion, tribal dictate, and whim as your guide. The results of irrationality are strewn throughout the centuries. From Honor Killings to suicide bombers to the killing fields of Cambodia to millions slaughtered by the Nazis and the Chinese Communist Party leaders, irrationality results in only death and destruction.

Is there an antidote to all this misery? Yes. Reason and individualism. The mind as a means to life and the individual as the benefactor of his use of reason.

The Mallau Bridge - Poetry In The Skies

I was getting ready to write something about our failing public education system when I caught a program called Extreme Engineering on the Discovery Channel. My mood went from disgust and anxiety over the state of our education system to admiration and excitement over man's accomplishments over nature.

A case in point is the amazing Mallau Viaduct a bridge over the river Tarn in the Massif Central Mountain range which opened on December 17, 2004. This marvel of the 21st century forms the final link in the A75 highway from Paris to Barcelona. It is 2.4 km long and stands 270 meters above the river at its highest point.
French and Spanish technicians and engineers were involved in the building of the bridge. The architect in charge of design was Norman Foster from England. His goal was to create an image of delicate transparency the "delicacy of a butterfly". If these pictures do it any justice he accomplished what he set out to do.

An amazing fact (go to www.roadtraffic-technology.com) is that construction began in October 2001! Think about it. Three years to construct a bridge of this magnitude? Unbelievable.

No cranes were used to hoist sections of the deck because of the 900 m height above the valley floor (at its tallest point). Instead new engineering techniques were used. The seven graceful towers were built first with steel reinforced concrete and then the road way (pre-constructed of high-grade steel instead of concrete in 2,000 pieces at the factory) was put together starting at both ends of the valley until "it met at the center with precision" thanks to GPS alignement, 60 cm at a time.

There is an 18-lane toll station that accommodates technical and administrative services as well and the trip across the bridge costs 5.60 dollars. What a bargain for a shorter and easier drive from Paris to the Mediterranean while experiencing the results of man's daring, technological ingenuity and can-d0 attitude.

The bridge cost was $524 million dollars (all private funds) and 500 men worked permanently at the site.

"A work of man must fuse with nature. The pillars had to look almost organic, like they had grown from the earth" (Norman Foster).

This is what happens when nations (France and Britain in this case) cooperate to achieve a common goal that advances the interests of the individual and of the nation. I can't help and compare this feat to its antithesis. The utter destructiveness and nihilistic results of the Jihadist-terrorists from the Middle East.

Maybe the West should send the people of the Middle East DVDs from the Discovery Channel to show them what the mind of man can create when he seeks to live his life by reason and achievement rather than live his life by death and destruction.