Who wants a Classical Liberal Education?

I did, but never got it. So I've been getting one for myself, in bits and pieces, over the years. Here is one of my latest discoveries:

Classical Rhetoric 101: An Introduction

As many of you know, I read a lot of biographies on the lives of great men from history. The part of a man’s life I enjoy learning about the most is their education. What books did they read as young men that influenced them later on in life? Where did they travel? What classes did they take while at university? I’ll take notes on these things and try to incorporate their favorite books into my reading list or pick-up an audio course at the library that correlates to a subject they studied.

One thing I’ve noticed about my manly heroes is they all took courses in rhetoric at some point during their education. Intrigued by this commonality, I decided to look into why this was so. The answer was simple: rhetoric was an essential part of a liberal education from the days of Aristotle all the way up to the early 20th century. A well-educated man was expected to write and speak effectively and persuasively and students devoted several years to studying how to do so.

But in the early part of the 20th century, a shift in education occurred. Degrees which prepared students for specific careers replaced a classical, liberal arts education. Today’s college students get just a semester of rhetoric training in their Freshman English Composition classes, and these courses often barely skim the subject.

Which is quite unfortunate.

Our economy and society in the West in general are becoming increasingly knowledge and information based; the ability to communicate effectively and persuasively is more essential to success than ever before. Yet we’re spending less and less time teaching our young people the very subject that will help them navigate this new world.

If you’re like many men today, you didn’t spend much time learning about the art of rhetoric growing up. So today we’re beginning a series called Classical Rhetoric 101. Designed to offer the essential basics on the subject, the series will help you bone up on this manly art. We will begin by laying out an argument for why you should be interested in studying rhetoric in the first place. [...]

It goes on to talk about what rhetoric actually is, and the ways you can benefit from studying it. I especially liked "Protects you from intellectual despotism".

This just part of a series, there are links at the bottom of the article to the other parts of the series. Goody! Lots to look forward to.

     

South African President Compares Himself to a Rape Victim

Because of a painting that shows his genitals:

SAfrica: Zuma seeks ban on artwork; vandals hit

JOHANNESBURG — South African President Jacob Zuma and his African National Congress sought a court order Tuesday to have a painting depicting the president's genitals removed from an art gallery but two men took matters into their own hands by defacing the portrait with gobs of paint.

The case pits freedom of expression against the right to dignity, both guaranteed by South Africa's constitution. The painting by Brett Murray went on display in a Johannesburg gallery this month and came to the ANC's attention a week later, after local media reported it had been sold. Zuma, who has a reputation for promiscuity, took the depiction very personally and compared himself to a rape victim. Zuma himself was put on trial for rape, and acquitted, in 2006.

"The portrayal has ridiculed and caused me humiliation and indignity," Zuma contended in an affidavit filed Tuesday with the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg.

[...]

Police spokesman Vish Naidoo said the two unidentified men, aged 58 and 25, are expected to appear in a magistrate's court Thursday on a charge of malicious damage to property.

After the painting was defaced, a third man spray-painted the first three letters of the word "respect" on a wall near the gallery's front gate before he was taken away by police, and Naidoo said he, too, would be charged with malicious damage to property and was likely to appear in court Thursday. The man shouted that the gallery had shown the president disrespect.

Back at the courthouse, more than 100 pro-Zuma protesters gathered outside. One, Donavan Cloete, wore a T-shirt with the slogan: "President Zuma has a right to human dignity and privacy."

"The artist has got his own views on the political situation. He has a right to express himself," Cloete said. "On the other hand, there's got to be a line drawn as to what constitutes satire and what constitutes insult."

But Sophia Morren, a ceramicist who was in the gallery when the painting was defaced, said Zuma had shown little respect for himself. She referred to Zuma's six marriages — he currently has four wives — his 21 children, and his acknowledgment in 2010 that he fathered a child that year with a woman who was not among his wives.

"He's famous for all his women, all his children. I get exactly what the artist is saying," Morren said. "Zuma shouldn't be complaining. Really." [...]

Does anyone really have the right not be be insulted? How can that be compatible with free speech, and freedom of expression? And couldn't any politician claim to be "insulted" by any criticism directed at him/her, and thus use that as justification to silence any political opposition?

It will be interesting to see what the South African Courts do with this. Whatever they decide, will set a precedent.


Also See:

South African gallery closes after controversial work is defaced

Free South Africa... Again
     

Free South Africa... Again

Free it from the South African "State Secrets Act". It sounds like something from the apartheid days, that used to cause "International Outrage":

South Africa passes secrecy bill, opposition: dark day for freedom

South Africa’s parliament passed a law to protect state secrets Tuesday. Opposition parties, labor unions and media companies protested that it limits free speech and stifles efforts to expose corruption.

The ruling African National Congress pushed the Protection of State Information Bill through the parliament by 229 votes to 107. Under this law, anyone revealing a state classified secret would face up to 25 years in jail.

[...]

Critics are concerned that officials will abuse the bill, while the press criticized it as an attempt to silence journalists.

Members of the South African National Editors’ Forum and the Parliamentary Press Gallery Association took to streets in Cape Town.

“We are broken inside,” Mondli Makhanya, editor-in-chief of Avusa Ltd. Newspapers and the chairman of the forum. “We never thought we’d come here dressed in black to actually witness democracy, this constitution of ours, being betrayed.”

Desmond Tutu, the retired Anglican archbishop and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said Monday that the legislation was an insult to South Africans.

The law raised doubts about the South Africa’s commitment to fight corruption. The state’s relationship with the local media has deteriorated as newspapers reported on scandals, including those of President Jacob Zuma.

“Today is a dark day for freedom of expression in South Africa. This fatally flawed bill, which is totally at odds with the South African Constitution, takes us right back to the apartheid-era restrictions on free speech,” said Noel Kututwa, Amnesty International’s deputy director for Africa.

Opposition parties plan to challenge the bill at the Constitutional Court. [...]

Where are the expressions of International Outrage now? How about even an international expression of disapproval? Or even a wimper of concern?

I won't hold my breath waiting.

But I am hoping that the bill will be successfully challenged and defeated.


Also see:

South Africa Passes Law to Restrict Reporting of Government Secrets
     

One Sided "Civility" is really just "Censorship"

Advocate of Violence
Frances Fox Piven and the New York Times's dishonest campaign for "civility."

[...] They may not agree with what you say, but they'll fight to the death for your right to remain silent.

And the New York Times will cheer them on in that fight. Why is a newspaper that has been posturing as the scourge of violent rhetoric now siding with a purveyor of such rhetoric, and blatantly slanting the news as it does so? Because her opponent is a prominent media figure from outside the old media establishment. Because Glenn Beck is a threat to the authority of the New York Times. [...]

Read the details, and weep. Talk about twisting things.

When civility is demanded from only one political side, how is that any different from censorship? Someone please explain it to the NY Times.


Also see:

HEARD OF PROFESSORS CLOWARD AND PIVEN?
     

Leftwing Lunatic threatens to kill Republicans

Man Shot in Tucson Rampage Is Arrested at a TV Taping

I saw this guy, J. Eric Fuller, on TV before he was arrested. He was apologizing to the parents of Jared Loughner, for insulting their son the shooter, who shot him in the knee. Then the next day Fuller's arrested for making death threats to Republicans.

The Left has NOTHING to teach the Right about civil discourse. They don't even really care about that anyway, they just want to use any excuse to silence political opposition, by any means. It's all about tactics to them, not consistency; whatever works in the moment.

If they really wanted civil discourse, they could start by practicing it themselves. I won't hold my breath.
     

What NPR's Vivian Schiller is pushing for

Check out her agenda. She's got BIG plans:

NPR CEO Vivian Schiller Key Architect of FCC Govt Takeover of the News

Last week, National Public Radio CEO Vivian Schiller took a break from her crusade for a government takeover of the media to swat a fly. With now-former NPR analyst Juan Williams suitably splattered across the evening news after politically incorrect comments he made on Fox News, Schiller can return to her real passion – the creation of a national network to ensure that in the future, you get your news from the government in general and NPR in particular.

[...]

Schiller, a former New York Times executive, is one of a few dozen power players working with the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission and a leftist group called Free Press to “reinvent journalism.” That’s how the FTC describes it. The FCC calls what they are doing the “Future of Journalism.” Free Press, a think tank funded by leftist billionaire George Soros, among others, calls it “the new public media.”

It’s all the same thing, a plan to take over local news coverage from for-profit television, radio and print media, which Schiller and her friends claim is in danger of extinction. These “friends” get together regularly with the heads of the FCC and FTC to brainstorm the details in government and congressional meetings. These meetings include the leaders of all the country’s public broadcasting outlets, including PBS, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and American Public Media.

They are beefing up their staffs in local news markets with herds of public news reporters to “take over” coverage as commercial media fails. Nationwide, this will cost $40 billion to $60 billion over a decade, they believe. Their plans, according to the FCC’s Future of Media report, are to raise this money by taxing for-profit news organizations – the ones whose reporting Schiller is supposedly trying to “save.” They want to charge “spectrum fees” of five percent of broadcast station revenues for use of the public spectrum and airwaves, which the government controls. They figure that could bring in $1.8 billion a year. A one percent tax on all electronic devices like cell phones, televisions and laptops could bring in billions more. So would a monthly fee on internet subscriptions.

While conservatives were busy arguing that NPR should be defunded in the wake of the Williams debacle, Schiller was putting the finishing touches on the national infrastructure NPR has launched to deliver this new government news product to cities across the nation. A decade ago, defunding NPR would have sufficed. To stop Schiller now, Republicans would have to defund PBS and CPB as well to have any hope of torpedoing her plans to build a nationwide news delivery system in the style of the BBC, but on steroids. Schiller imagines a national public print, television and radio news leviathan that would compete with the top five news companies in the news industry.

“We can create a national network around all of public radio that provides the kind of public service that is being not provided by other media companies that are suffering,” Schiller told Cyberjournalist.net. Never mind that her planned confiscation of their revenues will cause them more suffering and possibly send them to an early death. [...]

Read the whole thing. Chilling, absolutely chilling. She's actually creating the problem she claims she is trying to solve, then pushing her own power grab as the solution. And why not? She has gotten away with it thus far. Another example of government power gone wild. Once released, it knows no limits.

Creating a government controlled news monopoly with taxpayers money is not what taxes are for. De-fund the lot of them... NOW.


Also see:

Marxist Censorship Dreams, and the FCC
     

How to silence your critics: A tax on bloggers?

Yes. In Philadelpha, it's happening:

Philadelphia tax fever: Bloggers get hit

The Founding Fathers must be rolling in their graves. In Philadelphia, home of the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, the city government has proposed smacking bloggers — our generation’s pamphleteers — with a $300 business tax. Yes, they are now requiring a license for Internet activists and hobbyists to exercise their free speech. [...]

Read the whole thing. They want to require blogs to have a business license, whether they make money or not, because blogs have the potential to make money, if they offer advertising.

Whatever happened to "free speech"? Remember free speech? The 1st Amendment? Is it soon to be nothing more than a relic of the past?


Also see:

Marxist Censorship Dreams, and the FCC

How much longer will our Republic last?
     

Federalize the news industry? To what ends?

Will journalists wake up in time to save journalism from Obama's FTC?

[...] Those in the administration who clearly view independent journalism as an obstacle to "change we can believe in" and their numerous allies in the old media, non-profit, and academic communities who either share a similar ideological vision or see the FTC process as their salvation against the Internet, will no doubt dismiss my assertions as extemism or alarmism.

Fine, call me whatever, but what they cannot deny is what is clearly written in the FTC document and what it reveals about the intention behind the initiative, which is to transform the news industry from an information product collected by private individuals and entrepreneurs as a service to private buyers, to a government-regulated public utility providing a "public good," as defined and regulated by government.

The authors hide this dangerous intention behind carefully worded expressions of concern for preserving "quality journalism" and "addressing emerging gaps in reporting," and they rationalize their proposed approach of massive government intervention in the news process as simply an extension of what government has always done via postal subsidies, tax breaks, and so forth.

Jeff Jarvis, a veteran of the old media and a pioneer of the Internet-based new media with his Buzz Machine blog, provides a thorough analysis of what the FTC is considering and explicates the dangerous consequences that will follow.

[...]

Conservative journalists will do well not to roll their eyes impatiently with liberal colleagues who don't understand that government always expands its control over any activity it either funds or regulates, and therefore must be limited at every level to well-defined, narrowly circumscribed powers that only it can fulfill, as was done by the U.S. Constitution.

Better to explain yet again that the original intention of the Founders with respect to the media - "Congress shall make no law respecting ... the freedom of the press" - is the key to saving independent journalism.

Then we must remind them that the adversarial relationship that is supposed to exist between journalists and public officials must apply no matter who those public officials might be or what political party or ideological school of thought they represent.

Elected officials' first thought is always about re-election, while career government workers' is job security. A journalist's first thought is supposed to be getting the facts.

To that end, we're supposed to be adversaries, not co-conspirators, partners, favored "stakeholders," or beneficiaries. That's why the Constitution made us independent.

Read the details. What this FTC document says. Unbelievable. If we allow this, if we let it happen, then we deserve what we get.


Also see:

Seizing The News Business
     

Today is Draw Mohammed Day

More details here:

Dhimmitude and Draw Mohammed Day


Also see:

The Lying Danish Imams
Should be Put to DEATH... according to Islam!

The American Main Stream Media
and the Danish Cartoons

Do we need a "Star Wars" strategy for Islam?

"It's in the Koran", the explanation of The Song by that title.

Will Turkey bring Islam into the 21st century?

Mohammed Image Archive: Depictions of Mohammed Throughout History
     

Is there a "right to not be offended"? NO.

Google apologizes for results of 'Michelle Obama' image search

(CNN) -- For most of the past week, when someone typed "Michelle Obama" in the popular search engine Google, one of the first images that came up was a picture of the American first lady altered to resemble a monkey.

On Wednesday morning, the racially offensive image appeared to have been removed from any Google Image searches for "Michelle Obama."

Google officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

[...]

The California-based company then explained that search results rely on computer algorithms that take into account thousands of factors.

"The beliefs and preferences of those who work at Google, as well as the opinions of the general public, do not determine or impact our search results," it said.

The company said that the integrity of its search results is extremely important.

"Accordingly, we do not remove a page from our search results simply because its content is unpopular or because we receive complaints concerning it."

A user alerted Google to the picture via an online help forum two weeks ago.

The altered image can be found here, although clicking on this link will take users to a photo that many will find offensive.

The Internet was abuzz Tuesday and Wednesday with reaction to the image. Some online users demanded that the photo be blocked, while others said it should remain on free speech grounds.

"There is no way to defend this heinous incident," said a Twitter user who gave his name as Alheli Picazo of Calgary, Canada. "People often claim their right to free speech to mask blatant racism and insulting bigotry and always seem to get away with it," he told CNN via e-mail. "When it comes to issues of discrimination, hiding behind free speech just doesn't cut it."

A Twitter user who gave his name as Jerry Wright of Hoboken, New Jersey, disagreed.

"I am absolutely disgusted by this picture, but the Internet has thousands and thousands of offensive images. Should Google get rid of all of them? Where do you draw the line," he asked CNN via e-mail.

In 2004, Google posted a similar note of apology when a search for "Jew" pulled up anti-Semitic sites as top results. [...]

I followed the link to the image, and from there, to the site that posted it. The person who posted it there said said:

WTF IS THIS? MICHELLE OBAMA AS AN APE HUH?

[...] ***Ed. Note***

Over the last few months, we’ve received a LOT of feedback from readers regarding this picture. And I wanted to be clear on a few things.

We DID NOT generate this photo. It was seen on another site (www.Celerbtityapes.com) and as with all of our other posts, we reported on it.

We will NOT be removing this picture because this is a story, and it our policy NOT to remove stories based on anything but editorial error. If you choose to visit the source site, you will see that this picture WAS NOT created out of racially motivated ignorance. Had that have been the case, as a journalist, an American and most importantly, a Black woman, I would have NEVER posted it.

I appreacite your feedback. Thank you.

I agree with the editor. People can have whatever opinions they like about it, and express them too, but there in no reason to remove it. Free speech is about free speech, not preserving people's comfort zones.

There is no right to "not be offended". I see things every day that offend me. I don't expect the world to conform to me; that's completely unrealistic. Duh.

How many altered pictures of Laura Bush have I seen, obscene, pornographic, vulgar and hateful? Too many to count. I've developed a great technique for dealing with such rubbish; I ignore it! Fortunately it's a wonderful, easy to lean technique that can be mastered by anyone.

Who gets to decide what is acceptable and what isn't? In a free society, WE do, each one of us, for ourselves. I wouldn't have it any other way. And I'm offended by anyone who thinks they have the right to decide for me what is acceptable!
     

Marxist Censorship Dreams, and the FCC

This makes the threat of the "fairness doctrine" look like nothing. This so-called "Government Broadband Plan" may actually be a first step in setting the stage for the governmental usurpation of all private media:

Diversity Czar Lloyd and Marxist McChesney's Censorship Dream: The FCC's Plan for Government Broadband

The Wall Street Journal's intrepid and very good Amy Schatz has a piece today updating us on the progress of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s National Broadband Plan.

With all that we have thus far seen, things look quite grim from a free speech, free market perspective. The groundwork for government information totalitarianism - favored by people like Hugo Chavez-loving FCC "Diversity Czar" Mark Lloyd and Marxist "media reform"-outfit Free Press founder Robert McChesney - is being laid in the Plan being crafted by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.

As we first reported, the Center for American Progress (at which Lloyd was then a Senior Fellow) and McChesney's Free Press co-authored the deeply flawed, anti-conservative and Christian talk radio "report" entitled The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio.

But their shared disdain for free speech and the free market extend way beyond just this. These "media reformers" seek to eradicate most or all private ownership of all information delivery - be it by radio, television or the internet - thereby leaving the federal government as sole purveyor. [...]

If that sounds alarmist to you, then you need to read the rest. See what Lloyd and McChesney have actually said. Dang! Marxist is certainly NOT too strong a word. It's absolutely frightening to think what these people would try to do, to subvert the FCC for their purposes.

The source article also has embedded links.


Also see:

How much longer will our Republic last?

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government"
 
   

How much longer will our Republic last?

How committed is the Obama Administration to supporting Free Speech and upholding the American Constitution? It's awful to even have to ask that, but actions indicate we must:

Caesar Obama

The chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Rocco Landesman, provoked ridicule when he said last week that "Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar." He didn't mean that Barack Obama is a literary titan who doth bestride the narrow world like a colossus while petty men like Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Tolstoy walk under his huge legs and peep about to find ourselves dishonourable graves. But what he did mean, while no less fatuous, is also disquieting in its implications: for the first time, the United States of America has a president whose supporters talk about him in the same effusive and worshipful tones usually reserved for the likes of Stalin, Mao, and Kim Jong Il.

[...]

At a time when the Obama Administration is relentlessly demonizing dissenting voices and manifesting a shaky (at best) commitment to the freedom of speech, this is hardly a reassuring message to send. It demonstrates once again this Administration’s utter tone deafness and apparent indifference to genuine concerns about its commitment to core principles of the U.S. Constitution – witness Nancy Pelosi’s incredulous response of “are you serious?” to a questioner who asked her about the Constitutionality of nationalizing health care. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has declared her opposition to attempts at the United Nations to criminalize “defamation of religions” – that is, to make it illegal to speak about the motives and goals of Islamic jihad terrorists. Yet the Obama Administration is sending decidedly mixed signals about its commitment to free speech. Several weeks ago the Obama Administration actually co-sponsored an anti-free speech resolution at the United Nations. Approved by the U.N. Human Rights Council on October 2, the resolution, cosponsored by the U.S. and Egypt, calls on states to condemn and criminalize “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.”

Yet “incitement” and “hatred” are in the eye of the beholder — or more precisely, in the eye of those who make such determinations. The powerful can decide to silence the powerless by classifying their views as “hate speech.” And now the President of the United States has given his imprimatur to this tyranny. [...]

As our government continues to assume more and more powers and controls that it has been previously denied, and it's members fail to uphold the Constitution they have sworn to honor and defend, we must ask, where is this going, and where will this power-grab stop? WILL it stop?

The Cold War Never Ended

It is now almost twenty years since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. But did it really end, and did we win it? Look at the situation in Europe today, where many of the former Communist countries in the eastern half of Europe are freer and safer than many of those in the western half of Europe. Instead of an Iron Curtain we now have an Iron Veil of Multiculturalism, and Western Europe is on the wrong side of it this time around. Did we trade the USSR for the EUSSR? If we really "beat" Marxism, how come Marxists and Leftists of all stripes virtually control Western media and academia a generation later, and why does the USA have a Marxist-inspired President Obama? [...]

Marxist ideology never left us. It just goes under different names and uses different methods now. Including "Hope and Change", and an increasingly Imperial US Congress.


Also see:

Dems "Not concerned" about the Constitution?
     

Iran and the internet: The Mouse That Roared

Not only roar, but "twitter" too! Iran's tech-savy youth have taken full advantage of the internet to organize and communicate during this uprising of protest.

Iran's Twitter Revolution

Forget CNN or any of the major American "news" networks. If you want to get the latest on the opposition protests in Iran, you should be reading blogs, watching YouTube or following Twitter updates from Tehran, minute-by-minute. [...]

If you read the whole thing, it has a link to a list of Iranian bloggers who are on the scene and reporting in.

Pat told me over dinner that Twitter was supposed to shut down to do some maintenance to their servers, but they postponed that because the Iranians are relying on the service so heavily right now.

When Twitter first became available, I didn't think much of it. "What's it FOR? Of what practical use is it?" I thought. Well, I guess I have my answer now.



EDITORIAL: Iran's Twitter revolution

[...] Tehran's authoritarian leaders clearly were caught off-guard. They had managed to take down the telephone system opposition supporters used for texting but for some reason were slow to eliminate other social media. As open defiance of the election results broke out, citizen journalists used new media to spread the word. And the whole Web was watching.

Iran is a highly computer-literate society with a large number of bloggers and hackers. The hackers in particular were active in helping keep channels open as the regime blocked them, and they spread the word about functioning proxy portals. Hackers also reportedly took down Mr. Ahmadinejad's Web site in an act of cyberdisobedience.

The immediacy of the reports was gripping. Well-developed Twitter lists showed a constant stream of situation updates and links to photos and videos, all of which painted a portrait of the developing turmoil. Digital photos and videos proliferated and were picked up and reported in countless external sources safe from the regime's Net crackdown. Eventually the regime started taking down these sources, and the e-dissidents shifted to e-mail. The only way to completely block the flow of Internet information would have been to take the entire country offline, a move the regime apparently has resisted thus far.

There seems to be no shortage of video cameras in Iran. The footage that has emerged is raw, unedited and dramatic. [...]

The videos are dramatic, and plentiful. This is a real 21st century uprising. Perhaps evolving into a revolution? We shall see.
     

We must abandon the principle of free speech

WHAT!?! If we want to reconcile with Islam, that is what we must do, according to some Islamist "authorities". American writer Joshua Trevino at the Brussel's Journal has the details:

Too Good to Win. Is the West Losing the War?

[...] Last week, I returned from the Third International Conference on the Muslim World and the West in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The aim of the conference was to “bridge the gap,” as they put it, between the Muslim world and the West.

Now, this seems like a worthy thing. Surely we of the West ought to find our common ground with the Muslim world, and vice versa. Surely there is common ground to be found. Surely the problems between us are predominantly problems of understanding and comprehension… and surely they are solvable with a little goodwill.

I admit to having been a bit dismayed when, at a pre-conference interview, the chairman — a Columbia University alumnus named Imam Feisal Rauf — told me that Muslim violence was “predominantly” the fault of Westerners. Nonetheless, I soldiered on in the belief that we could — how to put it? — bridge the gap.

To say that the luminaries of the conference disappointed my hopes is to understate things. But to say that that were luminous is to be perfectly accurate. I’ll just name three of the most prominent and powerful:

• Secretary-General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Ekmeleddin Ihsanouglu of Turkey.
• Former Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.
• His Royal Highness Prince Turki bin Faisal al Saud, former director of Saudi intelligence, and until recently the Saudi Ambassador to the United States.

These men are educated… well traveled… experienced… wealthy… and Westernized. And each of them told the conference that for the West and Islam to reconcile, the West must abandon the principle of free speech. [...]

(bold emphasis mine) Josh give the details of what they said, and it's shocking. It's bad enough that the whole conference was like that. But even worse, all the representatives from the West who were invited to speak agreed with them! Josh speculated about that:

[...] The deputy speaker of the French National Assembly was there, as was a Spanish ambassador, an Australian MP, and various other mostly European functionaries. Every single one of them accepted the demand for an end to free speech without complaint.

We might call this the mindset of the quisling. Or, to invoke the opposite side of that historical allusion, we might say that they merely adhere to Winston Churchill’s admonition that “it is better to jaw-jaw than to war-war.”

There is tremendous wisdom in Churchill’s statement — but to take it at face value is to ignore that the man himself would not “jaw-jaw” with simply anyone, on any terms. This, after all, is a man for whom Mohandas Gandhi was deemed a morally unfit interlocutor. (I believe Churchill was right on this, but that’s for another speech.) Churchill rightly understood that to talk with someone in the absence of conditions gives some measure of moral sanction to that person.

For Churchill, to sit down with Hitler on equal terms, conceding from the start the legitimacy of the Nazi’s desires, was to lose the battle before it began. [...]

Churchill wasn't a fool, and we would do well to follow his example. And lest you think this is merely a Muslim bashing article, it's not. Josh does not agree that these attitudes represent the whole of the Islamic world. He maintains that we must not accept the "logic" that our freedom is responsible for Islamic terror, and insists that we have an obligation, to ourselves and the Islamic world, to stand up and defend our freedom. He ends the article with an explanation of why he became a Republican at the tender age of nine. Way to go, I say.
     

When you can't debate, restrict your opponent

This is what the left does all the time. They can't advance their ideas through debate because they won't hold up to scrutiny. So they try to control the terms of the debate, to prevent their opponent from actually debating. Rich Lowry at Townhall.com gives us a perfect example of this, with Obama's campaign:

The Obama Rules

[...] After his blowout win in North Carolina last week, Obama turned to framing the rules of the general election ahead, warning in his victory speech of "efforts to distract us." The chief distracter happens to be the man standing between Obama and the White House, John McCain, who will "use the very same playbook that his side has used time after time in election after election."

[...]

Forget "bitter"; Obama must believe that most Americans suffer from an attention-deficit disorder so crippling that they can't concentrate on their own interests or values.

Obama has an acute self-interest in so diagnosing the American electorate. His campaign knows he's vulnerable to the charge of being an elitist liberal. Unable to argue the facts, it wants to argue the law -- defining his weaknesses as off-limits.

The campaign can succeed in imposing these rules on the race only if the news media cooperate.

[...]

Here are the Obama rules in detail: He can't be called a "liberal" ("the same names and labels they pin on everyone," as Obama puts it); his toughness on the war on terror can't be questioned ("attempts to play on our fears"); his extreme positions on social issues can't be exposed ("the same efforts to distract us from the issues that affect our lives" and "turn us against each other"); and his Chicago background too is off-limits ("pouncing on every gaffe and association and fake controversy"). Besides that, it should be a freewheeling and spirited campaign.

Democrats always want cultural issues not to matter because they are on the least-popular side of many of them, and want patriotic symbols like the Pledge of Allegiance and flag pins to be irrelevant when they can't manage to nominate presidential candidates who wholeheartedly embrace them (which shouldn't be that difficult). As for "fear" and "division," they are vaporous pejoratives that can be applied to any warning of negative consequences of a given policy or any political position that doesn't command 100 percent assent. In his North Carolina speech, Obama said the Iraq War "has not made us safer," and that McCain's ideas are "out of touch" with "American values." How fearfully divisive. [...]

Lowry goes on to say that we could take these rules by Obama in good faith, if Obama also applied them to the way the talks about John McCain. But does Obama follow his own rules? Or do they only apply to John McCain and Republicans? Read the whole thing and find out.

Extremists deplore the threat of humor

From A. Millar at the Brussels Journal:

Modern Britain: No Laughing Matter

[...] Political correctness has cowed society and politics, and trodden down common sense and humor. Unlike the defiant, bawdy Brit of the past, today he thinks before he speaks, running through the list of forbidden words, and making sure not to let one slip. And so much now is taboo. The English Democrats Party is under investigation for racism, for using the term, “tartan tax,” a student was arrested for calling a police horse “gay,” and, if you need to see the proof of such extreme “politically correct” intolerance, a Youtube video showing a young man being arrested for singing, “I’d rather wear a turban” (deemed racist by the arresting officer), can be seen here.

A common language is one of the traditional, defining marks of a nation, and the criminalization of words will have a very profound consequence for the British. Though rarely acknowledged as such, humor is another defining mark, and one that makes use of the nation’s language in particular ways that relies on the audience having a good general knowledge of culture, history, and politics. Notably, Voltaire once commented that tragedies could be translated from one tongue to another, but that comedies could not. Anyone wishing to grasp the English comedy would need to, “spend three years in London, to make yourself master of the English tongue, and to frequent the playhouse every night,” he suggested.

Political correctness has changed British politics and society, the latter of which has been famed for its ability to laugh at itself – an ability that has certainly helped to keep it free and democratic. Extremists – whether of the fascist, politically correct, or Islamic type – are united in their suspicion – even rejection – of humor. Humor shows them for what they really are. [...]

The article goes on to give more examples. The author laments that things that are solemn court cases now, would have been laughed at as material for a comedy sketch 10 years ago. It would have been inconceivable that such things would be taken seriously with the force of law. What has happened in that 10 years? I explored that question in a prior post:

Can political correctness destroy a nation?

The question is important, if only to prevent it from ever happening here. I watch with interest, and horror, as it continues to unfold there.
     

Can political correctness destroy a nation?

Great Britain is a good contemporary example. For years, creeping political correctness has been making inroads there, much as it has here in the USA. But over the last several years it's gotten really ugly and scary.

From A. Millar at the Brussels Journal:

Forty Years On: Sleepwalking Toward the Tiber’s Edge

[...] History repeats itself, yes; but history does not repeat itself as we might expect. Today, we are obsessively fighting the last war. Everyone’s enemy is a “racist” and a “fascist.” These terms are invoked by the far-Left, Jack Straw, David Cameron, and even the B.N.P., to describe their opponents. Yet at the same time we see an extreme ideology spilling out from politics and becoming increasing absorbed by the judiciary, police, schools, local councils, etc., all against the common sense of the public. And we also see a rapidly expanding Islamic militancy, occasionally becoming linked to public figures such as Ken Livingstone, and, consequently, accepted by the public.

Free speech – which has been so horribly eroded in Britain – was meant to guard against extremism and the persecution of both individuals and larger groups because of the establishment of some dubious ideology. Today, it would appear, that prosecutions for hate speech are based not on what is said but who is speaking. Protests in support of al-Qaeda are deemed free speech, as is downloading terrorist material and discussing the validity and possibility of carrying out terrorist attacks. Similarly, as think tanks such as the Centre for Social Cohesion and CIVITAS have said, Britain’s governmental and judicial establishments have failed to tackle honor crime, with police, councils, and teachers afraid of being branded racist if they make any attempt.

[...]

Today we are faced with a “multiculturalism” that has eroded British culture and the constant drumbeat of racial “equality” that treats people not as human beings but mere racial blocks. As Rageh Omaar has said in an op-ed piece on Powell’s so-called “Rivers of Blood” speech for The Daily Mail, “Instead of multi-culturalism, we are getting tribalisation,”

[...}

We have reached a point, then, at which racially or culturally distinct ghettos – the unfortunate results of long-term multiculturalism – are mirrored at both lower and higher levels of government and party politics. Moreover, if some young Muslims are surfing the net, and finding inspiration in al-Qaeda and websites peddling Islamic radicalism, so too do we see a similar phenomenon at government level, with, for example, Livingstone now having gained the support of suicide bombing apologist Dr Azzam Tamimi – which he has not rejected. It is remarkable to think that not only Muslims, but Muslim extremists, are now playing an important, if not decisive, role in British politics. Yet, it is not difficult to imagine that Britain fifty years from now will have a political reality not entirely unlike that of Lebanon’s today. We must hope that it does not take the same sort of upheaval – such as Powell predicted for a multicultural Britain – to get there, but such a hope seems to be fading. Two thirds of the residents of Britain now believe immigration will lead to violence. [...]

(bold emphasis mine) The article gives many examples of how even the mere accusation of "racism" is used with the force of law to stifle free speech and debate on a multitude of issues, at every level of society.

As "identity politics" grows stronger, so does political correctness and it's concomitant restrictions on free speech. When it dominates as a political force, assimilation stops, and "multiculturalism" becomes more like "tribalism", dividing people and destroying a unifying national identity. This weakens the people as a whole, and is the first step in conquering and controlling them.

Am I mistaken, or did this really start to get very bad in Britain in 1997, when they passed a law making private ownership of handguns illegal for citizens? Crime went up by two thirds, and everything else seemed to start going to shit real fast. If that ever happens in the USA, I believe it will be the beginning of the end.

An unarmed population is completely dependent on government for protection, and must live to serve the government, instead of the government existing to serve them. Read the whole article for the horrific details; there is a lesson in it for us all.


Related Links:

Political Correctness — The Revenge of Marxism

Did Tony Blair advance a "Culture of Lies"?

What is the Nature of Multiculturalism?

Our Culture, What’s Left Of It


About British gun laws:

England and Gun Control --- Moral Decline of an Empire

RESULTS ARE IN ON BRITISH GUN LAWS

Britain’s Gun-Control Folly
     

Democrat Politicians openly advance their Thought Police Agenda: Silence the opposition

It's the tactic of those who know they can't win through debate and persuasion. Tammy Bruce comments on local government attacks from the left on San Francisco Talk radio host Mike Savage, and Federal government attacks from the left on Radio host Rush Limbaugh:

Democrats Descend into Soros Gestapo Sewer

[...] Make no mistake, I am no fan of Savage, and I consider Limbaugh, as many do, a water-carrier for President Bush, but this is obviously wrong on a multitude of levels. On one hand you have government attempting to intimidate public voices into silence because they do not like a political message. Hugo Chavez is engaging in this very activity in Venezuela with the shutting down of televisions stations he does not like to silence their independent message.

Principles and values are simply slogans when applied only when convenient, or to situations with which we agree.

Nihilistic leftists like George Soros and those who run his sewerline Media Matters know their message anti-American message of socialistic hopelessness will never survive in America if we have avenues where the issues can be freely discussed, out from under their dead hand.

This is nothing new, however. My first book, The New Thought Police, illustrated this tactic and warned of the American left's incresing reliance on fascist theory and application.

See the attacks on Savage, O'Reilly and Limbaugh for what they are--frantic fascist efforts to demonize those who cannot be intimidated into silence. It is an effort by a bunch of Malignant Narcissists to shut down open public discourse before the 2008 presidential election. [...]

(bold emphasis mine) If you read the whole thing, it has links and quotes from articles about the attacks.

I've read Tammy's book "The New Thought Police", and she knows of what she speaks. The Democrats seem hell bent on advancing their Thought Police Agenda. They HAVE to. Their ideas can't survive open debate, so the solution is to prevent debate from happening. Silence your oppositon using any means possible. It's the favorite tool of fascists everywhere.


From Pat at Born Again Redneck:

Wednesday wisdom roundup
Women's voting patterns, Jesus, American Culture and Fred Thompson. Don't miss it!
     

Hanging in Iran

Not hanging around or hanging out, but actually being hanged...


Hanging is the most common form of execution in Iran. Group hangings are prefered in urban areas, where they can get the most visibility. Can you imagine being out on your lunch break one day, or commuting to work, or on your way to do shopping or anything, and passing by this scene? How would you feel? Imagine living in a culture where this is "normal"...


Too often I have marveled at the new uses Muslims find for the everyday technologies many of us use daily. Muslims turn passenger planes into flying suicide bombs, cell phones into remote controls for detonating bombs, and here, they use the simple construction crane as an execution device.

But why not use a gallows? The cranes have special advantages over a gallows or trap door drop, that many other countries use. A sudden drop like is used with a trap door, breaks the neck of the person being executed, and they loose consciousness immediately.

By using a crane, the loss of consciousness in avoided. The crane allows the person to be lifted up slowly, so they strangle as they dangle. The hands are tied behind their backs, but the feet are left free to kick, as the person slowly strangles and suffocates. The strangulation part takes about 3 minutes. The whole execution from beginning to end takes about 25 minutes.

This group was four men and one woman. I read that this young woman (age 23?) was lashed 80 times first.

Why were they being hanged? They were alleged to be drug traffickers. But do we know that for certain? There are many claims that dissidents are often falsely accused of crimes and executed, without a fair trial. What passes for a trial is sometimes nothing more than two minutes of questioning by a Mullah. No defense attorney, no jury.

I read that over the past several years, the amount of public hangings has been rising, and may even be in the hundreds per year. You can only wonder at how such spectacles affect people, the society as a whole.

Do they get used to it? Do they become desensitized? Here are pictures from another hanging of three men. Here are the onlookers:


It's quite a crowd. All men. What are they thinking?

Not everyone is so stoical. This guy seems upset:



Is he watching a friend or family member about to be hanged?





The other men are noosed...



And the deed is done...



One of the most notorious executions in Iran occurred in 2004, with the hanging of 16 year old Ateqeh Rajabi. She was hanged for "engaging in acts incompatible with chastity".

The details of her personal story are tragic. She was abused by men from an early age, and had no one to defend her.

She had no defense attorney. In court she took off her headscarf and addressed the judge, hurling insults at him and telling him he should be DEFENDING her, not attacking her. This so infuriated the local judge, Haji Reza, that he personally saw to it that she received the death sentence.

I read that she publicly repented, crying for her life, right before being hanged; and that under Islamic law, her repentance should have led to a postponement of her execution and a reconsideration of her sentence. But the judge would have none of that. He personally placed the noose around her neck, and gave the order for the crane to be lifted.

After the execution, "judge" Reza boasted that the girl was not put to death for her crime, but for her "sharp tongue". The court published the girls age as 22, even though her birth certificate and her national I.D. card show that she was only 16. Her hanging has caused a shockwave in Iran, as almost no one believes she deserved the sentence she received.

The Mullah's are a law unto themselves. Can you imagine what whey would do with nuclear weapons?

Sources/Related links:

The Most Wanted Mullahs In Response To 16 Year Old Girl

The Public Hanging of a Sixteen Year Old Girl in Iran

Why the Mullahs Murdered Atefeh Rajabi

American Barbarian: Iran hangs a girl from a crane, world yawns...

Public hanging: a street show in Iran

holycrime.com


UPDATE 8-03-07:

As mass public hangings in Iran continue to increase, so do videos of them that have been smuggled out of the country:

Hangings in Iran increase, to silence dissent


UPDATE 2-15-11:

Years later, the hangings still continue, with a vengeance:

Sadistic Mullahcracy in action - a mass hanging in Iran

Iran Hanging One Person Every 12 Hours

The Teheran regime has hanged 66 individuals since the end of 2010, according to France 24 International News.

Among them was a 46-year-old Iranian-born, Dutch national Sahra Bahrami, who was hung on January 29 on drug-smuggling charges.

Holland’s Foreign Ministry said it was “shocked, shattered by this act by a barbaric regime,” according to Agence France Presse.

Bahrami’s sister dismissed the Iranian charges, which she contended were fabricated.

“She doesn’t even smoke cigarettes, let alone possessing drugs. How could someone who participates in election gatherings and endangers her life, engage in such actions against her country?” she is quoted as telling the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.

“I am bewildered as to how my client’s death sentence was issued while her security charges had not yet been reviewed,” Bahrami’s attorney said after her death.

The Hague froze relations with Iran in the wake of the killing.

Iranian officials arrested Bahrami during anti-government protests in 2009, and held her on “security charges.” She had been visiting Iran to see her relatives.

Catherine Ashton, The European Union’s representative in talks with Iran over their nuclear program, said “Executions are taking place at an alarming rate.” [...]

Read the rest. They are hanging political dissidents, on trumped up charges, without trial. Why didn't the White House support the Iranian Uprising, the way they recently did with Egypt? That was a missed opportunity. The Iranian protesters are now being killed for it.

Radio Netherlands will begin broadcasting news bulletins to Iran in the Farsi language, in response to Sahra Bahrami's execution.