Secular culture:God, the French and the Scottish

Paul Belien in his post "The Closing of Civilization in Europe" contends that Europes problems are self-inflicted, and that they stem from following the French Enlightenment, as opposed to the Scottish Enlightenment. An excerpt:

Europe’s current problems are entirely self-inflicted. This does not mean, however, that the result will be less catastrophic. By subverting the roots of its own Judeo-Christian culture – a process that started with the French Enlightenment (as opposed to the Scottish Enlightenment, which was not anti-religious) – a religious and cultural vacuum was created at the heart of European civilization. The collapse of faith in its own values has, not surprisingly, led to a demographic collapse because a civilization that no longer believes in its own future also rejects procreation. Today, a new religion and culture is supplanting the old one. There is little one can do about it, but hope for a miracle.

America’s immigration problems pale in comparison with what confronts Europe. America’s major ethnic minorities – Blacks as well as Hispanics – are Christian, while the meanstream culture is also rooted in Christianity. In Europe a secularized post-Christian culture is facing a Muslim one. The secularized culture is hedonist and values only its present life, because it does not believe in an afterlife. This is why it will surrender when threatened with death because life is the only thing it has to lose. This is why it will accept submission without fighting for its freedom. Nobody fights for the flag of hedonism, not even the hedonists themselves.

One could also put it in a slightly different way: Europe lacks what America still has, namely the so-called “conservative reserves,” or as the German sociologist Arnold Gehlen explained over 30 years ago, “the reserves in national energy and self-confidence, primitiveness and generosity, wealth and potential of every kind.”...

(bold emphasis mine) In another post, "Anti-Jihad Manifesto Misses the Point", Belien again speaks about European anti-religious secularism, as advocated by European socialists and communists, regarding an Anti-Jihad Manifesto:

...History in the past century, however, has clearly indicated that those fighting for an “egalitarian” world were the most “liberticidal” of all. Freedom is the right to live “unegalitarianly.” This is why The Brussels Journal defends the right of individuals – though not of the state – to “discriminate” (which, by the way, contrary to what the manifesto implies, is not the same as “oppress”). Indeed, it is no coincidence that the manifesto avoids referring to “Socialism” (and even “Communism”) among the scourges of the past century and prefers to speak of “Nazism” and Stalinism” instead. Half the manifesto’s signatories are probably Socialists, which explains why the manifesto obfuscates the secular, Socialist roots of these scourges.

While in America a cultural war is going on between “blue” (liberal) and “red” (conservative), the cultural war in Europe is a three-way war between the European equivalent of the American “blue” (socialist), the European equivalent of the American “red” (conservative, though Europeans often use the term “liberal”) and Muslims. I prefer to refer to the first group as “secularist” (although I realise this is a generalization and many Christians belong to these “secularists,” including – unfortunately – most of our bishops and priests) and to the second group as “Christian” (although many agnostics belong to it). The reason why I make this distinction is because the second group is prepared to acknowledge the importance of the cultural traditions of the West, rooted in the Judeo-Christian values without which classical-liberalism could never have evolved...

It's taken me a while to understand the subtle distinction he's been trying to explain. The secularism which evolved from the French Enlightenment rejects religious faith, and instead embraces socialism and communism. It leaves a religious cultural vacuum, which makes space for Islam, which is both a religion and a political movement.

...The battle that is being waged today is a battle between those who defend the right of individuals against the right of collectivities.

The Islamists and the secularists (including the priests and bishops among them) have more in common than the Islamists and the Christians (including the agnostics among them), because the latter acknowledge that at the heart of Christianity is the individual with his individual responsibility before God. Without Christianity, individual responsibility would not have become the centre of European civilization. It was the French Revolution that jeopardized this tradition and that became the root of collectivism, with its socialist, fascist, national-socialist and communist excesses. From this perspective even Jihadism is more a child of secularism than of religion.

What European secularists (communists, socialists) have in common with the Islamist jihadists is a totalitarian world view. The former rejects religion, the later embraces it, but both share the idea of control, not freedom of choice.

In another post I made recently, I quoted excerpts from an article by George Handlery, which also acknowleged the differences inherent in the ideas of the Scottish Enlightenment, as opposed to the French Enlightenment:

...the success of Western Civilization and of its derivates can be attributed to the triumph of reason over irrationality in the course of its development. This process had its modest beginnings in the Middle Ages (at the outset of which Europe had a “traditional civilization,” meaning that it resembled all other previous and contemporary cultures). The movement then accelerated, and so it transformed its original environment through the Enlightenment and the eras that followed it. All through this there evolved a parallel and contrary trend. Its modern phase harks back to Rousseau. It continued with the “racialists” and scored with the Leninist version of Marxism and National Socialism as well as Fascism...

...When I came to Americain 1956, a theme of a US History course that I attended greatly impressed me. Keen to know what makes societies, especially the American one, successful the insights were stunning. Briefly, the great decisions were mostly the product of a compromise issuing from strength. It became possible because, through a rational discourse the better, most convincing argument could prevail. The losers who still had some input on the course chartered have not lost everything: nor were they “liquidated” to realize a utopia...

The ideas of the French Enlightenment embrace atheism and collectivism, and work to undermine Western cultural values such as individual freedom and sovereignty, and even rational argument and debate; what need do totalitarians have of such things? Islamism has this totalitarian view in common with european atheistic secularism. In fact, many of the ideas of the French Enlightenment have influenced Muslim leaders of the Islamism movement in the past century.

The difference between secularism that excludes God, and secularism that allows God, is the difference between the French Revolution and the American Revolution. One leads to totalitarianism, the other leads to freedom. I think the distinction is important to make.


Related links:

Scottish Enlightenment

Jean-Jacques Rousseau    French Revolution

Romanticism    Counter Enlightenment

 

Iran, Western Weakness andthe Cult of Inconsistency

Hat tip to Cox and Forkum for the cartoon. You can read their related commentary and links HERE.

There is an article at the Brussels Journal blog called "The Rebellion Against Reason and the Cult of Inconsistency." It's about the west trying to deal with Iran and their desire for nuclear weapons, but at the begining of the article, it first lays the groundwork for understanding what the nature of the problem is, which is what George Handlery calls the cult of inconsistancy. An excerpt:

Arguably, the success of Western Civilization and of its derivates can be attributed to the triumph of reason over irrationality in the course of its development. This process had its modest beginnings in the Middle Ages (at the outset of which Europe had a “traditional civilization,” meaning that it resembled all other previous and contemporary cultures). The movement then accelerated, and so it transformed its original environment through the Enlightenment and the eras that followed it. All through this there evolved a parallel and contrary trend. Its modern phase harks back to Rousseau. It continued with the “racialists” and scored with the Leninist version of Marxism and National Socialism as well as Fascism.

Those who can go along with this rudimentary sketch might agree that in the last century the counter trend grew stronger. So much so that its representatives have almost prevailed in the global struggle they caused. Although these systems seem to have been defeated, the use of the conditional suggests that the dominance of rationality is not assured. When I came to Americain 1956, a theme of a US History course that I attended greatly impressed me. Keen to know what makes societies, especially the American one, successful the insights were stunning. Briefly, the great decisions were mostly the product of a compromise issuing from strength. It became possible because, through a rational discourse the better, most convincing argument could prevail. The losers who still had some input on the course chartered have not lost everything: nor were they “liquidated” to realize a utopia. (This is not to insinuate that “Ausradieren” had not brought about lasting solutions.)

Nowadays the tradition of applying reason to find the best path leading to reasonable goals is being threatened. Worse, the patient polishing of positions while striving to evaluate ways and means regardless of where the conclusion might take one, is frowned upon. Just think of how the rational is depicted as “insensitive” and how facts that challenge someone’s doctrine which supersedes proof is qualified as an insult. How often do you hear arguments that are the equivalent of proclaiming: “The earth is flat. This my opinion. You say it is round. That is your opinion. We are equals. Thus my opinion is as good as yours.” Preempting discourse, arbitrary assertions abound. Challenging them is taken as an offense and the disapproval of it is demonstrated by staging extortionary protests spiced by riots.

The sense that there is a “right” to raise (non negotiable) demands that are inconsistent with another claim made concurrently, is spreading like oil on water. A typical case is “lower gas prices,” while pontificating “no new refineries.” Or: “Iraq is a failed state.” Its sovereignty “must be respected.” The trend is well represented in several of the components of the deliberations regarding Iran’s nuclear projects and what the world should do about it. This being possibly a crucial matter determining out planet’s future, it makes sense to deal with the inconsistencies of the opinions and positions that flow into the debate...

(bold emphasis mine) He goes on to demonstrate how this form of irrational and inconsistant thinking is being applied to the situation with Iraq. This article has stuck in my mind, because the problem the author had identified - political correctness as a weapon of rebellion against reason, and the resulting embracement of inconsistanties - is dangerously weakening western culture and our ability to function effectively and defend ourselves.

you can read the whole article HERE.

Freedom-of-the-Seas

I usually post Sunday Funnies on Sundays, but I'm running low on decent jokes, so I am only going to do them occasionally as they accumulate. Otherwise, I'll just post things that are fun or interesting. This Sunday, I'm going to post about the new Ocean Liner, Freedom-of-the-Seas. My interest in ocean liners began with the Queen Mary.



When I was a kid, I saw the movie "Poseiden Adventure". The ship in the movie was modeled after the Queen Mary, a grand old ship that was eventually retired to Long Beach, California, where it is now a floating Museum, Hotel, Restaurant & conference center.

As a kid I read all about the Queen Mary and other famous ocean liners. In 1997, I got to visit the Queen Mary in Long Beach; it was a long held dream-come-true. It was facinating and really fun.



With the advent of Jet planes, the popularity of large ocean liners declined; they couldn't attract enough passengers to justify their operating expenses. So cruise ships became smaller, and specialised in visiting exotic locations.

As these cruise ships became fancier over the years, offering more frills, they also started becoming larger again. The Cunard line's Queen Mary II is considerably bigger than the old Queen Mary, and quite luxurious:






Until recently, the Queen Mary II held the title of largest cruise ship. But this year, the Royal Caribbean cruise line will wrest that title away, with it's newest cruise ship, "Freedom-of-the-Seas":


From Fox News, an excerpt:

...Freedom of the Seas, which arrived this week in New York Harbor from Southampton, Britain, is 237 feet tall and 1,112 feet long with 15 passenger decks.


Standing upright on its bow, it would be taller than the Eiffel Tower. The ship comes in at 160,000 gross registered tons, a standard measurement of carrying capacity that is about 100 cubic feet for each ton.






Built by Norwegian shipbuilder Aker Yards ASA, the ship cost $800 million and can carry more than 4,000 passengers. The world's previous largest ship, the Queen Mary 2, can carry about 3,000 people and is 151,400 gross registered tons. The Titanic's gross registered tonnage was 46,329.



If you want to sail on the new ship, it won't be cheap.

Prices for seven-day voyages range from $1,900 per couple for an interior room during the low season to nearly $2,500 for the same-size cabin with a balcony during high season, said Cindy Dangel, an on-board sales manager.

A deluxe room that sleeps 14 and costs $22,000 during peak season is booked until 2008, she said.



A three-level dining room seats 2,140. There are more than 2,000 deck chairs and an ice-skating rink. The fitness center measures 9,700 square feet and includes a boxing ring. The spa provides luxuries from teeth whitening to massages and a 13th-floor deck offers a rock climbing wall and a big wave pool with simulated surfing.

Royal Caribbean's newest liner will be docked in New York Harbor and Cape Liberty in Bayonne over the next few days before it leaves on May 18 for a trip to Boston.



The ship's maiden voyage was last month, from Hamburg, Germany, to Oslo, Norway, but it won't have paying passengers until it leaves from Miami for the western Caribbean next month.



While the ship's New York area arrival is generating a big buzz, its grand scale might not appeal to everyone.

Bigger isn't always better, and a large ship can be overwhelming and impersonal, said Carolyn Spencer Brown, editor of cruisecritic.com, a Web site devoted to cruise travel information.

"You're always thinking about what you should be doing next," she said. "Expect lines. Expect congestion."

She said on a ship of this scale, passengers may be tempted to skip some of the ports.



"This ship, more than any other ship out there, represents the on-land resort experience. There's so much to do you really don't have to get off," she said.























The interior Promanade deck:




Some of the cabin rooms:











Ships have sure come a long way, in speed, safety and comfort. I'm not much of a traveller these days, but a ship like this would certainly be tempting.


Related Links:

About Your Ship: Freedom of the Seas

Freedom of the Seas: ship overview

Freedom of the Seas: Cabins

World's Largest Cruise Ship Christened in New Jersey

Our Immigration Invasion; a view from Europe, and a warning

Have you ever come across an article that references a lot of other topics you had been reading about, and neatly connects the dots for you? I have recently come across just such an article, at the Gates of Vienna blog, called:

"Another American Century or Another American Civil War?"

It's written by Baron Bodissey, and is a view of America from Europe. It begins by comparing situations on both sides of the Atlantic regarding illegal immigration.

At first, you might think the situations in the USA and Europe are very different; after all, Mexicans are not Muslims. This is very true. Yet the dynamics behind the invasion, the consequences of allowing it to happen, the circumstances that allow it to continue, and the ineffectiveness of governments to stop it actually have a lot in common. For example:

...even though non-Muslim immigrants are always preferable to Muslim ones, that does not necessarily mean that non-Muslim immigration in whatever numbers or form is always beneficial. Indeed, there are more parallels between the behavior of Mexican illegal immigrants in the USA and of Muslims in Europe than many observers appreciate. First of all, you have the aggression towards and disregard for the very country the immigrants want to live in. I have read Mexicans bragging about how little they care about US laws. Soon they will be the majority in the American Southwest and will simply change the laws to suit them, so why should they care what the laws say now? These laws are only temporary, anyway. This view of immigration as a means of demographic conquest of territory is similar to what Muslims are doing in Europe, only without the terrorism.

Second, you have the extreme amounts of hypocrisy, where Mexicans, just like Muslims, make harsh laws in their own countries, but scream “murder” and complain about racism if even a fraction of their laws are applied to themselves. In a paper published by the Center for Security Policy, J. Michael Waller points out that under its constitution Mexico deals harshly not only with illegal but even with legal immigrants “in ways that would, by the standards of those who carp about US immigration policy, have to be called “racist” and “xenophobic.” The Mexican constitution includes restrictions on foreigners in any way participating in the political affairs of the country. Equal employment rights are denied to immigrants, even legal ones. It denies immigrants the right to become federal lawmakers. Foreigners are denied fundamental property rights. Article 11 guarantees federal protection against “undesirable aliens resident in the country.” What is more, private individuals are authorized to make citizen’s arrests. Article 16 states, “In cases of flagrante delicto, any person may arrest the offender and his accomplices, turning them over without delay to the nearest authorities.” In other words, Mexico grants its citizens the right to arrest illegal aliens and hand them over to police for prosecution. The Mexican constitution states that foreigners – not just illegal immigrants – may be expelled for any reason and without due process.

Third, many Mexican immigrants have the same total lack of understanding of the fact that maybe, just maybe, there are some flaws in their own culture that create the problems they are trying to move away from. As long as they won’t admit this, it is quite likely that the same problems will follow them and be recreated in their new home country. Muslims believe that they can “conquer the riches of Europe.” But will they, or will the influx of Islamic culture ensure that Europe will cease being a wealthy continent, and become more like any other Islamic failure? Latin America’s love affair with Socialism, as exemplified by the three Cs – Chavez, Castro and Che Guevara – is even more pathological than Europe’s. Many of these countries, including Mexico, have serious problems with corruption. Will all of this be imported into the USA, too? When California has become majority Mexican, will it still be the economic powerhouse it has been for generations?...

The original article has embedded links, and ties together a lot of ideas and things I've read about separately.

Another uncomfortable parallel with Europe involves a movement for suppression of National identities. The European Union has been working to suppress the national identities of it's members in order to create a United Europe. This weakening of national identities has also led to a weakening of cultural identity as well, with a corresponding weakening of will to defend, protect or promote national self-interest.

Could the same thing be happening here? At first I thought not, but then how do you explain our inability or lack of will to control our own borders? Consider this:

...Just as in Europe, national symbols are increasingly dismissed as symbols of racism and bigotry. Echoing instances of similar bans of national flags in several European countries because “this could offend immigrants,” schools in California, Colorado, and Arizona will ban the display of American flags and patriotic clothing. School administrators claim that the bans were put into effect to ease tensions between Hispanic and non-Hispanic students during recent immigration protests.

As Victor Davis Hanson writes in his book, Mexifornia: A State of Becoming, “the goal of assimilation that was once the standard, if unspoken orthodoxy in our schools and government is now ridiculed as racist and untrue.” At the same time, illegal immigrants were displaying Mexican flags in Los Angeles, and there were proposals of making a Spanish-language version of the U.S. national anthem. According to Multicultural logic, tolerance is always a one-way street where Western countries have to give in.

It is striking to notice how the political establishment on both sides of the spectrum are unwilling to do anything to uphold the territorial integrity of the USA. President Bush “has not pushed for greater enforcement of immigration law (he is the chief law enforcement officer), has mocked the Minutemen as dangerous vigilantes and has done little to discourage the tide of illegal aliens, in spite of the dangers of a porous border in the post-911 world.” While Minuteman civilian patrols are keeping an eye out for illegal border crossers, the U.S. Border Patrol is keeping an eye out for Minutemen – and telling the Mexican government where they are. Chris Simcox, founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. “It’s unbelievable that our own government agency is sending intelligence to another country. TJ Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, a union representing more than 10,000 Border Patrol agents, said agents have complained for years about the Mexican consulate’s influence over the agency. “It worries me (that the Mexican government) seems to be unduly influencing our enforcement policies. That’s not a legitimate role for any foreign nation.”...

...we may be entering a war that will be remembered as the Multicultural World War, with a Balkanization of the West caused by Multicultural insecurity about our own values and runaway immigration without assimilation. This may not be unavoidable yet, but it seems to be the direction in which we are now heading...

Bodissey also warns us that our enemies overseas are watching us closely for any signs of weakness or lack of resolve:

...There is a reason why some of the largest Islamic organizations in the USA came out in support of the rallies in major cities in support of illegal immigrants. Muslims see this as a way of weakening the Great Satan. And they are right. Americans need to understand just how much is at stake here. We are probably, as President Bush himself has hinted at, in the early stages of a world war with Islam. Muslims are working to get nuclear weapons and are openly calling for the physical destruction of the West. Your enemies are watching the way you are handling the illegal situation, and they are not impressed. Do you think the North Koreans or the Iranians are scared of a country that allows itself to be intimidated and held hostage by a bunch of Mexicans who shouldn’t even be in the country in the first place? When you’re a superpower, the line of separation between domestic and foreign policy hardly exists. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union was impressed by the way Ronald Reagan handled an attempt of blackmail by the civil air traffic controllers. He simply fired them. This signalled to your enemies abroad that you were not going to give into blackmail anywhere.

What is at stake here is your credibility as a superpower. In the longer run, it could be your physical security from nuclear attacks, perhaps even your very survival as a coherent nation state. DO NOT give in to Mexican intimidation. Build the border fence, and deport the illegals. Yes, ALL of them. No amnesty. We are facing decades of what could potentially become the deadliest war in human history, where the very survival of Western civilization and perhaps human civilization in general hangs in the balance. We cannot win this without you.

You are the indispensable nation, and if you break down, the rest of the planet is in serious trouble...

There are plenty of communists and socialists in the world who would disagree with Bodissey; who think that American IS the problem. And the communists and socialists tend to side with America's enemies, even when they are totalitarian Islamists.

Bodissey has plenty more to say, you can read the whole article HERE.




Related Link:

Swedish Welfare State Collapses
as Immigrants Wage War

From the Brussels Journal blog. It begins with crime statistics, and interviews with the Muslim youths that commit them. It makes an interesting case for crime as an act of war and invasion. An excerpt:

...It is interesting to note that these Muslim immigrants state quite openly that they are involved in a “war,” and see participation in crime and harassment of the native population as such. This is completely in line with what I have posited before. The number of rape charges in Sweden has quadrupled in just above twenty years. Rape cases involving children under the age of 15 are six times as common today as they were a generation ago. Most other kinds of violent crime have rapidly increased, too. Instability is spreading to most urban and suburban areas. Resident aliens from Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia dominate the group of rape suspects. Lawyer Ann Christine Hjelm found that 85 per cent of the convicted rapists were born on foreign soil or from foreign parents. The phenomenon is not restricted to Sweden. The number of rapes committed by Muslim immigrants in Western nations is so extremely high that it is difficult to view these rapes as merely random acts of individuals. It resembles warfare. This is happening in most Western European countries, as well as in other non muslim countries such as India. European jails are filling up with Muslims imprisoned for robberies and all kinds of violent crimes, and Muslims bomb European civilians. One can see the mainstream media are struggling to make sense of all of this. That is because they cannot, or do not want to, see the obvious: this is exactly how an invading army would behave: rape, pillage and bombing. If many of the Muslim immigrants see themselves as conquerors in a war, it all makes perfect sense...

...What happened to the famous Swedish nanny state, you say? Don’t Swedes pay the highest tax rates in the world? Yes, they do. But tens of billions of kroner, some say several hundred billions, are being spent every year on propping up rapidly growing communities of Muslim immigrants. Sweden has become the entire world’s welfare office, because the political elites have decided that massive Muslim immigration is “good for the economy.” Soon Sweden’s “army” may comprise no more than 5,000 men, five thousand troops to defend a nation more than three times the area of England. Moreover, it may take up to a year to assemble all of them, provided they are not on peacekeeping missions abroad. That Sweden might soon need a little peacekeeping at home seems to escape the establishment. In 2006 the celebrated Swedish welfare state has become the world’s largest pyramid scheme, an Enron with a national flag...

There's more, with lots of details about Swedens particular situation. They seem to be digging their own graves. Sweden sounds like a scary place to live nowadays. In some ways it may be an extreme case, but it can be argued that the rest of Europe isn't that far behind.

You can read the complete article HERE.

Related link:

Ramadan Rioting in Europe's No-Go Areas

Why are we funding terrorist monsters... AGAIN?

Hat tip to Cox and Forkum for the cartoon. You can read their related commentary and links HERE.

Just when I thought we had finally wised up, we seem to be reversing course, and funding terrorists again! We are giving them humanitarian aid so they don't have to work to sustain themselves, and can spend their time and money on more worthy activities, like bombs, weapons and terrorism.

If they want charity, let them get it from the arab terrorist states they admire so much. Let Iran and our "friends" the Saudis support them with handouts.

Is this any way to ask for our "help"?...



Are these the sort of people we need to reward with financial aid? Looks to me like they have WAY too much free time on their hands. Honestly, I sometimes have to wonder if the the Muslims are right in thinking we are just too weak and stupid to even deserve to survive.

Mary Cheney's new book

Mary Cheney's new book is out, and Tammy Bruce has a post about it. In Tammy's last book, "The New American Revolution", she had high praise for Mary Cheney, and that praise continues. An excerpt:

...She's a true American patriot, in the Classical Liberal style, an Authentic Conservative committed to true American freedom.

There's lots of behind the scenes stories in the book including what her father's debate prep was like, as well as her parents reaction to her revelation when she was a teenager that she's gay.

Mary, like I, also knows what it's like to face the Gay Gestapo and how ugly and vile the "tolerant Left" can be when homosexuals don't conform to the Leftist worldview. Her stories are great, her courage inspiring, and her book worth supporting. I personally know about the compassion and generosity of American Conservatives, it's time to show the nation the value and importance of Mary's message by making her book a terrific success...

(bold emphasis mine - Tammy's experience is similar to my own)Tammy also provides a link to an excerpt of the book by ABC news. It's a fairly long excerpt, I'm only going to quote one part of it, which was kind of amusing and weird.

When Dick Cheney was anounced as the VP candidate, the press began to hound Mary and her partner, Heather. They saved some of the messages on their answering machine. Here is a sample of what happened:

...As Heather and I watched the announcement on the television in our living room, our phone started ringing and we found ourselves inundated by calls from reporters and producers who wanted to interview the gay daughter of the Republican vice presidential nominee.

There were well over a hundred calls in the first twenty-four hours, all of which we let the answering machine pick up. As amazing as the volume of calls was the fact that everyone left work and home phone numbers. It wasn't just the producers. Maria Shriver, Diane Sawyer, and Connie Chung all left their home phone numbers, but Heather and I didn't return any of the calls. These reporters only wanted to talk to me about my sexual orientation, and they only wanted to talk to me about that because my dad was a candidate for vice president. I had better things to do. Heather and I did write down everyone's name and number, however. We toyed with the idea of auctioning off the list on eBay, but decided that it probably wasn't a good idea to alienate all of those reporters at the start of a national political campaign.

Without a doubt, the most persistent reporter was Diane Sawyer. She called, or had someone call on her behalf, five separate times. Because we were so impressed by this level of determination, we saved those messages.

Message 1
"Hi, Mary. This is Mark Robertson calling from Diane Sawyer's office. Diane would really like to talk to you. Please call me back at xxx-xxx-xxxx, and I'll connect you."

Message 2
"Mary, it's Mark Robertson again from Diane Sawyer's office. Hope you don't mind, but I gave your number to Diane. She really wants to talk to you and just see how you're doing with everything. You can reach me at xxx-xxx-xxxx. Talk to you soon."

Message 3
"Mary Cheney. This is Diane Sawyer. I've known your parents for years and can't imagine everything you and your family are going through right now, but would love to talk to you and see how you're holding up.Hope you saw the piece I did on Ellen. Please call me — xxx-xxx-xxxx."

Message 4
"Mary, hi, this is pesky Mark Robertson again in Diane Sawyer's office. I'm so sorry to bug you but was watching the Today show this morning and they sort of put all of this into play by saying, you know, Dick Cheney's openly gay daughter, which we all cheered for, but I just wanted you to know if you ever want to see the piece Diane did on Ellen or the thing she won a GLAAD award for this year on Billy Bean the professional baseball player who had to deal with this publicly, I'd love to send them to you, and Diane was wanting to talk to you. I think she called and left you a message and she's at home today and I wanted to leave you her home phone number, which is xxx-xxx-xxxx. I know she just wants to say hello and somebody else, Ellen, has asked me for your phone number 'cause she's friends of mine and Diane's and she's heard about this and just wanted to wish you well I think, so if it's OK just if you'd call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx, I'll give her that number and if not, I won't. So thanks so much. Bye."

Message 5
"Well hello, Mary, this is someone you don't know. It's Ellen De- Generes and I just spoke with Mark, Diane Sawyer's producer, and they tell me you're going through a lot of stuff, so I thought I'd call and see if I can be of any help at all. Just support, I guess, and so call me if you'd like to. It's xxx-xxx-xxxx and we'll talk, all right? Bye."

The only person I was tempted to call back was Ellen DeGeneres. I was a fan, and I appreciated her willingness to call a perfect stranger to offer her support, but mostly I was curious to find out what stuff Mark Robertson had told her I was going through. As far as I was concerned, my only problem was that the media wouldn't stop calling...

You can read the entire excerpt from Chapter One HERE.

You can order the book at Amazon.com In the comments section at Amazon, the liberals are already trashing it. Of course, they haven't actually READ it. They all just "know" what it says, without reading it. It saves them a lot of time - and completly wastes the time of everyone else who's actually interested in what it says.


Related Links:



From Born Again Redneck:
Cheney interviewed on NBC

From the Washington Post:
Out and About: The Vice President's Daughter Tells The Inside Story in Her New Book. But the Subject Is Politics.

 
   

Ayaan Hirsi Ali comes out of hiding to speak at Harvard

Dutch Member of Parliament Ayaan Hirsi Ali had gone into hiding when Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered in the street in broad daylight, for making a film called "Submission", about muslim violence against women. Ayaan had collaborated with van Gogh in making the film, and a note pinned on to the dead mans body with a dagger said that she would be next.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is an ex-Muslim from Somalia, and an advocate for protecting women from violence. Recently she spoke at Harvard, where some Muslim students gave her a hard time. Here are some excerpts from Michelle Malkin's site, from a reader who attended the event:

...The Q&A was marked by the number of Muslim students who objected to Hirsi Ali's criticism of Islam. One student was strident, claiming that as a Muslim from Pakistan she knew nothing about the kind of Sharia Law, strict upbringing that Hirsi Ali claims to have had. One was fairly polite, questioning why any Muslims
should now listen to Hirsi Ali, who is now an avowed atheist, rather than to those who still follow Islam. One was insistent, asking why Hirsi Ali did not criticize all violence against women (she did and referred to articles she had written about numerous cultures and the origins of repression of women in each of them).

But the questioner persisted. Why didn't she criticize Christianity and its sacred texts in the context of violence against women in America? Why only Islam in that context?

How can I capture what it felt like? Hirsi Ali said things that you or I would take as the purest of common sense. For example, her film contains a scene of a battered woman, praying to God, tattooed across her broken body with the specific verses in the Koran that advocate that brutal kind of treatment by a man for his wife. It's wrong for a man to do that to his wife. It calls for the genius of Harvard graduate students of Political Science to somehow equivocate around that simple fact.

One telling moment came when an early questioner asked about the overall issue of assimilation versus cultural isolation in Europe. Hirsi Ali answered that she did not think in terms of assimilation and isolation but rather in terms of individualism and collectivism...

...Near the end, somewhat exasperated, it seems, by the wave of denial that Harvard's Muslim community had brought to the forum, she commented offhandedly to her interviewer "what are they learning here?" or something close to that...

(bold emphasis mine) You can read the whole thing HERE.




Related Links:

LGF Reports on Ayaan Hirsi Ali At Harvard
From Tammy Bruce, with some good links.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: "I Really Wonder What You Are Doing Here at Harvard"

Ayaan Hirsi Ali's blog