An Alternate View on “The Interview”

Stay with me on this one…as the young folks say, it’s complicated.  So a Japanese company, for all practical purposes, becomes an American company and then produces a film depicting the dictator in charge of an historical enemy of America becoming targeted for assassination by the CIA.  At one point, the movie depicts the dictator in a sexually compromising scene and then ultimately ends with the assassination of said dictator -- his head exploding for the exciting conclusion of the movie.  And the really funny part, it’s a comedy.

The sad part, that nation (America) that produced the film (The Interview) ended-up cowering from cyber and real-world threats reportedly from that same nation the film sought to make fun of (North Korea).  Supposedly it was the sexual scene (reportedly an orgy) that reviled, and thus riled, the enemy nation to wage their cyber vandalism. That same Japanese company (Sony), initially decided not to release the film about the dictator (Kim Jong Un) after their company was hacked, its executives embarrassed, and the theaters threatened. 

Then, on 19 December 2014, the FBI said it believed the North Korean state was behind the Sony hacking.  President Obama, in a press conference later the same day, pushed Sony to release the film. He said they should have called him first – he’d have directed that they distribute it.  There was a time when America would not have contemplated partaking in the making of such a foul film. It’s bad enough Hollywood is filming filth and promoting promiscuity – it’s irrational to invite retribution by promoting it from the Presidential bully pulpit.  We are in a precarious position when our enemy holds the moral high ground.

It’s not the only time our foes have sought to lecture us on our lecherousness.  Russia refused to allow the adoption of their orphans by Americans because of our demonstrated depravity.  In DEC 2012, the Russian parliament approved the banning of adoption by Americans.  In a vote of 400 to four, they made illegal the adoption of Russian children by same-sex couples and by single people who live in countries where same-sex “marriage” is legal.   Said the vice-president of REAL Women of Canada, “The Russian government has been very consistent, in that the major objective has been to protect vulnerable children…and they have consistently done so with regard to homosexual propaganda so that children won’t be entering into those relationships that lead to tragedy and death often. This [adoption law] is just an extension of their concern for children.” 

Another recent film that caused a stir was one the White House continually lied to us about.  They repeatedly blamed an obscure YouTube movie for “a demonstration that led to riots” and ultimately the death of a US ambassador, an embassy employee, and two ex-Navy SEALs in Benghazi.  Obama later misled the world, telling the United Nations, “That is what we saw play out in the last two weeks, as a crude and disgusting video sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world.  I have made it clear that the United States government had nothing to do with this video, and I believe its message must be rejected by all who respect our common humanity.  It is an insult not only to Muslims, but to America as well…”   No, it wasn’t the movie; it was the Benghazi cover-up that’s an insult to all Americans.

Now I’m confused about exactly what is crude and what is disgusting.   I’m confused about the Obama movie rating system.   So the Benghazi movie that they lied to us about “must be rejected” while he promotes an indisputably prurient movie to prove a point?  The Interview was eventually released, becoming Sony’s biggest film released online - making more than $15 million in just four days. 

But wait, there’s more.  On 2 JAN 2015 Obama issued an Executive Order stating, “The provocative, destabilizing, and repressive actions and policies of the Government of North Korea, including its destructive, coercive cyber-related actions during November and December 2014 constitute a continuing threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.”  Not to be outdone, North Korea compared Obama’s behavior to a monkey. "Obama always goes reckless in words and deeds like a monkey in a tropical forest," said a spokesman at the National Defense Commission in a statement reported by the official Korean Central News Agency.

If only this were all just an infantile comedy. 

This column appears in the 7 JAN 2015 Upson Beacon.

Descent Into Chaos Part 2: The Federal Level

If you’ve been paying attention, you’re already aware of some unpleasant sequelae to the “wave” elections of November 2014:

• The reinstallation of John Boehner as Speaker of the House;
• The announcement that there will be no serious attempt by the Republican-majority Congress to thwart Obama’s anti-immigration-law-enforcement ukase or ObamaCare;
• Obama’s pre-emptive announcement of his intention to veto any legislation he dislikes that emerges from that Congress, regardless of its substance or its popularity.

At this time, even the support of Congressional Democrats for such items as the Keystone XL pipeline and the repeal of the most destructive portions of the Affordable Care Act appears to be insufficient to get those things to happen. That could change, of course, but it would take a significant shift in the attitudes and loyalties of Congressional Democrats: away from the protection of Obama and toward the performance of their duties, to say nothing of the American populace. Moreover, there would remain a chance that Obama would direct the executive agencies responsible for implementing and enforcing the laws to ignore Congressional emissions he dislikes, including ones passed by veto-proof majorities. That would require Obama’s impeachment and trial, which, given their previous support for him and his policy preferences, would test Congressional Democrats far more severely than the impeachment and trial of Bill Clinton.

The most pleasant thing one could say about Washington at this time is that at least we don’t have federal politicos exchanging gunfire inside the Capitol Building.

Yet.

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The federal system is designed to check the powers of each of the branches of government against the willingness of the other two to approve and cooperate. From that perspective, parts of it are working according to the design...but a significant part of it – i.e., the executive’s responsibility to “take care that the laws shall be faithfully executed” – is not. Worse, that default of duty hasn’t enraged Congress sufficiently to call Obama to account for it. Considering that the Reconstruction Era Congress tried (and nearly convicted) Andrew Johnson for an offense that, by comparison, was a mere peccadillo, it should leave us with no great opinion of “our representatives” on Capitol Hill.

It becomes ever clearer that American Constitutional order is badly endangered: by the would-be dictator in the White House, by the low quality of the Representatives and Senators whose duty it is to rein him in, and by the thorough politicization of the federal courts, including the Supreme Court.

One of the less-discussed things about “the rules of the game” is that the rules are the game. For Black to move his knight as if it were a bishop, smile into White’s face and say, “I have to, or I’ll lose,” is equivalent to overturning the board and scattering the pieces. This is just as true of Constitutional government as it is of chess.

I’ve written before that the enforcement agency for the Constitution’s constraints on government power and activity is the people in arms. Indeed, there could hardly be any other:

Power concedes nothing without demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they have been resisted with either words or blows, or with both. – Frederick Douglass

We dislike to think of the remedy of blows. It would entail violence; bloodshed; a time of even greater disorder than we endure today, regardless of the outcome. So we keep hoping that the system will right itself, if helped along by an election or two. And we continue to ratify that broken system, by implication, with our votes.

Is it not yet clear that we’ve been had? Played for fools? Soothed into believing that all can be made right by voting for the candidate with the right totem animal? Only to be told afterward that “there’s only so much we can do without the Senate / the White House / a veto-proof majority / an end to the war / and end to violence in the Middle East / a command from God” -- ?

But absent a popular uprising, the federal descent into chaos – a “system” large sectors of which ignore the rules under which they’re supposed to operate -- will continue, for a simple reason: The persons most responsible for it are getting what they want, and getting away with it.

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Charles Krauthammer noted on yesterday’s edition of Special Report that there’s no reason to think that, for the final two years of his legitimate tenure in the Oval Office, Obama will do anything but exactly what he pleases. He need never face the voters again. He’s shown a complete indifference to popular opinion, to the Constitutional constraints on his authority, and to the ultimate consequences for his co-partisans in Congress. Nor has he ever been anything but what his upbringing and his education made him: a self-absorbed, power-obsessed social-fascist and a despiser of better, more accomplished men than he.

No ostrich tactic can blind us to the facts about Obama today. We have too much of his history to steer by. But what of Congress? Is there even a remote possibility that Obama could outrage it sufficiently to rouse it to its duties?

That’s unclear. Imagine the worst case: Obama decrees the indefinite suspension of all elections to federal offices, orders the dissolution of Congress and the Supreme Court, and declares that henceforth his word shall be the law of these United States. He mobilizes the Army, including the National Guard, and directs it to implement those decrees regardless of any and all resistance. What would follow?

Would the Army do as Obama directs?
Should a portion of the Army refuse such orders, would the remainder fire upon it?
More to the point, would Congress fulfill its Constitutional duties to remove him after such outrageous decrees?
Ultimately to the point, given his usurpations of power up to now and the flaccidity of Congress before him, would you give odds against Obama seriously considering such a move?

Stay tuned.

The danger of "progressivism."

Progressivism has encouraged just such a danger [to political liberty], not only in its subordination of individual liberty to its expansive, paternalistic social agenda, but in undermining the boundaries between the three branches of the federal government and denying the reality of fixed constitutional limits to federal governmental power.

The new Congress can take the first steps to mitigate this danger. It is critical that the House lead the budget process as constitutionally intended–as the body tasked with proposing specific appropriations for specific purposes, not as a hostage to presidential veto threats and “shutdown” and “default” deadlines. The Senate, among other things, must vet the president’s judicial nominees with care, measuring them against their willingness to regard the Constitution as it is “in fact . . . a fundamental law,” and their ability to judge accordingly.^[1]

The second paragraph of the above is interesting to show in very few words what a "real" political party would do. GOP conduct is remarkable for how it is absolutely, positively exactly never like anything described in that paragraph. "Deer in the headlights" comes to my mind, at the best of times. "Active connivance" does too, and it's just as good a fit.

But, be that as it may, I want to focus on the first of the paragraphs quoted above. "Progressive" is a nonsense word that is used by the left for only one purpose – to provide a fig leaf for communists who believe at all costs they must remain hidden from the citizens and who therefore hide amongst liberals and socialist. Voila! "Progressives," kindly and honest people who are in favor of, well, progress. Progress to moral, cultural, and financial bankruptcy? some do ask but to no avail. No. Progress is lovely, sweet, painless, and just. It just is.

It's a measure of the success of "progressives" that the shape shifting evolution from "liberal" (classical) to "liberal" (one who despises of traditional America) to 60s activist (mindless radical and communist collaborator) to progressive (ultra-left, all-purpose grease trap for traitors and and subversives plus a layer of naive and witting fellow travelers and minority malcontents) continues to befuddle citizens searching for a taxonomy adequate for understanding the immensely destructive events in our political life in the last half of the 20th century. If the name of the internal enemy keeps shifting, not to mention being camouflaged at the outset (by means of Soviet training), how can citizens organize against their enemy?

Tinkering with labels is a play borrowed from Stalin's "popular front" campaign to have communist parties under his iron control appear to make common cause with non-communist parties in Europe to oppose the greater menace of National Socialism in the 1930s. The threat from Germany was such that many politicians and officials did indeed feel threatened so there was a common cause to some extent. However, it was for the non-communist parties nothing less than cuddling with a rattlesnake.

This deliberate semantic confusion is also visible elsewhere as with the duplicitous campaign to refer ceaselessly and forever without end amen to Nazis as "far-right." To borrow from William F. Buckley, you'd have a hard time running a string of dental floss between the Nazis and the Soviet communists. Both were far-left entities intent on controlling every aspect of national economic life and the lives of their citizens. Both had secret police organs that terrorized ordinary citizens and the party faithful both.

So progressives are communists and their ranks also include all those who are content to be in the company of socialists and communists. (E.g., Al Franken.) No "right winger" would be permitted to be within 100 yards of David Duke without being dragged though the grinder of the MSM, but the ultra left claim absolute immunity from being tarred with the "communist" brush for anyone in their ranks. No. They just enjoy the fraternal company of communists.

However, for people looking in and trying to keep score, it's helpful to remember this: Lie down with progressives but don't be surprised that you woke up with communist fleas. Progressives who don't like the communist taint can denounce and separate from communists at any time they choose.

But they never do.

The deliberate semantic obfuscation involved in the use of the word "progressive" is but a tip of the iceberg.

Diana West has the story (American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation's Character) on the incredible extent to which communists infiltrated American government and society and mounted influence operations against us. If she's half right, we were without a doubt had by Stalin. Gauging by the vicious attacks on her for writing her book, you can conclude that she was right much more than half.

With this in mind, do not be under any illusion that, when progressives undermine individual liberty and the constitutional scheme, they do so as some kind of a warmed over variant of Tammany Hall or the League of Women Voters. No. They do so as people determined to implement nothing less than the full-blown communist agenda.

Hear "progressive." Think "communist." Know "communist." Remember secret police, concentration camps, and the killing fields.

Do not doubt me. These people are "dead serious. A "living Constitution" and a "propositional nation" are the least of our worries. Communism is alive and well and much more entrenched as as an internal enemy than was even the case during the Cold War.

Notes
^[1] "When Constitutionalism is a Dangerous Thing. There are no ‘least dangerous’ branches." By David Corbin and Matt Parks, The Federalist, 1/5/15.

Descent To Chaos

When Rudolph Giuliani first became Mayor of New York City and decreed the implementation of the “broken window theory”-based policing practices that eventually recivilized the Big Apple, left-wing politicians and commentators throughout the world of journalism mocked and derided him for it. The general attitude of those detractors was that Giuliani didn’t know what he was talking about – worse, that his new policies would squander scarce police resources while simultaneously alienating the “minority” components of the city’s populace.

Seldom have so many with such large audiences gone so wildly wrong. But that’s not the tragedy of the thing.

Michael Bloomberg succeeded Giuliani largely on the strength of his promise to maintain Giuliani’s policing and crime-prevention policies. (It didn’t hurt Bloomberg at all that his opponent, Mark Green, is a hard-left asshole, but de mortuis nil nisi bonum, and if anyone is “politically dead,” it’s surely Mark Green.) However, Bloomberg’s adoption of nannyism as his guiding principle soon eclipsed the Giuliani legacy. After Bloomberg had spent three terms in Gracie Mansion, perpetually striving to make us sit up straight, keep our collars buttoned, and eat our brussels’ sprouts, New Yorkers were glad to see him go.

What they might not have “appreciated” was the groundwork Bloomberg laid for his successor, the Dishonorable Bill de Blasio.

Bloomberg’s meddlings in national politics were almost exclusively to the left of center. He’s probably best known for his interminable and highly expensive campaign against Second Amendment rights, but his participation in No Labels, nominally a non-partisan alliance that trends leftward in practice, has had equally large and equally pernicious effects. For some time he appeared to be positioning himself for a run at the presidency. To the relief of us in the Right, that failed to materialize. However, the worst of all Bloomberg’s misguided moves was his coddling of the “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrators.

The kid-glove treatment Bloomberg’s administration bestowed on the Occupiers gave a tremendous boost to the political fortunes of the Left in New York City. Among other things, it reinforced in many minds the conviction that American authorities (and Americans generally) can be intimidated into accepting that sort of disruption, and that it might be politically profitable to ramify and export it. The “children of Occupy” swiftly spread to other cities in coastal America, though they gained no purchase of significance elsewhere. The disaffection of New Yorkers with the Bloomberg administration, and with a nannyism they identified with the Right, grew in concert.

As Bloomberg’s third term entered its final year, it became clear that New York would not elect a Republican as his successor.

---

Bill de Blasio’s resume makes plain that he’s no great fan of the police, or of public order as traditionally understood. His fatally misconceived statements after the death of Eric Garner merely confirmed that attitude. That they alienated the New York Police Department should have surprised no one...but it appeared to surprise De Blasio.

However, the Garner / police-alienation fracas serves best as a grace note to De Blasio’s larger problem. He inherited a city that was edging away from Giuliani’s policing policies, largely because Bloomberg’s focus was elsewhere. The consequences of the “Occupy protests,” De Blasio’s pandering to his political base, his blatant cronyism, and his immediate moves to suspend or abolish various components of the Giuliani policies have already begun to bear fruit. America’s greatest city is once again descending into chaos:

The Squeegee Man was the personification of old, dysfunctional, pre-Giuliani New York City. These guys were extortion artists, who would “help” motorists stuck in clogged automotive arteries, such as those leading to the Lincoln Tunnel, by forcing their unsolicited windshield-cleaning services on them and then demanding payment, the demand generally being accompanied by verbal abuse or the threat of violence — and, occasionally, with actual violence. Squeegee Man symbolized the disorder and lawlessness of New York life — not a murderer or a rapist, just one of the many lower-level hassles and terrors that made the city so unbearable back in what some insist on remembering as the good ol’ days of crack addicts and hookers on Times Square.

Squeegee Man is making a comeback, both in his traditional form — as documented by the New York Post — and in a new, mutant form: Sunday Hijacker. Sunday Hijacker is cleverer and more cynical than his predecessor, and his modus operandi is to make a scene inside a church during worship until somebody pays him to go away. Screaming, knocking over furnishings, and threatening violence are his shtick.

Kevin Williamson has a front-row seat to the rising tide:

The Sunday Hijacker is emblematic of a city reverting to chaos. He is not the only emblem. My own experience attests that places such as the 33rd Street subway station, the City Hall station, and Penn Station have become noticeably more disorderly over the course of the past year — more vagrancy, more filth, more people using them as camp sites. Shootings are up across the city.

And Squeegee Man is back on the job, just down the street from National Review’s offices, as it turns out. And Mayor Bill de Blasio? His main interest in office so far is trying to kill the city’s charter schools. His attention to police matters at the moment is dominated by an insurgency on his left in the wake of a homicide involving a police officer using a chokehold against NYPD regulations. Lucky for New York, the Reverend Al Sharpton is on the scene, in case anybody needs a riot incited.

Tolerate disorder and lawlessness, get more of them. Imagine that!

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How many times must Ralph Waldo Emerson (and I) say it?

You cannot do wrong without suffering wrong.
Justice is not postponed.
Every secret is told,
every crime is punished,
every virtue rewarded,
every wrong redressed,
in silence and certainty.

Denigrate the forces of order, and as their work is both difficult and dangerous, they will lay down their tools.
Tolerate the forces of disorder, and as their pastime offers its own peculiar rewards, they will grow jubilant and vigorous.
Encourage disruption and extortion, and as their practitioners are doubly rewarded, they will be emulated by multitudes.

It’s not cosmological physics, people. Chaos is the natural state of things. Order takes work, self-restraint, and unflagging attention to the punishment of its violators. Scamp those duties and order will vanish. It’s vanishing in New York City as we speak.

Most persons can see what’s going on there. What many can’t see – or refuse to acknowledge – is the causal connection to left-wing politics and policies. That which we subsidize will wax; that which we penalize will wane. But there, too, repetition has done little good. Too many persons are too attached to their belief that their “compassion” is a mark of superior morality and wisdom.

Urban coastal America is in crisis. Its politicians have made too many “deals with the Devil:” compromises on the maintenance of public order to placate the Left, plus panderings to those who have threatened disruption and destruction if their demands are not met. And as a moderately well-known writer has told us, “When you deal with [the Devil], notes come due in brimstone.”

Verbum sat sapienti.

Not bad questions at all.

First, Russia succeeded in making a nice little example of self-determination in the form of Crimea: if it worked for Kosovo, why can't it work for Crimea? Oh, the Anglo-imperialist establishment wishes to handle these things on a case-by-case basis, and in this case it doesn't approve?

"The Imperial Collapse Playbook." By Dmitry Orlov, Club Orlov blog, 12/30/15.

H/t: "Zero Hedge."

Space Cases

Rand Simberg’s article of today brings a fresh perspective to those of us who’ve fretted over the seeming decline of America’s space technologies. Please read the whole thing, as the facts it presents are likely to diverge quite a distance from your current preconceptions.

But along with providing a pleasant attitudinal contrast with the common malaise about “America’s retreat from space,” it got me thinking about the challenges of space travel once again, for the first time in several years. Despite the inevitable association with government (ugh), it makes for a pleasant change of subject from politics.

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The first question is always the most important one: What is our purpose in developing technologies for the exploration of space? What actual ends do we seek?

The least disagreeable aim would be to increase our knowledge: of the other bodies in our solar system, and of the laws that govern the universe. Virtually everyone would accept that those are desirable ends, though there would be some dispute over whether space travel is the best way to pursue them. Granted that you can’t prove that the Moon isn’t made of cheese except by going there, still there are other ways to probe the nature of our satellite than by sending men to have a personal look. However, there are aspects of nature that can only be tested in conditions that cannot be maintained on Earth’s surface.

Other purposes elicit much more controversy: to gain a purchase on the strategic “high ground;” to establish off-Earth outposts for experimentation and colonization; to exploit the resources available elsewhere in the Solar System; to safeguard Mankind against extinction; to “build a bridge to the stars;” and so forth. Each of these things is at least one step removed from the bedrock desideratum it’s founded on...and that desideratum could be even more controversial than space exploration itself.

The degree of disagreement over both the ends in view and space exploration as a means toward them guarantees that there will be no end to the political wrangles over whether the federal government should fund or otherwise encourage the development of space technologies, much less operate a space-exploration R&D organ such as NASA. However, what governments can do, private persons and voluntary associations thereof can do – and typically, can do it better. Moreover, they’re doing it, as SpaceX, Orbital Sciences Corporation, and Virgin Galactic are demonstrating even now.

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Once a primary purpose has been selected, other questions, such as the question of the best means, must be addressed. But what about secondary purposes, and how they might be combined with the primary one?

Have a little wisdom from Herbert Spencer:

A blade which is designed both to shave and to carve, will certainly not shave so well as a razor or carve so well as a carving-knife. An academy of painting, which should also be a bank, would in all probability exhibit very bad pictures and discount very bad bills. A gas company, which should also be an infant-school society, would, we apprehend, light the streets ill and teach the children ill. -- Herbert Spencer, "Over-Legislation"

Spencer was, of course, principally concerned with the aggressiveness of government (and its boosters) in taking up an endless series of purposes to the detriment of the ones for which it was founded. But the same observations hold true for any sort of organization: to serve two purposes is to serve neither one as well as we might. The risks inherent in assigning many purposes to a single organization are great – particularly so when one or more of those purposes involves manned travel through space.

It’s always most effective to have a single aim, and to refuse to compromise it for any other end. But that hasn’t been the history of space technologies development. The proliferation of space-oriented companies reduces the probability that any one of them will be tempted to take the whole gamut of space-oriented purposes as its mission...but there’s no guarantee that it will be so, especially once the government gets involved.

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A brief digression onto a related subject of importance: Certain possible objectives for space travel inherently demand exclusivity. For example, if our aim is orbital hegemony, then preventing other powers from acquiring a foothold in low Earth orbit is as important as getting there ourselves. Similarly, if our aim is to annex the Moon to the United States, it’s necessary not merely to get there, but to garrison it against incursions by other powers.

In such cases, politics, especially geopolitics, is the dominant consideration to be served. As long as space technology remains an involvement of the State, such considerations will remain “on the table.” Yet while the State possesses a de facto monopoly, the degree of conflict over such ends will remain low. It would rise as private competition with the State’s space travel organ rises...which suggests that such companies had better be aware of the ugly possibilities involved.

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Finally for this brief screed, past experiences must be mined for the lessons inherent in them. The two Space Shuttle disasters ought to have taught us the folly of using delicate, thermally sensitive solid-fuel rockets to achieve orbital velocity, and of using bodily friction against the Earth’s atmosphere as the preferred way of shedding that velocity for re-entry. The Shuttle development program itself was a case study in technological hubris. (Look into the history of its “success by design” philosophy and the major fires that resulted.) Ponder the compromises that resulted from using the same vehicle both for manned missions and for missions that need no human component, thus serving neither aim with maximum effectiveness. To perpetuate the attitudes and approaches that led to those results would be inexcusable.

I’m a space junkie of long standing. I’m passionate about the importance of the space technologies. I’m an advocate for getting Man firmly established, not merely as a space traveler, but as a space dweller. For those reasons and others, the recent semi-privatization of American efforts in space cheers me greatly: privatization leads to competition, which leads to greater breadth of experimentation and, ultimately, to greater knowledge. But there are clouds on the horizon, in particular, the prospect of a renationalization of space exploration and technology, which grows more likely as Washington becomes more aware of the unpleasant possibilities inherent in unfriendly nations’ advances into space.

All the same, for those of us with one eye on the sky, the best is yet to come.

Conversations

FWP: I’ve just come up with a guaranteed formula for winning on Chopped! [A cooking competition on the Food Network]
CSO: Oh? How?

FWP: You have to invent dishes no one has ever heard of before, because they don’t really exist. That way, the judges won’t have the faintest idea how to evaluate them, but their vanity will cause them to posture as if they do, and praise them to the skies for fear of being found out.
CSO: How would you get away with that?

FWP: Describe your creations with deceptive terms...maybe terms from some other field entirely. Here we go: “Judges, for tonight’s entree I’ve made Carbuncled Pork with Infarcted Broccoli in a light Angina Sauce. It’s a traditional dish from the Carpathian foothills. Enjoy!”
CSO: C’mon, they’d never buy it. Too many doctor shows on TV.

FWP: But wouldn’t you love to see it tried?
CSO: Well, yeah.

Life Stories: A Sunday Rumination

[Today being the Feast Of The Epiphany (observed), it occurred to me that my Gentle Readers might enjoy the following quasi-epiphany, which first appeared at Eternity Road. It was written by one of the most remarkable people of my acquaintance, “my Vietnamese-American sweetie” Duyen Ky.

For those who remember Duyen from the earlier site, she’s well, happy, and still deep in connubial bliss with her husband Matt in the San Fernando Valley of Southern California. She wrote the piece below when Matt was courting her. -- FWP]

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Yesterday I visited with a new friend who's rapidly becoming a very close friend: Matt, the gun store manager I met on my "armament shopping trip" a few weeks ago. He's a little younger than I am -- he'll be 26 just about as I turn 34 -- but he has a hard sense about him that a lot of older people could stand to learn from. Maybe that comes from working around "deadly weapons" and the people who love them. I couldn't say. But I really enjoy the spin he puts on some of the stuff we talk about. (I also love that he has no fear about driving into New York City on the spur of the moment.)

Matt has no religion. I, of course, told him that I'm a practicing Catholic...just yesterday evening, for the first time. In the process of getting to know someone who might become really important to you, you can't just blurt out the most important stuff about you; you have to choose the right time and setting. You also have to work up enough nerve, for some things at least. Religion is one of them.

Matt was curious. He wanted to know more. Not in a prosecuting-attorney sort of way, either. He really, truly wanted my reasons. He wasn't about to let me get away with a synopsis, either; he wanted the whole story. So I did my best to give it to him.

I had no problem explaining the core of Christian doctrine -- hey, we sum the whole thing up in one prayer -- and no problem with the basic rituals of Roman Catholicism and why we practice them. But how do you explain conversion? It's an internal process. It involves things no one else can see, hear, or feel -- what Fran calls private knowledge. Talking about it can make you sound like some kind of nut.

I tried to avoid it, but Matt wouldn't let me. I became curious about the intensity of his interest, but I kept all my questions to myself and just did what I could.

He took it seriously. That surprised me more than anything else. He didn't pull a face. He didn't act as if I was someone who had to be handled very carefully. He accepted what I said as a truthful narration of what I'd experienced.

After a while, he said, "Do you think that happens to everyone? Because it hasn't happened to me."

I tried flippancy. "Well, you're not dead yet."

He scowled. "Look, if this is a good thing, then it ought to be available to everyone. Catholics don't believe in predestination like the Calvinists, do they?"

That set me back. "No, of course not."

"Then I want to know why you and not me," he said.

Oh boy, I thought, now I have to play theologian.

"Look," I said, "I'm not a missionary, I'm just a believer. I wouldn't dream of trying to convert you."

"Why not?"

I was punch-drunk by then. "Well, most people consider it impolite to press their religion on other people."

And this twenty-five-year-old man who sells steel, lead, and gunpowder for a living, who's surrounded six days a week by people whose every third word is obscene, who described the household he grew up in as "a demilitarized zone," said to me, "That's their problem. If this is good stuff, I want in. And if you believe it's good stuff, you should be out there trying to share it with others. Especially as it costs you nothing."

Wow.

***

Have you ever used the phrase "the story of my life?" Do you think your life has a story -- a plot line that runs from an opening scene, through a series of crises, to a climactic moment that resolves into a dramatic finish? Probably not, when it's put that way. But I know a few people who'd like to be able to say so -- and I know why.

Stories are built around meaning. If your life has a story, then your existence means something to someone: the guy who "wrote" you, and anyone else who's "read and enjoyed" you. People seek meaning. They want their lives to have meaning. At least, I do.

(I know, I'm generalizing from a single data point, but everybody does that. At least, I do!)

But we look for meaning in a lot of perverse places: work, love, dependents, responsibilities, possessions, achievements, hobbies, etc. Those are all temporary. I can't imagine anything but transient meaning coming out of any of them. If they're the heart of your "story," I think you'll end up disappointed.

Let's imagine for a moment that you're not just the protagonist of your "story," but the author as well. You're standing outside time, just like God, deciding on everything about the temporal you: who, what, when, where, why, and how. Would you have "written" yourself and your "story" as it is?

Most people wouldn't. At least, I wouldn't have. (There I go again!) I'd want to be a person of stature: big stature, huge achievements, bringer of universal freedom, peace, and prosperity. The ultimate benefactor to everyone who'll ever live. I'd want to be remembered that way for eons and eons, until the Sun goes nova and Mankind is only a memory. (I'd also want better teeth and a fuller figure, but that's a subject for another time.)

It's a good thing we don't get to do that. There'd be too much competition for that Ultimate Benefactor position.

But here's the kicker: Someone did "write" me. He had to have His reasons. I mean something to Him, which is a lot more meaning than I could get from any other source.

Okay, that's a matter of faith. That's the "private knowledge" part that you can't reason your way to, that has to come as a gift. But once you've been given that gift, doesn't the rest sort of follow?

A writer doesn't put a character into a story unless that character has a reason to be there. So whatever my own purposes might be at any time, my Author gave me a higher one, too -- and part of my job on Earth is to figure out what it is. That's only right and proper. Especially considering all the detail work He had to do.

***

I'm speaking only for myself, of course. I don't want to make anyone feel guilty for being carefree, or for feeling completely in charge of his own life. But yesterday's conversation with Matt has me looking at the thread of my own "story" in a brand new way.

The highest purpose I can imagine for someone as insignificant as me is to help others to find the love and acceptance of Christ, the main blessing of my life. I can't give them the "private knowledge" that opened me to Him. And I know I mustn't force myself or my convictions on anyone, either. But I can "bear witness" by living as a Christian should. Not only can I embrace the seven virtues for myself, I can exemplify them to others.

Being a good example is a form of charity that isn't much appreciated. But it's always been the most effective form of preaching, the preparation for everything else. Your deeds can open the door for your words; nothing else will. And when that door is opened to you, you must speak. You must tell your story -- without embarrassment or fear -- and you must learn how to reassure others who haven't "gotten there" yet that their stories still have a few chapters to run.

It took a sharp observation by a smart young man with no religion to open my eyes to this. I can only pray that I won't forget it.

Disappointing Destiny?

Although I’ve had the privilege of serving in five of the ten active US Army Divisions, I was never in the one with the best motto. The 101^st Airborne Division has an awesome motto – “Rendezvous with Destiny.”   The Division was activated in preparation for our expanding involvement in World War II.  The first commander, Major General William C. Lee, in his initial address to the newly constituted unit, read General Order Number 5 dated 19 August 1942 that begins:  “The 101^st Airborne Division, activated at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana, has no history, but it has a rendezvous with destiny. Like the early American pioneers whose invincible courage was the foundation stone of this nation, we have broken with the past and its traditions in order to establish our claim to the future…”

The same could be said of our fledgling nation in the early 1770’s -- no history but lots of destiny.  What faith our Founding Fathers had to have in order to risk their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor for an unknown and uncertain future.   Even before they had penned their proverbial John Hancock’s to the parchment that proclaimed our liberty, they had a presupposition of what it would take to be a lasting success.  On June 21, 1776, John Adams wrote:

“Statesmen, my dear sir, may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure, than they have it now, they may change their Rulers and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty.”

A national survey of 1,000 adults was conducted late last year by Rasmussen Reports.  The question they sought to answer, “If America’s founders came back today, would they be impressed or disappointed?”  A plurality of 46% believes the Founders - a group that typically includes George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams - would view the nation as a failure.  Second to that number is the 36% of American adults who think the Founders would consider the United States a success.  The other 18% aren’t sure.  Think about that, nearly half of us think the Founders would find us a failure. 

For John Adams, it was “virtue” that would be the foundation for a lasting liberty.  Perhaps the half that thought they’d deem us a failure has recognized our country is virtually devoid of virtue.  Most students in our schools today would probably be hard pressed to define virtue, let alone demonstrate it to the satisfaction of the founders.  For Adams, it was pure virtue that held the key; for Thomas Jefferson, it was a right understanding of God that was the firm basis for our future success.

In 1789, while the Governor of Virginia, Jefferson put it this way, “God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever…”

The destiny with which MG Lee predicted they’d soon rendezvous ultimately included the harrowing parachute drops on D-Day into Normandy, the battle at Bastogne and the Battle of the Bulge.  For their valor during WWII, this Band of Brothers, the 101^st Airborne Division, was awarded four campaign streamers and two Presidential Unit Citations.  They suffered 1,766 Killed in Action; 6,388 Wounded in Action; and 324 Died of Wounds during WWII.  Those figures alone make clear the high cost of successfully obtaining the liberation of Europe. 

This piece is not intended to solely lament the vapid state of virtue in our United States today.  More importantly, it is not implying an increased volume of virtue in our Republic can be mandated or legislated.  No, it will only occur if, and when, as Jefferson well said, the people’s minds can connect our liberty with the Giver of life; when they connect the Creator of life with the creation of our Constitution.  Now that would be a great class for a government school to give.   

Like Jefferson, I too tremble that we’ll not wake up before God’s justice does.

Fran’s Tirade Of Tirades

Now the rainman gave me two cures,
Then he said, "Jump right in."
The one was Texas medicine,
The other was just railroad gin.
And like a fool I mixed them
And it strangled up my mind,
And now people just get uglier
And I have no sense of time.

If you’re around my age and have a good familiarity with the works of noted poet Robert Zimmerman, you’ll recognize the source of the above. If not, be patient; I’ll get to it in due course.

These days, it’s unusual for me to go a day or two without writing something for this site. That was also the case with Eternity Road and The Palace of Reason of loving memory. But this piece isn’t about my prodigious output; it’s about the reasons for it.

The more I allow myself to observe, analyze, and dwell on what’s going on around me, the less able I am to resist writing about it. (Fortunately for the relatives and close friends to whom I would rant and rave about such things vocally, they don’t exist.) This might well be the case with many others in the Internet Commentariat, though it would be arduous, not to say pointless, to conduct a confirming survey.

Not only is the world going to Hell in a handbasket, the bottom of the basket is being ripped away by flesh-eating zombies. When I confront the various bits of evidence to that effect, my blood pressure spikes, and I write. The matter is exacerbated sharply by the dearth of others ready, willing, and able to comment on these matters knowledgeably, incisively, and fearlessly.

Oh, there are a few others. (See the blogroll for my favorites.) But the great preponderance of comment, even in the Grand and Glorious Age of the Internet when anyone can say anything (and anyone else is free to ignore it), is either pusillanimous or bilious, and without noticeable leavening by actual thought.

Other people make New Year’s Resolutions. I make wishes. This year, my fondest wish is for a return of hard thought and moral courage to this Republic. This is especially my wish for those who write op-ed for general consumption.

---

When Ruthie says come see her
In her honky-tonk lagoon,
Where I can watch her waltz for free
'Neath her Panamanian moon.
And I say, "Aw come on now,
You must know about my debutante."
And she says, "Your debutante just knows what you need
But I know what you want."

Nearly all opinion-editorialists have some political agenda. Surely that comes as no great revelation to my generally intelligent and observant Gentle Readers. But even you few, you happy few, you band of brothers tend to resist going deep below the surface of that reality.

A political agenda inherently assumes that politics – the struggle over who shall rule and who shall submit – should apply to the subjects the op-ed writer addresses.

That’s a bedrock truth, people. That’s the Alpha from which nearly every op-ed writer starts every column, regardless of its specific focus. And it typically goes without question by the writer’s readers.

Why?

Time was, the American mantra was “Mind your own BLEEP!ing business.” It’s been years since that was the case. These days, it’s “There oughta be a law.” The shift in attitudes could hardly be more dramatic.

The evidence is everywhere. Just one example: What’s the Republican slogan about ObamaCare? “Repeal and Replace.” Why “replace?” Why not simply repeal the monstrosity and let people make their own decisions about how to pay for medical products and services, as free people once did? Too simple? Too easy to measure against a standard for achievement? Not “compassionate” enough?

Stop kidding yourself. Politicians worship political power. They want politics involved in everything. If they could get away with it, they’d pass laws about how you should sit on the toilet – and a hefty schedule of fines for violations. Their party alignment makes no difference whatsoever.

Virtually every op-ed writer currently blathering has chosen to align himself with some political ideology. Virtually all such persons routinely cheerlead for one or the other of the two major political parties. They might well be sincere in their convictions. They might well be benevolently inclined toward the rest of us: they might sincerely believe that the political agendas they promote and support would be for the best, and that once they’re in place, we would all be as happy as kings.

It doesn’t matter. They’re pushing politics – the pursuit of power over others – as the cure for everything that ails us. Even those who argue solely for the repeal of this or that oppressive law are pushing politics.

In Ursula LeGuin’s first truly great novel, The Left Hand of Darkness, she has her co-protagonist Therem Harth rem ir Estraven, the disgraced former prime minister of Karhide on the chilly world of Gethen, reflect that “They say here ‘all roads lead to Mishnory.’ To be sure, if you turn your back on Mishnory and walk away from it, you are still on the Mishnory road. To oppose vulgarity is inevitably to be vulgar. You must go somewhere else; you must have another goal; then you walk a different road.” Estraven concludes that reflection with “To oppose something is to maintain it.” This is not quite literally true, but beneath its surface lies the bedrock truth I cited above.

A subject once politicized remains in the political domain until a sufficient number of persons accept that politics is irrelevant to it, and refuse to allow politics to influence their decisions about it.

There’s a word for such a refusal. No, I shan’t tell you what it is...yet.

---

He made, in his inexperience, the classic mistake: he tried to explain. Life had not yet taught him how futile that approach is, with men and women alike. He did not know that the only respect-compelling attitude toward any accusation, true or false, is: “Take me or leave me as I am, and be damned!” – Frank Yerby, An Odor Of Sanctity

What set me off today were two striking columns:

• “Microaggressions”, “Trigger Warnings”, and the New Meaning of “Trauma”
• UNTITLED

...which broadly address the same subject. Both are worth your time – but set aside a fair amount of that precious commodity. (If you think I write at length, the cited pieces will readjust your perspectives.)

The world of “victims” has grown badly overpopulated, for a single reason: Victim status has become a political currency. If you have enough of it, you can use it to buy legal and political privileges. So group after group has rushed pell-mell into Victimism Valley, hoping to slurp up some of that soup before sensible people dam the river. The “angry ugly girls” have been particularly active these past few months, but let’s not neglect the racialist mouthpieces, the Muslims, or the environmentalists (yes, they claim we running-dog lackeys of the patriarchal capitalist conspiracy are somehow oppressing them, not merely “Gaia.”)

Look hard, Gentle Reader. Force yourself to look at the premises beneath the victimists’ contentions and demands. The set always reduces to the same ones:

• Free people have made choices we, the victimized, dislike;
• That makes us angry;
• We’ll use whatever means are at our disposal to get them to stop making those choices;
• Failing political access – no, we won’t stop trying – we’ll use unearned guilt, intimidation, volume of voice, perhaps even harassment and vandalism.

What makes their successes possible?
Who makes their successes possible – especially should the State remain uncooperative?
Might it be the bloke staring back at you from the bathroom mirror?

Do you know what the victimists fear above all else? Being ignored. It’s why they put so much time and effort into getting in front of every microphone, every camera, and every so-called journalist in the world. If a sufficient preponderance of us were simply to ignore them, their influence would drop to approximately zero. Indeed, the power of that tactic – what Arthur Herzog called in The B.S. Factor the “mass yawn” – is so staggering that it can even nullify state and federal laws, without recourse to the political process.

Consider the plaint of Scott Aaronson, whose travails are cited in the UNTITLED column. He wasn’t coerced into demeaning himself at gunpoint; he surrendered to the angry ugly girls:

At one point, I actually begged a psychiatrist to prescribe drugs that would chemically castrate me (I had researched which ones), because a life of mathematical asceticism was the only future that I could imagine for myself.

He wanted something he thought he could get from them, so he allowed them to destroy his self-respect. If he considered the alternatives at all seriously, it isn’t apparent from the cited article. But that isn’t the end of his wanderings in the intellectual and moral wilderness:

No woman “owes” male nerds anything; no woman deserves blame if she prefers the Neanderthals; everyone’s free choice demands respect.

I added the emphasis. One guess as to why.

---

“My friends, you have a right to nothing...except what you can earn in a free market, or what others are voluntarily willing to give you. -- Robert Ringer, How You Can Find Happiness During The Collapse Of Western Civilization

“Rights.” Got any? What are they? Enumerate them. Justify them as best you can. And be prepared to defend them – against me. Because if I decide you don’t have such rights, I’ll ignore your demands while I’m able, and fight back viciously should ignoring you or your political patrons fail to suffice.

I’ve often spoken and written about natural law. The laws of nature aren’t artifacts of legislation; they’re consequences of the structure of the universe. To the extent that we have natural rights. they must be implied and upheld by those laws. The ‘rights” everyone and his halfwit Uncle Elbert have been demanding of us have nothing to do with them. They use the word rights to characterize their demands because it has a special power in American thought.

In point of fact, there is exactly one natural right. But let’s think oh-so-briefly about what we might do to verify or falsify the claim that this or that demand constitutes a “right.” Can we come up with criteria by which to assess such claims? I think so:

Can everyone alive exercise the claimed “right” simultaneously, without giving rise to conflicts that can only be settled by force?

No imaginable conception of “rights” dependent upon enforcement can be made consistent with that standard. Natural law guarantees that once force is made the arbiter, force, whether exercised or withheld, will determine everything. In microcosm, this is easily grasped: your “rights” have no power against a mugger with a gun to your chest. For us who have been steeped in statist notions, the implications are the tough part:

"Rights are an archist concept. Rights have no meaning except when confronted with superior power. They are what is left to the people after the government has taken all its wants. Your country's Bill of Rights defines your most cherished freedoms how? By limiting the legal power of government to encroach upon them." [Eric L. Harry, via fictional anarchist theorist Valentin Kartsev in Harry's blockbuster Protect and Defend.]

Governments cannot define rights in any morally defensible sense; they can only wield force and intimidation. Eric Harry saw that clearly. So do the victimists.

Note again the emphasized snippet from Scott Aaronson’s plaint:

[E]veryone’s free choice demands respect.

What if I ignore your demand for my “respect?” What if I laugh in your face? What then? Will you go to the Omnipotent State to demand that it enforce your will upon me? Because unless you’re willing to take the risks inherent in trying to coerce me personally, that will be your only recourse...and trust me on this: those risks are quite a bit greater than you might think.

Power-mongers and power-seekers know this, from which arises the concluding theme of this tirade.

---

Now the bricks lay on Grand Street
Where the neon madmen climb.
They all fall there so perfectly,
It all seems so well timed.
And here I sit so patiently
Waiting to find out what price
You have to pay to get out of
Going through all these things twice.

[Bob Dylan, “Memphis Blues Again,” from Blonde On Blonde]

The political class and its hangers-on fear exactly the same things as the victimists: being ignored. Were they to become aware that no one is paying any attention to their enactments and decrees, they would soon slink away. Some might even enter productive trades, perhaps as cheap prostitutes.

They haven’t done any such thing because we continue to pay attention to them, and for no other reason. They do have their tools: the media, the many interest groups they support and encourage, political favors to the amoral and weak-minded, and of course a considerable amount of potential force. But none of these things are irresistible. Indeed, they pale in comparison to the force available to the citizenry.

He who yearns for a return to freedom cannot repose his hopes in the State, in politics, or in any imaginable “movement.” He must simply say to himself, “I am free; I shall do as I please,” and sincerely resolve to endure the consequences. There is no other avenue; all other roads are “roads to Mishnory.” While we remain on it, we’re inexorably fated, not to “go through all these things twice,” but to go through them over and over ad infinitam.

This is not a brief for political anarchism, as intellectually attractive as that is. It’s an exhortation to applied practical anarchism, perhaps alternately phrased as individualist anarchism: your personal refusal to grant the State unmerited attention or respect. That includes ignoring statist dictates that have no moral basis. (You might already be doing exactly that on subjects near and dear to your heart.) If you’re uncertain how to determine which such dictates are morally unfounded, you need only look to the Gospel According To Matthew:

Now a man came up to him and said, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to gain eternal life?” He said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.” “Which ones?” he asked. Jesus replied, “You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false witness, honor your father and mother and love your neighbor as yourself.” [The Gospel According To Matthew, 19:16-19]

And really, when one has the Son of God for his Counselor, why would he need any other?

---

“I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.” – Professor Bernardo de la Paz, in Robert A. Heinlein’s The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress

I expect to return to this theme several times over the course of the Year of Our Lord 2015. Politics hasn’t just failed us; it’s misled us into apotheosizing it and its favored ones. There are no longer any plausible courses toward freedom but delegitimizing politics through a Herzogian “mass yawn.” But as with a good golf swing, the follow-through is critical.

Robert Ringer’s declamation quoted above should be at the forefront of the mind of any man determined to be free. However, the proper focus can make all the difference. It would be insufficient to delegitimize politics as practiced in America’s capitals. We must first resolve to ignore those claiming absurd, wholly unjustified “rights” and striving to bend us with the quasi-political tools of unearned guilt, intimidation, screaming, and harassment. That’s where the effort must start.

They have a right to exactly nothing.
Grant them that and nothing more.
We do not need their approval.
We do not need them to welcome us.
We certainly don’t need their respect.

It’s time to be free.

A Most Significant “Gaffe”

Has everyone finally recovered from his New Year’s Eve revel? Good. Here’s the choicest plum of the day:

A Muslim cleric who preaches from certain passages of the Koran could be caught in the “broad” net of the government’s new anti-terror law, Islamic leaders have warned.

Grand Mufti of Australia Ibrahim Abu Mohammad and the Australian National Imams Council have called for the offence of “advocating terrorism” to be removed from the so-called Foreign Fighters Bill, currently before Parliament.

Wait: haven’t we been told repeatedly that the overwhelming majority of Muslims are “moderates” who abhor terrorism just as much as any Christian? Then why...oh, I see:

It is documented the al-Qaeda handlers of the 9/11 suicide pilots had urged them to dwell on passages in the Koran in which God promises to "cast terror into the hearts of those who are bent on denying the truth; strike, then, their necks!"...

In its submission, the Islamic Council of Victoria said the new law would incriminate Muslims who support "legitimate forms of armed struggle", including resistance to the Assad regime in Syria and the Palestinian conflict with Israel....

"Criminalising the act of 'advocating terrorism' adds another layer of complexity to this issue. The scope of what constitutes 'advocating terrorism' is unclear."

The council identified what it says is a double standard in Muslims wanting to go to Syria and Iraq to provide aid having their passports cancelled "while ignoring the travel of Zionist Jews wishing to travel to Israel – a state which illegally occupies Palestinian territory with intention of fighting in a war against Gazans and has been accused of war crimes".

So when Muslims commit violence intended to terrorize others into submitting to Islam and Islamic prescriptions, it’s not terrorism, eh? But when an American Jew travels to Israel, perhaps merely as a tourist, that’s terrorism!

This is a classic gaffe in the Kinsleyan sense: “when a politician accidentally tells the truth.” It’s not quite as blatant as it might have been but it’s close enough to the American standard for such things, which casts a wide and “tolerant” embrace.

Applause to Keith at Crusader Rabbit for the link.

Daniel Greenfield at Front Page Magazine comments thus:

They have a point. It’s just usually one that they aren’t willing to admit in public. The Jihad comes from the Koran. Every act of Muslim violence that is religiously sanctioned, from terrorism to rape, is derived from the Koran. If you ban incitement to violence against non-Muslims, you criminalize the Koran.

No quantity of varnish can conceal the essential facts, which appear in every copy of the Koran every printed: Islam is a violent, irrational creed designed to seduce a violent, unthinking people. It is terroristic to its core. But style such a creed a “religion” and suddenly the whole schtick about “religious freedom” and “tolerance” comes into play. Imagine what Hitler could have achieved in America had he insisted that Nazism is a religion!

There’s a reason why the majority of converts to Islam in America come from our prisons…but no one wants to think about that for very long either, do they?

A moment, please. I need more coffee.

---

One of the factors that make it possible for Muslims to propagate the lie that “Islam is a religion of peace” is the general unawareness of the chronological development of the Koran over the course of Muhammad’s life. The suras are not arranged in chronological order, but in order of their length. That conceals the time spans and correlated events that distinguish the suras from the earlier “Meccan” period, before Muhammad added violence and conversion by the sword to his “religion,” from the later “Medinan” period, when he prescribed all manner of violence, fraud, and intimidation as acceptable – even mandatory – methods for enlarging dar al Islam. Nor are Muslims happy to discuss the Islamic doctrine of naskh or abrogation, under which the later suras supersede and nullify the earlier, more tolerant ones.

The great irony here is that according to Islamic doctrine, the Koran is the perfect and inerrant word of Allah himself, has existed throughout all of time, and is not to be interpreted by human agencies! Yet it contradicts itself in more than a hundred places, and invokes naskh to do so:

"We do not abrogate a verse or cause it to be forgotten except that We bring forth [one] better than it or similar to it. Do you not know that Allah is over all things competent?"- Koran, Sura 2, verse 106

The naive Westerner who reads an English-language translation of the Koran is all too easily made to overlook those contradictions. Helpful imams will rationalize them away, or steer the reader’s attention in some other direction, never, ever allowing the subject of the hegira and its effects upon Muhammad’s attitudes to come into the discussion.

You cannot get a Muslim to admit that the Koran sanctifies the enslavement of non-Muslims.

You cannot get him to admit that it says that lying to a non-Muslim, or breaking one’s promises to a non-Muslim, is acceptable.

You cannot get him to allow that sharia law, the political component of Islam, decrees adultery and homosexuality to be capital crimes.

You cannot get him to admit that Islam declares women to be too inferior to men to give trustworthy testimony before a court – or that four male Muslim eyewitnesses to the act are required to sustain a charge of rape.

You cannot get him to admit that murderous violence committed by a Muslim who shouts ”Allahu Akhbar!” as he kills has any slightest connection to the Koran, to Islam, or to the goals of the worldwide Islamic movement.

That “tolerant, peaceable” Muslim neighbor of yours? The one you keep referring to whenever your “Islam means peace” notions are challenged by someone like me? How does he treat his wife and children? Where do his “charitable contributions” go? What do you know about the mosque he attends and what’s preached there? Just how certain are you, should a jihadist demand his assistance in some violent campaign, that he would staunchly refuse it, despite the peril to him and his family?

And just how certain are you, should he and his co-religionists come to be as numerous here in America as they are in Britain or France, that their aggregate behavior and influence on American society would remain as “tolerant” and “peaceable” as he seems today?

Just a few warm, fuzzy, supremely “tolerant” thoughts to kick off the New Year.