Tag Archives: Islam

Economics, Education, Foreign Policy, Religion, Terrorism

SEPTEMBER (2001) SONG

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Credit to ABC News, 9-11-2001

Prudence recently located these comments by a well-known small-business owner. They were written shortly after the U. S. began the war in Afghanistan, following 9-11-2001. Statistics are pertinent to those days, but the heartfelt admonitions are timeless. Americans, in particular, should reflect upon them.

I believe, and could argue, that the Constitution is the best possible distillation into secular law of Judeo-Christian ethics. Indeed its very simplicity shows that without a shared moral foundation, mere mortals could not long sustain a government with so few vested powers. It is self government, raising the individual to virtually sovereign heights and it requires both free will and self-restraint: self-governance most profound.

If one believes in God’s role in the evolution of mankind from beast to gentleman or innocent creation to energetic dissembler, one recognizes the great good humor of God in providing us free will. Thou mayest choose from evil. We believe, in the world’s richest larder, that our view of civilization is part of a prophecy or destiny; somehow we have taken over from God on this leg of the relay. Now that the baton of life is ours, we decide if the unborn shall win their freedom to simply be on earth, and we, alone, should decide whether God has particular relevance or is only a super-agency to whom we appeal when, in our judgment, our stumbling arrogance delays some gilded wants.

History flows, more or less, away from savagery toward civilization, if not civility. Most societies see truth as relatively good and lies as relatively bad; charity and sacrifice as relatively good, too, with selfishness and greediness sort of bad. The birth of children is almost universally good, while murder is almost universally bad. A many-branched river, either in a torrent or a trickle, moves toward a more civilized social order where those less able are cared for by others more able. It meanders from backwater to swamp as it seeks a path toward a better human condition, but always, we like to think in our fatted West, toward a free and rewarding system very much like our own.

Those who bridle Islam with terrorism, ride its billion-plus souls into acts more heinous than war, attempting, they claim, to rid the earth of whole peoples whom they judge to be impure. Only by removing us and our open, licentious indecency can they preserve their self-perceived more pious way of life. To some of these, at least, our movies, music and overt sexuality are a terrifying rain of bombs upon their children, women and paternalist hegemony. What do we suggest is their proper defense?

The “West” is their unholiest of infidels, preaching depravity with a global, inescapable power of electronic, and cheap, media that is a new force upon the Earth. To Muslims who can renounce terrorism, but who are consciously pious and committed to the Koran – “deeply religious” we might say – there is no negotiation with the blandishments of Satan’s pit – no co-existence with perceived evil. Our only response, devoid of much imagination, is military.

History and our whole social and economic belief structure allows us no other. The President had to act, must act, did act. He has done the “right thing,” albeit with the wrong weapons, one might conclude. Bin-Laden has succeeded and succeeded again in directing our battle against the quarter of the planet that is Islamic. Our protestations of separating terrorism from Mohammedism serve to strengthen our timely coalitions, but fall upon non-believing ears in most of the Islamic world. The falling bombs are indistinguishable from America, itself. The fine points of selective targeting and diplomacy are lost on the millions who choose not to be like us, who are readily, almost eagerly, led by practiced haters. We sit in judgment of their failures to lead the world in technology, human rights and materialism. Our comforts and prosperity are not the fundament of their aspirations and our discussions of why certain fellow-Muslims must be killed are strictly one-way. We see ourselves as able to spank the errant billion, followed by immediate hugs and comfortings so they will realize we truly love them, but their bad-seed brothers had to go.

Why do they hate us so much? That is the question posed by our deepest thinkers.

“The West” has not only conquered communications, but has ringed the planet with satellites, effectively creating a sea of electronic trash through which Earth spins and rotates, year upon year. Television shows and movies that extol everything from abortion to homosexuality, murder to free sex, flood the airwaves. Books and magazines replete with same, are hawked from Zimbabwe to Mongolia. Not even China can stem the tide. We are angry at the Falwells and Robertsons who deign to point out that God can bless only the good, that His laws are completely Just, that He, Himself exists according to them with absolutely no ability to compartmentalize sinfulness. But, we say, throughout history America has been kind to its vanquished foes. Surely we can all see that this attack on Afghanistan will soon be good for them? God bless America; sing it loud. Drop the bombs of righteousness.

How will we know if the war on terrorism is won? So far we have proven that we can destroy Afghanistan’s tallest buildings as a sort of grandiose tit-for-tat. They are, of course, only a few stories tall. The political support for war, however, depends on both clarity of mission and conclusively good news about its fulfillment. There isn’t going to be much of either. We may not find Bin-Laden very quickly and already proclaim at every juncture that he is only one of many and that catching him is not the only goal. Will we, as in the war on drugs, proclaim the capture or death of some terrorist functionary to be of equal importance? Can we manufacture some interdicted tons of success sufficient to justify the whole war effort? Will Americans buy it? When the next terrorist action occurs will we accept that the need for more war-making is ever more justified? And the next?

And the next?

These questions are are not asked idly. A couple of ounces of powdered anthrax spores have place the nation on edge as almost no other mechanism might do. We readily conceive of fighting fire with fire, as it were, but with what do we fight disease? There is nothing. Cure the sick and worry. Cure the sick and fear.

Imagine a balloon-borne twenty pound tube of this anthrax stuff freely dispersing its load over, say, Chicago. A couple of square miles of city could be powdered and the ensuing panic, growing from media-spread spores of its own, would effectively shut that city down. People would flee, perhaps only to be prevented, possibly(?) from leaving until tested. Some sort of quarantine would be deemed necessary and, most certainly, travel to that entire region would cease. Talk about ripples in the economy. With the populace already so on edge as to run from spilled confetti, so many activities would cease that depression, not recession, would follow.

Not even the U. S. can absorb the costs of abject fear and still prosecute an endless war. The costs of terrorism we have only slightly begun to imagine. The politics of terrorism are also waiting to be unleashed.

The risk is greatest for President Bush. Everyone is backing him, now, in our newfound patriotism, but such high approval ratings are fleeting, in our history. George, the first, had a ninety percent rating eleven months before losing to Bill Clinton. With limited war news to prove his policies are both righteous and right, Bush will quickly be blamed by his enemies when the next big terrorist attack occurs. Every speech made includes an admonishment to prepare for more attacks and some comment about how we are preparing, nationally, for what, everything? But, when the ax falls, it is the President who will be blamed, however unfairly. Careful, methodical thinking and planning could fly out the window, then – and covert operations become overt.

Internationally, should America strike out in political anger rather than simple righteous vengeance, coalitions will fracture into alliances, neutral states and declared enemies. Then what? Terror groups will unleash everything they have; the U. S. will bomb population centers, world trade will slow to a trickle and a dozen opportunities to settle old differences, like Taiwan, Kashmir, Israel and South Korea, will be exercised by virulent enemies who are held in check now by our flexible willingness to oppose them. Like Gulliver, the Lilliputians will tie America down with a thousand tiny battles.

The most dangerous condition in the World is a lack of understanding of what the United States will finally fight for. So long as that point is not reached, we can push and pull and trade and buy a continued flow toward civilization. But when that line is crossed and should enemies in waiting decide that then is the time to fight their own battles, the possibilities of either a huge escalation or retreat into armed isolationism become real. Then the global power centers will shift. Wartime alliance or power vacuum. Either way, the future we have been hazily expecting will be replaced with another that we won’t control. A dark, sheer precipice terminates many of the paths we might take.

I see no one in the Congress who has the wisdom to advise the President better than what he is doing already. Neither do I see a happy ending for most of the right actions he might take. How I wish we, as a nation, had not been spending so much effort to turn our backs on God and His commandments. Perhaps we should have let in some of those aborted in the past thirty years. Now would be a very good time to turn to Him if He is still willing to hear us. With love, Bob Wescott.

Culture, Education, Politics 2017, Trump

An American Prescription

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We are at a crossroad in history.  One might say that we are always at a crossroad, but from time to time there is a confluence of forces that literally force decisions on nations and people that will significantly change their paths – and the paths of other nations – into the future.  And here we are.  What are the forces that have come, or are coming together to force big change, none of which is good?

First is militant Islam.  Islam and everyone else have been in conflict since Muhammad was marrying a 9-year-old.  Without parsing every conflicting and convenient verse of the Q’uran, the message of Islam is that everyone must be Muslim, one way or the other – the “other” being force.  This has become twisted, especially since the influence of Nazism, into honoring those who kill themselves to defeat the “enemies of Allah.”  This includes even children and grandchildren.  Muslim political leaders arrange for pensions to be paid to the parents of suicidal “heroes,” often from monies received from the United States(!), as tribute for their “martyrdom.”

There is no possibility of negotiation or compromise with people who believe such things, except that Westerners – Christians in particular – relinquish part of their own beliefs and sense of abhorrence.

The history of relations with strictly Muslim countries is one of slow, steady loss for their opponents, which is to say, us.  The question is whether we have lost enough to be at a point of unrecoverability.  The second condition that forms this point of historic crossroad is nuclear proliferation.

For the only nation to actually kill a few hundred thousand people (both quickly and slowly) with nuclear ordnance, the United States has been just about the worst player in the field of preventing the spread of nukes.  The recent “agreement” with Iranian mullahs, negotiated by the great statesman, John Forbes Kerry, at the behest of international genius, Barack Hussein Obama (the only person who really knows, who ever stated that he, B. H. Obama, was born in Kenya) was a colossal retreat on every front the mullahs thought of, and then an even larger retreat on some fronts they hadn’t thought of but which were conveniently placed before them by the aforementioned duet of American foreign relations braniacs.  The result is the acceleration of Iran’s terrorism operations, deeper involvement in Syria’s civil war, alliance with Russia and, just to add some fun to the world’s troubles, guaranteed development of nuclear-tipped ICBMs.  A legacy of accomplishment.

The rush by North Korea to also field nuclear ICBMs is not a coincidence to the Iranian effort, they are joined at the rectum, passing their crap between them – another legacy of accomplishment for American anti-proliferationists, going back decades.

And so we have two key forces: militant Islam and nuclear weapons.  What’s the third?

The third force is China.  Whether the 21st will be a Chinese century is the immediate result of choosing wrongly which way to turn at the crossroad we are facing.  China has its problems, including potentially severe economic ones, but it does not hesitate to expand its military influence in dramatic ways, including creating islands that it now claims are its territory because it has placed military installations on them.  And, China is the best thief in the world in terms of intellectual property, keeping itself abreast of nearly every U. S. military innovation by stealing every secret we haven’t had the courtesy to hand to them.

China perceives itself as the natural next world hegemon, and simply waits as the U. S. self-destructs in the face of militant Islam and the internal forces we have arrayed against ourselves.

We, ourselves, the nation of the United States of America, representing the decline and fall of Western, Judeo-Christian civilization, comprise the multi-faceted FOURTH force.  It will not please liberals and their lefty, anti-freedom, anti-capitalism friends to hear the prescription for keeping America on top in the global pecking order.

America is destroying itself and its ability to lead the world.  There are many symptoms of this self-destruction, but we do not heed their warnings.  Here are some examples:

  • $20 Trillion in current debt and a hundred $Trillion or so in impossible obligations;
  • 40+% of budgets committed to welfare;
  • Dysfunctional education that has effectively separated Americans from their own history;
  • Dissolution of the social order, distrust of civil authority, fomented racial tensions and breakdown of urban cores;
  • Secularization and separation from, even embarrassment towards Christian religious faith and morals;
  • Rampant drug assault on young people with inconsistent actions to prevent their entry and production;
  • Legalization of a hundred strains of potent marijuana on the premise of tax revenue and official lies about “medical” and “recreational” marijuana;
  • Pollution of electronic media with unbridled pornography and destructive, dishonest “entertainment” contributing to the breakdown of moral institutional influence;
  • Legalized and subsidized abortion;
  • Nearly complete reversal of the role and place of the U. S. Constitution and the ideas of America;
  • Dissolution of marriage, the meaning of marriage and the basic responsibilities of family commitment and child-rearing.

We could talk for hours about all the cultural declines we can see all around us, so many of which weaken our people in terms of mental and physical toughness in the face of potential hardships we will inevitably face.  Science notwithstanding, Americans in great numbers believe there will never be another depression, or even severe inflation; they believe that the weather they like can be guaranteed politically, believe it or not; they believe they can matriculate with barely a glimpse of history, study of founding documents and philosophies, or of the reasons behind major events; they believe there are pills that will a) make them smart, 2)keep them fit with rock-hard abs, 3) make them attractive to beautiful partners, 4) change their birth gender.  These are they who think that criminal illegal entrants strengthen the economy and the nation, that drugs can be legalized to the benefit of government without damaging users, that single-payer health-care will improve quality and lower costs without fascist death panels.  Talk about Dreamers.

What is/are the prescription(s)?  There isn’t room or time to list the hundreds needed, but Prudence indicates that these 4 will make the fastest, surest differences:

  1. Facilitate church-run schools.
  2. Qualification of voters prior to elections.
  3. Charterization – non-union – of public schools.
  4. Nationalizing the Federal Reserve.

America is worth saving; the world depends upon it.  Perhaps the worst thing we could do is pursue removal of a legally elected president no matter how much you may hate him.

Immigration

TOLERANCE, LOGICALLY

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There is definitely a logic to modern immigration non-policies and protests. One could be justified in his or her puzzlement as to why criminals might be valued above the law abiding, even by “official” agencies of domestic law-enforcement. Some logic is shouted from the streets, some we’ll have to impute, but there is a logical platform underpinning apparent disconnectedness of immigrant “advocates.”

There would be MORE logic if every advocate were a non-citizen. Being allowed to gain new comforts and benefits that are not available in one’s own country is, logically, something to strive for. Like everyone else – every single member of the human race – people who sneak into a better country or economy are CAPITALISTS! That is, each will gain as much as possible for as little effort as possible. Once gained, the “possessions” one has are reason, of themselves, to defend one’s ownership thereof. That is, “possession” is 99/100ths of the “law” (of possession). Are we going in circles, here?

Well, yes. But there is a certain logic for the possessing individuals. What about “Sanctuary” logic? Heated protesters and their elected officials make a case for “fear avoidance.” That is, people who have snuck into the United States are, in theory, subject to legal sanctions for having broken Federal laws, and they “fear” being found and found-out. Their friends and families, legal residents and non-legal, and the self-recognized and self-created “agencies” that earn their livings working to connect non-legal residents to various welfare benefits, ESL classes and, unfortunately, contrived documentation – like drivers licenses – are on the front lines demanding “justice” for their fellow humans, laws be damned.

Municipal officials claim that these “fearful” non-legal residents won’t report crimes they have knowledge of if they are so fearful of being found-out and forced to go home to their own country. Nothing is said about reporting crimes of other non-legal residents who will likely escape prosecution simply because of their illegal status! MOST countries are NOT as pleasant to live in as is the U. S. Numbers of less-nicely-living people exceed 3 BILLION. How many are entitled to the largesse and safety of the United States? Logically, I mean.

Well, immigrant activists say, there shouldn’t be artificial borders; the World belongs to all of us. There may be logic behind that statement, but there are some sort of borders that come under the definition of human rights, aren’t there? Are strangers, or aliens, entitled to other individuals’ personal property? Even non-legal residents would object to a family of unknown, unrelated strangers moving into their homes and taking their income, wealth, food and personal space. That sounds logical.

There is a perverse sort of logic, not stated but accepted in practice, that stealing from the United States nation isn’t really stealing, like, from another person… I mean, honestly. There are a lot of U. S. citizens that believe the same foul thing! Still, illegal entrants are stealing forms of wealth that belong to U. S. citizens, and these include, in most cases, direct food, education, medical, housing and others kinds of costly aid that our new “residents” have not earned, paid-for, or deserve in any way except emotionally.

A new logic then is brought to bear: refugee status… and asylum. The U. S. since the end of WW-II has codified processes for EM-igrants: forced to leave their homes because of war. These are they who emigrate for essentially non-elective reasons; émigrés from Cambodia and Viet-Nam are excellent examples. The United States, responsible for much of the immediate destruction of Viet-Nam, Laos and Cambodia, helped tens of thousands of émigrés from Southeast Asia come to the U. S. and resettle in somewhat concentrated neighborhoods, mostly in cities or proximate suburbs.

What happened? Within a year or two our new residents had positive impacts on their local economies. Apartment sharers would combine for one car so that the adults could get to work; extended female family-members watched children for one another. Kids learned English without bi-lingual crutches and within a decade we had a host of “new Americans” whose cultural communities and religious philosophies were NOT purposefully antithetical to our Constitution and our Judeo-Christian legal system. One need look only at their children and grandchildren as they give valedictory and salutatory speeches.

There were both logical and charitable reasons to encourage and accept Southeast Asian immigrants. There is only an emotional justification for accepting large numbers of Muslim refugees. We want to believe that the wonderfulness of U. S. society will cause all degrees of Muslims to become more secular, less fundamental about Islam and to live like their new neighbors. For a nation premised on religious “freedom,” depending upon a softening of religious fervor seems oxymoronic – if not moronic.

Islam teaches dominance over, or death for, infidels. The prime infidels are Jews and Christians. I can see a problem. CAIR describes Islam and the Quran as mostly faith, sweetness and light. They bend over to reference Abraham, David, Jesus and Mary as if we are all brothers in belief and tradition. But history teaches otherwise.

Most, I mean in the order of a billion and more Muslims, will never take up arms against their neighbors, behead a nun in Africa or a reporter in Pakistan. Most don’t spend their days in hatred. On the other hand, they won’t fight too hard against their real faith-brothers who do. Islam, by credo, intends to replace all other belief structures because God commands it; Mohammed said so. “Religious freedom” is anathema to the Quran as are all forms of secular governance and lifestyles. And Muslims mean to carry out the dictates of the Quran.
Well, I can respect their adherence to their faith – I’m an American. Live and let live. But, I’m also conservative. I believe in the Ten Commandments and the teachings of Jesus Christ and the lessons of personal responsibility that the Bible, and our Declaration of Independence and Constitution embody. What ye sow, so shall ye reap… so MUST ye reap.

Christianity has undergone significant reformation not because of what the New Testament says, but because of abuses by the Catholic Church, politically, financially, powerfully. Little by little, sometimes ‘bigly,’ the Church has shifted while the basis of Christianity has not. Yet, make no mistake, Western civilization is dependent upon the success and survival… and integrity, of the Catholic Church. Fortunately, its self-destructiveness seems to be lessening.

“America” became what it did because of Mosaic and Christic principles. It also has failed in many areas because of human failing to follow those and our own laws. In the past hundred years, or so, we have found ways to talk ourselves OUT OF our Judeo-Christian principles by cleverly playing our own words against them… against ourselves. Legalized abortion is a clear example; separation of church and state is another.

We’ve given up our right to exercise judgment, and become afraid to exercise or even honor Christianity. Muslims have never relinquished Islam – every jot and tittle of it. In our amorphous philosophies we invite Muslims to live among us as if they, too, will become amorphous in their philosophies, yet, in our legalistic anti-Christian wasteland, we can’t even TALK about threats to our culture and heritage. The only sin left is intolerance.

So we tolerate, tolerate, tolerate until we’ve become able to argue for automatic citizenship for illegal entrants. Breaking laws and standing, publicly – even by elected officials – against their enforcement, is celebrated. A majority of states elected a president who battles to restore the rule of law and our Constitution, whose wife has the courage to say a prayer in public, and thousands protest in the streets. God save us.

Terrorism

A PROBLEM LARGER THAN RADICAL ISLAM!!

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Omar-MateenThe following was originally published in the Westford CAT as a letter to the editor by Dennis J. Galvin of that town.
home phone : 978-692-3157 cell phone: 978-846-2635 cell email: galsix90@aol.com

June 27, 2016

Letter To The Editor

A PROBLEM LARGER THAN RADICAL ISLAM !!

Our nation recently experienced one of the worst terror attacks in its history. Yet, rather than coming together, with a firm resolve to respond, Americans find themselves bitterly divided over political agendas. There are three rails in American politics today. The conservative rail favors small government, strict adherence to the constitution and a free enterprise economic system. The liberal rail favors larger government, wide latitude in the interpretation of the constitution, and qualified support for the free enterprise system, provided there is a safety net. The third rail are the progressives. They are neo Marxists, who believe that American society is inherently flawed and must be torn down and rebuilt. Centralized re-education, social re-structuring, pervasive government indoctrination and rule by fiat are their answer. They see the constitution as biased toward certain classes and believe that wealth redistribution is the only way to achieve social justice.
Progressive ideology has played a significant part in bringing about our division. The mass shooting in Orlando Florida gives clear evidence of this. It was perpetrated by a self-avowed radical Islamist, supported by an ideology focused on destroying western civilization. Progressives distinguished themselves by their response to this incident. They fabricated a narrative to distort the intent of this ruthless killer, using his crime to attack American citizens, who do not agree with their agenda. Gun owners, Christians, straight men, were all accused of contributing to the conditions that led to this carnage. The leading national progressive, our president, became unglued over criticism of his leadership, attacking Republican candidate Donald Trump with a ferocity that should have been reserved for the terrorist ideology responsible for the killings.
This display is unnerving and it supports an assertion made by David Horowitz, a former member of the new left, now a progressive critic, who said that to understand progressives, one must remember that “the issue is never the issue, the issue is the revolution.” Horowitz warns that the only focus of progressives is their agenda. The implication: no matter what happens, with regard to the radical Islamic threat, progressives would sacrifice our security to advance their goals. The anemic response of our President to ISIS, his unwillingness to fully commit the nation to their destruction, and the renewed calls to curb the second amendment support this assertion. It would also explain his vehement public attacks on Republicans, rather than homicidal radical Islamists.
Horowitz’s implications are clear, progressives are so blinded by the correctness of their ideology, that they no longer feel an affinity for their nation or their fellow countrymen, if they disagree. All that counts is the cause, anyone who gets in the way must be destroyed. Offering a sobering insight into this mindset, Horowitz once said “ if you believed that you could bring about heaven on earth, what crime would you not commit and what lie would you not tell.” Such audacity threatens our freedom and our security. The aftermath of Orlando reveals that as a nation, we are facing bigger problems than just ISIS.

END