Category: Uncategorized

From the NY Times:

After her family moved to this small town 30 years ago, Mona Dobrich grew up as the only Jew in school. Mrs. Dobrich, 39, married a local man, bought the house behind her parents’ home and brought up her two children as Jews. For years, she and her daughter, Samantha, listened to Christian prayers at public school potlucks, award dinners and parent-teacher group meetings, she said. But at Samantha’s high school graduation in June 2004, a minister’s prayer proclaiming Jesus as the only way to the truth nudged Mrs. Dobrich to act….

The Dobriches eventually sued the Indian River School District, challenging what they asserted was the pervasiveness of religion in the schools and seeking financial damages.

This reads like a caricature of stereotypically Jewish behavior. If an author made up something like this in a novel, he’d be reasonably castigated for overt anti-semitism. But if there are any Jews who still can’t figure out why so many people come to hate them, this should serve as a sufficiently explanatory example. People have been living in this town for hundreds of years, then a single Jewish family moves in and eventually files a lawsuit demanding that literally everyone else in town modify their behavior in order to accomodate their delicate sensibilities and pay them off on top of it.

This isn’t merely outrageous, it is the sort of behavior more remniscent of an overt agent provocateur than anything else. And, sure enough, negative results became quickly apparent.

Mrs. Dobrich, who is Orthodox, said that when she was a girl, Christians here had treated her faith with respectful interest. Now, she said, her son was ridiculed in school for wearing his yarmulke. She described a classmate of his drawing a picture of a pathway to heaven for everyone except “Alex the Jew.”

In other words, the townspeople were perfectly happy to leave her alone and allow her to live her life in peace as long as she was willing to do likewise. Then, their latent “anti-semitism” appeared as if by magic once she started filing lawsuits against them in an attempt to exert control over their behavior. No doubt the townspeople would have been just fine with everything had it only been a Hindu or a Muslim trying to wax dictatorial….

It seems that some particularly short-sighted Jews are eager to expand the definition of anti-semitism to encompass a desire to live according to one’s own beliefs. If so, they should not be surprised when everyone who values individual freedom then embraces anti-semitism. Already the once-explosive charge has become ineffectual in Europe, where political leaders on the right and the left alike are immune from it, and if Jews continue to behave in the reprehensibly boorish and dictatorial manner exhibited by Mrs. Dobrich, they will fully deserve any future unpopularity in the USA as well.

I’m not anti-semitic myself, (at least by the classic definition of Judenhassen, although by Abe Foxman’s expansive definition, I, along with every animal, vegetable and mineral on the planet, would be), I’m sure my Jewish business partner would take at least passing exception to that. And I fully support Israel’s right to attack Hezbollah in response to an open act of war, even if their attempt to win by the use of air power is doomed to failure. But it’s not hard to understand how anti-semitism develops as a response to what appear to be intentional acts of provocation such as Mrs. Dobrich’s. As I’ve written previously in a column entitled “Christkillers”, I think there is a spiritual element to this as well, but this cycle of provoke-and-suffer appears to be the way in which that spiritual element repeatedly creates such predictable ill will.

And the Woodland Hills political controversy:

Like most pastors who lead thriving evangelical megachurches, the Rev. Gregory A. Boyd was asked frequently to give his blessing — and the church’s — to conservative political candidates and causes.

The requests came from church members and visitors alike: Would he please announce a rally against gay marriage during services? Would he introduce a politician from the pulpit? Could members set up a table in the lobby promoting their anti-abortion work? Would the church distribute “voters’ guides” that all but endorsed Republican candidates? And with the country at war, please couldn’t the church hang an American flag in the sanctuary?

After refusing each time, Mr. Boyd finally became fed up, he said. Before the last presidential election, he preached six sermons called “The Cross and the Sword” in which he said the church should steer clear of politics, give up moralizing on sexual issues, stop claiming the United States as a “Christian nation” and stop glorifying American military campaigns.

“When the church wins the culture wars, it inevitably loses,” Mr. Boyd preached. “When it conquers the world, it becomes the world. When you put your trust in the sword, you lose the cross.”

I don’t always agree with Greg. But he’s a good man of rare intellect and honor, and I have little patience or sympathy for his detractors.

Amanda starts to correct herself, then decides against it:

In the meantime, I need to correct for a rather sweeping generalization I made about how the left isn’t harboring racists of our own. I should have known better than to be so simple about it; god knows I’ve seen enough liberals making racist and sexist and homophobic jokes that one can’t just dismiss it out of hand. Nonetheless, I think my basic point stands. If you are an honest-to-god hateful racist who uses politics as a way to beat up on other people for being different, you know what political party is yours—the Republicans. If you’re firmly committed to eradicating prejudice, you’re going to be pulling the lever for the Democrats.

Clearly the girl has never met an Italian Communist, a Swiss SPS member, a French Socialist or anyone from the British Labour Party. These people tend to be just slightly less anti-Semitic than your average Palestinian suicide bomber, moderately less anti-black than David Duke, (they’ll drop the word “nigger” as freely as a gangster rapper, although in their defense, I’ll point out that they honestly don’t realize that it’s supposed to be offensive), and many are openly avowed Marxists, if not Marxist-Leninists, whose leftist credentials would put Hillary Clinton and Betty Friedan to shame.

Amynda is also clearly unaware of the history of the modern Democratic Party. George Wallace was a Democrat and the only member of the KKK currently seated in the Senate happens to be its ranking Democrat. These days, the only people advocating legal racism are Democrats.

This serves as a reminder that the average leftist’s attempt to pose as a sophisticated intellectual nobly battling against the benighted bourgeoisie of Middle America is just that, a pose. The reality is that the vast majority of them are myopic and monolingual morons, too parochial and poorly read to grasp that their political spectrum is a rainbow that ranges from red to blue the short way round.

From Jim Dunnigan’s Strategy Page:

Many of the people involved in doing development work in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places frequented by Islamic terrorists, actively discourage reporters from “telling the good news” about their particular project. Aid workers have concluded that when word of a successful project gets into the media, the terrorists will sometimes learn about it and target it. This has happened many times in Afghanistan, in the aftermath of news stories about schools for girls, and rural education in general. This is where the Internet comes in, because that’s how widely dispersed Islamic radicals can stay in touch. For these fellows, publicity is very important. And when they see a story that appears to disrespect them, like girls going to school, retaliation is discussed, and eventually someone follows through.

I don’t think that the pro-war commentariat is stupid because they hold a manifestly indefensible position, but rather because they so reliably demonstrate their ability to understand why things happen the way they do and to foresee the probable consequences of the actions they so loudly recommend. Their feeble capacities can be seen by the way in which they regard “well, we have to do SOMETHING” as passing for a defense of the Bush administration’s bungling.

The fact that they cannot even recognize that the enemy follows the Western media, (despite the way in which numerous organizations and individuals have played it so adroitly), does not lend credence to their assertions that the only thing standing between the USA and victory over “Terror” is will. This is, in fact, a monstrously stupid supposition, the same one that lies behind numerous 20th century military disasters from the Somme Ypres to Barbarossa and the Six-Day War.

Any adroit student of military history knows that the two previous waves of Islamic expansion were not defeated by offense, but by defensive measures. The Crusades were a near-complete failure; what little success was enjoyed by the first Crusaders was entirely dependent upon the unstable nature of the Dar al-Islam. I will post more on this soon, but as has been obvious from the start, a winning strategy in this latest round of Islam vs the West requires understanding the lessons of past successes as well as failures.

From a comment thread at Femistasi Central:

Glaivester Says:

I’m not certain how it would work for fathers, but there is a biological reason for men wanting their wives/girlfriends to be monogamous. Most men do not want to get into a relationship, have a child with the woman, and then find out that the child isn’t really his. Part of the “slut-shaming” is a strategy by males to make certain that they aren’t saddled with another man’s child. (I am not saying that this is a conscious thought proces, but it is the biological basis behind this tendency).

Women are less concerned about “slut-shaming” men because they can have great confidence that their baby is theirs.

Female promiscuity and controls on it are less stringent (on average) in a lot of sub-Saharan Africa, because the men are much less likely to be expected to care for the kids, so a father does not have the same paternal investment and therefore less to lose if “his kids” aren’t really his.

zuzu Says:

Well, Glaivester, that’s a great argument for matrilineal and matriarchal societies.

Sure, as long as you don’t mind living in a mud hut without tap water or electricity and dying at 30. I’m telling you, feminist blogs are the Comics section of the blogosphere.

Peggy Noonan alerts us to breaking news:

William F. Buckley this week said words that, if you follow his columns, were not surprising. And yet coming from the man who co-fathered the modern conservative movement, carrying the intellectual heft as Reagan carried the political heft, the observation that President Bush is not, philosophically, a conservative, had the power to make one sit up and take notice.

I have had reservations in this area since Mr. Bush’s stunning inaugural speech last year, but Mr. Buckley’s comments, in a television interview last weekend, had the sting of the definitional.

What has Peggy been doing the last six years, coloring in her Ronald Reagan coloring books? Seriously, it’s only taken them about seven years to notice what was obvious from the start. The remarkable thing is that Noonan and Buckley are among the more intelligent members of the conservative commentariat.

It’s not that I am impressed with my own intelligence, there are an abundance of things I do not understand. But the deep and abiding moronism that abounds in the media, left and right, seldom fails to astound me.

Why do people pay attention to anything they say? They are dependably wrong, often reliably so! I’m thinking of starting a tracking service to note various pundits’ predictions. I’ll bet aside from a handful of commentators, most of them bat well below the Mendoza line.

…to date losers. Derb shares an email:

I have a friend, a very busy, worldly & successful guy, who is a great dispenser of advice, mostly good. His advice on raising a daughter: “Sure, education, orthodontistry, moral training, all that is good stuff. It’s secondary, though. You must concentrate above all else on this one great objective: DON’T LET HER MARRY A LOSER. Corollary: Don’t let her date any losers.”

I had a very sad reminder of this today. I learned that an acquaintance recently lost his daughter. She committed suicide at age 30. She was married to a hopeless ne’er-do-well, a drug addict. She was sure she could put him right.

“Don’t put your daughter on the stage, Mrs Worthington,” went the old song. I think my first friend is right: never mind the stage, or anything else, just keep her away from losers. And from the illusion—widespread among women, in my experience—that she can change a loser into a normal person by the power of love. Perhaps it can be done once in a while, but it’s not the way to bet. Not from what I’ve seen—and I’ve seen a few, and this is not the first one that ended tragically. May the poor girl rest in peace.

Teach them how to read. Tell them they’re pretty. Don’t buy them inappropriate clothing. Keep them off the pole and don’t let them date losers. You can’t control a child, you can’t control any human being, but you can certainly influence them by making your approval and disapproval clear and refusing to bankroll idiocy.

The idea that it’s impossible to reduce a girl’s interest in a loser and that any criticism will only drive her further into his arms is incorrect. Women, especially young women, can’t bear ridicule. Few girls will continue to harbor interest in a laughingstock who is openly regarded with contempt, they tend to value social status more than their brothers.

It takes two tries, but America’s most famous post-natal abortionette gets off:

A jury found Andrea Yates not guilty by reason of insanity in the drowning deaths of her young children in the bathtub of their suburban home. Yates will be committed to a state mental hospital, with periodic hearings before a judge to determine whether she should be released. If convicted, she would have faced life in prison….

In Yates’ first murder trial, in 2002, the jury deliberated about four hours before finding her guilty. That conviction was overturned on appeal.

Even the most die-hard equalitarian feminist considers women to be quasi-children; this can be easily discerned by the societal distaste for holding them responsible for anything from military service to murder one.

Also, the medicalization of evil is a trend that has long troubled me. It bothered me when Saddam was declared crazy – he isn’t, he simply miscalculated – and this verdict, with its implication that a few counseling sessions and a prescription or two will set things right, bothers me too.

She’s got definite plans:

“We’re going to sacrifice a lot of girls’ lives,” said Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.

After performing a series of degrading and unspeakable acts on them, no doubt. Her husband’s activities in the Oval Office won’t hold a candle to what the Lizard Queen plans to do in there.

I just wonder if perhaps it wouldn’t be wiser for her to keep her bloodthirsty lesbian rituals under wraps until after the election.

Even an unemployed homeless man living in the woods can teach better than the professional educators at your children’s public school:

The man and girl told police they had lived in the park for four years. The pair appeared clean, well-fed and healthy, Barkley said, and the girl was well-spoken beyond her years. The man, who identified himself as Frank, told police he was a 53-year-old Marine Corps veteran and college graduate who served in Vietnam. He came to Oregon with his daughter, Ruth, from Tacoma with no job and virtually no money. Frank told police that the girl’s mother was institutionalized in New Hampshire, and the two now lived on a $400-a-month disability check.

Rather than live on the streets and expose Ruth to alcohol and drugs, Frank said, they hiked deep into Forest Park and built a lean-to. The pair went into the city twice a week to stop by the bank, attend church, buy groceries and clothes from Goodwill. Frank, a devout Christian, said he taught his daughter using the old encyclopedias.

Even though the child and father lived for such a long time disconnected from society, the girl had been home schooled and was in good physical shape. In fact, the girl received a very good education from her father while living among the trees. Officials said the girl, who would be normally in 7th grade, is at a 12th grade equivalency.

So, do you still think that you’re incapable of homeschooling? Or that teachers are underpaid?