On Leftist tactics of deception

Sanford Horwitt prefaces his biography of [Saul] Alinsky, Let Them Call Me Rebel, with an anecdote he felt illuminated Alinsky's method. In this anecdote, Alinsky shares his wisdom with students wishing to protest the appearance on their campus of the first George Bush, then America's representative to the UN during the Vietnam War:

College student activists in the 1960s and 1970s sought out Alinsky for advice about tactics and strategy. On one such occasion in the spring of 1972 at Tulane University's annual week-long series of events featuring leading public figures, students asked Alinsky to help plan a protest of a scheduled speech by George H.W. Bush, then U.S. representative to the United Nations, a speech likely to be a defense of the Nixon Administration's Vietnam War policies [Note: the Nixon Administration was then negotiating with the North Vietnamese Communists to arrive at a peace agreement- DH.]

The students told Alinsky that they were thinking about picketing or disrupting Bush's address. That's the wrong approach, he rejoined - not very creative and besides, causing disruption might get them thrown out of school.... He told them, instead, to go hear the speech dressed up as members of the Ku Klux Klan, and whenever Bush said something in defense of the Vietnam War, they should cheer and wave placards, reading 'The K.K.K. supports Bush.' And that is what the students did with very successful, attention-getting results.

This vignette tells you everything you really need no know about Alinsky's ethics and his attitude towards means and ends. Lenin once said that the purpose of a political argument is not to refute your opponent "but to wipe him from the face of the earth." The mission of Alinsky radicals is a mission of destruction.

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From David Horowitz, Barack Obama's Rules For Revolution - The Alinsky Model, (c)2009 David Horowitz Freedom Center, Sherman Oaks, CA 91499

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On government’s role in getting the economy moving

The government's role in restoring a healthy economy is primarily to get out of the way and to reduce the economic dead-load of taxes and excessive regulation.

In the very same way that the energy required for a rocket or an aircraft to gain altitude increases as the affect of gravity increases, so too do taxes and regulation increase the “energy” necessary to make the economy rise.

Therefore, half-measures must be avoided entirely. Half-measures will produce tepid or, worse, no improvement, while allowing political critics to say, "We've tried your ideas, and they didn't work."

The reforms introduced must be bold, courageous, determined and, yes, some will be painful, as well.

• Some economic activity presently based on government interventions (e.g., subsidies, artificial demand) will cease to exist.
• Initial price-jumps following the removal of interventions that were, in fact, or worked effectively as price controls will be unavoidable. Thankfully, the removal of some interventions will bring price decreases, as well.
• Changes in the value of the U.S. Dollar are likely to occur. Protecting the U.S. economy against currency values being artificially manipulated by other nations (such as the Chinese Yuan) is not wrong as long as the protection imposed is directly correlated to the amount of manipulation in the estimated true value of the currency.
• Recognition that disparities in income and wealth are normal, natural and actually function as a healthy stimulus to production and the growth of the economy is essential and should be articulated to the voters in a clear way.

When legislation is proposed, the changes and the impacts of the changes must be announced and explained in advance. The long-term vision must be reiterated. The reason for the change must be clearly defended against every onslaught from the opposition, and then the effects of the changes must be "survived" as reality sets in.

The costs the people must bear during the readjustment of the economy should be shared as widely as possible by implementing measures that are clearly articulated as "temporary" to ease the transition. Otherwise, the fragile political support of those suffering the temporary pain of the readjustment will be lost.

Telling the truth and not promising things that cannot be delivered is the only safeguard to the credibility of the reforms and of the officeholders who see that the reforms are imperative to our nation's full recovery and restoration.

We are here to help!

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On the TSA, bailouts and needless economic interventions

The TSA (Transportation Security Administration) was a G.W. Bush bailout for the airlines because, after 9/11, there was a genuine fear of flying amongst the American public. So, the U.S. government stepped in to give Americans confidence to fly again.

However, all this action did was create a moral hazard for the airlines. Every time there is a failure in TSA's security, the airlines are not be held responsible, the U.S. government is. As a result, there is an ongoing degradation of liberty and the humiliation of the U.S. traveler at the hands of government officials.

If the airlines were responsible for security, there would be competition in security. That competition would drive toward maximum security with minimum damage to the travelers' liberties accompanied by minimum cost and inconvenience, as well.

Some airlines would do better than others. Prices might even be affected by how well airlines do in the security department. All-in-all, there would be improved security at a lower cost—and the travelers would bear all of the cost. The American taxpayer would not be held hostage as the payer of last resort in the event of ongoing failures or the need for new technologies.

Already the Obama administration has handed out favorable contracts for the production of the new x-ray machines and other TSA equipment to manufacturing firms strongly connected to unions. It is just one more way of intervening in the economy where the government need not be present at all.

Supposed “racist” founding of U.S. debunked with facts

This five-minute video is well worth watching if you’ve believed that our Founding Fathers were generally pro-slavery and that they thought blacks were subhuman.

Help stop Joseph Kony’s child slavery

You can help! Watch the whole video.

The threat posed by radical Islam’s “civilization-jihadist process”

Here in America, a threat is posed by the Muslim Brotherhood and its organizational arms, such as the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America, and the many Muslim student associations.

These groups seek to persuade Americans that Islam is a religion of peace. However, a document obtained during the 2007 Holy Land Trial investigating terrorist funding—a Muslim Brotherhood Strategic Memorandum on North American Affairs—and approved by the Shura Council as well as the Organizational Conference in 1987, speaks of "Enablement of Islam in North America, meaning: establishing an effective and a stable Islamic Movement led by the Muslim Brotherhood which adopts Muslims' causes domestically and globally, and which works to expand the observant Muslim base, aims at unifying and directing Muslims' efforts, presents Islam as a civilization alternative, and supports the global Islamic state wherever it is." [Emphasis added.]

Elsewhere, the document says:

"The process of settlement is a ‘civilization-jihadist process’ with all the means. The Ikhwan [the Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah's religion is made victorious over all other religions. Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for jihad yet. It is a Muslim's destiny to perform jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes...." [Emphasis added.]

Cooperation between the Obama Administration and the OIC poses a threat to free speech in the U.S.

The… threat we face is the specter of cooperation between our government and the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) to shape speech about Islam. A first indication of this came in President Obama’s Cairo speech in 2009, when he declared that he has a responsibility to “fight against negative stereotypes of Islam whenever they appear.” Then in July of last year in Istanbul, Secretary of State Clinton co-chaired—with the OIC—a “High-Level Meeting on Combating Religious Intolerance.” There, Mrs. Clinton announced another conference with the OIC, this one in Washington, to “exchange ideas” and discuss “implementation” measures our government might take to combat negative stereotyping of Islam. This would not restrict free speech, she said. But the mere fact of U.S. government partnership with the OIC is troublesome. Certainly it sends a dangerous signal, as suggested by the OIC’s Secretary-General, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, when he commented in Istanbul that the Obama administration stands “united” with the OIC on speech issues.

The OIC’s charter commits it “to combat defamation of Islam.” Its current action plan calls for “deterrent punishments” to counter “Islamophobia.” In 2009, an official OIC organ, the “International Islamic Fiqh [Jurisprudence] Academy,” issued fatwas calling for speech bans, including “international legislation,” to protect “the interests and values of [Islamic] society.” The OIC does not define what speech should be outlawed, but the repressive practices of its leading member states speak for themselves.

The conference Secretary Clinton announced in Istanbul was held in Washington on December 12-14, 2011, and was closed to the public, with the “Chatham House Rule” restricting the participants (this rule prohibits the identification of who says what, although general content is not confidential). Presentations reportedly focused on America’s deficiencies in its treatment of Muslims and stressed that the U.S. has something to learn in this regard from the other delegations—including Saudi Arabia, despite its ban on Christian churches, its repression of its Shiite population, its textbooks teaching that Jews should be killed, and the fact that it beheaded a woman for sorcery on the opening day of the conference.

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The encroachment of de facto blasphemy restrictions in the West threatens free speech and the free exchange of ideas. Nor will it bring social peace and harmony. As comedian Rowan Atkinson warns, such laws produce “a veneer of tolerance concealing a snake pit of unaired and unchallenged views.” Norway’s far-reaching restrictions on “hate speech” did not prevent Anders Behring Breivik from slaughtering over 70 people because of his antipathy to Islam: indeed, his writings suggest that he engaged in violence because he believed that he could not otherwise be heard.

In the Muslim world, such restrictions enable Islamists to crush debate. After Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab, was murdered early last year by his bodyguards for opposing blasphemy laws, his daughter Sara observed: “This is a message to every liberal to shut up or be shot.” Or in the words of Nasr Abu-Zayd, a Muslim scholar driven out of Egypt: “Charges of apostasy and blasphemy are key weapons in the fundamentalists’ arsenal, strategically employed to prevent reform of Muslim societies, and instead confine the world’s Muslim population to a bleak, colourless prison of socio-cultural and political conformity.”

President Obama should put an end to discussion of speech with the OIC. He should declare clearly that in free societies, all views and all religions are subject to criticism and contradiction. As the late Abdurrahman Wahid, former president of Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country, and head of Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest Muslim organization, wrote in his foreword to Silenced, blasphemy laws

“. . . narrow the bounds of acceptable discourse. . . not only about religion, but also about vast spheres of life, literature, science, and culture in general. . . . Rather than legally stifle criticism and debate—which will only encourage Muslim fundamentalists in their efforts to impose a spiritually void, harsh, and monolithic understanding of Islam upon all the world—Western authorities should instead firmly defend freedom of expression. . . .”

America’s Founders, who had broken with an old order that was rife with religious persecution and warfare, forbade laws impeding free exercise of religion, abridging freedom of speech, or infringing freedom of the press. We today must do likewise.

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From “Blasphemy and Free Speech” by Paul Marshall as published in “Imprimis” (Feb 2012, Vol. 41, No. 2), a publication of Hillsdale College