Archive for June, 2010

Islamists

Two small additions. First, the powers-that-be insisted upon Islamist as a negative term to distinguish real Muslims who want to kill us for the sake of religion from people who pretend to be Muslims without really having firm convictions.

The Supremes and the NRA

I agree entirely with Aaron Wolf both on the constitutional argument but also on the deeper political question of the centralization of power.  The problem is that we are all tempted to use the court when it suits our purpose, and in this case if I lived in Chicago I’d probably be happy with this [...]

Failure on Many Levels

Goldman Sachs buys and sells securities for customers and also trades for its own book. It’s the world’s biggest derivatives dealer. CEO Lloyd Blankfein told a British magazine in late 2009 that they were “doing God’s work.” Now we know what that entails.

Importing Multiculturalism—June 2010

Thomas Fleming discusses the culture that produced “Jihad Jane,” John Willson gives the real history of immigration in the United States, and Chilton Williamson, Jr., details the cultural argument against mass immigration. Plus, Roger D. McGrath on illegal-alien crime in Southern California.

Down With Islamists

Ali Mir of the USC Muslim Student Union is upset about the media’s usage of such terms as Islamist and extremist. (They are “blah, blah, blah.”) This bothers him because these words “play to readers assumptions” and fail to “challeng[e] their prejudices.” And that’s unfair, considering he is “unable to find examples of similar stock-phrases [...]

Politics, Power and Sen. Byrd

“The Former Klansman Who Backed Obama,” was the Huffington Post‘s hook for its account of Sen. Robert Byrd’s demise. The New York Times‘ website came closer to the mark: “Elected a record nine times to the Senate, Mr. Byrd, 92, championed the legislative branch and brought huge amounts of federal dollars to West Virginia.”

If I Could Turn Back Time

Here’s the bottom line of today’s SCOTUS decision regarding the incorporation of the Second Amendment, which amounts to an explicit rejection of traditional federalism on the part of the conservative majority. (Full disclosure: I’m of the Hestonian “cold, dead hands” persuasion.) Writing for the majority, Justice Alito admits the original intent of the Bill of [...]

Strange Words for Strange Days

Charity.

Old version: Open-handedness toward our neighbour in need.

New version: Getting the government to spend other people’s money on politically favoured groups, at home and abroad.

Aeneid III A

Dr. Fleming has continued his discussion of Vergil’s Aeneid: “If the second book of the Aeneid is a nightmare, the third books is a melancholy depiction of people who are so obsessed with the past that they cannot deal with the present, much less face the future.”

The Prisoner of Gen. Petraeus

President Obama is being hailed for toughness in his firing of Gen. McChrystal and brilliance in his replacing him as Afghan field commander with Gen. David Petraeus, who managed the George W. Bush “surge” in Iraq that saved this nation from an ignominious defeat.

Herewith, a dissent.