Thursday, August 28, 2008

The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy

As a dues-paying member of Hillary Clinton's Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, it came as a revelation of sorts to learn about the parallel universe in which a Vast Left Wing Conspiracy exists. Within it, liberals do endless battle with one another for control of the Democrat Party.

Ron Arnold's book, 'Freezing in the Dark: Money, Power, Politics and The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy', is not light reading. This heavily researched and documented narrative reveals all the major players of the liberal universe and how these renamed 'progressives' interact through networks of wealthy foundations, advocacy groups, think tanks, and leftist media.

'Freezing' will particularly please policy wonks, but it is also a brilliant romp through the jungle of leftist politics. If you have the stamina to get into and through it, you will understand what drives the Left. To get you started, I will quote Winston Churchill who defined Socialism as 'a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy; its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.'

As I reached the end of 'Freezing', I had a random thought about the 2008 election and its outcome. Simply put, Democrats who have been driven insane by the very existence of George W. Bush cannot run against him. In the funhouse of modern politics, the Republican they must defeat is more like them than not. John McCain is Democrat Light. One of his best pals is Joe Lieberman who ran as the vice president nominee with John Kerry!

Emerging swiftly from the text is the way the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Act transformed how politics was to be funded. Little wonder that Sen. Obama abandoned his pledge to work within the constraints of federal campaign funding in favor of raising gobs of money from the Internet and the traditional supporters of anything and anyone labeled liberal, progressive. Never mind that the Communist Party USA also supports Obama. It must surely just be a coincidence.

McCain-Feingold banned 'soft money' donations, the large and unlimited contributions from individuals, unions, and corporations to political parties. This 'reform' required Democrats to create a networking restructure with the many satellite groups competing to use the party to get the only reform they ever wanted, the trashing of the U.S. Constitution.

It's useful to remember that the Constitution exists to limit the power of the federal government and, via the Bill of Rights, those of the States to the extent that individual liberties are protected. This is why the liberalism discredited by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s has returned as a Halloween mask labeled 'progressive.'

Progressives, however, come in many colors of red. There are, as Arnold notes, social, labor, anti-globalization, anti-corporate, anti-capitalist, environmental, post-national who like Sen. Obama see themselves as citizens of the world, and campaign finance reform progressives who think that the current electoral system is a threat to democracy, mostly one suspects because it keeps defeating progressives.

As Arnold reveals, one can hardly call liberals or progressives a movement. 'It was more like a mental hospital without doctors or nurses.' They don't have a cohesive culture, have no coherent ideology, but are 'just quarrelsome factions with loads of issues.'

What they all seemed to have, however, was gobs and gobs of money from leftist foundations and millionaires who wanted to change the world by supporting one or more of the myriad of issues they embrace as their penance for being successful, thanks to capitalism.

The ultimate symbol of this is the billionaire George Soros. As Arnold points out, 'The Soros mishmash of leftist causes at home ranged from financing the anti-gun lobby to abolishing capital punishment; from anti-Israel activism to promoting abortion rights; from feminism, population control, and gay liberation to anti-corporate campaigns, radical theories of education, and replacing national sovereignty with global institutions.'

Compare this with conservative values that include 'hard work, duty and obligation, self-reliance, high levels of national pride, pro-life values, rejection of homosexuality, belief in the importance of religion and God in one's life, and that children should learn respect and obedience.'

Essential to the compact that the American government makes with citizens is the understanding that if you work hard and stay out of trouble with the law, it will leave you alone!

The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy believes that your life must be guided from birth to death by the government, its prohibitions, and its demands, a society in which everything not mandated by law is prohibited. To achieve this, progressives come at voters from all directions, conjuring up hoaxes like global warming, promises of often imaginary 'clean' energy, the demand to end 'urban sprawl', the 'right' of same-sex couples to marry, support for the United Nations, and endless charges of racism, among other charades to gain control of the federal government and its judiciary system in order to implement a top-down control of your life.

'Freezing in the Dark' is a roadmap to understand why we are assailed daily with the insanity of liberalism, an utterly failed system that depends on coercion while seeking to devalue the central principles of our constitutional system, from private property to individual merit and, yes, the promotion of wealth as a good thing.

Source



Our Vanishing Right of Dissent

As long as America has existed there has been political dissent. From clashes over entry into the Revolutionary War to early battles regarding Federalism and taxes to the Lincoln-Douglas debates to conflicts about entering two World Wars to modern skirmishes on abortion rights and 'separation of church and state,' there has always been political disagreement in our great nation.

The freedom to voice our opinions has been one of the defining principles of America; it separates us from a host of world nations where the ideas of freedom of speech and religious freedom are completely foreign.

However, I have grown concerned about an emerging strategy in our culture that aims to silence or punish those who hold opinions that counter those who have a little power.

We have seen this in the case of the Boy Scouts of America, which legally won the right, as a private organization, to define membership prerequisites. However, some cities and municipalities that oppose the Boy Scouts' ban on homosexual and atheist leaders have barred the Scouts from utilizing public property-solely because of their membership requirements. Words like 'discrimination' and 'intolerance' are carelessly attached to the Scouts even though the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the organization may-as all private organizations may-legally define membership qualifications.

This collectivist mindset that penalizes groups (or individuals) who embrace a mindset that counters the so-called 'mainstream' contradicts all that we know to be true about our nation.

This week, I learned that the American Association of Law Schools (AALS), a consortium of law schools, under pressure from liberal activists, has decided to punish a California hotel owner who supports the state marriage protection amendment (Proposition 8).

The AALS's 2009 annual meeting will be held at Doug Manchester's San Diego-based Manchester Grand Hyatt, but the organization says it will hold all AALS events at another hotel, in effect establishing a boycott against the hotel with which it signed a contract to hold the event.

Mathew Staver, dean of the Liberty University School of Law and founder of Liberty Counsel, says this circuitous boycott indicates how the AALS does not respect the rule of law and more specifically demonstrates how the organization will seek to punish a businessman who deviates from the organization's stance on same-sex marriage.

'This type of action is not what law is about,' Mr. Staver said. 'People are using law, separate from transcendent principles and morality, as a coercive force to pound home their liberal ideology and their agenda.'

As Mr. Staver told OneNewsNow.com that actions like the AALS boycott highlight the burning need for the Liberty University School of Law to turn out lawyers and policy makers who hold true to the evident biblical foundations of America's legal system.

'[W]e at Liberty University School of Law are intent on training a new generation of lawyers and judges, policymakers, and world leaders in the rule of law from a Christian perspective,' he told OneNewsNow.com . 'Certainly the time has come to train a new generation-not the way these secularists want to train them, but to train them in a proper foundation of the rule of law.'

It's tragic to see this one-view mindset taking hold in our culture because it contradicts the basis of our founding principles. It is a throwback to the old 'sand box' principle of our youth.

While the dissenting spirit of our Forefathers is in our blood, we are beginning to more resemble Beijing than Biloxi. And that should trouble us all.

Source



Binge-drinking mother jailed after crying rape against devout Muslim taxi driver

A binge-drinking mother has been jailed after falsely accusing an innocent taxi driver of raping her. Joanne Rye, who kept up the lie for 20 months, was told by a judge her behaviour was despicable and was handed an eight-month prison sentence. [The bitch should have got what he would have got]

The mother-of-one caused great shame and disgrace to devout Muslim Sherekhan Kali and his family after claiming that he dragged her down an alleyway and assaulted her. Maidstone Crown Court heard Rye, then 18, was known as a troublemaker and had been banned from using the All Night Car Hire in Dartford, Kent where Mr Kali worked. The court also heard the week before she made the rape allegation, she had used racially insulting language to Mr Kali.

Valeria Swift, prosecuting, said Rye was very drunk and was taken to hospital claiming she had suffered an asthma attack on the night of October 21, 2006. Ms Rye became aggressive and police were called and it was then she made the rape claim, giving a detailed account of the attack. She claimed she was waiting for taxi in Dartford when she was grabbed and a pellet gun was fired into her kneecap. She said her attacker then dragged her into an alley and raped her. But she said there would not be any DNA because he had used a condom. She also told how she had recognised Mr Kali because he had taken her in his taxi a week before.

The part-time cabbie was arrested at his home and taken to the police station where intimate samples, DNA and fingerprints were taken. His boss Nicholas Morris confirmed that Ms Rye had been banned from using the firm's cabs because of racist abuse to drivers. Miss Swift revealed a check of the satellite navigation system in Mr Kali's cab showed he had been nowhere near the area where Rye said she was attacked. CCTV footage of her drunken behaviour on the night she said she had been raped also proved it could not have happened in the way described. The prosecutor said the only motivation for the false allegation was the incident a week earlier when the fare was disputed.

Rye continued to maintain she had been raped up to the first day of her trial in June, accused of perverting the course of justice. Miss Swift said of Mr Kali: 'This case has had a very profound effect on him indeed.' Sarah Morris, defending, said Rye, now 20, would go out and get drunk, smoke cannabis and behave in an anti-social manner. But she had since settled down with a boyfriend and had a child, now aged five months. 'The prospect of a custodial sentence is frightening for her,' said Miss Morris. 'She has put herself in the position where her child will be without the mother. 'Of course, many people would say well, tough, that is your doing. You have brought this on yourself and must face the consequences. 'What she did was thoroughly reprehensible. But it has not been every case where a woman who has cried rape has gone into custody.'

Miss Morris said Rye, who worked in catering for the elderly, knew her boyfriend was not equipped to deal with a young baby. Her mother would have to give up her job to care for the child. But jailing Rye for a 'modest' eight months, Judge Crawford Lindsay, QC, said he had no doubt the matter was so serious there had to be an immediate prison sentence. 'I consider this to be a despicable offence,' he said. 'You made an allegation that this entirely innocent taxi driver had raped you. 'It was fully investigated with the consequences that police time and doctors' time was wasted in the investigation.'

It was not until the first day of her trial in June this year that she 'faced the inevitable' and owned up. 'This is a case where the victim is a strict Muslim, who regularly attends to his beliefs and prays regularly,' said Judge Lindsay. 'At the police station, intimate samples were taken. Having another female touch a part of his body is forbidden. It would bring shame on his family. As a consequence, he left this country for a period.' When he returned to work, Mr Kali was frightened of having women in his cab and would go home. 'So we have a man of blameless character who is subjected to your dishonesty and trumped up allegation,' said the judge.

'It is clear when you are in drink, you are loud-mouthed. You have a young child but that is a matter which does not in my judgment prevent a penalty for an allegation that is easily made and had a serious effect on the victim. 'He suffered the suggestion there is no smoke without fire.'

Source



Regulating water

Under the Clean Water Act of 1972, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers are granted jurisdiction over the "navigable waters" of the United States. If a boat can float on it, it's theirs to regulate. Over the years, the definition of "navigable waters" overflowed its banks, expanding to include virtually anywhere with detectable levels of H2O.

"What began as a reasonable attempt to control water pollution in our nation's interstate rivers, lakes, and streams," says Peyton Knight at the National Center for Public Policy Research, "spiraled into unreasonable federal regulation of isolated wetlands, ponds, dry lakebeds, intermittent streams and drainage ditches." As time went on, landowners were required to obtain permits for everything from draining a field for plowing to building a dock to filling in a low wet spot.

In 2006 the U.S. Supreme Court issued a muddled opinion in Rapanos v. United States that reined in some of the more exotic interpretations of "navigable waters." Now Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.) and Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) have introduced the Clean Water Restoration Act, which would replace the phrase "navigable waters" with "waters of the United States," by which they mean "all waters subject to the ebb and flow of the tide, the territorial seas, and all interstate and intrastate waters and their tributaries, including lakes, rivers, streams (including intermittent streams), mudflats, sandflats, wetlands, sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows, playa lakes, natural ponds, and all impoundments of the foregoing."

If the bill passes, it will create new regulatory barriers for fishermen, boaters, hunters, and even some conservationists, who may find that their favorite hobbies no longer pass muster. The act leaves it up to the courts to decide if "waters of the United States" also includes your kitchen sink.

Source

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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