Demolishing Christian Churches in Nigeria
But remember: Islam is a religion of peace.

(Thanks to Little Green Footballs.)

Why is Nobody Talking About This?
The Jordanians stave off a major chemical attack on their capital city and nobody bats an eyelash. Why? Because it makes the case that the Syrians and their Ba'athist brothers in Iraq are a danger to humanity? Just like that Dumb Cowboy from Crawford said?

Nothing worse than people who don't want to know.

(Thanks to Power Line.)

Marine Corporal Oscar Reyes: "I'm a Hunter of Gunmen."
Here's a great story about our Marines in Fallujah: some of them can spot a savage from a thousand yards away.

The Boy Who Read Spengler and Wrote Too Much
The work of great, pluralistic societies is never done. If it were, and all the things of the public sphere were settled, then there's a society that is dead and awaiting the destruction that comes before rebirth.

But the United States is an evolving society where we are free to publicly debate the great issues of the day and to make our criticisms of others, including even our highest leaders. We may do so without recrimination, except through public opinion, to which we contribute even as we detract.

We are free to be ignorant, too, and detached from our civic responsibility to participate in our own governance. That is a weakness of a free society, but it is something that must be tolerated as it cannot be made compulsory. Not without going from a pluralistic culture to a monolithic and repressive one. Only fascists, either Left or Right, would want such an undissenting, unconsenting mass of inhuman subjects.

I say all of this by way of pointing out the necessity of even free societies periodicially stepping outside of their usual pluralistic and classically liberal characters and asserting, at the proverbial point of a gun, the superiority of their systems to those of repressive, tyrannical regimes. This is no contradiction of sense or right but is, as I say, a necessity. The Founding Fathers knew this. Lincoln knew this. And George W. Bush knows it, too.

A free society is not free, but earned through blood and sacrifice. But such a society is well worth this cost because it provides all the liberties that make our lives worth living. In our own case as Americans, we have so completely triumphed in the establishment of a free society that too many of us forget what is required. Too many of us are too enamored of our own intellectual fetishes by which we disrespect the genius of our culture by constantly throwing up the evidence of our past sins and errors. We make moral relativism an idol and say that we, as Americans, have no right to impose ourselves and our practices on others because we have been a nation of slave-holders and Indian-killers and oppressors of this group or that one.

But these objections are gibberish because we have also overcome these sins and have atoned for them. We, with our armies of black, brown, yellow, white, and red men and women, have known collectively what the absence of liberty entails ---and we know what its victory required. We have earned the right to make our case before the world and to declare that people ought to be free to worship and speak as they please. Men and women and children everywhere must have the right to travel and live where they will, and to be unmolested in their possessions. There should be no castes or segregation based on race.

But, as the work of a great, pluralistic society is never done, we must also work to maintain our individualism in the way of our unity. It is a complicated, unending task ---but one that is earned by degree and justified by participation. That is, if we do not assert and work for our right to be who we are as individuals in the greater context of our identity as Americans, we will be lost. So I cannot dismiss the rights of others to dissent, but I take it as a charge to hold them accountable for their beliefs and to question them in judgement of the validity of those beliefs.

None of this work will bring us its rewards if we do not guarantee their preservation. That is why we must step outside the safety of our own free society and insist, even through violence, that our way is superior to the ways of others. If we know this to be true and can justify what we do, we will be right in crushing those who would crush us. We can stand proudly and affirm that the doctrine of pre-emption is right because it will guarantee us our own security and that of our friends and potential friends who may not yet have tasted it for themselves.

But enough of self-loathing and moral relativism. Those on the Left, most especially, do not look deeply enough into the bases of their own liberty to think and speak as they do. They wrongly believe that our society has reached a point where sacrifice will no longer be necessary, and that pluralism is an end in itself. They wish to break the back of our unity as a free society and permit sedition to take hold.

Thus, wherever you see such depravity, expose and resist it. It is a responsibility to be taken solemnly, but absolutely. And once you have exercised your vigilance, return to your love of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. You have earned them, even in your most monstrous hour.

No Sin of Omission, But of Justification
I don't like Jim McDermott, the Dhimmicratic Congressman from Washington state. I think he's a treasonous jar of rancid smegma. But the attention he got this week for omitting the phrase "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance while leading the House of Representatives in reciting it is silly.

As I have probably mentioned here before, I used to do the same thing while leading my seventh-graders through the Pledge at a public school in Los Angeles a few years ago. For me it was both a matter of conscience and a good thing to do to see where the kids were at in terms of their own beliefs, which we would sometimes discuss. A stunt? Sorta. But a sincere choice against hypocrisy? Certainly.

Anyway, McDermott shouldn't be blamed for omitting the phrase, but he's still a liar about why he did so. Vincent Phillip Mu?oz explains why in the National Review Online. Check it out. McDermott got busted and now wants to weasel out. Tough.

Hillary Really, Really Wants Kerry to Win
Tina Brown, writing in the Washington Post, says that Hillary recently told a "top fundraiser" with the Dhimmicratic Party (who was griping about what a boring candidate Kerry is):

"You don't have to fall in love [with Kerry]. You just have to fall in line."

Tee hee. The seams are showing.

An Old Harvard Crimson Article on Kerry
Be sure to check out this 1970 story on the 26 year-old John Kerry running for office.

Like Stink on Shit
What happens when a couple of Palestinians try to stick up a suicide bomber from Hamas?

Hilarity, beeatch!

Some Contrarianism
In the latest issue of Foreign Policy, Jason Burke produces a lengthy list of what he takes to be the Right's misconceptions about the war against Islamism or al-Qaedism or whatever he wishes to term it, and counters them with his analyses to the contrary.

It's a useful article on the whole, but many of Burke's conclusions and suggestions are every bit as naive and ostrichy as the pro-war crowd's are culturally insensitive and hard-assed. I'll take the latter approach and then show my concern at the museum gift shop afterwards.

The basic argument of the Left (to which I do not know whether Burke belongs) is that Islamofascist terrorism is a many-headed hydra that cannot be killed ---so why bother? Don't visit justice upon the wicked and, instead, understand them and feel their pain. So, why do angry young Muslim men choose to go and commit suicide while killing others on the way? Because the West is corrupt and is friendly with oppressive Arab regimes.

But what do these madrassa-trained jihadis wish to put in the place of the jet-setting sultanates? Why, strict, Koranically-correct caliphates! No thanks, Mo. I think we'll just help your oppressors kill you instead.

I hope that the President and the far-sighted people around him realize what a small price it is for them to personally pay ---in suffering the abuse and detractions of craphounds and isolationists--- to reap the great credit due them for promoting democratic republicanism in the politically retarded Middle East. These petty sympathizers and Islamophilic excuse-makers are condemning themselves to a sordid reputation as the defenders of tyrants and terrorists, wife-beaters and honor-killers. But why? Why are Leftists and civil libertarians the most vehemently opposed to the liberation of Iraq and the Islamic world on the whole? It's either that their moral relativism has rendered their judgement unsound or they are simply angry because they think George W. Bush stole the 2000 Election. Come to think of it, the answer is probably both.

Nits make lice, friend. Enough of nuance. Crush the vermin.

A (Presently) Unkicked Ass
Some maricon named Rene Gonzalez at the University of Massachusetts recently wrote a column for his school's paper insulting the life and sacrifice of Pat Tillman. And then, fantastically, UMass' president Jack Wilson stepped up and wrote in response that Gonzalez' remarks are

"a disgusting, arrogant and intellectually immature attack on a human being who died in service to his country."

Ha, ha. Fucking sweet.

Tell you one thing, though: that wretched cocksucker Gonzalez comes into my line of sight and I'll kick his ass. That's a fact in your Library of Congress.

Chance Phelps
Courtesy of Blackfive, read Lt. Col. M.R. Strobl's account of his accompanying the body of Marine Lance Corporal Chance Phelps back to his final resting place in Dubois, Wyoming.

"Chance was an artillery cannoneer and his unit was acting as provisional military police outside of Baghdad. Chance had volunteered to man a .50 caliber machine gun in the turret of the leading vehicle in a convoy. The convoy came under intense fire but Chance stayed true to his post and returned fire with the big gun, covering the rest of the convoy, until he was fatally wounded."

Not Sponsored by Mutual of Omaha
INDC Journal has another installment in its Moonbat Migrations series.

You know, student activists who hide behind bandanas are cowards. If they're so fucking proud of their anti-Americanism, why don't they show their faces to the world? They've obviously got no problem showing their asses, so what's up?

A Two Year-Old: "But Dissent Is Patriotic! Waaahhhhhh!"

(Thanks to reader Mitch M. at Allah Is in the House.)

Poking Holes in the Soft Sedition
Listen to Donald Rumsfeld's recent observations on how the press presents the story in Iraq:

"There are two ways, I suppose, one could inform readers of the Geneva Convention stipulation against using places of worship to conduct military attacks. One might be to headline saying that Terrorists Attack Coalition Forces From Mosques. That would be one way to present the information.

"Another might be to say: Mosques Targeted in Fallujah. That was the Los Angeles Times headline this morning."

Don't let these commies in the media and the blogosphere tell you that what they're doing by slanting their coverage in favor of terrorist assholes is somehow "patriotic." They don't know what words mean anymore, nor are they capable of appreciating the irony of speaking under the protection of the First Amendment in defense of people who would wipe their asses with our Constitution if they even knew what one looked like.

Does the anti-war Left (which includes shit like my most favorite group of late, "Lesbians for a Free Palestine") even stop to consider what sort of enormously violent and oppressive assholes they're defending against our "imperialist aggressions"? Is Leftism nothing more than impotent contrarianism, devoid of principle and common sense? Because I think that, if they actually thought about what good is coming of our military's sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan, they'd shut up for five seconds and be grateful that human liberties await the Mohammedan world. But the detractions and seditiousness of these Leftist tools keeps us from the resolve and unity we could really use right now to get the job done.

Kerry Goes to Westminster College
At the invitation of the president of Westminster College (the site of Churchill's famous "Iron Curtain" Speech), Senator John Kerry will go there Friday to make a speech in rebuttal to that of Vice President Dick Cheney, who spoke there Monday.

President Fletcher Lamkin has expressed his "disappointment" that Cheney's speech somehow disintegrated into a partisan attack on Kerry's fitness to lead our country in a time of war. He has invited Kerry to make his own case because he wishes to provide a forum for all views to be aired.

This is fine. But Lamkin should have just scheduled a speech for both men in advance and left his personal views out of it altogether. He claims to be a neutral party, but to go pencilling in Kerry for the explicit purpose of rebutting Cheney hardly qualifies as a neutral decision. Moreover, it is just about stupid to have expected no partisan observations from a Vice President in the heat of a campaign when there is a crucial decision to be made with respect to who will be leading our country through the wartime and diplomatic challenges we'll face in the months and years to come.

Lamkin is a dope. Apologizing to the student body for Cheney's speech? Get out of here! Cheney's speech was very well-received. He doesn't need some lame-assed gristlehead making "excuses" for the defense of our cause for peace in the Middle East.

At any rate, when Kerry makes his speech, he will have nothing to say because he has no relevant or practicable alternatives to the Administration's policies in Iraq. Does anyone really expect Kerry's Westminster Declaration? Will there be a new or memorable way to say that we need France's approval and assistance? Kerry screwed himself beyond redemption when he cast a "protest vote" against the $87 billion supplemental for our military in Iraq after having cast his vote in favor of the war itself. The only conceivable reason why he did so is because he was trying to prove his bona fides to the Dean crowd. What a sucker. Kerry's got no game. Forget him.

Weapons of Mass Destruction Found
If even some of the information in this story from one of those awful right-wing magazines is true, then Saddam's WMDs have been found after all ---it's just a matter of how much attention the media gives them.

Not that it's a sport, but it will be interesting to see how slowly and fitfully the anti-war crowd will move the goalposts on this. They (and even a lot of wary conservatives who believe that they are maintaining some pretense of reasonable objectionism in this war) will have to find some other reason to hate the Warmonger in Chief if it can finally be demonstrated that Saddam was as dangerous as advertised. But their obsession with Saddam's "missing WMDs," which they can insist is a discredited casus belli, ignores the truth that war is a multi-causal and evolving endeavor. If WMDs were the only reason to go in, they would have had a technical point in their favor. But, as there have been many good reasons to do what we have done, they are desperate to cling to the most superficial claim of correctness. Well, forget that. An American-dominated Iraq is the best idea for peace in the Middle East in our lifetimes. But don't expect these stupid ninnies to admit that.

Stay tuned.

Oh, and for the psychotogrammarians among us: languages (and I would imagine that this is especially true of English) often adopt peculiar constructions when new terms are introduced. That is to say, an acronym like WMD is almost always construed plurally ---and it is no great crime that a user of this term might apply a plural ending to it (viz., "WMDs"), despite its asyntacticality. Capiche?

Not on the Script
I was surprised to see that the Village Voice ran an editorial today suggesting that John Kerry's candidacy is imploding and that the Democratic Party should insist on an open convention this summer in Boston where they will be able to replace him. But with whom? Hillary, that ersatz victim of her husband's infidelities? Could be. She's certainly gone out of her way to cultivate some hawkishness on the war, but why would a nation of frustrated Deaniacs consent to the candidacy of a pro-war Democrat? Well, in HRC's case, their "principles" would fly out the window because the cult of personality would trump all: a Clinton back in the White House?! Oh, gosh! Those lame-asses would wet their pants over that. But it's never going to happen. Hillary would polarize this country's electorate more than any other person I can think of.

Face it, losers: y'all are stuck with John Kerry. Y'all are stuck with a man whose reputation as a waffler, a liberal, and a boring stiff overshadows all else.

Enjoy!

Surely Kerry Didn't Say This...Did He?
Just moments after his unseemly interview performance on ABC's Good Morning America yesterday with the usually compliant Dhimmi lapdog Charlie Gibson, John Kerry is said to have exclaimed into the still-hot microphone: "God, they're doing the work of the Republican National Committee!"

I'm having trouble finding enough confirmation of this, but it's an amazing thing to say, if true. Especially considering the fact that Gibson is as far from being a tool of the RNC as he is close to being one for the DNC! There's really no question about that: Gibson is a total tool of the anti-Bush crowd. So what the hell's gotten into Kerry to be so abrupt with one of his homeboys? Must be a nerve got struck.

Beautiful Experience
I've just returned from the beautiful experience of visiting the Texas State Cemetery. Perfect temperature, a nice breeze, not so sunny as to annoy, and the whole place ---except for the men who keep the grounds there--- was mine to enjoy alone. What a beautiful place. Lots of well-tended green spaces and a system of ponds, streams, and fountains. There are graves and monuments for many of Texas' greatest names, as well as a memorial to those lost in the atrocities of 11 September 2001.

If you're ever in East Austin, be sure to visit there. It's a special patch of Earth.

From Avenger D-22
Here are some thoughts from a friend of mine:

A true hero, Pat Tillman exemplified why America is so great. He should be the role model that children are shown by parents, not the athletes that hold out on contracts for more money and whose only loyalty is the paycheck, not the fans or the team they belong to. Today we need more Pat Tillmans and fewer Kobe Bryants. Pat Tillman's death was no more or less tragic than any soldier's death, but in walking away from the a lucrative contract, joining the Army and earning the right to be a Ranger and not seeking publicity for it, he showed that some still can show loyalty to a cause bigger than oneself. So from this soldier, a loud "HOOOAAH!" to Pat Tillman. His family can take pride that he died not only for his country but also for his buddy next to him as most soldiers do.

Thanks, Tim. Everyone I know is proud to know you.