Peace Is Dangerous

And Erick at Red State has the data to prove it.

Did you know that more members of the military were killed in Jimmy Carter's last year in the White House than in any of the years we've been fighting in Iraq? Think about that. In the peaceful year of 1980, 2,392 servicemen died while on duty defending our country. In 2003, the start of the Iraq War, only 1,228 servicemen and women died. In 2004, the number was 1,874, it went up to 1,942 in 2005, and it dropped to 1,858 in 2006.

In fact, only during the Clinton years of 1996 into the Bush years of 2001 and 2002, during a period of time when the Clinton policy of refusing to defend our national interest was in place, do we see the number of military deaths fall below 1000 annually.

During the 1980's, when we aggressively defended the peace against the Soviets, the number of military deaths routinely topped 2000, with a high in 1983, the year of the Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon, topping out at 2,465.

Life was so peaceful under Carter, remember?

Who Is Media Matters?

NewsBusters.org has a nice piece discussing the origins of smear merchants Media Matters.

Specifically, Media Matters is a George Soros-financed mud factory designed to smear and discredit conservatives. Last week's flaps over Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh are but the latest examples. And it's no accident that Media Matters spends most of its time misquoting Limbaugh and O'Reilly. They do, after all, have the largest audiences on TV and radio. Read the Newsbusters piece for more info.

Instapundit says this isn't "smearing," but "battle preparation" designed to neutralize the effectiveness of Limbaugh and O'Reilly (and any other conservative commentators). That may be true, but I question how many people, when given the actual quotes repeatedly, will listen to that Media Matters boy who cries wolf by the time voters are paying any attention.

Christian Conservatives Ponder Third Party Disaster--er, Candidate

Concerned Republicans may choose liberal Rudy Giuliani as the standard-bearer, a coalition of Christian conservatives may back a third party candidate, thus ensuring a Democrat in the White House come 2009.

I hate third party candidates because they only muddy the waters in our system. Bill Clinton never got more than a plurality in part because of spoiler Ross Perot. And as happy as I am that Al Gore lost in 2000 and John Kerry lost in 2004, there's no question Ralph Nader played no small role in that outcome.

Yet even if Focus on the Family's James Dobson or Family Research Council's Tony Perkins dislike Giuliani, according to Pew polls, a plurality of white Christian evangelicals would still support Giuliani. Why? Because even Giuliani as president is better than Hillary Clinton or Barak Obama.

I frequently get accused by those on the left of "just wanting to win," which is why, in their opinion, I support President Bush. I'll take winning over losing any day, mainly because there's a possibility I'll get policies in place that I like with even a liberal Republican. The chances with any Democrat? Not so much.

Captain Ed calls for unity in the party or else Christian conservatives may see their influence on the party wane.

Naturally, nutroots endorse Christian conservatives breaking with the GOP.

Next Time a Liberal Says We Should Dismantle the Military, Show Them This

"The great leading objects of the federal government, in which
revenue is concerned, are to maintain domestic peace, and provide
for the common defense. In these are comprehended the regulation
of commerce that is, the whole system of foreign intercourse;
the support of armies and navies, and of the civil administration."

-- Alexander Hamilton (remarks to the New York Ratifying
Convention, June 1788)

The Problems of Black America

I was prepared to dislike this piece by Orlando Patterson on Jena, O.J., and the Jailing of Black America. But that was before I'd read the story. Let that be a lesson!

Patterson recounts the various sins of racist America and its effects on its black population. But the, about halfway through, Patterson's piece takes an unexpected turn:

Part of the answer is a law enforcement system that unfairly focuses on drug offenses and other crimes more likely to be committed by blacks, combined with draconian mandatory sentencing and an absurdly counterproductive retreat from rehabilitation as an integral method of dealing with offenders. An unrealistic fear of crime that is fed in part by politicians and the press, a tendency to emphasize punitive measures and old-fashioned racism are all at play here.

But there is another equally important cause: the simple fact that young black men commit a disproportionate number of crimes, especially violent crimes, which cannot be attributed to judicial bias, racism or economic hardships. The rate at which blacks commit homicides is seven times that of whites.

Patterson uses several incidents as examples of the breakdown in relationships between black men and women and says that it is this breakdown in relationships and families that has led to the sorry state of black America.

Black relationships and families fail at high rates because women increasingly refuse to put up with this abuse. The resulting absence of fathers — some 70 percent of black babies are born to single mothers — is undoubtedly a major cause of youth delinquency.

The circumstances that far too many African-Americans face — the lack of paternal support and discipline; the requirement that single mothers work regardless of the effect on their children’s care; the hypocritical refusal of conservative politicians to put their money where their mouths are on family values; the recourse by male youths to gangs as parental substitutes; the ghetto-fabulous culture of the streets; the lack of skills among black men for the jobs and pay they want; the hypersegregation of blacks into impoverished inner-city neighborhoods — all interact perversely with the prison system that simply makes hardened criminals of nonviolent drug offenders and spits out angry men who are unemployable, unreformable and unmarriageable, closing the vicious circle.

Patterson doesn't mention that welfare and various other programs for the poor are a large part of the reason black women aren't married to the fathers of their children. This isn't, btw an endorsement of marrying one's abuser, but a fact that single-parent households almost always make far less than two-parent households. And two parents are better able to care for their children than one parent.

There's a lot of talk about how to "fix" the problems of black America. The crime rate is too high and opportunities too low. But most organizations that deal with poverty will tell you that the most important criteria for getting out of poverty is the desire to do so.

"9/11 Has Made Us Stupid,"

So says Thomas Friedman in this NYT column. Friedman's exhibit A? We don't have enough tourists coming in.

IMO, this is a pretty stupid exhibit, and for me is exhibit A in the liberal stuck on stupid trial. Like so many liberals, Friedman has naively raced past what happened to us on 9/11 and is displaying a 9/10 mentality towards it. Why do I say he has a 9/10 attitude? Because on 9/10/01, everybody was more concerned with the slumping stock market than about security and terrorism. George W. Bush didn't campaign as either a security president or a terrorism president. He campaigned on domestic issues like education. And it sounds to me like that's where Friedman is stuck, too.

Back in 1991, in the heady days of the "peace dividend" which allowed Dick Cheney to take his revenge against Democrat nemesis Jim Wright by taking 91% of the defense cuts out of a single county (Tarrant--my home), I couldn't understand my parents near hysteria about cutting the military. I don't think "hysteria" is much of an exaggeration. Their reaction to the idea of beating our sickles into plowshares was very emotional. In an unguarded moment, my father finally mentioned Pearl Harbor and America's vulnerability in the days following it. "I never want your generation to know that feeling," my angry mother had spat out.

Of course, I'd never had to think about that sort of vulnerability. While I had grown up in a Cold War world (remember "duck and cover" drills?), that global threat had never seemed all that imminent to me. No, I never wanted us to dismantle our missiles. I wasn't so stupid that I actually thought if we went first the Soviets would follow. But I did think that building and buying bigger and better airplanes, boats, missiles, guns and other military gear was a waste of money better spent on education, the environment, and helping the poor (because giving more aid would fix poverty, even though it hadn't worked in 25 years at that point).

As I stood in my babysitter's living room that morning of Sept. 11, I realized that we had had our Pearl Harbor. And for the first time in my life, I understood why my parents had been so insistent that we spend more, not less, on our military. Because being prepared for any attack, no matter how remote, was more important than buying an extra politically correct book for third graders, or another film teaching ninth graders about oral sex.

It's Friedman's blind 9/10 view that is the problem. Sure, I wouldn't mind if we had more tourists coming to America. That would be great for the tourism industry. But I don't want to relax security standards just so that can happen. It's bizarre that Friedman doesn't notice that, as he celebrates the increase in tourism in Europe, he forgets the terrorist attacks and threats of attacks the Europeans have. And it isn't just Britain suffering these threats and attacks; they are all over Europe in the places Friedman is celebrating for having increased tourism. I guess the terrorists like to visit places, too.

I took a lot of heat from the moonbatosphere for saying it's time we get over Katrina. I said that not because I lack sympathy for people hurt by the hurricane, but because pouring millions of dollars to rebuild where another hurricane can hit is a waste of resources and shows we learned nothing from the situation. But being wary after 9/11 isn't counterproductive or wasting resources; it's recognizing that the world we live in is dangerous and there really are people determined to kill Americans wherever they find us. It's not 9/11 that has made us stupid. It's the naive 9/10 thinkers that make us stupid.

Free Speech Means You Get to be Insulted

I think perhaps Americans need a refresher course in what free speech means. I say this after spending a couple of days in Lefty Land trying to point out actual instances of government interference with expression. For our friends on the left, any repercussions--however mild--to their speech is intolerable. But it's ok to threaten to take away one's broadcast license if you don't like certain programming.

Now comes the tolerance police to a Chicago suburb, where a Halloween parade and Santa's gift shop have to go because it offends Muslims. Oh, and we have to ban Jell-O.

The holiday traditions are facing elimination in some Oak Lawn schools this year after complaints that the activities are offensive, particularly to Muslim students...

Parents expect that the announcement is going to add to the tension that has been building since officials agreed earlier this month to change the lunch menu to exclude items containing pork to accommodate Muslim students. News that Jell-O was struck from the menu caused such a stir that officials have agreed to bring it back. Gelatin is often made with tissue or bones of pigs or other animals.

That controversy now appears to have been been dwarfed by the holiday debate, which became so acrimonious Wednesday that police were called to Columbus Manor School to intervene in a shouting match among parents...

Elizabeth Zahdan, a mother of three District 122 students, says she took her concerns to the school board this month, not because she wanted to do away with the traditions, but rather to make them more inclusive. "I only wanted them modified to represent everyone," she said.

Nixing them isn't the response she was looking for. "Now the kids are not being educated about other people," she said.

There's just not time in the six-hour school day to celebrate every holiday, said (Superintendent Tom) Smyth, who sent the message to principals that they need to "tone down" the activities that he sees as eating too much into instructional time. "We have to think about our purpose," Smyth said. "Are we about teaching reading, writing and math or for parties or fund-raising during the day?"

Robertson is hoping to strike compromises that will keep traditions alive and be culturally acceptable to all students -- nearly half of whom are of Arab descent at Columbus Manor, she says. Fewer than a third of students districtwide are of Arab descent, according to Smyth.

It's amazing that minority students have survived the last 100 years in public schools which used to serve only fish on Fridays and called the spring break "Easter break." If you don't want your kids to eat Jell-O for religious reasons then pack your child's lunch. Don't sing Christmas carols or visit Santa's gift shop if Christmas offends you. Don't participate in the Halloween parade if you think you're celebrating Satan.

I've watched groups learn to adapt to the American landscape for over 40 years now, and, unsurprisingly, Jewish students have had to tolerate Christmas trees, bacon, and Christmas programs. And when parents didn't want their children to do those things, they started private schools and did what they wanted.

This is the point when the liberals pour in (or, in more cowardly typical fashion, at their own sites) to tell me how intolerant I am. But the fact is, at some point, some practice is going to offend somebody. In my church, for example, the session had to vote on which version of the Doxology we can use: the one saying "God" or the one saying "He/His." Why? Because someone was offended because the congregation says,

Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye Heavenly Host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

Someone will always be offended. That's one of those corollaries to Murphy's Law. In a pluralistic society, you won't have an offense-free existence. What happens if some group is offended by chicken? Do the schools have to stop serving chicken?

I thought about these things while reading Muzzling in the Name of Islam, a column by Paul Marshall in the WaPo. Marshall discusses the recent flap over Swedish cartoon which depicted the head of Mohammed on the body of a dog. Al Qaeda in Iraq has put a $100,000 bounty on the artist's head (with a $50,000 bonus if his throat is slit). But the barbarous reaction didn't end there.

The Iranian foreign ministry protested to Sweden, while Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asserted that "Zionists," "an organized minority who have infiltrated the world," were behind the affair. Pakistan complained and said that "the right to freedom of expression" is inconsistent with "defamation of religions and prophets." The Turkish Ministry of Religious Affairs called for rules specifying new limits of press freedom.

These calls were renewed in September when a U.N. report said that Articles 18, 19 and 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights should be reinterpreted by "adopting complementary standards on the interrelations between freedom of expression, freedom of religion and non-discrimination." Speaking for the OIC, Pakistani diplomat Marghoob Saleem Butt then criticized "unrestricted and disrespectful enjoyment of freedom of expression."

The issues here go beyond the right of cartoonists to offend people. They go to the heart of repression in much of the Muslim world. Islamists and authoritarian governments now routinely use accusations of blasphemy to repress writers, journalists, political dissidents and, perhaps politically most important, religious reformers.

Granted, killing people over cartoons is a far cry from banning Jell-O, but as Marshall points out, if free people do not resist these attempts at control, we abet them. Free speech means you get to be insulted.

MoveOn.org is also trying to stifle free speech.

Juan Williams and the "Happy Negro"

Juan Williams has a biting rebuttal for those critics calling him a "happy Negro" for defending Bill O'Reilly.

In case you missed it, Media Matters trumped up yet another controversy by accusing Bill O'Reilly of being racist for saying there was no difference in the behavior of patrons at a restaurant in Harlem than in other New York eateries.

This is, imo, a far more despicable smear than the recent Rush Limbaugh "phony soldiers" flap. At least in the case of Limbaugh, a plausible case can be made that he was talking about anti-war soldiers. But as Williams explains, no reasonable person would think O'Reilly was criticizing black people. During a discussion about the image rappers give black people, O'Reilly explained that real black people, the everyday person you meet on the street, is far different from the violent, potty-mouthed images projected in music, on television, and in movies.

So, O'Reilly says to me that the reality to black life is very different from the lowlife behavior glorified by the rappers. He told me he was at a restaurant in Harlem recently and there was no one shouting profanity, no one threatening people. Then he mentioned going to an Anita Baker concert with an audience that was half black, and in sharp contrast to the corrosive images on TV, well dressed and well behaved.

I joked with O'Reilly that for him, a guy from Long Island, a visit to Harlem was like a "foreign trip." That's when he brought up his grandma. He said she was prejudiced against black people because she knew no flesh-and-blood black folks but only the one-dimensional TV coverage of black criminals shooting each other and the rappers and comedians glorifying "gangsta" life and thug cool. He criticized his grandmother as irrational for being afraid of people she really did not know.

Williams defended O'Reilly's grandma as not being irrational, but being very rational. If the only images one has of a particular group is as criminals, then a person will logically come to the conclusion that those people are more violent than others. As Williams says,

The most pernicious damage being done by the twisted presentation of black life in pop culture is the self-destructive message being beamed into young, vulnerable black brains. Young black people, searching for affirmation of their racial identity, are minute by minute being sold on the cheap idea that they are authentically black only if they imitate the violent, threatening attitude of the rappers and use the gutter language coming from the minstrels on TV.

The lesson from the rappers and comedians is that any young brother or sister who is proud to be black has to treat education with indifference, dismiss love and marriage as the business of white people and dress like the rappers who dress like prisoners — no comb in the jail so they wear doo-rags all day, and no belts so their pants hang down around their butts.

In other words, the discussion was about how suc depictions and images damage the black community because it presents a terrible stereotype of black life for young people looking for their own identities.

That's a far cry from O'Reilly being a racist for noticing well-behaved black people in restaurants and at concerts. But it is just another example of the relentless lying and spinning Media Matters has gained a reputation for.

The fact is that Bill O'Reilly is right. Rappers in doo rags with their pants hanging off their asses don't resemble the black people I grew up with, nor the numerous black people I've worked with and been friends with through the years. The idea that acting like a thug should be emulated by any young people is more destructive for the children who fall prey to that way of thinking than to any white people who buy the stereotype. After all, it's the children who throw away their chance at education because they don't want to be seen as acting white who are hurt by a lack of education. It's the person who walks into a job interview with a doo rag on who leaves without the job.

If "acting white" means acting civilized (and I don't think it does), then I want all children to act white. Not because being white is superior, but because I want all children to have the best opportunities and options. Media Matters doesn't care about any of this, obviously. Their purpose is to smear every conservative (and O'Reilly is more libertarian than conservative) on the air in an attempt to discredit their views. It's a pity Media Matters isn't as concerned about the lies and spin of the left.

For defending O'Reilly, Williams has been branded a "happy Negro." We've seen this sort of thing before, right? Every black person who doesn't tow the victimhood line gets smeared as an Uncle Tom and just another lackey of the far right. It's amusing and sad when you realize that the left is as filled with racist stereotypes of what "good Negros" should think as the conservatives they vilify.

Powerline has video of Williams discussing the exchange.

Rush Limbaugh and Phony Soldiers

Rush Limbaugh shows an anatomy of a smear over his "phony soldier" comment.

The Weekly Standard has this post on the situation.

My advice to anyone reading Media Matters is to remember that they are a P.R. outlet for liberals. They will lie or misquote conservatives, then disseminate their propaganda through blogs and any media sources who will listen.

As Limbaugh points out he was never contacted by Media Matters, any journalists or any of the politicians denouncing him to ask if he was calling anti-war soldiers "phony soldiers." It's far more telling when these henchmen won't call than when they do.

You Can't Buy Men's Short-Sleeved Dress Shirts in September

Even if it's supposed to be 92.

Rights and Responsibilities of Free Speech

Captain Ed has a post on what free speech means and what it doesn't. He quotes this Jonah Goldberg column, where in Goldberg explains what free speech isn't.

(W)hether you favored or opposed the teeny dictator’s lecture: Free speech had nothing to do with it.

You have to stay on your toes, like Ahmadinejad at a urinal, to grasp this point since it’s so often confused in our public discourse: Free-speech rights aren’t violated when private institutions deny speech in their name. My free-speech rights have not been denied by the fact that for years the Democratic National Committee has refused to invite me to speak at its confabs. Nor would it be censorship if this newspaper dropped my column. Freedom of speech also includes the right not to say something.

In other words, had Columbia denied Ahmadinejad a platform, it would have been exercising freedom of speech just as much as it was when it invited him to give his prison-house philosopher spiel.

I've been reading arguments on a leftwing site excoriating conservatives as "fearing" Ahmedinejab's speech. I tried to explain that there are other reasons besides fear that one might want to discourage that thug's speaking tour, but it's clear that for some on the left, any consequence--including withholding funding from the school--is "stifling free speech." Sorry to break it to the moonbats but (1) the story is probably merely grandstanding by a single legislator and (2) one is not entitled to endless streams of taxpayer money and such funds can be reduced for any reason, including dissatisfaction with the administration of said university.

Same moonbats were apoplectic at the idea that inviting Ahmedinejab to speak was tantamount to endorsement of his ideas. But as Captain Ed points out, allowing a speaker at your university is similar to publishing and, in this case, it means Columbia University was happy to have its name and reputation associated with a man who denies having homosexuals in his country and advocates nuclear destruction of a fellow country. It's really hard to get away from the fact that if you invite someone to speak at your institution, there's a level of endorsement implicit in that. Particularly since Columbia has been rather selective about who gets to speak (a murderous wacko) and who may not (military recruiters).

Indeed, it was at Columbia University that these tolerant liberals actually stormed the stage and denied the founder of the Minutemen the right to speak. But I suppose to the moonbats, that is perfectly permissible. No government action there. It's all right for the school to essentially endorse such behavior.

I tried pointing out to selfsame moonbats that they favor censorship and government intervention when it is speech with which they disagree. When ABC was planning to air The Path to 9/11, liberals, from wackos in the street to the Clintons themselves, were hysterical about such a film being aired and even enlisted government officials in an attempt to prevent the film being shown. If that's not textbook censorship, I'm just not sure what else counts.

Finally, I also pointed out that the same liberals excoriating any state action against Columbia love it when liberal legislators try to shut down abortion clinic protests using every law in the book (and a few which aren't). It's amazing to me that the same people who were unglued about a docudrama that didn't tow the Clinton line don't see using racketeering laws against abortion clinic protesters as abuse of power. But they don't. Instead, they argue that clinic protesters interfere with the rights of women to obtain abortions or try to shut down clinics or threaten violence. But nobody is endorsing violence, and the same groups that supposedly want to ban violent clinic protesters want to banish peaceful ones as well. Their tactics are not aimed at those disturbing the peace; their tactics are aimed at those who have the audacity to speak out in ways liberals dislike.

No, we know liberals are not above using the government to control speech. That's why liberals love the Fairness Doctrine. If they can impose that rule on talk radio, they are sure most conservative radio shows will dry up and be gone.

So I don't buy for a moment that it is government interference that bothers liberals so much about the Columbia University situation. What bothers them is that someone might use government interference on speech they don't mind.

Sam Schulman points out why Lee Bollinger is a coward hiding behind the U.S. military--the one he won't allow to recruit on his campus--to slap at Ahmedinejab.

Impeach Bush? Are You Kidding Me?!

The nutroots are at it again: they are screaming for impeachment procedures against President Bush because of a not so good translation of a conversation between the President and Spanish President José María Aznar.

The transcript, it seems to me, provides a whole rack of smoking guns that could be a basis for impeaching George W. Bush. The transcript shows that Bush consciously intended to go to war without a United Nations Security Council resolution. The United Nations Charter, to which the United States is a treaty signatory (so that it has the force of American law), forbids any nation to launch an aggressive war on another country. The only two legal mechanisms for war are either that it came in response to a direct attack or that the attacker gained a UNSC authorization. The transcript shows Bush actively plotting to sidestep the UNSC if he could not, gangster-like, threaten its members into compliance.

Well, not really. Sister Toldjah has a very nice post shooting down (so to speak) Cole's arguments this time around for impeachment. She quotes Barcepundit's Jose Guardia who explains why the impeachment cry is both so sad and so lame.

For one thing, there's ample evidence in the transcript that President Bush was certain Saddam Hussein either had WMDs or was actively seeking them. This flies in the face of the BDS people who have claimed for years that BUSH LIED.

But more importantly--and not quoted by Cole--is a part of the exchange where President Bush says he doesn't want to go to war.

At one point Bush explicitly says: “I don’t want war. I know what wars are like. I know the death and destruction they bring. I am the one who has to comfort the mothers and wifes of the dead. Of course, for us [a diplomatic solution] would be the best one. Also, it would save 50 billion dollars.”

I don't expect the Impeachment Now! crowd to give up, even though they won't get what they are after. But even a botched transcript like this, fully intended to slime the President, does little but support his positions on Iraq and the decision to go to war.

Why Democrats Can't Get Troops Out of Iraq

Captain Ed has a nice post about the shift in strategies regarding the war in Iraq.

Back at the beginning of the 110th Congress, the far left was salivating at the idea of an immediate pullout in Iraq. There was the "slow bleed" plan. There was a call for timetables. But the nutroots have grumbled for months about the ineffectiveness of the Democrats to end this war now!

It does little good to point out to the nuttier aspects of the Left that Democrats won Congress for a handful of reasons, and opposition to the war was but part of that (other reasons included Republican dissatisfaction with out-of-control spending, immigration "reform," and President Bush's inability to veto anything, not to mention the Mark Foley fallout). For some reason, the far left insists that every person who voted against the Republicans wanted immediate withdrawal. But as Rush Limbaugh said at the beginning of the surge, Americans don't want to lose. They want to win. That's why poll results are always so mixed. Yes, Americans want out of Iraq but no, they don't want to lose to do it.

As Captain Ed points out, the success of the surge is now having an effect on the Democratic candidates' war policies. Now the Democrats won't commit to troop withdrawal by 2013.

The leading Democratic White House hopefuls conceded Wednesday night they cannot guarantee to pull all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by the end of the next presidential term in 2013.

"I think it's hard to project four years from now," said Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois in the opening moments of a campaign debate in the nation's first primary state.

"It is very difficult to know what we're going to be inheriting," added Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

"I cannot make that commitment," said former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina.

Hillary Clinton has taken a lot of heat from the left for her votes authorizing the Iraq war and her statements that she cannot guarantee immediate troop pullouts upon election. But as much as it pains me to admit it, she's been right on both counts. Promising immediate troop withdrawals has been just so much pandering to the left. Now, with General Petraeus reporting actual success in Iraq, Americans are more hopeful that we can win and more reluctant to leave.

It's difficult for Democrats to support an ever-shrinking portion of American opinion in the face of actual successes in Iraq. President Bush said originally that this would be a hard, long war. People (including the Democrats) were foolish to ignore those statements. And while Americans may want their loved ones home, they want to win this war more.

More Moonbat Dumbness on Abortion

Eric has suggested on another thread that Amanda Marcotte and I have a blog of our own. It might be entertaining in some respects, but would get boring and pedantic really quick, since we agree on practically nothing other than we both live in Texas (and as a real native, I might question the Texan-ness of anyone living in Austin).

I swore I wouldn't write another post about Pandagon for a while, but this post on repealing the global gag rule is chockful of the sort of insane rhetoric regarding pro-lifers that Miss Amanda is known for. Here's some samples for your amusement:

"Withholding or opposing abortion is the immoral stance, taken out of a hostility to women’s health and women’s rights. Anti-choicers shouldn’t have the moral high ground, because they are wicked, petty assholes who want to increase the amount of suffering in the world to satisfy their misogyny. To be a truly moral person, you can’t exclude half the human race from your consideration."

"The global gag rule isn’t just about abortion. That’s basically, in any realistic sense, a lie. It’s about withholding medical care and contraception. Even without it, the U.S. simply doesn’t fund abortions (though I think they should). It’s a backdoor way to deprive women worldwide of contraception and basic health care, since the people who provide those things pretty much by definition are good-hearted non-misogynists, and thus mostly believe as the logical and good-hearted generally do that abortion is a moral good.* The global gag rule is about giving the U.S. power to root through clinics worldwide looking for evidence of appalling levels of human feeling towards women and depriving them of funding if they find that someone’s committed the thought crime of believing that women should have full rights and options."

"The reason that anti-choicers feel it’s mandatory for their President to push the global gag rule is because they don’t want women to prevent pregnancy or STDs"

"Depriving babies of medical care is another sign that pro-lifers don’t actually love babies. They just hate women."

"The global gag rule is about increasing the rate of AIDS, of fistulas, of maternal morality, all to satisfy the grim anti-sex movement in America."

Like Bush Derangement Syndrome, there seems to be an Abortion Derangement Syndrome (or perhaps Anti-Life Derangement Syndrome). Symptoms include an inability to see any possible reason a person is pro-life beyond the idea they hate women (Amanda puts an asterisk at the end of this screed stating, "If you feel like you are a moral person despite being anti-choice, I agree that it’s possible you are. All moral people have moral lapses and blind spots. Getting towards a more generous stance towards women who need to control their fertility could be a project for you, a bit of moral character improvement"). I would argue that if Amanda is a moral person (and I have serious doubts about that, given her writing and positions on many subjects), that her attitude towards pro-lifers is one of her blind spots. Just sayin'.

OK, that's it for the Pandagon posts for the month. I promise not to write anymore about their nuttiness for the rest of September!

The Left Likes Free Speech Only When It Bashes America

It's hard to believe that Amanda Marcotte is really this clueless. Supposedly, she doesn't understand why conservatives object to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad being given a platform on U.S. soil from which to spew his particular brand of anti-Semitism and hatred. The only reason she can come up with is that "rightwingers are just like him" (I'm not making this up) and that they fear, somehow, their followers will suddenly want to stone women and wipe Israel off the map.

The other explanation, according to Amanda, is that conservatives want to "distract" from President Bush's "failures." Well, there's little chance of distracting the left from it's pacifier. After all, if you look at Pandagon or KOS or nearly any leftwing site, you will find daily barrages from people telling us how President Bush is worse than Ahmadinejad.

No, Amanda really isn't this stupid, although she plays stupid on TV. I don't even think she's as dumb as her commenters who say,

Ahmedinejad is a Bush clone with blacker hair and a goatee. Both are rogue leaders that have a long proven record of misogyny and homophobia. Both also have jailed people who spoke out against their governments.

Well, here's a clue for the clueless: the reason conservatives denounce allowing Ahmadinejad to speak in the U.S. is that it gives him legitimacy and free publicity. There's an idea called "public shunning," which should be practiced by intelligent people when discussing thugs like Ahmadinejad, but the Left, so blinded by their own partisan politics sees nothing different between being jailed as a suspected terrorist and being jailed for being a woman.

And, honestly, Amanda is just giving her sycophants the red meat they so greedily gobble up. Amanda finally admits that she's all for free speech for lunatics trying to make nuclear weapons, but she doesn't like free speech for pro-life supporters. Why? Because if pro-lifers are given a platform on which to debate, they might actually persuade people that abortion is wrong.

It's painful reading stuff like Amanda's posts, realizing that the left doesn't get what free speech is about. For the left, free speech is just another tool to bash one's political opponents and make brownie points with the nuts that support you. It's not about debate and reason because the other side might have a better argument than you. That's why every argument about abortion or gay marriage becomes just another mudslinging event (yes, Jes, I'm talking about you) for the Left, who can't debate with logic, history, or law but must resort to ad hominem attacks (yes, Jeromy Brown, I'm talking to you). When you don't really support free speech, as so much of the left proves over and over, it seems just a wee bit disingenuous to try to paint conservatives as the intolerant ones.

India Outsourcing Outsourcing?

Via Brothers Judd blog, we discover that India is now outsourcing jobs.

Thousands of Indians report to Infosys Technologies’ campus here to learn the finer points of programming. Lately, though, packs of foreigners have been roaming the manicured lawns, too.

Many of them are recent American college graduates, and some have even turned down job offers from coveted employers like Google. Instead, they accepted a novel assignment from Infosys, the Indian technology giant: fly here for six months of training, then return home to work in the company’s American back offices.

India is outsourcing outsourcing.

I take India outsourcing personally, since bringing in cheap, and frequently unqualified or incompetent has squeezed American computer programmers, including the one I love best. I've also watched as outsourcing jobs to India has flattened pay here in the U.S. Ten years ago, a $10 an hour job was pretty good and required some skills. Now employers expect more skills, better education, and more work from employees still only making $10 an hour. And it's discouraging if you are making $10 an hour for a skilled job when flipping hamburgers is only $2 an hour less.

But now it seems India has turned the tables and is outsourcing its own jobs around the globe, including the United States.

Wipro, another Indian technology services company, has outsourcing offices in Canada, China, Portugal, Romania and Saudi Arabia, among other locations.

And last month, Wipro said it was opening a software development center in Atlanta that would hire 500 programmers in three years.

In a poetic reflection of outsourcing’s new face, Wipro’s chairman, Azim Premji, told Wall Street analysts this year that he was considering hubs in Idaho and Virginia, in addition to Georgia, to take advantage of American “states which are less developed.” (India’s per capita income is less than $1,000 a year.)

For its part, Infosys is building a whole archipelago of back offices — in Mexico, the Czech Republic, Thailand and China, as well as low-cost regions of the United States.

Nice to know you cost employers so little that the Indians are shipping jobs to you. What's wrong with that picture?

In one project, an American bank wanted a computer system to handle a loan program for Hispanic customers. The system had to work in Spanish. It also had to take into account variables particular to Hispanic clients: many, for instance, remit money to families abroad, which can affect their bank balances. The bank thought a Mexican team would have the right language skills and grasp of cultural nuances.

But instead of going to a Mexican vendor, or to an American vendor with Mexican operations, the bank retained three dozen engineers at Infosys, which had recently opened shop in Monterrey, Mexico.

Such is the new outsourcing: A company in the United States pays an Indian vendor 7,000 miles away to supply it with Mexican engineers working 150 miles south of the United States border.

So remember: outsourcing isn't necessarily to people on the other side of the globe who don't sound like they're speaking English. It could be in Atlanta or Idaho. Could Texas be next?

The Latest Spin on Race

Bob Herbert has a nasty little column filled with every possible race-baiting stereotype of the GOP. Let's see if we can list 'em all.

--Republicans are racist for blocking legislation giving Washington D.C. a representative in Congress.

--Republicans are racist because the major GOP candidates didn't participate in a debate hosted by Tavis Smiley.

--Republicans are racist because of the "Southern Strategy."

--Republicans are racist because they support Clarence Thomas as a Supreme Court justice.

--Republicans are racist because they " improperly threw black voters off the rolls in Florida in the contested presidential election of 2000, and sent Florida state troopers into the homes of black voters to intimidate them in 2004."

Let's take each of these race-baiting lies apart.

First, as Q and O Blog points out, the Constitution clearly states that representation is apportioned to "the states," not just some geographic region. If the people supporting representation of D.C. are serious, there's a procedure in place to change the Constitution to support them. It's called the Amendment process. But, like Jeromy Brown and the homophobia-baiters, it's just so much easier to scream that you aren't getting what you want the way you want instead of actually going through the proper channels and procedures. No, in this case, it's easier to call Republicans racists for actually thinking the Constitution means something.

Then there's the argument about Republicans not participating in the Tavis Smiley debate. As McQ points out, I'm sure Bob Herbert didn't mind when Democrats dodged a debate on FOX sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus. No, that wasn't a "slap in the face of black voters," right?

Next, Herbert pulls out the canard about the Republican Southern Strategy. This argument has been debunked by better debaters than me, but, in a nutshell, it's bogus. The fact is, the Dixiecrats--the ones who ran on a segregation platform--were Democrats, not Republicans. Not to mention the fact that Democrats won the South throughout the 60s when the Southern Strategy was supposedly being implemented. In other words, the Southern Strategy built on racism and supposed flight of racists to the GOP did nothing to help Republicans in the South. Who helped Republicans in the South? Ronald Reagan.

Q and O Blog continues with the excellent counterargument, pointing out Herbert's convenient editing of Lee Atwater's statement about the Southern Strategy. Here it is in context, something liberals hate:

Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry Dent and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now [the new Southern Strategy of Ronald Reagan] doesn’t have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he’s campaigned on since 1964… and that’s fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster…

Questioner: But the fact is, isn’t it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps…?

Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, 'N*****, n*****, n*****.' By 1968 you can't say 'n*****' - that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.

And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me - because obviously sitting around saying, 'We want to cut this,' is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than 'n*****, n*****.'

Really, this is exactly what liberals do say. They say everything is "code language" for racism. So, if you believe in equality, that's code language for racism. If you think tax cuts help people, that's racism. If you think poverty is best overcome by getting government out of the way of people trying to help themselves, that's racism. I've actually heard liberals claim nearly every Republican idea is racist. It's impossible for them to take off the blinders and see how an idea, a theory, a philosophy wouldn't be racist.

That leads us to Clarence Thomas. According to Herbert,

In 1991, the first President Bush poked a finger in the eye of black America by selecting the egregious Clarence Thomas for the seat on the Supreme Court that had been held by the revered Thurgood Marshall. The fact that there is a rigid quota on the court, permitting one black and one black only to serve at a time, is itself racist.

Egregious? Is that what it's called when a black man doesn't tow the race line? And notice the statement that there's a quota permitting only one black to serve on the Court at one time. But Bill Clinton didn't nominate any black people to the Supreme Court and he put two justices on the Court. Why isn't Herbert excoriating Democrats for "poking a finger in the eye of black America" by nominating Stephen Breyer? The fact is, Republican presidents have nominated the exact same number of black Justices to the Court as Democrats have: one. But as usual, Clarence Thomas just isn't black enough for liberals.

Finally, there's the nonsense Herbert throws into the end of his column about Republicans "improperly throwing" black voters off the rolls in Florida in 2000, or trying to intimidate voters in 2004 by sending troopers to their houses. But Q and O goes on to explain how this truthiness has been thoroughly debunked. Like the 9/11 truth movement, however, those "stolen election" believers will never give in. They forget the attempts to throw out military votes in Florida, or the fact that the Florida Supreme Court tried valiantly to hand the election to Al Gore. No, they still believe in magic votes that didn't happen, even in the numerous recounts newspapers held after the election.

In short, Herbert's column is fit to line the bird cage, but not much else. Unless, of course, you are teaching a lesson in spin at the local junior college. Then it's a first class exhibit.

You Can't Have That Horse Steak Here

I just read this Ann Althouse post on the legal decision which closed Cavel International, the last remaining horse slaughterhouse in the country.

Legal god Richard Posner (ok, that was tongue in cheek) says,

Horse meat was until recently an accepted part of the American diet--the Harvard Faculty Club served horse-meat steaks until the 1970s. No longer is horse meat eaten by Americans..., though it is eaten by people in a number of other countries, including countries in Europe; in some countries it is a delicacy. Meat from American horses is especially prized because our ample grazing land enables them to eat natural grasses, which enhances the flavor of their meat...

[Cavel argues:] The horses will be killed anyway when they are too old to be useful and what difference does it make whether they are eaten by people or by cats and dogs? But the horse meat used in pet food is produced by rendering plants from carcasses rather than by the slaughter of horses, and the difference bears on the effect of the Illinois statute. Cavel pays for horses; rendering plants do not. If your horse dies, or if you have it euthanized, you must pay to have it hauled to the rendering plant, and you must also pay to have it euthanized if it didn't just die on you. So when your horse is no longer useful to you, you have a choice between selling it for slaughter and either keeping it until it dies or having it killed. The option of selling the animal for slaughter is thus financially more advantageous to the owner, and this makes it likely that many horses (remember that Cavel slaughters between 40,000 and 60,000 a year) die sooner than they otherwise would because they can be killed for their meat. States have a legitimate interest in prolonging the lives of animals that their population happens to like....

Of course Illinois could do much more for horses than it does--could establish old-age pastures for them, so that they would never be killed (except by a stray cougar), or provide them with free veterinary care. But it is permitted to balance its interest in horses' welfare against the other interests of its (human) population; and it is also permitted to take one step at a time on a road toward the humane treatment of our fellow animals....

But even if no horses live longer as a result of the new law, a state is permitted, within reason, to express disgust at what people do with the dead, whether dead human beings or dead animals. There would be an uproar if restaurants in Chicago started serving cat and dog steaks, even though millions of stray cats and dogs are euthanized in animal shelters. A follower of John Stuart Mill would disapprove of a law that restricted the activities of other people (in this case not only Cavel's owners and employees but also its foreign consumers) on the basis merely of distaste, but American governments are not constrained by Mill's doctrine.

I had no idea people were eating horse in this country in the 1970s. This story made me think of two things. First, if Americans were eating horse as recently as the 70s, what changed our minds? It's not like eating dogs or cats; to my knowledge, Americans have never condoned eating these animals (although if you got sufficiently hungry in the hills of West Virginia during the Depression, you might have cooked Fluffy). What sea change took place to make Americans turn up their nose at horse?

The second question I have is more legally philosophical. I find Posner's decision to be dangerously close to equating human beings with animals (I know our friends on the left already think this). While government does regulate how to dispose of the remains of both humans and animals, it seems to me that most people understand that humans are a bit different than burying your pet goldfish. Decisions like this one, which equate horses and humans, is just the most recent step down the slippery slope to treating animals exactly as humans.

On a less serious note, I loved the ending to this straight news story covering the event.

Before the DeKalb facility, the last two U.S. plants for horse slaughtering in operation were closed in January after a Texas law banning the practice was upheld.

"The lone cowboy riding his horse on a Texas trail is a cinematic icon," wrote Judge Fortunato Benavides of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. "Not once in memory did the cowboy eat his horse."

That's a keeper. :)

Crossword Puzzle Solved with "Will You Marry Me?"

A friend of mine sent me this link, which must be one of the most unusual marriage proposals ever.

It was the crossword puzzle fan's version of getting his marriage proposal plastered on a stadium Jumbotron.

Aric Egmont and Jennie Bass were working on a puzzle titled "Popping the question" in the latest issue of The Boston Globe Sunday magazine. Bass spotted her sister's name and her best friend's name, but initially thought it was just a coincidence.

Then they got to 111 across: "Generic proposal" (Jen + Aric generic). The answer: "Will you marry me?"

"We get to the `Will you marry me?' clue, and I said, `Will you marry me, Jenny?' I got up, got the ring, and got down on one knee and she screamed, and hugged me. It took her a minute to say yes," Egmont told the Globe.

Egmont, 29, of Cambridge, contacted the magazine this summer to ask if the people who create the crossword puzzles would write a special puzzle for him.

Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon, a married puzzle-writing team who have been writing Globe magazine crossword puzzles for years, agreed. Their puzzle included several variations on proposals; for example, "Macrame artist's proposal" was "Let's tie the knot."

The tricky part was writing an entire puzzle that would be clear to the happy couple, but not obscure to all the other readers who do the puzzles.

I've seen ads where you can have special word finds created using up to 30 words of your own, but this is the first time I heard of a marriage proposal via crossword puzzle. And I had no idea anyone still created crosswords. I thought they were all computer-generated.

Jena Six: When the Facts Don't Fit the Narrative

I first heard about the Jena Six a couple of months ago on a blog discussing Mychal Bell's indictment on attempted murder charges for the incident where six black students beat a white student into unconsciousness. I didn't comment on the incident at the time, waiting for the legal system to work its magic over the situation and give us some perspective.

But last week, black activists got free ad time on the liberal Diane Rehm Show in advance of a planned march in Jena, La. last weekend. Most call-in commenters were supportive of the activists' position that the charges were excessive and, gosh, stomping on a kid when he's on the ground is just a playground brawl. I only heard one caller question Rehm's giving free airtime to the activists without anyone to counter them. Remember this the next time Echidne complains that TV talk shows have three conservatives and one watered-down liberal to defend the left.

Patterico notes the distortions in the press about the case, and the reluctance of the media to report on Bell's violent history, which could explain the original harsh charges. And I agree with this Patterico post that had six white students stomped on a black student, the Al Sharptons and Jesse Jacksons of the world would be demanding a full investigation--and rightly so.

This story, like so many about tensions in a small town, can be spun in any direction by any spin master. If you go far enough back in history, you can find someone you dislike as starting the whole thing. The most practical thing to do would be to look at this singular incident and decide if it was appropriate to stomp on a student (apparently for no reason) until said student was unconscious. My guess would be that reasonable people would say "no," but sometimes it's hard to find reasonable these days.