Sunday, February 26, 2012

In the Soviet era, American "liberals" tried to deceive America into not defending itself against Communist hostility. Now they are trying to deceive Americans into not defending themselves against Muslim hostility

The idea of America being punished for its success and prosperity gives them erections so they do anything they can to bring disaster to America

Federal law enforcement has amassed an impressive record identifying and interdicting would-be jihadists bent on waging terrorist attacks before they can acquire the means to kill people. The American military has killed or detained senior terrorist leaders, including those tied to a slew of homegrown terror plots.

So when a spike in those plots from 2009 ebbs, those seeking an explanation might start by looking at these documented successes.
Not University of North Carolina sociologist Charles Kurzman.
In a report issued last week, Kurzman tallied 20 terrorism prosecutions in 2011 as further proof of his theory that the threat of Islamist terrorism is exaggerated and the country's response still rooted more in emotion and fear than reason.
The New York Times promoted the report a day before its release, leading with Kurzman's conclusion that, "A feared wave of homegrown terrorism by radicalized Muslim Americans has not materialized."

"The public perception of threat does not match actual case-by-case attacks," Kurzman also told the Raleigh News & Observer. "We're getting a skewed perception of the prevalence of these figures."

Neither newspaper challenged Kurzman's premise and methodology and neither sought out an opposing viewpoint. For the Times, it is yet another example of its long time collaboration with uncritically and falsely presenting militant Islamist groups and officials as "moderate."

But the Kurzman report is flawed by its assumptions and by Kurzman's conclusion that the data shows the threat of radicalization has been repelled, an opinion for which he offers no evidence.

He is careful to say there is a threat, noting that "revolutionary Islamist organizations overseas continue to call for Muslim-Americans to engage in violence." But in a Muslim-American population of 2 million, such cases barely register a blip in a country "on track to register 14,000 murders in 2011."

Murderers and terrorists both kill. But the comparison ends there. Murders tend to be individual acts, committed for personal or monetary reasons. Terrorist attacks seek mass casualties and seek to instill mass fear to deep economic harm and political surrender.

Kurzman authored a book last year detailing his theory. In a question-and-answer posting on his webpage, he explains that if Islamic radicalism were a genuine crisis, "we would see far more than the 20 Muslim-Americans, on average, who engage in terrorist plots each year." Until perspective comes to the debate, he writes, "we may wind up scaring ourselves into panicky policy decisions and a paranoid quality of life."

James Carafano, deputy director of the Heritage Foundation's Institute for International Studies, said it was misleading to use raw numbers on an issue like terrorism. Terrorists are "fringe elements of society" whose number never will equate to the damage they can cause.

"You could quadruple the number of attacks by Islamic terrorists and it would still be a small number [of the population]," said Carafano, who studied 40 disrupted homegrown terror threats. "Would people say that's not a problem because it is less than 2 percent? No, they would be apoplectic."

More HERE

********************

Shoulder-Fired Defense Missile Systems to Be Installed on All Israeli Passenger Planes

No sign that Americans will be similarly protected. It would cost only a fraction of what Obama has wasted on all his failed "green job" schemes

Defense officials have decided that systems against shoulder-fired missiles will be installed onboard all Israeli passenger planes, due to increased terror threats. Prior to this decision, discussions proposed the installation of the system on some of the aircraft, primarily those routinely traveling to “problematic" destinations.

El Al, Arkia, and Israir will all install the C-MUSIC system onboard all aircraft. The C-MUSIC system was designed and developed by Elbit System's ElOP division. Elbit Systems is presently completing the production of the initial systems, and several aircraft will be equipped with the system before the middle of the year.

The installation of the systems will conclude one of the largest failures in the history of the Israeli defense establishment. Several warnings which were brought up in the past year concerning the threat posed by shoulder-fired missiles have accelerated the process that began nearly a decade ago. On November 2002, terrorists attempted to shoot down an Arkia passenger plane departing from Mombasa airport.

The missiles were launched and missed, and a disaster was narrowly avoided.

El Al is readying for the installation of the initial systems. The company will serve as an installation contractor for Arkia and Israir as well. The system has generated tremendous interest throughout the world, and professional delegations from numerous aircraft companies interested in protecting their aircraft from the threat posed by shoulder-fired missiles are expected to arrive to Israel after the installation of the first system.

SOURCE

**************************

Obama to Law Enforcement: Stop Linking Muslims to Terrorism

In yet another curtsy to the politically correct orthodoxy, President Barack Obama's White House plans to tinker with federal police curriculums for counterterrorism training classes. The first bit of "revamping" is the removal of all material that groups, such as the Council on American Islamic Relations, or CAIR, find offensive or containing a "negative" image of Muslims.
It’s a government-wide call to end Islamophobia, according to a blog by a Washington, DC-based watchdog group that investigates, exposes and prosecutes government corruption.

A few months after the Obama White House ordered an investigation of government counterterrorism training, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has destroyed instructional material that characterizes Muslims as prone to violence or terrorism, according to the Judicial Watch blog.

So far 700 pages of documents from about 300 presentations given to agents since the 2001 terrorist attacks have been purged, according to a new report published this week. The White House order came after the same publication reported in late November that the FBI, Department of Justice (DOJ) and Pentagon taught employees that mainstream Muslims embrace violence and compared the Islamic religion to the death star.

And the purge of training material regarding Islamic terrorism from law enforcement training is only the beginning. Attorney General Eric Holder told Congress that anti-Muslim instructional materials hurt the country’s fight against terrorist groups like al-Qaeda. As a result of this mentality, the Joint Chiefs of Staff were asked to collect counterterrorism training materials at all military academies and academic centers such as the National Defense Intelligence College and the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center.

"The goal, evidently, is to banish any material that could be viewed as offensive to Muslims," said the Jihadist Watch blog.

To fulfill this politically-correct mission, the FBI enlisted the Army Combating Terrorism Center at West Point to purge material that conflates terrorism with mainstream Islam, according to inside information cited in the Judicial Watch report. The cleansing also includes a White House review on any information related to “cultural awareness” training for troops that were preparing to deploy to the Middle East.

This appears to be part of a wider Muslim outreach effort on the part of the Obama Administration and the president’s allies in Congress. Last spring, for instance, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee quietly scheduled a special hearing to better protect Muslim civil rights in America. Organized by Illinois Senator Dick Durbin -- arguably one of the most sympathetic lawmakers to Islamic causes -- the event came in “response to the spike in anti-Muslim bigotry” and marked the first ever congressional hearing on Muslim civil rights.

It was Durbin who on the floor of the Senate in 2004 called U.S. soldiers Nazis, and detention centers such as Guantanamo Bay "gulags." He later apologized, but his constituents were happy to hear him denigrating U.S. troops since his district has a very large Muslim population, according to news reports.

According to the Examiner, other Muslim outreach efforts under Obama included: Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano meeting to discuss national security matters with a group of extremist Muslim organizations including members of the Muslim Brotherhood; the nation’s space agency (NASA) being ordered to focus on Muslim diplomacy; and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signing a special order to allow the re-entry of two radical Islamic academics whose terrorist ties long banned them from the U.S.

SOURCE

****************************

"Liberals" and the Cult of Moral Relativism

Liberals as seen from a libertarian viewpoint -- by Sam Wells

Beyond the myths and fallacies of socialism, Keynesianism, and regulatory welfare statism, and beyond the junk science of fraudulent sham environmentalism, and beyond the rotten philosophical and ethical underpinnings of leftism, when it comes to basic motivations and the attitudes that drive the left-wing mindset, one will look in vain for a non-psychological explanation -- and one does not have to be a trained psychologist to be able to discern the whim-worshipping, power-lusting infantile complex that underlies leftism and its hatred for private property, capitalism, freedom, humankind, the United States, and non-arbitrary morality.

One reason dizzy liberals hate and fear principled freedom advocates so much is that we individualists often render value judgments -- and when the Liberal Mentality hears someone render a value judgment with which the "liberal" disagrees, the liberal wants to pretend that the value judgment is "invalid" because "there are never any absolutes" (a statement which, if true, is self-contradictory and therefore false). So, when a rational individualist renders a value judgement that a liberal doesn't like, the liberal often tries to attack ALL value judgements as invalid rather than dealing with the specific issue at hand -- and sometimes even accuses the principled individualist of wanting to "legislate morality" or somehow forcibly impose his moral judgement on him!

For example, if the rational individualist claims that using heroin and cocaine can be addictive and is bad for one's health, the liberal relativist reacts very defensively and with barely suppressed guilt symptoms, perhaps even petulantly stamping his or her foot in indignation and screeching something like "What right do you have to impose your moral judgements on me or other people! I have a right to do what I want!"

Notice that the rational individualist has in no way used force, either personal or political, to impose his views on the "liberal" or anyone else -- nor has he advocated using the force of political legislation to impose his observations about private personal behavior or anyone; but, the "liberal" -- almost always intellectually dishonest to the core -- wants to try to get away with portraying those who express moral sentiments as somehow threatening to impose their morality on others.

What the "liberal" really feels threatened by is not legislation but the idea that the morality of human behavior might not be arbitrary and subjective but based on rational principles and on absolute standards which if ignored could affect his life and happiness.

(Of course this same liberal sees nothing wrong or hypocritical with him using Big Government to impose his notions of morality on other people -- from compulsory school attendance laws, forced bussing of school children, anti-discrimination laws, Affirmative Action, compulsory seat belts, FDA restrictions on what vitamins you can take, laws against "quack" cancer cures, compulsory Social Security taxes, restrictions on using one's own land, antitrust laws, income taxes, price controls, and many other coercive interventions against peoples' freedom to engage in capitalist acts among consenting adults.)

The irony is that ONLY in a free society -- a society in which government is restricted by a policy of Laissez Faire -- are (adult) individuals recognized as responsible human beings who are free (from coercive interference) to do with their own bodies and properties whatever they want as long as they do not violate (through coercive interference) the same right of other adult citizens to do what they want with their own bodies and properties. This INCLUDES the freedom to do some things the rational individualist himself may disapprove of, such as self-mutilation, using LSD or heroin, putting gerbils up ones rectum, eating banana peels, drilling holes in the top of ones skull, sniffing glue, watching Jerry Springer or Geraldo Rivera, or reading Newsweek magazine.

Under the Laissez-Faire Republic which we advocate, people would be free to perform immoral follies on up to and including suicide -- as long as such actions do not involve the initiation of the use of coercive force in violation of the rights of others to their own persons and properties. Under freedom, ALL citizens' rights to person and property would be recognized, respected, and defended by law, including that of the "liberals" as well -- but not JUST the freedom of "liberals" to indulge in their own whims. The law would also protect the freedom of other people to disagree with the "liberals" and even the freedom of speech and of press to express disapproval of the immoral personal behaviors or foolish practices that are condoned and championed by the "liberals" and other moral relativists. It is this freedom -- the freedom to disagree with and disapprove of their pet vices and social programs -- that enrages "liberals" so much -- and why the "liberal"-left has sought to suppress any and all dissent and disagreement with its agenda by using its fascistic program of "political correctness" on college campuses and in the kept media. Their goal is to stamp out all publicly expressed views contrary to their own -- and especially those that reject epistemological and moral relativism in favor of rational standards and absolute principles and values.

The implicit reason that liberal relativists want to try to pretend that "there are no absolutes" or that morality is "relative" is that they want to reject any and all PRINCIPLES as such -- not just political legislation imposed by the power of the state, but also any NON- IMPOSED rules dealing with good conduct and bad habits to avoid. They want to be able to flaunt their vices & follies publicly while imposing a gag on anyone who would dare call their behavior "immoral" or foolish or imply that there could be any rational, absolute standards for behavior beyond their own personal whims or momentary feelings. They want the "luxury" of pretending that any and all chosen behavior has no consequences, no relevance one way or another to human life and morality. They want to replace rational principle with their own arbitrary whims. Of course, this is a recipe for disaster, both in the life of an individual and in the course of a nation.

The advance of human progress and civilization has been the result of the discovery, recognition, and implementation of sound principles and the abandonment of the arbitrariness of whim and the irrationality of superstition. By their vehement rejection of rational principles and absolute standards, today's left-wingers and "liberals" have abandoned progress and civilization and true science in favor of their own mystic religious cult, no longer pretending (as did Marx) that their socialism is "scientific" and rational.

Beyond that, it must be kept in mind that relativism in the areas of truth and morals necessarily leads to absolute tyranny in politics. If reality is seen as subjective and relative, that is, if reason is abandoned, then reality can no longer serve as an independent frame of reference or common ground by which disputes may be resolved, so that the only other way disputes can be dealt with is by brute force -- might makes right. Thus, the relativist premises of modern "liberalism" lead inevitably to more conflict in society and eventually to some form of statist tyranny.

Force -- especially the legal force of political government -- must never be allowed to be wielded by subjective Whim. Our Founding Fathers knew this. That's why they wanted to bind down men in government by the chains of a written Constitution. The relativist premises of modern liberalism are contrary to the vision, intent, and spirit of the American idea of using law to impose limitations on political government. It is high time Americans reimposed Constitutional limits on government by putting it under an iron-clad strait jacket called the policy of Laissez Faire based on the rational principle of individual human rights; otherwise, the tyranny of Whimarchy will continue down the road to absolute statism.

SOURCE

**************************

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. I have deleted my Facebook page as I rarely access it. For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)

****************************

No comments: