Multiculturalism and our Future

A backlash against Islam is now going on, in The Netherlands in Belgium and France.  I suspect it will spread to other countries having a Western heritage with new and large numbers of Islamic immigrants.  It may be too late.
Demographics is the problem.   Japan, Russia, and most countries in Western Europe are reproducing at below replacement rates.   This means that  the native populations of these countries are in a numbers decline.   Meanwhile, the huge immigrant-Muslim populations in Europe are reproducing very rapidly.   Within just a couple generations, Muslims will be the majority.  This is not a political statement expressing bigoted feelings... but simple math.    Since these countries have a democratic system, the majority will rule.   In every country having a majority of Muslims, Islam takes over and pushes out the other cultures from any political influence.   Eventually, Islam not only dominates but persecutes other cultures.
 The geopolitical ramifications of this are huge because long, traditional allies will no longer have the values of Western Civilization.
Here in Goshen,  our Goshen College is a BIG supporter of the concept of "multiculturalism" and has incorporated this philosophy into every aspect of their curriculum and official statements of policy.   Multiculturalism's basic belief is that "all cultures are equal and have equal merit."   I personally have had several debates with faculty and graduates of Goshen College over this issue.   Taken to its logical conclusion, multiculturalism demands that we minimize the achievements and value of Western Civilization and even ridicule those who embrace our values.  History is rewritten and students are indoctrinated to these new "truths."    Unfortunately, the political Left also seems increasingly to be in this camp.   "Political Correctness" discourages even discussing the possibility that Islam, for example, as a culture is in conflict with the American way of life.   We go to extreme lengths to avoid any criticism of Islam or suggest that Islam is the main reason for most of the problems in the 21st Century.    America is not great because of diversity but in spite of it.   America is great because of our unique Constitution, our representative-democratic form of self-government, our free enterprise system, our common language, and our Judeo-Christian values and work ethic.  These values are under attack not only from Islam but from within.  
When arguing with the local multiculturalists, I point out that being against multiculturalism is not racist which is the typical reaction I hear.    My beliefs have nothing to do with race, only culture.  All cultures are NOT equal.   This should be obvious when considering that the Germans living in the culture of Hitler's reign of terror are the same Germans of 2012.  The Japanese of Imperial Japan during WWII are the same people living in Japan today.  The people of North and South Korea are the same people.  Only their cultures are different.  Who can argue that a culture that stones women for the "crime" of being raped and executes those who dare to convert to another religion or who does not allow women to drive a car or who encourages suicide bombers to kill innocent people in acts of terrorism is equal in value to all other cultures?
 In the United States, the common culture that up to now has united us and made us a great and prosperous nation is under attack. 
Our nation is a nation of immigrants.   Legal and controlled immigration is a good and necessary thing.  I have no problem with various groups retaining aspects of their heritage but the dominant culture must be a common culture... the American culture with our common language and common values.  In previous generations when immigrants arrived here, the first priority was to discard the "old country" culture, learn English and become Americans.  They couldn't wait to assimilate.   No more.....  
 One might point out that the old Soviet Union was a nation of very diverse cultures but was not a place where I would want to live.   Even in Canada and Belgium where two languages and two cultures struggle to co-exist, it is obvious that it might be better for either one to assimilate into the other or else to separate and go their own way.  

 

Political Science 101 (not taught today)

Socialist or Fascist

By Thomas Sowell

6/12/2012

 

It bothers me a little when conservatives call Barack Obama a "socialist." He certainly is an enemy of the free market, and wants politicians and bureaucrats to make the fundamental decisions about the economy. But that does not mean that he wants government ownership of the means of production, which has long been a standard definition of socialism.

What President Obama has been pushing for, and moving toward, is more insidious: government control of the economy, while leaving ownership in private hands. That way, politicians get to call the shots but, when their bright ideas lead to disaster, they can always blame those who own businesses in the private sector.

 

Politically, it is heads-I-win when things go right, and tails-you-lose when things go wrong. This is far preferable, from Obama's point of view, since it gives him a variety of scapegoats for all his failed policies, without having to use President Bush as a scapegoat all the time.

 

Government ownership of the means of production means that politicians also own the consequences of their policies, and have to face responsibility when those consequences are disastrous -- something that Barack Obama avoids like the plague.

Thus the Obama administration can arbitrarily force insurance companies to cover the children of their customers until the children are 26 years old. Obviously, this creates favorable publicity for President Obama. But if this and other government edicts cause insurance premiums to rise, then that is something that can be blamed on the "greed" of the insurance companies.

The same principle, or lack of principle, applies to many other privately owned businesses. It is a very successful political ploy that can be adapted to all sorts of situations.

 

One of the reasons why both pro-Obama and anti-Obama observers may be reluctant to see him as fascist is that both tend to accept the prevailing notion that fascism is on the political right, while it is obvious that Obama is on the political left.

Back in the 1920s, however, when fascism was a new political development, it was widely -- and correctly -- regarded as being on the political left. Jonah Goldberg's great book "Liberal Fascism" cites overwhelming evidence of the fascists' consistent pursuit of the goals of the left, and of the left's embrace of the fascists as one of their own during the 1920s.

Mussolini, the originator of fascism, was lionized by the left, both in Europe and in America, during the 1920s. Even Hitler, who adopted fascist ideas in the 1920s, was seen by some, including W.E.B. Du Bois, as a man of the left.

 

It was in the 1930s, when ugly internal and international actions by Hitler and Mussolini repelled the world, that the left distanced themselves from fascism and its Nazi offshoot -- and verbally transferred these totalitarian dictatorships to the right, saddling their opponents with these pariahs.

 

What socialism, fascism and other ideologies of the left have in common is an assumption that some very wise people -- like themselves -- need to take decisions out of the hands of lesser people, like the rest of us, and impose those decisions by government fiat.

 

The left's vision is not only a vision of the world, but also a vision of themselves, as superior beings pursuing superior ends. In the United States, however, this vision conflicts with a Constitution that begins, "We the People..."

That is why the left has for more than a century been trying to get the Constitution's limitations on government loosened or evaded by judges' new interpretations, based on notions of "a living Constitution" that will take decisions out of the hands of "We the People," and transfer those decisions to our betters.

 

The self-flattery of the vision of the left also gives its true believers a huge ego stake in that vision, which means that mere facts are unlikely to make them reconsider, regardless of what evidence piles up against the vision of the left, and regardless of its disastrous consequences.

 

Only our own awareness of the huge stakes involved can save us from the rampaging presumptions of our betters, whether they are called socialists or fascists. So long as we buy their heady rhetoric, we are selling our birthright of freedom.

Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute.

 

Dreaming

 I was thinking.....   if poetic justice were to prevail, the two Obama daughters would grow up, go to Hillsdale College, join the NRA, marry white Born-Again Christian boys,  move to a Red State, join Fox News as conservative analysts, and become venture capitalists. 

Fair and Balanced?

"If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed.
If you read the newspaper, you're misinformed." ...Mark Twain

With all the noise the media is making about
Romney's wealth, We don't recall such bluster and hand-wringing over the
Kennedy fortune. Or, for that matter, John Kerry. Or the fact that John
Kerry gave virtually nothing to charity while Romney gave something on the
order of $4 million...in addition to his entire inheritance from his father.

Oh. Wait. I just remembered. Romney is Republican.
Kerry and the Kennedys are Democrats.
Also, Romney worked for his money.
Kennedy inherited his.
And Kerry married his.Never mind. Nothing to see here folks. Move along.

Abortion Politics

President Obama had a penchant for voting "present" when he was an Illinois senator.  He did this, many suspect, to have little on which future political opponents could point to as a radical position if (when) he decided to run for higher office.  One vote on which Obama tipped his hand was an infamous vote against a ban on what is called "partial-birth abortion" and then went a step further:  He opposed a bill to protect the life of a newborn human being that survived an abortion.  Let's be clear here.  A partial-birth abortion is a grisly (and medically unnecessary to save the life of the mother) procedure where the about-to-be-born, fully viable and fully-developed baby's head is allowed to pass through the birth canal and before the baby is fully delivered, the skull is punctured and the brains are literally sucked out with a vacuum.  No baby can survive this.  But sometimes during a regular abortion, the baby somehow survives and is born alive.  Obama thought that if the intent was to abort and destroy this innocent life, then it was permissable to finish the job even after the baby was born.   The old legal argument that legally a person is not a "person" until born is ignored.   I should think that even the most ardent Obama supporter would consider this repulsive.   Now President Obama holds the highest office in the land and is dictating the nation's health care law and cleverly masking his latest mandate that religious organizations pay for birth control in noble language like "woman's health," "preventive care," and "reproductive services."  The implication being that anyone who opposes it is against women's health.    Even the Roman Catholic Church is not opposed to birth control when used for medical reasons.  But pregnancy is not a disease.  In pushing his radical social agenda, Obama is so convinced of his righteousness, none of this matters.  He considers the church has a fringe view and the First Amendment is just a bump in the road.

Let's Buy Her Pills

A few random thoughts about the current flap over mandatory birth control for women paid for by employers:
One of the more lame liberal arguments is that not providing free birth control restricts access to birth control.
 Nobody is advocating "restricting access" to birth control.  Period.  Forcing all employers to pay for something -- especially with no opt-out for religious institutions and businesses -- does not constitute access restriction.  Think of it this way: The Second Amendment explicitly guarantees Americans' right to bear arms.  This right has been affirmed by two recent Supreme Court Decisions.   Let's say some gun advocates launched a hypothetical campaign to impose a federal mandate forcing all employers pay for their employees' guns, would it be fair to say that opponents of that effort were "restricting access" to firearms?  Of course not.  This is sophistry. 
Birth control pills, if used for medical reasons are usually covered by employer insurance.   The Georgetown student-activist used a medical example to make her case but this is a red herring.   What she really wanted was free birth control for her social lifestyle.   If she can go to Georgetown, wear nice clothes, drive a car, drink booze on the weekends, and fly all over the country to testify at congressional hearings, let her buy her own birth control pills.  On second thought, perhaps, in her case, the public should buy her birth controls pills.   The thought of her genes being passed on to make another generation of fire-breathing libs is not pleasant.

"We Don't Need No Education" Pink Floyd

Our education system is not working.    Our children, the future of our country, are being propagandized  by liberal teachers and professors.   No wonder so many parents are opting to home school or send their children to private schools.  No wonder the NEA (liberal teacher's union)  hates the concept of school vouchers.  No wonder our students go to college as (naive?) little conservatives and graduate radicalized little flame-throwing liberals.   No wonder Obama got elected 3 years ago.   Is this a non-reversible trend?

 

 

 

March 10, 2012

Another '60s Radical – Once Featured On PBS – Finds His Place Teaching Our Children

By Kyle Olson

3/10/2012

 

Unfortunately for traditional America – the one that values independence, free market capitalism and limited government – too many aging radicals from the 1960s and ‘70s have found their way into government school classrooms.

Some, like Bill Ayers, found a home in the hallowed halls of higher academia. Today he collects a pension from the very government he vowed to destroy just a few short decades ago. Others, like Robert Roth, set their sights on K-12 education.

As these former Abbie Hoffman wannabes matured a bit, they realized they had to – in the words of modern-day radical Van Jones – drop the radical pose to achieve the radical ends.
So they don’t call for warfare and setting bombs anymore. They don’t call press conferences and vow to kill the pigs or topple American imperialism.

Their new goal is to alter traditional American culture by indoctrinating the young students in their charge. They spending precious class time teaching our children about their vision of America, which would be equal to all other countries; where the efforts of motivated individuals are sacrificed at the temple of forced collectivism; where the laws are driven by moral relativism and truth that comes in shades of gray.

Curious about Roth, I googled him and virtually the only picture I could find of him was on a 1970 Wanted poster from the Chicago Police Department. Along with Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn and other radicals, Roth was a member of the Weather Underground and was wanted for his participation in the “Days of Rage” riots in Chicago.

Prior to that, Roth was a leader of the Columbia University chapter of Students for a Democratic Society. According to U.S. intelligence information made public in an unrelated court case, Roth was a leader of the SDS-led student riots at the college in 1968.

He’s a perfect example of an activist dropping the radical pose to achieve radical goals in our classrooms. And nobody seems particularly concerned about that.

Wake up, America. These people might have grayed a bit and put on ties, but they are the same old revolutionaries who oppose virtually everything that made our nation great. They are preaching their rhetoric to naïve students who believe everything they hear, just because the teacher says it’s so.

And the worst part is that Roth and friends are being paid to subvert American values with the tax dollars of hard working Americans.

Those same hard-working Americans are the only people who have the power to successfully demand that former domestic terrorists be banned from public school classrooms.

Kyle Olson

Kyle is Founder and CEO of Education Action Group Foundation, a non-partisan non-profit organization with the goal of promoting sensible education reform and exposing those with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

Insight from Thomas Sowell

Many people are looking to the many primary elections on March 6th -- "Super Tuesday" -- to clarify where this year's Republican nomination campaign is headed.
It may clarify far more than that, including the future of this nation and of Western civilization. If a clear winner with a commanding lead emerges, the question then becomes whether that candidate is someone who is likely to defeat Barack Obama.
If not, then the fate of America -- and of Western nations, including Israel -- will be left in the hands of a man with a lifelong hostility to Western values and Western interests.
President Obama is such a genial man that many people, across the ideological space, cannot see him as a danger.
For every hundred people who can see his geniality, probably only a handful see the grave danger his warped policies and ruthless tactics pose to a whole way of life that has given generation after generation of Americans unprecedented freedom and prosperity.
The election next November will not be just another election, and the stakes add up to far more than the sum of the individual issues. Moreover, if reelected and facing no future election, whatever political constraints may have limited how far Obama would push his radical agenda will be gone.
He would have the closest thing to a blank check. Nothing could stop him but impeachment or a military coup, and both are very unlikely. A genial corrupter is all the more dangerous for being genial.
Thomas Sowell

Econ 101 For Dummies

Some stats about the US government:

• U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000
• Fed budget: $3,820,000,000,000
• New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000
• National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
• Recent budget cuts: $ 38,500,000,000

Now, remove 8 zeroes and pretend it’s a household budget:

• Annual family income: $21,700
• Money the family spent: $38,200
• New debt on the credit card: $16,500
• Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
• Total budget cuts: $385

Them and Us

Occupy Wall Street Party vs. Tea Party

The Democrats have said that the Occupy Party was their answer to and "just like" the Tea Party.  I report......you decide.......

 

 

REPORTED	OCCUPY PARTY	TEA PARTY
ARRESTS	4149+	0
DEATHS	7	0
RAPES	12	0
ARSON DAMAGE	$10,000,000.00	$0
PUBLIC DEFECATION	YES	NO
ANTISEMITIC RANTS	12	0
COST TO TAXPAYERS (11/9)	$19,327,487..00+	$0
PUBLIC MASTURBATION	3	0
MOLOTOV COCKTAILS THROWN	10	0
FIGHTS STARTED	YES	NO
CHILDREN EXPLOITED	YES	NO
POLICE CARS DAMAGED	2	0
PUBLIC DRUNKENNESS	YES	NO
DRUG POSSESSION ARREST	YES	NO
CONCEALED WEAPON ARREST	YES	NO
DRUG OVERDOSE	YES	NO
THEFTS	YES	NO
BURGLARIES	YES	NO
VANDALISM ARREST	YES	NO
TRESPASSING ARREST	YES	NO
NON FATAL SHOOTINGS	1	0
PUBLIC URINATION	YES	NO
URINATION ON OTHERS	YES	NO
ISRAELI FLAGS BURNED	2	0
AMERICAN FLAGS BURNED	10	0
AMERICAN FLAGS DANCED ON	1	0
AMERICAN FLAGS DESECRATION	25	0
FELONY ASSAULT ON AN EMT	1	0
HEAD/BODY LICE OUTBREAKS	12	0
TUBERCULOSIS OUTBREAKS	1	0
MURDER	1	0
SUICIDE	1	0
SHOTS FIRED AT WHITE HOUSE	1	0
SCABIES OUTBREAKS	1	0
OBAMA ENDORSED	YES	NO
PELOSI ENDORSED	YES	NO
CAIR ENDORSED	YES	NO
SOCIALIST PARTY ENDORSED	YES	NO
NAZI PARTY ENDORSED	YES	NO
MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD ENDORSED	YES	NO
COMMUNIST PARTY ENDORSED	YES	NO
BIDEN ENDORSED	YES	NO
HUGO CHAVEZ ENDORSED	YES	NO
BLACK PANTHERS ENDORSED	YES	NO
HEZBOLLAH ENDORSED	YES	NO
MARXIST UNION ENDORSED	YES	NO
9/11 TRUTHER ENDORSED	YES	NO
BOLSHEVIK ENDORSED	YES	NO
IRAN GOVERNMENT ENDORSED	YES	NO
AYATOLLAH ENDORSED	YES	NO
NORTH KOREA ENDORSED	YES	NO
FARRAKHAN ENDORSED	YES	NO
NATION OF ISLAM ENDORSED	YES	NO

 

Oh yes, I see the similarities now……..

National Prayer Breakfast

Speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast this morning, President Obama defended his hard-left positions using Christianity, citing Scripture and personal prayer.   Does that include stomping on religious freedom by mandating that Catholic charities violate the basic tenets of their faith and provide contraceptives?

The president's words reveal how little he understands Christianity, except how he may best use it to his political advantage.  Justifying his healthcare and financial reform laws, he said:

"And so when I talk about our financial institutions playing by the same rules as folks on Main Street, when I talk about making sure insurance companies aren't discriminating against those who are already sick, or making sure that unscrupulous lenders aren't taking advantage of the most vulnerable among us, I do so because I genuinely believe it will make the economy stronger for everybody. But I also do it because I know that far too many neighbors in our country have been hurt and treated unfairly over the last few years, and I believe in God’s command to 'love thy neighbor as thyself. And I think to myself, if I’m willing to give something up as somebody who's been extraordinarily blessed, and give up some of the tax breaks that I enjoy, I actually think that's going to make economic sense.  But for me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus' teaching that 'for unto whom much is given, much shall be required."   

Where to begin?

Politically, this is yet another example of a theocratic double standard.  Conservatives who apply religious principles to political reasoning do so out of a dastardly desire to turn America into a theocracy, yet liberals who engage in the same spiritual justification are simply illustrating their moral soundness.

President Obama follows a long tradition of using Christ's words to justify a socialist agenda.
Yet those politicians who have engaged in such rhetoric blatantly misunderstand the words they're repeating.
That distinction lies at the heart of the fallacy Obama has perpetuated. True charity is not a duty of the government.   It's a duty of each of us, as individuals.

Christian morality requires that charity and altruism be voluntary, not coerced. But in societies where socialism or a welfare state prevails, people are forced to be charitable and altruistic by the state. That is accomplished by the government confiscating money from some and giving it to or spending it on others who are deemed to be in need.


 Some condone this by arguing that “the people are the government.” If that is so, then it should logically follow that, just as people are not allowed to steal, even in the name of charity and altruism, then neither should the government be allowed to steal in the name of charity and altruism. Christianity is concerned with what is in a person’s heart, and that can be known only when a person is free to choose and is not coerced.

If the president feels it's his spiritual and moral imperative to give freely of his finances to those who are in need, that is his prerogative.   He has the right to donate whatever percentage of his income to the outlet he sees as best capable of aiding the poor, even if that's the government.  He does not have the right to demand the rest of us do the same, however -- not on spiritual grounds.

If the president truly wants to help those least fortunate, it would be better making the job easier for charities and making it easier for private wealth to be created so individuals have the means to give to charity.   The United States is the most charitable nation on Earth despite high taxes.  And, curiously, conservatives give far more to charity than do liberals,  a phenomenon seen across all social-economic strata.

 President Obama is less interested in charity than he is in consolidating government power.

 Christ never characterized paying taxes to be used to redistribute wealth as a godly act.  Since LBJ's "Great Society" back in the 1960's,  the US Government has transferred about 16 trillion dollars from the taxpayer to the poor... yet the percentage of poor remains about the same.  To overcome poverty, Presidential candidate Rick Santorum stated that one must get an education and wait until marriage to have children.  (I would add, don't do illegal stuff so you can stay out of jail.)   Just these simple but obvious changes in lifestyle would eliminate much of poverty.   I believe in the old axiom:  "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.  Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life."

Humiliation?

A few years ago, I wrote a letter to the editor of our local newspaper stating my opposition to those on any sort of government assistance (welfare) from being able to profit from playing the lottery (gambling).  My premise was that the money spent (wasted) on playing the lottery actually was the taxpayer's money and any winnings should be forfeited to the State or Federal government from which the money to buy the tickets originated.  This policy would also have the additional benefit or discouraging those who were unable to provide for themselves the destructive and often addictive habit of wasting money playing the lottery.  It would be a simple matter to cross-check lottery winners with welfare receiptients.  Well, I got thoroughly raked over the coals for my efforts and had to endure several weeks of letters of rebuttal stating how insensitive I was and how I hated the poor for not letting them dream of sudden riches.

Now we have in Congress a debate on whether or not welfare recipients will be able to spend "their" money at strip clubs.   On Wednesday, the House voted 395-27 to pass a bill requiring states to block welfare debit cards from being used at casinos, strip clubs, and liquor stores.  Any sane person would see the problem with allowing welfare recipients to withdraw taxpayer money from strip club and casino ATMs. Alas, at least 27 members of Congress do not – despite the fact that California welfare recipients withdrew $1.8 billion from casino ATMs in 2010 (according to the Los Angeles Times).

The opponents' defense… "In many neighborhoods, the closest ATM is located in a nearby liquor store," Democratic Rep. Gwen Moore said when the bill was debated last December. Moore said the bill would "humiliate and marginalize" poor people.   I wonder if these welfare debit cards are used to buy booze, cigarettes, and other non-essential things?   The best intentions often have unintended resuts.