Category: Life in America

Excusing Evil: “The Mindset of the Left” by Thomas Sowell (Human Events)

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“At least as far back as the 18th century, the left has struggled to avoid facing the plain fact of evil — that some people simply choose to do things that they know to be wrong when they do them. Every kind of excuse, from poverty to an unhappy childhood, is used by the left to explain and excuse evil.”

by Thomas Sowell, humanevents.com / July 2nd 2013

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Thomas Sowell

When teenage thugs are called “troubled youth” by people on the political left, that tells us more about the mindset of the left than about these young hoodlums.

Seldom is there a speck of evidence that the thugs are troubled, and often there is ample evidence that they are in fact enjoying themselves, as they create trouble and dangers for others.

Why then the built-in excuse, when juvenile hoodlums are called “troubled youth” and mass murderers are just assumed to be “insane”?

At least as far back as the 18th century, the left has struggled to avoid facing the plain fact of evil — that some people simply choose to do things that they know to be wrong when they do them. Every kind of excuse, from poverty to an unhappy childhood, is used by the left to explain and excuse evil.

All the people who have come out of poverty or unhappy childhoods, or both, and become decent and productive human beings, are ignored. So are the evils committed by people raised in wealth and privilege, including kings, conquerors and slave-owners.

Why has evil been such a hard concept for many on the left to accept? The basic agenda of the left is to change external conditions. But what if the problem is internal? What if the real problem is the cussedness of human beings?

Rousseau denied this in the 18th century and the left has been denying it ever since. Why? Self preservation.

If the things that the left wants to control — institutions and government policy — are not the most important factors in the world’s problems, then what role is there for the left?

What if it is things like the family, the culture and the traditions that make a more positive difference than the bright new government “solutions” that the left is constantly coming up with? What if seeking “the root causes of crime” is not nearly as effective as locking up criminals? The hard facts show that the murder rate was going down for decades under the old traditional practices so disdained by the left intelligentsia, before the bright new ideas of the left went into effect in the 1960s — after which crime and violence skyrocketed.

What happened when old-fashioned ideas about sex were replaced in the 1960s by the bright new ideas of the left that were introduced into the schools as “sex education” that was supposed to reduce teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases?

Both teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases had been going down for years. But that trend suddenly reversed in the 1960s and hit new highs.

One of the oldest and most dogmatic of the crusades of the left has been disarmament, both of individuals and of nations. Again, the focus of the left has been on the externals — the weapons in this case.

If weapons were the problem, then gun control laws at home and international disarmament agreements abroad might be the answer. But if evil people who care no more for laws or treaties than they do for other people’s lives are the problem, then disarmament means making decent, law-abiding people more vulnerable to evil people.

Since belief in disarmament has been a major feature of the left since the 18th century, in countries around the world, you might think that by now there would be lots of evidence to substantiate their beliefs.

But evidence on whether gun control laws actually reduce crime rates in general, or murder rates in particular, is seldom mentioned by gun control advocates. It is just assumed in passing that of course tighter gun control laws will reduce murders.

But the hard facts do not back up that assumption. That is why it is the critics of gun control who rely heavily on empirical evidence, as in books like “More Guns, Less Crime” by John Lott and “Guns and Violence” by Joyce Lee Malcolm.

National disarmament has an even worse record. Both Britain and America neglected their military forces between the two World Wars, while Germany and Japan armed to the teeth. Many British and American soldiers paid with their lives for their countries’ initially inadequate military equipment in World War II.

But what are mere facts compared to the heady vision of the left?

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305.

The character of independence – John Hayward (Human Events)

By John Hayward, humanevents.com / July 4th 2013 8:30 AM

What has been missing from all the revolutions that didn’t work out as well as ours?  What have we lost, to bring the American revolution to such a perilous hour, in which the restraints upon government decay into first theory, and then fiction?

It all boils down to a question of character.

 

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It was easy for American observers to sympathize with the “Arab Spring” revolutionaries in Egypt.  They risked hardship, injury, and death to pack Tahrir Square in a massive demonstration against a corrupt government, presided over by strongman Hosni Mubarak for decades.  They spoke of freedom and democracy.  The cold geopolitical reality was that Mubarak was a reliable U.S. ally, and what replaced him was not.  But all those who risk everything in the name of democracy are singing the first few bars of the American song, and we can’t help but tap our feet to the fife and drum, and wish them well.

An even larger demonstration just overthrew the Arab Spring Egyptian government.  Those hard-won post-Mubarak elections installed a regime of Islamist blockheads whose primary “qualification” for government was the ability to recite Koranic verses from memory.  Their efforts to consolidate power left other Egyptians wondering if they had leaped from the kleptocrat frying pan into the theocrat fire.

The Egyptian people will try again.  They’re none to happy with the United States after our support for the deposed Morsi regime.  Some observers offer hope that it’s more of a personal distaste for Barack Obama and his Administration.  The anti-Obama banners carried through the streets of Cairo support that impression.  Maybe the jubilant Egyptians will still be willing to consider the American revolutionary example and learn something from it.

That would be wise of the Egyptians, because America still offers the paramount example of revolutionary success against tyranny.  In fact, it’s distressingly difficult to point to another example that turned out nearly as well, in either the short or long term.  We Americans have a romantic conviction that all the people of the world yearn to breathe free, with liberty and representative government ready to blossom in every corner of the world, once the hard frost of tyranny is cleared away from the soil of individual dignity.  It’s long past time for us to consider the melancholy reverse of this schoolboy optimism: liberty and representative government are remarkably difficult to nourish, and centuries of effort have produced many failures, measured against few great and enduring successes.

One reason for this uncertain track record is that liberty and representative government are two very different things.  Americans tend to assume the former flows from the latter – plant a seed of democracy, and the tree of liberty takes root.  That’s not true, and the authors of the America’s founding documents knew it wasn’t true.  They wrote with great wisdom and foresight about the necessity of restraining even the most frequently ratified, freely elected government.  Democracy (if we may take that term to include the process of electing representation in a republic) without a vigorous defense of liberty brings mob rule, or installs a set of well-organized and charismatic tyrants whose first order of business is ensuring they will never be voted out of office.  It transforms citizens into warring parties of bitter enemies whose votes determine, not the course of government, but the course of their daily lives.

What has been missing from all the revolutions that didn’t work out as well as ours?  What have we lost, to bring the American revolution to such a perilous hour, in which the restraints upon government decay into first theory, and then fiction?

It all boils down to a question of character.  Modern Americans may not fully appreciate how extraordinarily blessed with leaders of remarkable character our early government was.  James Madison, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson… they, and their colleagues, were among the most brilliant and expressive men of their day.  Read any portion of the Federalist Papers, the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution if you seek proof.  The trove of wisdom held by our Founders was piled high with riches.

Presiding over the government they created was George Washington, among the most admired men in the world at the time, and perhaps in all of time.  For too many Americans, our first President has been reduced to a cartoon abstraction of integrity, the lad who could not lie about chopping down a cherry tree.  (Do today’s schoolchildren even learn that, or do I date myself by mentioning it?)  This does not capture the astounding dimensions of Washington’s esteem.

Reporting on a 2012 poll conducted by the British National Army Museum that named George Washington the greatest military enemy of Britain, and the American Revolution her worst defeat, U.S. News said it was “no surprise that the architect of that defeat is still one of Britain’s most despised historical figures.”  Perhaps so, but he wasn’t personally “despised” by his enemies at the time.  There was quite a difference between the glowing accounts of Washington in the British press during the war, and the contemptuous coverage of the rebel nation he fought for.  If the British had managed to kill him, they would have wept honest tears at his funeral.  (Let it be duly noted that not even George Washington’s esteem was universal or perpetual.  The American press took to calling him a “tyrant” for a while, after the Whiskey Rebellion.)

Can a revolution be consolidated into lasting peace, prosperity, and justice without such a leader?  When we think of great historical forces coming together to shape the destiny of a nation, we don’t always account for the importance of a few extraordinary men and women to lead their nation through the aftermath.  Great hours are often squandered by petty men.  Such hours call for more than intelligence and managerial skill.  Towering personal character and morality are required as well.  It’s no longer a fashionable notion, but in times past it was believed that clear, valuable thought was impossible without great character, because the serenity brought by a strong moral sense was essential to careful and honest deliberation.

Who can doubt that the turbulent sea of power released in the aftermath of a revolution, when jubilant people look with love and gratitude upon their liberators, is easily abused?  It’s a time of great temptation for those who find themselves in control of vast resources, with their self-regard inflated by the energetic regard of countless others, their appetite for vengeance against deposed loyalists keen, and their differences with revolutionary rivals sharpened by the defeat of the hated common enemy.  Personal character is the only reliable armor against such temptation, in the days before firm laws to restrain the power of the newborn State have been ratified.

The character of the people is crucial as well.  All of us, everywhere, get the government we deserve.  If we authorize abuse against our fellow citizens, it occurs, and then inevitably grows.  If we demand little character from our leaders, little is supplied.  If we grant our government the power to do whatever “most people” want, it quickly grows until it has little difficulty rounding up enough people to claim majority support for whatever the ruling class wants to do.  If dissent is not cherished, freedom withers.  You will find no intersection between the “tyranny of the majority” and the “consent of the governed,” for the authors of the Declaration of Independence didn’t say a just government should settle for the consent of some of the governed, or even most of them.

We hold the truths enshrined by the American Revolution to be self-evident, not just for us, but for all of mankind.  However, our Founders never said those truths would be easy to embrace.  On the contrary, they wrote often of the urgent need for people of character, both in the halls of government and the great open fields of citizenship.  Those modern readers who are dismayed by the religious language they used are foolishly discounting priceless wisdom, and failing to appreciate the value of humility as a republican virtue.  The truly great leaders of a free people are humble men and women.  Those are really hard to come by.  Intelligence, passion, and charisma are in greater supply, and they are far more easily demonstrated.  Revolutions are more common than Washingtons.

This Independence Day, let us wish the Egyptians well in their search for humble and capable leadership.  Let us join them.

Is America in a Pre-Revolutionary State this July 4th? – Roger Simon reblog

Originally posted by Roger L Simon On July 2, 2013 / pjmedia.com

american_flag_crystal_ball_big_7-13-1As we approach July 4, 2013, is America in a pre-revolutionary state? Are we headed for a Tahrir Square of our own with the attendant mammoth social turmoil, possibly even violence.

Could it happen here?

We are two-thirds of the way into the most incompetent presidency in our history. People everywhere are fed up. Even many of the so-called liberals who propelled Barack Obama into office have stopped defending him in the face of an unprecedented number of scandals coming at us one after the other like hideous monsters in some non-stop computer game.

And now looming is the monster of monsters, ObamaCare, the healthcare reform almost no one wanted and fewer understood.

It will be administered by the Internal Revenue Service, an organization that has been revealed to be a kind of post-modern American Gestapo, asking not just to examine our accounting books but the books we read. What could be more totalitarian than that?

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal warns the costs of ObamaCare are close to tripling what were promised, and the number of doctors in our country is rapidly diminishing. No more “My son, the doctor!” It doesn’t pay.

And young people most of all will not be able to afford escalating health insurance costs and will end up paying the fine to the IRS, simultaneously bankrupting the health system and enhancing the brutal power of the IRS — all this while unemployment numbers remain near historical highs.

No one knows how many have given up looking for work while crony capitalist friends of the administration enrich themselves on mythological clean-energy projects.

In fact, everywhere we look on this July Fourth sees a great civilization in decline. And much of that decline can be laid at the foot of the incumbent. Especially his own people, African Americans, have suffered.  Their unemployment numbers are catastrophic, their real needs ignored while hustlers like Sharpton, Jackson, and, sadly, even the president fan the flames of non-existent racism.

Tahrir Square anyone?

Ironically, if our society enters a revolutionary phase, liberals will find themselves in the role of the Islamists, defending a shopworn and reactionary ideology on religious grounds, because it is only their faith that holds their ideas together at this point.

The facts of the American decline tell us otherwise. We don’t need the contempt of Vladimir Putin to remind us how bad things are and that the seeming result of the end of the Cold War is that American presidents are now mocked by the second coming of the KGB (not that it was ever gone).

We all know the famous Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times!

We certainly are, and I am of two minds about it. Like so many Americans, I have lived a comfortable, privileged life, vastly so compared to most of human history.

But I am filled with foreboding about what’s to come, indeed about what is already here. When I look at the masses swarming in Tahrir Square, I am at once repelled and attracted, repelled because, to be honest, I find their culture more than a bit crazy, but attracted because I know something is seriously wrong, not just in Egypt but in the USA.

Article re-blogged from Roger L. Simon at pjmedia.com .

Is there no hope for change? – Cosmocon reblog

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Peanut Gallery: As we approach the celebration of our nation’s birthday,  I am disheartened.  I will fly the flag,  but not with great enthusiasm.  Why? Because,  as Cosmocon points out “the United States is coming apart.”

And I don’t think this is just the sour grapes prognosis of a couple of old white guys. I think we are dealing with something much larger than that… way beyond organizational or political solutions.

This is a heavenly battle being played out on earth before our very eyes.

Please read Cosmocon’s original blog here:

http://cosmoscon.com/2013/07/02/is-there-no-hope-for-change/

And, as the saying goes,  get on your knees and fight like a man.
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Is There No Hope For Change? – Cosmocon

The United States is coming apart and I don’t know how we save it.

We have reached a point where our overreaching Government has become so big that it is out of the control of even those who support it.

IRS, DoJ, NSA, looming Obamacare, Debt greater than our GDP, unsustainable entitlement programs….the list goes on and on.

Even today, the architect of Obamacare realized that he must scale back the employer mandate until after the mid-term elections.  Of course he’s doing this because businesses have been expressing their displeasure to the Administration and the last thing Obama needs is another repeat of the 2010 mid-terms.

We are also seeing massive protests by the Pro-Abortion crowd because the Texas Legislature is trying to pass a bill to outlaw Abortions after 20 weeks.  The vile tweets in the #StandWithWendy and #StandWithTXWomen are enough to make you sick to your stomach and it makes me wonder how we became a nation where many choose to defend the right to kill viable babies just for the sake of birth control.   It’s not enough that we had to read about the evil inside Gosnell’s abortion clinic but there appears to be a large segment of the population that are totally cool with killing babies right up to birth.

@gdthomp01 I support a pregnant persons choice to terminate the pregnancy at any point. #prochoice #abortionondemandwithoutapology—   (@GingerTimeLady) July 01, 2013

It’s enough to make me throw up my hands and wonder how we take this country back.  There is a great PowerPoint presentation showing how Conservatives can be a force multiplier and get involved in precinct activism and it is worth a read by everyone.  While that is good work that we should definitely be involved with, I was left thinking that there was a bigger issue that we have to attack in order to rescue the US from the path we are on which is eerily similar to the Roman Empire.

Then I saw this video of #StandWithTXWomen people chanting “Hail Satan” and I realized what we need.

We aren’t just fighting a political war.  If that were the case, the only thing that would save us would be a revolution.  But a revolution is only successful when the vast majority of the citizens are in opposition to the ruling government and this isn’t the case now.  There are too many people that are opposed to Conservative principles to solve this with a revolution.  Do I have to remind you that Obama just won re-election by a decent margin?  This is not a problem that can be solved by a revolution or a civil war.

We can’t combat the “Hail Satan” crowd, the #STandWithTXWomen crowd or the “Free Government Handout” crowd with blog posts and cute tweets.  Let’s face it; we can’t do it by ourselves.  I just can’t do it.  I have failed.  The chasm is too vast.  America is more polarized now than ever before.  We need help.  I need help.

And when we reach the end of our rope and realize that we can’t do it on our own that is when we turn to a higher power.  And then we find that Jesus has been waiting for us patiently all along.

We are fighting a Spiritual war in America and we just can’t win without help from the Holy Spirit.  Only when we fall to our knees and admit we are powerless against the Prince of Darkness do we get help.  The past few decades may have served the purpose to humble the Church and make us realize that we have neglected the One who could help us.  It’s time to turn to Him.  He’s the only hope we have.

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”  Ephesians 6:12

The Attempted Extortion of Paula Deen – John Leonard reblog (American Thinker)

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June 30, 2013

The motive for the lawsuit has been made abundantly clear. Plaintiff Lisa T. Jackson wanted $1.25 million dollars that didn’t belong to her, so she decided to sue Paula Deen and her brother.

By John Leonard / Read original American Thinker article here.

The real story behind the Paula Deen scandal can be summed up in a single word: greed. The American judicial system and the media are being used as formidable weapons in a brazen attempt to extort money from Ms. Deen, in my opinion.

This isn’t a story about racism. It’s all about the money.

The mainstream media have reported with glee only some of the gory details as Paula Deen’s financial empire continue to crumble. The Food Channel, Wal-Mart, Target, and the publisher of her bestselling cookbook all have abruptly terminated their relationship with Ms. Deen. The firestorm erupted after it was widely reported that Ms. Deen gave a deposition in a civil lawsuit in which she admitted using the N-word.

Rarely if ever mentioned by the national press is the context in which the word was used, or the reason the deposition became public knowledge.

No one is interested in defending the use of that particular word, including this writer.

But for the record, the specific instance in which Ms. Deen admitted to using that specific word was in the privacy of her own home, used to describe a robber who had pointed a gun at her head. The mainstream media also doesn’t seem to care that Ms. Deen could easily have lied about that specific incident, yet chose to tell the truth under oath.

Apparently there’s a zero tolerance policy when certain people use the forbidden N-word.

Never mind that the epithet was uttered in privacy, after Ms. Deen had suffered considerable duress of being robbed at gunpoint.
That the usage became public knowledge only when Jackson’s attorney began conducting a smear campaign intended to inflict irreparable harm on Ms. Deen’s businesses also seems to be irrelevant information to the drive-by media.

The motive for the lawsuit has been made abundantly clear. Plaintiff Lisa T. Jackson wanted $1.25 million dollars that didn’t belong to her, so she decided to sue Paula Deen and her brother.

Attorney Wesley Woolf left no doubt about the real motive of the plaintiff in January, when he sent a letter to Deen’s attorneys demanding a $1.25 million dollar settlement. Woolf threatened to conduct the negative publicity campaign currently underway, making clear the consequences if their extortion demand was refused when he wrote (emphasis added):

…[the] economic losses they [Ms. Deen and Mr. Hiers] will experience if we are caused to bring this matter to a public forum. … Exposure of the racist and sexist culture of her corporate and personal life is going to permanently and irreparably damage the value of her brand.

In her deposition, Ms. Jackson was forced to admit that she never heard Paula Deen utter a racial epithet, never knew her to discriminate against an employee based on gender, and never knew Paula Deen to sexually harass anyone.

Both plaintiff and defendant are white, making racial discrimination against Jackson an impossible charge to prove.

That would seem to make the accusations put forth in the lawsuit against Ms. Deen frivolous.

It has not been widely reported outside the local press that Jackson sent Deen and her brother a letter praising and thanking them both, only a few short months before filing suit. In an effusive letter she wrote:

When I came to work for this company, as a person, I felt hopeless. I needed something, some opportunity that could provide me hope as an individual, as a woman, to make it on my own. At 15, homeless, without parents and with a young child, my life was headed in a direction no one could ever assume positive. As you know, I did what I had to do to survive, but it clearly was not the freedom or happiness I ever hoped for… When I started working for Bubba, he gave me an opportunity that allowed me, over time, a freedom I have never experienced. He allowed me, for once in my life to take care of myself and for once, have faith in myself as a person and as a woman to know that I could do it on my own; y’all were my Aunt Peggy… I have been given opportunities that I never thought possible, all because of you and Bubba.

The person who wrote that letter now wants $1.25 million dollars?

For what?

Let’s forget for a moment that Quentin Tarantino and Chris Rock have both made a lot of money using that same word with recklessness and impunity, all under the guise of artistic license.
Obviously, the word isn’t strictly verboten.

But the really interesting question is this: who profits from Ms. Deen’s admitted use of the word, nearly thirty years ago?

There is a reason she was included in the lawsuit. She has the deepest pockets for Ms. Jackson to pick, using the legal system and the media to do her dirty work.

Obviously, this isn’t a case about seeking justice.

It’s about character assassination and Lisa T. Jackson’s shameless grab for $1.25 million dollars.

Another Jackson — Jesse Jackson — recently jumped on the Paula Deen bandwagon when he announced in the Huffington Post that Paula Deen could be “redeemed.”

How much do you think that will cost her?