N.O. Pundit

The Joy of Voting

From IRAQ THE MODEL:

I still recall the first group of comments that came to this blog 14 months ago when many of the readers asked "The Model?" "Model for what?"

I put the paper in the box and with it, there were tears that I couldn't hold; I was trembling with joy and I felt like I wanted to hug the box but the supervisor smiled at me and said "brother, would you please move ahead, the people are waiting for their turn".

Aside from the witnessing Mohammed and Omar's joy, how about how beautiful they write.

Read the whole thing.

Nopundit, Powerline Think Alike

It's not often that I can say I had an insight before John Hinderaker regarding politics. In this Iraqi election day post, Hindrocket concludes:

President Bush is not content to be the best President since Reagan; he wants to be the greatest President since Lincoln. I still think he has a shot. The next few months will tell a great deal.

I left this comment on December 13 over at Roger L. Simon's site regarding the visit of Mohammed and Omar:

Roger,

God Bless Omar, Mohammed, and Ali, and all of the Iraqis who want nothing more than all of the wonderful blessings and problems peace and prosperity brings. I truly cannot think of a better Christmas present than to see Iraq get what it has fought for and deserves!

Great minds think alike! Oh wait, let me say that in Minnesotan: Great minds think alike, eh!

Kenneth Greenlee (graduate of Carleton College in Northfield, MN, 1984)

Neoeurofascism Anyone?

This post is left as a comment at The Nice Doggie's site. Go there to get up to speed.

While there is a lot to laugh at here, I believe there is much more to be quite alarmed at. Couple the above article with this post by Melanie Phillips (a must read for every Anglophile), and the Euro picture is distressing indeed:

Europe's intervention in what has become a major issue in the election campaign took Westminster aback. MPs and officials were unaware of how much national sovereignty on immigration and asylum had been transferred to Brussels.The Conservative leadership responded by saying that a Tory government would immediately opt out of the new rules. If that were blocked, it would insist on renegotiation to allow Britain to determine its own asylum and immigration policies.

It's not just the Sheeple with their heads up their asses.

There is a reason why a Hitler did not, has not ever, and will not ever, rise to power in the United States: the US Constitution. The Constitution recognizes (it does not bestow or grant) our sovereignty as individuals and our inalienable rights. As an aside, in my opinion John Kerry's biggest (and most telling) blunder in the debates was when he said that our Constitution "affords" us our rights. Wrong! This is NOT a case of semantics!

I have no intention of wading through the EU Constitution, but I'll bet that there is not one word on sovereign individuals and inalienable rights. All rights the EU citizen has are revokable by the Brussel Sprouts.

So, why should this alarm Americans? From the Wikipedia:

[F]ascism is described as a system in which "The State not only is authority which governs and molds individual wills with laws and values of spiritual life, but it is also power which makes its will prevail abroad.... For the Fascist, everything is within the State and... neither individuals nor groups are outside the State.... For Fascism, the State is an absolute, before which individuals or groups are only relative....

Mussolini, in a speech delivered on October 28, 1925, stated the following maxim that encapsulates the fascist philosophy: "Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato." ("Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State".) Therefore, he reasoned, all individuals' business is the state's business, and the state's existence is the sole duty of the individual.

What will Europe look like in 5, 10, 20 years? Will it be a increasing global threat, an economically ruined nuisance, or something else altogether? I don't know, but in my opinion this is not a situation for benign ignorance on the part of Americans.

Stand Up And Cheer

Many folks have commented on the disturbing and surreal nature of a former Ku Klux Klan Kleagle interrogating a black woman on her qualifications for Secretary of State. Is this something to cheer about? Yes!

As Robert "KKK" Byrd, and Barbara "Hey, I'm the victim here!" Boxer, and Ted "<brahminaccent>Quagmire! Quagmire!!</brahminaccent>" Kennedy continue to make utter buffoons of themselves (and by association the whole Democratic Party), what hot-button issue is quite explicitly missing in the confirmation proceedings? Racism (not questions about racism, actual racism).

Condoleeza Rice is being attacked for the powerful, capable, brilliant, accomplished person that she is, and more importantly, for the conservative views that she holds.

Completely absent is the treatment of Dr. Rice as a fragile, protected-class, affirmative-action candidate, present only because the advancement of unqualified victims is the American way. Also completely absent is any explicit (or implicit) display of racially motivated hostility or hatred. That Byrd may be a closet racist is immaterial. That there are quite a few more uncloseted racists out there is also immaterial.

The fact of the matter is that Byrd and all the other Dhimmocrats are scared shitless of Dr. Rice's poise, intellect, and most importantly, her political future. What they see seated across from them is not a black woman, but the continuing decline of the Democratic Party. The color of her skin is absolutely, utterly unimportant, and is the last thing on their minds. As it should be.

Isn't this something to be cheered? Isn't the primary goal of a racism-free society one where the system of advancement is essentially a meritocracy?

Here's a quiz. The goal is to guess what color Bob is:

Scenario #1:
"Bob, your numbers are down. You're fired." "Shit."

Scenario #2:
"Bob, your numbers are up. You're our new Vice President!" "Great!"

Kenneth Greenlee

National ID Cards and the Future

Watch and shudder:

AdCritic Interactive

Hat tip Boortz.

Guns and Property

Kim du Toit inspired this little rant.

I have often felt that the correlation between strong gun rights and strong property rights is high. In the US, for the most part, we have both, though state by state there are differences. I would hazard a guess that a state which allows for broad interpretation of government property seizures would also have restrictive gun control laws.

Internationally, it does not surprise me that as a country tends more to socialism (government ownership of property) its citizens see (or can be more easily convinced of) less of a need for lethal self (private property) defense. Fine. Sweden and their UN ilk can do as they please. That they want to mold the US in their image is not OK.

One final thought. Pick your favorite self defense story as written by a liberal. Somewhere in that story is a line like: "a man (the intruder, shot by a homeowner) lay dead in defense of a toolbox." You see, in the liberal world, self defense is relative. It is not worth taking a life for a toolbox, right? This type of thinking of course begs the question: what is the economic quantum whereby self defense is justified? A Rolls Royce? Is this type of thinking behind the Rosie O'Donnells of the world when they want gun bans for the masses but not for their personal bodyguards?

In the conservative and libertarian world, self defense is absolute. You burgle my home, be it a single-wide trailer or a mansion, you can be shot and killed, period. Are you defending an economic interest? Yes. But the more important notion is that you are defending a principle: that you and your home are inviolable.

Norman Podhoretz Essays

Via Roger Simon: Not Just John's Father:

Individual Rights

Coyote Blog: Respecting Individual Decision-Making

Coyote,

Great post!

You may be interested in one of Steven den Beste's articles entitled Three Way Struggle:

The three modern forces who are now contending with one another are all deeply different from one another. Each is enormously varied internally. One of them is Islamism, the second is idealist, elitist and socialist, and third is humanist, realist and capitalist. And all of those descriptions are inaccurate, alas.

If equality is one way to tell these three apart, responsibility is another. The Islamists believe that Allah is responsible for it all; the duty of believers is to follow His will, and leave all else in His hands. For the idealists, responsibility lies with the state. Citizens should rely on the state for all things, and let the state be responsible for taking care of it all. For the realists, everyone has primary responsibility for their own fate, and though they may rely to some extent on others, or on the state, or on God, ultimately each person should look out for themself as much as they can. And these summaries are also, alas, generalizations which are not totally accurate.

Two contending factions are agnostic (but with some religious members), one is theistic (but with some agnostic members). Two are idealist, one is realist. None really like or trust any of the others, but the realists have been prospering while the others have failed, and so it is that the other two are afraid. In peaceful competition, they'll lose.

When the Islamists lashed out violently at the realists, the idealists tried (and failed) to prevent the realists from fighting back, and thus the lines in this war were drawn. The realists are engaged in a shooting war with the Islamists, and in diplomatic war with the idealists.

This quote is near the end of a very lengthy article. The take-home lesson (for me) is that the Idealists (think Old Europe and the UN) are in an "unholy alliance" with the Islamists. Why? Because their world views are both collectivist/elitist, though the fountain of authority differs. Ask a Eurocrat why they are allied with the Islamists and against the Realists (think mainly America, but also New Europe, Australia, and pockets of others) and of course he would recoil in horror and deny any such thing.

It is stark (if still subconscious) reality for the Idealists that the liberating victories in Afghanistan and Iraq directly undermine their core world view: that people are better led than left alone, and that tough decisions are best left to the elites.

I hesitate to say that we are in an end game of sorts. Clearly the level of confrontation and hatred coming from Al Qaeda/Islamofascism is to be expected; the level of confrontation and hatred from the Idealists is really quite striking (just look at world opinion of the US contribution in the tsunami relief effort; no matter what, we are horrible stingy people).

Islamists and Idealists understand that Realism (Coyote's Individual Decision-Making) must be destroyed at all costs. The Good News? Ain't gonna happen.

Spock’s Vulcan Pet

Sehlat.

Still More Great Photo Tips

From, who else: Instapundit.

Good News In Iraq

Power Line: Progress in Iraq you may not have heard about

Joe Carter's Blog Tips

the evangelical outpost: How To Start A Blog:
Part I -- Before You Begin

And Part II.