A Distaff View of the World

Barbarians at the Gate - and Chuck Schumer Wants to Take Our Guns Away

As an American citizen - as a human being - I am still reeling today with New York Senator Chuck Schumer's politicizing of the terrorist attack at Fort Hood into an anti-gun crusade. Instead of blaming the terrorist and his ideology, he went after lax gun control laws. No mention of the fact that if soldiers were still allowed to carry their weapons on the base rather than having the only armed personnel a civilian police force, this terrorist would have been brought down immediately. No, Schumer went straight to one of his favorite lobbying groups and blamed the very instrument that could have saved lives.

I listened to that man speak and I was sickened to the point of nausea. To politicize a tragedy such as this and turn it into an anti-gun crusade rather than acknowledging that it was Hasan's ideology that murdered those innocents should get him at the very least reprimanded and Americans should flood his office with letters, calls and emails telling him what a schmuck and lobbyist tool he is.

I would personally like to see how many outings and how much money this man gets from the anti-gun lobby. But that's just me.

All of us have seen the results of terrorism. Of innocents slaughtered. As the father of a victim said, terror is not just a tactic, it is an ideology. It is contagious, like a virus and we have to treat it like an epidemic.

Most Americans understand that. Most Americans understand what every child understands: If you let the bully get away with it, he comes back at you again and again until you are so beaten down you have nothing left to give; until he has taken everything you have. The only way to stop bullies is to stand up to them.

But first and foremost, terror must be defined. Once we knew what it was. When a train station was blown up and planes were flown into towers; when ships were rammed with explosives and car bombs went off in front of cafes and embassies were attacked. Over the years, as thousands of innocent people have been murdered because of an ideology, we knew what terrorism was and who was behind it. But now we hem and haw and don’t want to offend people’s sensibilities. So we refuse to profile the obvious suspects because it's politically incorrect and we refuse of offend a religion that breeds these terrorists. The ONLY religion that breeds them.

To paraphrase Daniel Pearl's father, the young journalist beheaded by these Islamist zealots, terrorists' acts - acts against innocent civilians, for the purpose of transmitting political grievances, is gaining legitimacy in the mores of our society and it must stop. When did even the idea of barbaric acts gain such credibility that they must be spoken of in hushed tones and we can no longer call terrorists what they are?

Are you listening Obama administration? Are you listening Columbia, Yale and other politically correct Marxist breeding grounds?

Are Catholic fanatics flying jets into buildings? Are Methodists leaving headless corpses by the dozens on city streets as warnings to others?  Are atheists murdering in the name of atheism?

Who but Islamic extremists are teaching and being taught hate and death to all who don’t believe as they do? This isn't a recent phenomenon. This has been going on for more than seventy years in their classrooms. And we're supposed to buy into the notion that what they're doing is OUR fault because they don't like our foreign policy? That if we stop helping Israel, all will be well and they'll just fade away, never to blow anyone up again? The Arabs are responsible for the condition of the Palestinians, not the Israelis.

It is time those of you who are moderate Muslims stand up and yell at the top of your lungs that you will not stand for your religion to be taken over in this way by people who murder and maim in the name of your God as if they were sprinkling salt on an omelet. And if you do sit silently, shame on you. Shame, shame on you.

I would like every legislator we have to be asked to define terrorism. And after they have defined it, I would like each of them to be asked what they think should be done about it. I suspect most of them won't have a definition and won't even have given it much thought.

I think they have lost sight of what it is we are defending ourselves from. Or that we are defending ourselves at all. And if they can't define it, how can we possibly protect ourselves?

The barbarians are at our gates, and Chuck Schumer is talking about gun control. Good God, he should be handing out guns to all of us, not taking them away.

The Islamic terrorists had been poking sticks at us for years, blowing up our soldiers overseas, attacking embassies. We did nothing.

But then they brought their Islamic terrorist ideology into our house when they flew those planes into our Towers.

Wake up politicians. Wake up Schumer. Get out your dictionary. The blood of those soldiers who died is on your politically correct hands.

Schumer has now made himself, personally, the official logo for the Democrat party. A jackass.

Diversity in the Military and Idiots in the Media

At the devastatingly touching memorial service to those lost and wounded by a terrorist at Fort Hood, political correctness, no doubt the cause for the slaughter, was in full force.

The words recently banned from the American lexicon by the president, "terrorism" and "terrorist" were nowhere to be found anywhere in the ceremony.

The usual suspects in the media couldn't dance fast enough to let their political correctness shine through:

Chris Matthews, who as I've said before, is the gift, or gaff, that keeps on giving: "Hasan apparently tried to contact Al Qa eda.  (Twenty times)  Is that the point at which you say that this guy's dangerous?  It's not a crime to call al Qa eda is it?"

No, Chris, it's not a crime perhaps, but it's a huge red light unless you're so politically correct  and you have lost all touch with common sense.  Which, every time I see one of your idiotic remarks, I realize you have.  I suppose he, a Major in the American military, could have been calling to ask, hey guys, what's up? How are things in the sunbelt?

Bob Scheiffer: It's looking more like he was just sort of a religious nut.  And, uh, you know, Islam doesn't have a majority, er, the Christian religion has a full helping of nuts, too."

Yeah, Bob, but when was the last time a Christian blew up a jetliner full of people, or flew a plane into some buildings or had millions of people wish death to entire nations.  Take off the blinders, man, or retire.  Or better yet, develop a better class of friend you can talk to on the cocktail circuit.

In my experience, most moderate Muslims are good people who live good lives just the way we do.  However this guy was a glowing isotope of radicalism walking around an army base and it was obvious from his remarks to fellow soldiers, to the mosque he attended where a radical Imam had indoctrinated some of the 9/11 bombers.

Yet in this age of political correctness that has been taken to such an absurd level that a person reporting that kind of behavior runs a real risk of being sued, this character was allowed to continue with his career as a Major in the United States Military, hatch his plans, then one day shave himself as jihadists do just before the big day and start shooting American men and women.

Lt. Col. Ralph Peters said, and rightly so, that the remarks of the president were boiler plate and, for the most part appropriate, but left out something important.  He repeatedly said that the acts were incomprehensible. 

The Lt. Col. made the very cogent point that the acts were not incomprehensible at all.  They were the acts of an Islamic terrorist who gunned down fifty-four people because he believed he was doing the will of Allah in accordance with the will of the Koran.

Nothing complicated about that.  He knew what he was doing going in and he didn't expect to live.  Imagine his surprise to awaken to doctors and nurses and not virgins, no slight on the doctors and nurses intended.  (Actually, I kind of wish I could have seen the look on his face.)

Hasan was having problems with his patients, his superiors and his career.  But people who knew he was having problems were afraid to report him.  Why?  Recent history tells us that the people doing the reporting would have been the ones likely to have put their own careers in jeopardy and been branded as bigots and racists and might well have had their careers ruined rather than having been taken seriously while Hasan would have gone merrily on his way with his career.

We are a country run amok with political correctness.  I'm personally done with it, as I've made clear in post after post.  I'm an atheist in a Christian country and I'm going to say so.  I refuse any longer to even hear the word racist because it has been bandied about so much it has lost it's meaning.  Anyone using it is the one who loses credibility with me. 

A terrorist is a terrorist is a terrorist.  I profile people standing in line with me at the airport because it's my neck on the line.  Do they have carry on luggage?  Are they acting nervously?  Are they with someone else?  Are they relaxed when speaking with other people and making eye contact when you smile at them?  Oh yeah.  I profile.  I may even make a few passes after boarding the plane to see what they're doing.  Reading a paper?  Good.  They care about what's happening in the world because maybe they think they're going to be in it the next day.

Do I do it because I'm prejudiced?

I do it because I'm not stupid.

And I wish our government would stop being stupid.  If they were a little less politically correct, a few more men and women might be alive today and a Memorial Service on their behalf would not have been unnecessary.

Do I think they learned a lesson?

Unfortunately, probably not.  I heard yet another general, even after this, expressing his hope that this wouldn't affect the military's 'diversity'.

That general doesn't need any more training in diversity.

He needs some training in how the world really works.

If some little Romance Novelist writer in Wisconsin has figured it out, what the hell is wrong with him?

Maybe he needs to sit quietly at his desk and lay out the pictures of the dead and wounded at Fort Hood, and then right in the middle place a nice big picture of the man who murdered them.

Wake up, people.  Offending moderate Muslims isn't the issue.  Moderate Muslims should be up in arms.  They should be marching in the streets proclaiming that these monsters don't represent their way of life; proclaiming that these jihadists are monsters.

The issue is keeping our people safe.  And that is the only issue.

And yes, I am darn mad.  You look at those faces of the dead and then tell me you're not angry as well.   There was no reason for this except political correctness.

It was a tragedy waiting to happen.

And there's another one out there who won't be caught, once again, because of political correctness.

The Dangers of Fundamentalism of Any Kind

"From the first moment I looked into that horror on September 11th, into that fireball, into that explosion of horror, I knew it. I recognized an old companion.  I recognized religion."  So said Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete, professor of theology at St. Joseph's Seminary in New York:

There were no atheists flying those planes.

As has happened so often beginning with the Obama run for the office when I became truly involved with politics, I've been up front about the fact that I'm not religious and have taken, by some people, a real pounding for that.  How can you be an atheist and be a moral person?

To clear that up right now, a moral person is someone who does what is right no matter what they're told.  A religious person does what they're told whether it's right or not.  Like strapping bombs to themselves and climbing on crowded city buses; or gassing millions of people because they're Jews - Christ killers.

How can I possibly be a conservative if I'm an atheist?

Well, I confess I do fall down a little there.  While I have issues with abortion, I have a deep belief in personal freedom and if someone makes gay slurs in front of me, they have to deal with the consequences.  If someone labels all Muslims as extreme Islamists, I have an issue with that.  The list goes on.

But I have also met many lovely Christians who have opened their hearts to me and accepted me after  some initial skepticism with a live and let live attitude that matches my own. 

There are some over-zealous atheists who demand Christmas displays, etc. not be on government property.  I admit I would personally prefer to not see the Ten Commandments in a courthouse.  It's a bit disconcerting to think the people judging you believe they're working for a power higher  - or other - than the law of the land.

But the usual atheist, as Sam Harris has said, is in the best sense of the word a happy and positive person who gives religion very little thought.  I'm not against any religion.  I don't want to fight Christians; don't want to fight Muslims; don't want to slaughter Jews.  I have respect for all beliefs. 

Imagine a world filled with atheists.  And don't trot out that old canard Stalin.  He didn't kill because he was an atheist.  He was just a bad man.  There would have been no protestants killing Catholics in Ireland or the other way around; no crusades; no planes flying into the towers in New York; no Holocaust, no war in Serbia.  Mothers and fathers wouldn't be losing their children even as I write this and Israel would be at peace with its neighbors and there would be no crazy men in Iran plotting its annihilation..

Some Christians seem offended that there are Muslims who believe the Koran verbatim, yet feel it's all right for them to believe the Bible verbatim.  They believe the way their preachers or priests interpret the  Bible and teach it to them, but are offended that Muslims believe the way their Imams interpret  and teach the Koran to their flocks.

There are radical fundamentalist Christian preachers.  There are radical fundamentalist Muslim Imams.  Neither are good things.  During the crusades, the Christian preists were more dangerous.  These days, the Muslim Imams are the more dangerous.

These days, to not  be a fundamentalist Christian means that you pick and choose which parts of the Bible you believe and which parts you discard as either too fanciful and science has won you over or, frankly it doesn't suit your lifestyle.

And while many Christians believe that works for them, they don't allow the same latitude for Muslims who have assimilated into western culture.  Of course, it's not true for all Muslims, but it is for a great many.  Their religion, their belief in their God, provides them with comfort, and just because they have rejected some parts of the Koran doesn't mean they have to reject all of it.  The fact that they have lost their fundamentalism doesn't mean they are no longer Muslim, any more than a Christian who isn't a fundamentalist is no longer a Christian.   

And being and atheist, which simply means you reject the idea of a supernatural power altogether, doesn't mean you're a wicked person.  If someone can name specifically the last time there was a war declared in the name of atheism, I' d like to have it pointed out. 

Some atheists get a little carried away at times, in my opinion, in separating church and state, but they are being watch dogs because they understand how dangerous it can be when church and state grow too intermingled.  Our Founding Fathers understood that very well.  In the Fifties, God made his way onto our currency and a little later into our pledge of allegiance.  It is critical that we not lose site of our Founding Father's concerns.

There are statistics on how few atheists there are in the United States, but I tend not to believe them.  I think we've been driven underground because to declare you're an atheist in America is tantamount to declaring you're in personal touch with satan.  He has the direct number to your iPhone.

In the United States - the United States - we have this creeping theocracy.  In an age where an Osama Bin Laden can convince men to act on scriptural ignorance and blow up innocents, we need to think about what we're doing and what we're teaching our own children.  Are we enlightening them?  Or are we taking them back into the dark ages. 

This is a country where a politician can't get elected unless he professes a  belief in some religion.  Aristotle said, "A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion.  Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious and less easily  inclined to move against him."

How can we be an enlightened nation in 2009 where one of the criteria for electing a good, honest, conservative man is his lip service to a religion?  Shall we give him a lie detector test to see if he's sincere or just putting on a show to get elected?

Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and John Adams rejected not only organized religion but the divinity of Christ.  To a man, they were Deists, meaning that they believed the  road to knowledge, even knowledge of God, was reason.

Edward Abbey, an American author wrote: "Fantastic doctrines (like Christianity or Islam or Marxism) require unanimity of belief.  One dissenter casts doubt on the creed of millions.  Thus the fear and the hate; thus the torture chamber, the iron stake, the gallows, the labor camp, the psychiatric ward."

He also said, "Whatever we cannot easily understand we call God; this saves much wear and tear on the brain tissues...Belief in the supernatural reflects a failure of the imagination."

Wayne Adkins, an American military officer who served in Iraq in the mid 2000's was a fundamentalist Christian who wanted to be a Baptist minister.  He studied the  Bible intensely and after much study he, quite simply, stopped believing.  "How do you choose between believing in Jesus, Bigfoot, leprechauns, witchcraft, Islam, alien abductions ... or the myriad other assertions that people have made over the course of human history?  (Faith is) like rolling the dice and hoping you have placed your faith in a true proposition."

Wayne has expressed something I've found  troubling.  I've studied various mythologies and religions and seen how all of them have taken a little from this culture and a little from that one, altering each over time to suit its needs.  And all, with this mixture, Christians, Muslims, Jews, etc., have what my son calls The Certainty.  We're right.  You're wrong.  We're going to heaven.  You're going to hell.  And in Christianity, they can't even agree among the differing sects.  For example, if you're a Baptist, the Pentecostals are going to hell.  It is all based on 'faith'.  Not fact.  Faith. How can any one faith know which is correct?   And how can any one faith condemn another?

Lebanese born "Adonis" (born Ali Ahmad Sa'id), said "The religious interpretations that compel Muslim women to wear the veil in secular countries where church and state have long been separated and where equality of the sexes is firmly established, reveals a mentality that is not content merely with veiling woman, but seeks to shroud man, society, life in general-to pull the veil over the eyes of reason itself."

Read those words.  "...pull the veil over the eyes of reason itself."  How are Christians pulling the veil over reason?  By teaching creationism instead of science in school, perhaps? 

Again, I have to ask, how is it possible to live in a society with all of the science at our command, the geology, the genetics, the astrophysics, and not believe in evolution?

I make no apologies for my atheism, though I used to be ashamed to utter the word because of the backlash. 

I ask no apologies from my Christian friends, though I would ask that they stop 'praying' for me.  I know they mean well, and from some of those gentle souls, I accept it in the manner it's intended and say an appropriate 'thank you'.

But there are those who say it with great superiority and arrogance and to them I say, "You pray for me.  I will think for you."

What we need to do is stop hating each other and work out intelligent solutions to complicated problems, and select men and women to go to Washington based on their abilities, not their church attendance.  There might even be an atheist out there ready to lead us out of the wilderness - so to speak.

Fort Hood and the Class of George and Laura Bush

 

This has taken me days to get my temper under control enough to write about.

A man in full Jihad mode murdered innocent service men and women in a place where their defenses were down and they had every right to feel safe.

Their Commander-in-Chief took to the podium that day and, after commenting on a meeting he'd been having with Native Americans, and receiving their applause, mentioned the slaughter as if it were an after thought.

Sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters had just undergone a wholesale slaughter, and he slips it in after comments discussing progress with his Native American supporters.

Of course, he's too busy twisting arms and making promises on the Hill to get his nation-ruining health care disaster passed to make a personal visit to Fort Hood. He probably thought he'd done enough of the Commander-in-Chief stuff after he finally managed to get a family's permission to allow him a photo op at Dover Air Base saluting the return home of a fallen soldier in his casket. One 'news' network praised Obama about how terrific he was to take time out of his busy schedule to go to Dover, particularly since his predecessor had not.

Of course there was no mention of the hundreds of visits to hospitals and personal phone calls made by President Bush and letters written. That's because President Bush refused to allow cameras or publicity about that. He considered the dignity of the families and the fallen soldiers. His gestures truly came from his heart. He never viewed a dead or wounded soldier, or grieving family as a photo opportunity. .

To date, Obama, Mr. Commander-in-Chief, still has not made an appearance at Fort Hood, but he will when there's a formal ceremony and the cameras will be there to photograph his phony angst.

But President and Mrs. George Bush showed up at midnight on the evening after the brutal attack, specifically requesting, once again, no publicity. They went to offer support and comfort and pay their respects. Then they left just as quietly as they arrived.

I may not have agreed with George Bush's fiscal sensibilities, but I desperately miss his and Laura's dignity and sense of decorum.

I miss the fact that he guided this country with a strong hand and had a deep and enduring love of America, even though he lost sight of the constitution on occasion.

Obama has shown himself time and again, and particularly after the attack at Fort Hood, to be a shallow empty suit. Without Rahm Emanuel and Axelrod, I doubt he could even stand up straight.

Obama struts his stuff around the White House as though he owns it, along with Andy Stern and George Soros and the rest of his Marxist buddies.

But the ghost of the dignity and strength of George Bush must surely haunt him.

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