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I was in an argument with some liberal wacko recently who kept maintaining that -- because I found it the height of absurdity for female troops to cry rape as if they were pristine victims of some sort -- that I was somehow "justifying" the act of rape.

Absolutely not. There is no excuse for rape. But, having learned the hard way, I believe that women -- more often than not these days -- share in the responsibility for that's being committed where they exercise poor judgment or put themselves in harm's way somehow. Camille Paglia argues very eloquently that the rape mentality is not only damaging relations between men and women but that women who fail to read the signs, pay attention, GUARD THEMSELVES and exacerbate everything by getting drunk off their butts and going upstairs alone at some frat party (or knocking on Kobe's bedroom door ...) have some share in the culpability.

The crime of rape is not itself lessened simply because responsibility for that crime is mitigated somewhat by the actions of the other party. Women who kid themselves that they are the "equal" of men -- whether it be on the battlefield or per Wendy McElroy's clarion call to Female Rights to Porn -- really are not positioned to pretend they can defend themselves, even, against those men with whom they're assigned.

But this liberal mouth-breather, much like you, wouldn't countenance that. The moment I argued that women bore some, if not the primary, brunt of responsibility for guarding themselves, I became some kind of apologist for rape in her eyes.

I make no excuse for terrorism whatsoever. In fact, of late, I've been in arguments with a man who argues that because God promised the Jews a land of milk and honey (TO WHICH NO LESS THAN MOSES WAS DENIED FOR FAILING TO FOLLOW ALWAYS THE WILL OF A GOD WHO WOULD SPARE THE ABOMINATION OF SODOM ON BEHALF OF THE 50, THE 30, THE 20, EVEN THE 10 GOOD MEN THEREIN), that all political murder, assassination, destruction of buildings and villagers of anyone seeking to do God's will and effect Zion (a movement begun by a secularist, btw) is excusable.

I don't buy it.

I think all we've really got this life is our conscience and I am sick to the death of smallminded sorts like yourself pretending that if I have problems with the way this "War on Terror" -- like the War on Organized Crime, the War on Poverty and the War on Drugs before it here in Slogan-Land -- that I'm somehow supporting the Jihadists.

I think this sort of bent thinking is directly the product of a "two-party" system by which we are NEVER allowed to vote for any but the lesser of the two evils ... each side positing that all third-party voters or those who absent themselves from this wholly predictable charade are somehow "for" the enemy because they failed to lockstep and help provide the "mandate" necessary to pretend a political win (numbering about, what, 23% of the American people at large?) is tantamount to the WILL OF THE PEOPLE.

Another slogan whose etymology is rather interesting, particularly where terrorism is concerned ... but I digress, as usual. Questions about why in the world we accept nothing less than unconditional surrender to the volonte generale at home and abroad must be left to another thread.

As a moralist Mathematician, let me assure you that stooping to conquer is always a Loss. I don't care how increasingly appealing are the arguments of agit-prop artists who condition you to the horrific notion that only by becoming terrorists can we vanquish same. It makes NO SENSE on its face.

And that fact that it does speaks more to the Emotional Response which so many are so interested in perpetuating ... in much the same way the Cult of Victimology "manages" victimhood with counseling, affirmative action, reparations, etc. but never releases the person to Integrity and instead keeps them always a Victim and therefore empowered to be a little more equal than others in varying respects.

I realize it's tough to lose folks in such a senseless tragedy. My NYC sister lost a good friend and fellow actor who'd invited her in to the firestation downtown many a time for breakfast after a late night. Having been initially put off by the Red Cross (for whom she now works on their Disaster Response Team), she elected to go to funerals ... for the next two years ... because her schedule allowed her to do so. That's how she copes and that's how she regained her hope.

I don't think it gets anymore personal than that sort of commitment. She was hit very hard by the whole experience. But that hasn't caused her to lose sight of objective reality or pretend that "everything changed" and the old letter of the Constitution, our civil liberties or Right and Wrong are now different.

Doesn't work that way Poohbah, regardless how anxious our leadership is to have us believe just that. "Security" is a psy-op ... there's really no such thing. It's unfortunate in the extreme that our leadership knows that Americans probably won't believe that they're "making us more secure" absent making us take off our shoes, raise our arms, bend over, and empty our bags every time we hop a plane.

Sickening, really.

I find your whole mentality to be a threat, Poohbah. If I criticize the government -- speech which, unlike porn, was actually intended to be protected -- it does not mean that I'm supporting Jihadists. It's disturbing enough to hear you say it but, unfortunately, it's nothing our own Attorney General Ashcroft hasn't said himself.

There still exist those of us who hold ourselves to a standard higher that Political Party or that Nationalism by which a person's country can do no wrong, no-how, never. I'm one of those.

I don't remember anyone's arguing that anyone who critcized the Mad Bomber of Sudan or had a problem with our targeting of civilians in Serbia or empowering the drug-running thug KLA (foreshadowing our work to come in Afghanistan) was somehow "for" Milosevic or "for" alleged atrocities and genocide.

Where do you get off arguing thus now?

The following is an excerpt from a speech Keyes gave back in the early days when he -- like Judicial Watch -- not only were respected and valued around here but gave of their time to attend and participate in our little rallies. He speaks of Clinton's war but -- as is common to all "self-evident truths," his words apply in perpetuity.

Particularly where he sounds that "right to life" which -- going strictly by the numbers -- we end up a pretty bloodthirsty sort of folk willing to commit terrorist acts daily on the most innocent of all among us ... especially as compared to the Muslims who have resisted the pressures, coercion, and strongarming of US-AIDs and the UN for decades now where imposition of our Culture of Death worldwide has continues in line with the directives of NSSM-200.

... very often today we seem to turn our back on [the right to life and the defense of our true liberties] because, I guess, for a great many people it's more convenient to try to forget who we are than to remember who we are at a time that we would do so to our shame.

The facts are clear. We are a nation founded on a clear and simple premise. The fact that it is clear and simple, however, doesn't mean that it was easy to arrive at … easy to perceive … easy to apply to human circumstances and affairs. It was not.

And, in fact, in all the thousands of years of human history before this nation was founded, this particular insight had certainly been around but it had never been expressed in a form that actually led to and transformed political institutions and society.

But we are different. And in our case--I believe very much by the providence of God Almighty--we live in a country where this special insight was, in fact, applied in a way that has born great and so far lasting Truth. And the insight is quite simple. We start with the recognition that there is, in fact a Creator God. [We then] understand that that Creator takes an interest in human affairs, in human justice and is, in fact, the foundation by His Will of the right understanding of human justice and social affairs.

And that understanding is such that each and every human being stands in the sight of that Creator God almighty equal to every other human being in their moral worth and dignity. An equality that is not based upon human power or human assertion, upon human constitutions or human attitudes and judgment but instead rest upon the will of our Almighty God. Determined by His hand, His rules, by His Choice and not our own.

Of course there will be those – particularly those folks in the media (and anybody who knows me even a little bit knows that I have a kind of running battle with the American media. I actually think that, by and large, anyone of conscience would have a running battle with the media.)

But in this context … whenever I say this, somebody out there […] asks some question which implies that what I have just said to you, that simple logic I've just outlined, that premise – that rights come from God – "this is Alan Keyes standing there articulating his particular sectarian religious belief."

Now it is very true that every word I just spoke to you is real consistent with my Roman Catholic heart and my Roman Catholic faith. But it's also very true that every word I just spoke to you is not just a reflection of my heart and my faith, it is the American heart and the American faith.

This is articulated very clinically when this Nation began. In the great documents that our Founders used to justify their willingness even to go to war in order to assert their independence. I think we ought to take that very seriously because – at least in those days, I don't know about now, I think we're kind of … we've gotten really careless about wars these days, as some events, I think, even in recent times have proven.

And we go to war maybe without understanding what we ought to understand. Every time you go to war, you know -- a people like ourselves -- even if that war is conducted by others, even when it's conducted by a means where you're flying high up in the air and dropping bombs on people you don't even see and folks die as a result …

I hope we still understand that each and every one of us who has an opportunity to participate as part of the sovereign body of the people in this country: we are responsible for every life that is taken by America in war.

And we had better be awfully sure that what we're doing has a solid moral ground or we will stand before God bearing the stain and weight of every life taken in injustice that we did not oppose.

And I think that it's why our founders, being that they were – many of them, most of them, almost all of them, in fact – people of conscience and faith, felt that before you risked war, you better justify what you're doing in moral terms. You've got to state the moral premises and the moral principles that inform your heart.

And that's what they did in our Declaration of Independence. It's a statement of the moral justification of that assertion of independence at the risk of war. And, in doing what they did, they set forth the basic moral principles that then informed the later deliberations that led to our Constitution and are the practical foundation of our liberty.

And so those words in the Declaration of Independence – "All men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights" -- are the basic premise of everything that, as a people, we claim to hold dear. Self-government and rights and due process and liberty and all these other unique hallmarks of the American way of life, they rest on that premise and that premise alone.

The American Heart, The American Faith

If this be a Holy War, we best err on the side of true Christianity lest we go taking the Lord's name in vain.

Though it's possible the Lesser of Two Evils -- particularly one who fails to err on the side of protecting life from the moment of conception as if "all men are created equal" and gilds with Scripture his prime-time announcement of federal funding for "stem cell" research -- is especially suited to this task.

Regards, Poohbah. Thanks for the Huntington reminder. His ought to be a good revisit at this point to see how far along the tracks we are at present where the reconditioning of the American Mind is concerned.