Free Republic

Liberals have been living in a fantasy land bubble where they’re told by the media on a regular basis, just how superior they are. They are told they are more enlightened, smarter and just better people then any republican or basically anyone with a conservative viewpoint. Which is why they free free to be vicious, cruel and even violent towards anyone who doesn’t ‘think’ like they do.

I use the term ‘think’ loosely here, as there is really no thinking that goes on.

I get it. There are some Muslims who will mourn, and be in a rage, but there are some 1 billion of them and if most of them really cared then where are those mobs? The ones who do mourn and are in a rage are hopeless no matter what. I still take issue with the comparison of people mourning the deaths of innocents with the fanatics who mourn bin Laden.

No I am not kidding. I don’t see mobs in the streets in mourning, or in a rage, except maybe in Pakistan. They are hopeless.

"For sure, bin Laden's death is something from which to derive satisfaction, but chanting "USA!" in response to it can't but strike Muslims similarly to the way that the chanting crowds of Muslims who rejoiced over the collapse of the World Trade Center struck us. "

Seriously? Does the writer really believe Muslims are mourning over bin Laden's death? While there are some, what kind are those exactly? There is a striking difference between people who rejoice over the death of a man who has caused so much human suffering and people who rejoice over the slaughter of innocents. All things are not equal.

"Hate to say we told you so. But we did."

I just don't get it at all. What is it these CEOs saw in Obama? He's a man with virtually no experience whatsoever, and millions of people, many of them pretty intelligent, give him enormous power to wield over our county. Now that's he's abusing that power (in a direction his past fully indicated) they are now shocked at the destructive things he's doing.

Thanks a lot guys, for dumping money on him, publicly supporting him in his election, and unleashing and him and his power hungry minions on this nation.

You have to remember the MSM doesn’t really inform people about many of the negative things happening in the country. They have to protect Obama. Many Californians know things aren’t that well out there but have no clue to how bad it is. I live in this state and if Boxer is that far ahead it has to be due to extreme ignorance on the part of those “potential voters”. The Obama media is doing it’s job well.

Wow. These media types just don't get it. This guy had to go all the way back to 1993 to try and find a pinpoint to the political upsets and the movement that's happening around the country. It's almost laughable if it wasn't so sad. This has absolutely nothing to do with the unease and anger so many Americans are experiencing. Really amazing.

It's amazing just how out of touch the politicians are. I live in one of the most liberal areas in the county and a lot of people here are concerned and upset at the way congress is trying to ram through these bills. There might be a few people that were “organized”, but I have no doubt most people who are showing up at these things are there because they're angry and upset, and the dumb politicians still are not listening to them. Even worse is that they're insulting them. Republicans and conservatives might be used to this, but these average Americans are not.

Here's a good article by Theodore Dalrymple
http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-10-19td.html
Crime and Elite Stupidity
For the French paper of record, criminals are the real victims.

"In France, the intellectuals still believe that the real victims of crime and criminality are the criminals themselves, at least if a long article that appeared in Le Monde earlier this month is anything to go by. Entitled “Blind Sentences,” it came furnished with a large cartoon of a blindfolded judge, bloodily squashing small people on the bench in front of him with his gavel. "

Dalrymple, who has been a prison doctor in London for many years has some of the best insights into criminals and the liberal criminal system.

As for those officials that won't state the obvious and call this a hate crime, maybe they should read his article:
Policemen in Wonderland
http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_2_oh_to_be.html

"Looking down one end of the telescope, then, we see the police doing their job as they always have. Looking down the other, however, we see them subverting the purpose for which they were instituted, largely from fear of liberal criticism, which, as American readers well know, is impervious to fact. These liberals pride themselves on their tenderheartedness: but the warm glow it imparts to them comes at the expense of the poor, who as a practical consequence live in a torment of public and private disorder, which I have trembled to behold every day of the last ten years of my professional life."

Granted, American police (or administrators) are a lot tougher than their British counterpoints, but they are getting there.

You have to wonder what else he could say. If he said he was glad to be rid of Saddam and his regime, and wants the US to stay until Iraq is more stable, wouldn't that make him a bigger target? Just asking. On the other hand, maybe he really does mean what he says....

I'm always a little skeptical of what Iraqis say to the media.

When we say “we don’t know what we’d do under the same circumstances”, we make cowardice the default position.

I’d prefer to say that the default position is a terrible enervating passivity. Murderous misfit loners are mercifully rare. But this awful corrosive passivity is far more pervasive, and, unlike the psycho killer, is an existential threat to a functioning society.

Good article. Extreme passivity is what came to mind when the details of this incident came out.

On Oprah today, she had Lucy Lui visit some of the shooting victims in the hospital. One young man, when asked if he looked the killer in the face said, "no". He saw his boots, clothes & guns but didn't want wo look him in the face because he thought the killer would shoot him again. (He had already been shot 3 times!) The thing he said that was most disturbing was he heard the shooter reload load his gun twice. Which means students essentially waited while he reloaded his gun and continued his shooting spree. It was just one man. Extremely disturbing.

I can understand the initial shock of students not responding, but why was the only one who thought to act was an old man?

"Their "naked" cover on Rolling Stone seems to have started a new fad: the Multimillionaire Artist As Suffering Figure of Persecution.

The only suffering the dickie chicks suffered was a lack of sells and a portion of the public who no longer sucks up to them, and instead disdains them. Get used to it.

The USA is one of the few places in the world where you can say what you want and not be punished by the government. Western entertainers have always pretended they suffer for their art. But the fact is they have it better than anyone else in the world. People like the dickie chicks have lives that most people, even in America, can only dream about. I just can't take people like them pretending and whinning about their so-called suffering. Makes me sick.

They want to be compared to people in countries where artists actually do suffer for their art. They want to be martyrs without actually being one. They are like someone who stubbed their toe, and then believes they have suffered just as much as someone who broke their leg.

"Accoding to wikipedia, "Taking the long way" debuted #1 in both the US general and country album charts. It's got a dual platinum RIAA certification, suggesting it sold more than 2 million times in the US alone. Worldwide sales are estimated at 2.7 millions.

The most successful song "Not ready to make nice" also made appearances in a number of single charts (US, Canad, #2 on itunes etc) meaning it also sold quite well.

You have to remember when their CD came out there was a massive push by the media to mention this CD, and that it bashed Bush...Even the local Starbucks was selling it. Not because it was great, but because it was political, and people could delude themselves they were supporting free speech by buying this cd. See how easy it is to support free speech? Let's all give ourselves a pat on the back!

But now the gig is up. Five grammys for a so-so recording makes it obvious people voted for political reasons and not musical ones. There is no way they would have won 5 grammys without all the controversy. It's also obvious that you get rewarded for speaking out (so long as you speak for the fashionable left) and never get punished by the powers that be. But you have to act out the role of being a martyr, otherwise you won't get any attention. All the whining by the Dick Chicks was to get publicity. It's all about image and selling something, nothing more.

http://www.goexcelglobal.com/NJ_DefenseForce/seedshate.html
Seeds of Hatred

I watched the film clip. I know this has been going on for a long time. It's amazing how the Western media continues to ignore this propaganda and hatred, and try to pretend everyone just wants peace. Or if they do pay attention it's to insinuate that if Israel or the West would just change, they won't hate us so much. But the problem exists within these cultures and not outside it.

The movie Blood Diamond shows these child killers. They are drugged and brainwashed and then they become extremely ruthless and don't have any problems walking into a village and shooting men, women and children. It's pretty awful.

I am shocked, shocked to read an article like this in the Guardian. I would expect an article that brought these issues up, to end with the writer somehow finding a way to blame the British themselves (like some of the responses the the article do).

Is it possible that some on the left are getting fed up with these primitive, back-water imans?

"This is the doctrine of the privileged and the pampered. It is salvation on the cheap."

Oh, so true, so true. Cal might add that this is also the doctrine of the safe. Most of who are so privileged, they've never had to lift a finger for the freedoms they enjoy. In this make-believe world they are "brave" for speaking out in a free society. In that same make-believe world, these privileged ones can continue to believe they are the ones who protect our freedoms, and it has nothing to do with having one of the most powerful militaries in the world.

"We do not have to crush the enemy. But we do have to crush their will to fight, now or ever again. We have failed to do this and instead, it is unfortunately the American people who seem to be loosing their will to fight. He with the will to win will win. He won't accept any other outcome."

Excellent article. Although, I believe it's our media elite (or whatever you want to call them) who don't have the will to fight, and they have been working 24/7 to convince Americans to think as they do, and it is working. Add that to that the fact many media drones want Republicans out of power, and so must use the war as a batting ram again W. Bush and you have people who seem to be working for the enemy. The terrorists understand that very well. They understand our media and power structures well, and are using them for their war against us. A lot of those with power and influence are too arrogant to see it.

"At home, American citizens busy at work or play, preferring to believe that the enemy is no longer able to attack on American soil, seeking to treat the Mohammad Attas of the world as innocent until proven guilty under American criminal justice codes, make even easier targets. Western lawyers can not win the war against international terrorism. Western diplomats can not negotiate peace with people commanded by Allah to kill. Americans willing to wait until Iran has nuclear weapons before asking what they intend to do with them, or willing to assume that North Korea will act honorably with their nuclear technology until they don't, are an enemies dream.

Again, many of the people who have power & influence actually believe laywers and diplomats are the solution. And they have been trying to sell the public this illusion. It's no wonder Americans want to believe them and to accept these illusions because fighting terror costs us and is painful. Better to listen to the Chamberlains of the world...who will tell them what they wish was true.

No "Human Shields" will ever go to Israel to protect anyone because they know the enemies of Israel could care less who they kill.

These activists go to Gaza and act as though they are brave, but they know they are safe because Israelis avoid targeting innocent people - quite different behavior than the people they are staying with.

"In "Shut Up & Sing," she and Peck build a strong case for freedom of expression and what happens when that is taken away."

Wow. Since when did people who have had their freedom of expression taken away appear on the cover of magazines, go on the talk show circuit, and then have a documentary made about them??? To make such a claim is outlandish and an insult to all the people suffering in prisons for speaking out. We really do live in two different worlds.

With all do respect to FR I believe the reason the chicks have suffered such a backlash is because of their own incredible arrogance. Yes, I admit I once bought one of their Cd's, but I can't listen to it now because when I do all I can think about is the contempt they have shown to the people who bought their music, attended their concerts and made them very wealthy women. Their whinning and arrogance has completely ruined the music for me. Can't stand it anymore.

They really don't have a chance in the oversaturate Pop world. They won't still be the media darlings they are now. They have milked it for all its worth. Goodbye. Good riddance.