There is some very wrongheaded thinking in part of the establishment GOP. They believe that in order to get in power Republicans should pander, and move to the left.
Those who hold such a view actually seem to believe that the Democrats will then stop calling Republicans racist and every dirty word in the book.
Look at what the Democrats do to black and Hispanic Republicans, they release their credit history to the public illegally like they did to Michael Steele, they release their social security number publicly like they did to Allen West, and they use every racial attack they can think of.
Democrats sent agitators to Michael Steele events to literally throw Oreo’s at him. They accused Allen West of being a part of a motorcycle drug gang, they trashed his military service, they trashed his family and even went after his children. They they engaged on what is now well reported outrageous vote fraud to unseat him, and replace him with a rich white guy.
Then the Democrats said it was Republican’s fault that Congress is richer and whiter.
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee trashed Miquel Estrada when he was nominated to the DC Court of Appeals saying in their own committee memo’s that they must stop him “because he is Latino”.
Democrats trotted out campaign ringers to call South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who is Indian-American, a slut.
I’ll start with the General Social Survey (GSS), the most widely used database for monitoring social trends. All the results that follow are based on the biennial GSS surveys conducted from 2000 to 2010.
Latinos aren’t married more than everyone else. Among Latinos ages 30–49, 52 percent are married. Everyone else: 54 percent.
Latinos aren’t more religious than everyone else. Among Latinos, 29 percent attend worship services regularly (nearly once a week or more). Everyone else: 31 percent. Among Latinos, 18 percent not only attend regularly but also say they have a strong affiliation with their religion. Everyone else: 24 percent.
Latinos aren’t more opposed to gay marriage than everyone else. Among Latinos, 44 percent disagree or strongly disagree with the statement that “homosexuals should have the right do marry.” Everyone else: 50 percent.
Latinos are a little more opposed to abortion than everyone else, but not by a landslide. Among Latinos, 12 percent are opposed to abortion under all circumstances. Everyone else: 9 percent. Among Latinos, 21 percent are opposed to all abortion unless the mother’s health is seriously endangered. Everyone else: 14 percent.
Latinos aren’t more conservative than everyone else. Among Latinos, 14 percent describe themselves as “conservative” or “extremely conservative.” Everyone else: 20 percent.
What about the Latino work ethic? For indicators on that, I turn from the GSS to the Current Population Survey (CPS). I restrict the results to the surveys from 2000–2008, before the financial meltdown—that is, we’re looking at work behavior in years in the normal range of unemployment.
Latino men are only fractionally more likely to be in the labor force than everyone else, and those with jobs work slightly fewer hours. Among Latino men ages 30–49, 92 percent were in the labor force. All other men ages 30–49: 91 percent. Among men ages 30–49 who had jobs, Latinos worked an average of 42 hours in the preceding week. All other men ages 30–49: 44 hours.
Latino women are substantially less likely to be in the labor force than everyone else. Among Latino women ages 30–49, 68 percent were in the labor force. All other women ages 30–49: 78 percent. Among those with jobs, hours-worked in the preceding week were virtually identical: 37.3 for Latino women, 37.5 for everyone else.
I can understand why people think Latinos are natural conservatives. Just about every Latino with whom I come in contact is hard-working and competent. I don’t get into discussions with them about their families and religion, but they sure look like go-getting, family-values Americans to me. But note the caveat: “with whom I come in contact.” There’s a huge selection artifact embedded in that caveat—I always come in contact with Latinos because they are on a work crew that’s doing something at my house or office, or at my neighbors’ houses. That’s the way that almost all Anglos in the political chattering class come in contact with Latinos. Of course they look like model Americans.
The data I used for the numbers above come from the most trustworthy, carefully conducted surveys available. They paint a portrait that gives no reason to think that Republicans have an untapped pool of social conservatives to help them win elections.
A March 2011 poll by Moore Information found that Republican economic policies were a stronger turn-off for Hispanic voters in California than Republican positions on illegal immigration. Twenty-nine percent of Hispanic voters were suspicious of the Republican party on class-warfare grounds — “it favors only the rich”; “Republicans are selfish and out for themselves”; “Republicans don’t represent the average person”– compared with 7 percent who objected to Republican immigration stances.
[In other words Republicans have allowed themselves to be maldefined, have been timid in the battle of the narratives, and not aggressive enough to show why capitalism and freedom work when given the chance. Conservatives have also not been active in pop-culture and public education. – Political Arena Editor]
And a strong reason for that support for big government is that so many Hispanics use government programs. U.S.-born Hispanic households in California use welfare programs at twice the rate of native-born non-Hispanic households. And that is because nearly one-quarter of all Hispanics are poor in California, compared to a little over one-tenth of non-Hispanics. Nearly seven in ten poor children in the state are Hispanic, and one in three Hispanic children is poor, compared to less than one in six non-Hispanic children. One can see that disparity in classrooms across the state, which are chock full of social workers and teachers’ aides trying to boost Hispanic educational performance.
This is very informative (more so in the second video). Tammy Bruce has been a TEA Party leader from before the beginning. She is a former leftist, former President of NOW, and an out of the closet homosexual who attributes Western enlightenment and tolerance to our Christian heritage.
If you only have time to watch one video, watch the second one (as the first one is sorta “meh”).
Tammy Bruce, Bill Whittle & Stephen Kruiser: Why the establishment GOP was stupid enough to adopt the Democrat’s false narratives
[Editor’s Note – Tammy Bruce is one of the greatest thinkers alive today and any chance to see her in action is a privilege.]
In this video Tammy debates an atheist who represents a group that is trying to monopolize all of the city public displays for the holiday season with posters that insult people of faith.
The atheist says it is all about rights, Tammy Bruce sees right through his “rights” shield red herring argument and blasts his agenda, which is pushing people of faith out because his tiny minority cannot adapt to a country that is 95% religious. It is about bullying and malignant narcissism. The intellectual and philosophical mismatch becomes apparent very quickly. Enjoy.
UPDATE: O’Reilly Factor goes to Fordham University – VIDEO
Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate:
Ann Coulter
Censorship is a huge problem in public schools and universities and most parents have no idea. If you doubt it simply go to thefire.org where you can see literally thousands of examples of illegal censorship and retaliation by academics and university administrators. The site is updated almost daily with new examples.
To see real life examples of incredible censorship and retaliation on video go HERE.
Fordham President Joseph McShane, S.J. expressed his “disgust” with College Republicans for inviting Ann Coulter to campus, and the invitation has now been withdrawn. He sent an e-mail to all students and parents accusing her of “hate speech.”
Fordham’s 2006 commencement speaker was MSNBC host Chris Matthews. The university did not even wait for Coulter to give her speech before condemning her.
Robert Shibley of The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education said “Can Fordham’s adult students not be trusted to make up their own minds about the views expressed by a speaker? Does Father McShane believe Coulter is so diabolically clever that her use of ‘disgusting’ rhetoric will somehow fool Fordham students into believing what she wants them to believe? If so, he has a significantly lower opinion of the quality of American college students than I do.
“If Fordham students truly lack the ability to listen to an invited speaker, separate rhetoric from reality, and make up their own minds, then Fordham has much graver problems than Ann Coulter coming to campus.”
Coulter is shown answering questions at the Yale Political Union. The Yale Daily News said “Love her or hate her, it is impossible to ignore Ann Coulter. She’s made a career out of being a firebrand.” Below are a few of her more quotable moments at Yale:
“Liberals love mobs because they see them as their path to power.”
“I love the argument that illegal immigrants need a path to citizenship. We have a path to citizenship: it’s called legal immigration.”
“Every single thing President Obama has done is designed to wreck the economy and drive up the unemployment rate. It’s like he took everything Reagan did right and did exactly the opposite.”
“As long as Obama’s playing golf, he isn’t socializing anything else.”
This has been a mean-spirited campaign, and the meanest, most destructive people won.
So be it.
In the last two Democratic administrations we have seen a sleazier, angrier and more selfish part of America rising up more and more in our political class. The Founders told us that ultimately our elected politicians are a mirror of ourselves. Just like you, before November 7, 2012, I lived in the fervent hope that the degradation of the Clinton and Obama years might be an exception to the long trend of American history. But two times eight years of radical leftists in high office can’t be an accident. We can’t just blame our sleazy media, or just the leftist political class, as corrupt and malevolent as they truly are.
No — the balance of decency in America has changed. Every society has normal, decent people and the other kind. The America we grew up in was fundamentally decent. Decency was the expected standard.
Now the balance has changed.
The evidence for our sleazified culture can be seen all around. It is in our pop music, which has lost melody and now just has rhythm. We have a President who won on revenge against middle class values. That’s what he meant by telling his people to vote for revenge. And they did — showing us exactly who they are.
We are now a society divided between the makers and the takers, and the takers are on a campaign of theft and revenge.
We have a President who takes dangerous pride in his hatred for “middleclassness” as Jeremiah Wright taught him to believe. We have a President who culminated his campaign with a ghetto singer rapping about hoes and bitches, about drug-ridden and broken families, as if all those cruelties were good.
This is not normal, decent America.
It is not.
We need to face that.
Morality and values are not small things. The new tide in the affairs of America also means that we can no longer be trusted to defend civilized values around the world, as we have done for the last hundred years.
It’s a sea change. Fools around the world will applaud Obama as a savior, but wise people will see us crumbling. They know they will be the worse for it.
Today the world is far more dangerous place than four years ago. If you doubt that, keep an eye on the rise of barbarisms around the world. Obama constantly facilitates barbarism, and the barbarians understand that much better than decent people do.
History buffs will remember that we’ve had decades of sleaze before. The Founders were followed by Jacksonian corruption. Abraham Lincoln was followed by Reconstruction. Yet we somehow found our way back. Come-backs can happen, but probably not soon.
So this is an elegiac moment, a moment of mourning for what has passed. From Truman and Eisenhower to Bush 43 we have had leaders of character.
No longer.
Republicans by and large still look, act, and speak like normal, decent people. But they have a hard time even understanding a thoroughly sleazified America. Normal, decent people do not know how to live in this new, barbaric society. We live in protected communities, we drive around in SUVs, like armored cars.
The left knows exactly how to act in this Brave New World. They’ve made it. We are now ruled by sleazy demagogues who take bribes from foreign nations that do not wish us well. Obama is the worst example so far. Even the Clintons, both selfish narcissists, were somewhat better.
With the decline of American decency, the civilized world has lost its foremost defender. America wasn’t a world power in earlier times of corruption. We could afford to make mistakes. Today, our national decay endangers the world. The left has purposely attacked our self-respect, our pride in our morality and decency, and our crucial role in the defense of civilized values. We are no longer the Leader of the Free World, because we have lost — for now — the values that guided us. America can no longer be trusted, as we saw so clearly in Benghazi and the fraudulent Arab Spring. Any nation that places any trust in our promises today is run by fools. Our allies must arm up to protect themselves, or they must find new, trustworthy allies.
For sixty years Europe has lived off our willingness to come to its defense. The southern rim of Europe is now going bankrupt, and even France looks ready to crumble. Without our leadership Europe has to rely on itself, or on Russia, or on the spreading Muslim empires. But Europe has shown no capacity to defend itself. Maybe they will learn. Or maybe they will be swamped. We can no longer be trusted.
The economic sinking of California doesn’t concern the left. Rabbi Dennis Prager explains why. He also explains why leftists simply do not care about the suffering that leftism causes:
[Editor’s Note – Flashback 2010: Who is the TEA Party?
While Democrats and establishment liberal Republicans say that Romney lost because the TEA Party is too conservative, they are forgetting information just like this. They are also forgetting that in 2010 more women voted GOP/TEA Party candidates, in nine of the top ten swing states, since the 1984 Reagan 49 state landslide.]
The Hill: Four in 10 Tea Party members are Democrats or independents
Wait, you mean these folks are people just like you and me? Looks like the elite media lied again….
The Winston Group found nothing extreme or racist about the Tea Party at all:
Behind the Headlines: What’s driving the Tea Party Movement?
New polling data examines the demographics and political philosophy behind the Tea Party Movement
In one of the most extensive looks to date at just who Tea Party activists are, how they think, and the ideas that matter to them, the report found that 17% of the people polled considered themselves “part of the Tea Party movement” and more than four in ten Tea Party members said they were either Independents or Democrats.
In three national surveys, done for New Models from December 2009 through February 2010, 57% of Tea Party members called themselves Republicans, another 28% said they were Independents, and 13% were Democrats. Two-thirds of Tea Party members identify as conservatives but 26% say they are moderate and 8% described themselves as liberal.
Tea Party members prioritize job creation over deficit, spending, and tax issues. However, they view these items as critical precisely because they are seen as a means to reducing unemployment and improving the economy. Tea Party members are very dissatisfied with the current direction of the country, the policies of the administration, and those currently in office, and as a result the Tea Party movement is breaking heavily in favor of the Republican Party. This is a movement defined by its focus not just on the policies of economic conservatism but on the desired economic outcomes.
We informed readers previously that Democrat Party ID (voter self identification) is at an all time low, but now we move to something even more interesting.
The Tea Party leads both Democrats and Republicans on the generic congressional ballot among independents. This means that generic tea Party candidate vs generic Democrat candidate vs generic Republican candidate the Tea Party candidate wins.
Rasmussen polls have called elections often within a tenth of a point of the actual result.
It is difficult to understate the impact of this news.
Keep in mind that Ross Perot received about 19% of the vote and the last successful third-party sweep of election was Abraham Lincoln’s new Republican Party which formed to oppose the Democrats and the Whigs.
Expect Democrats to try and demonize the Tea Party people with smears and lies, such as what MSNBC has been doing by taking pictures and information from LaRouchie’s and attributing them to the Tea Party participants LINK.
Among voters not affiliated with either major party, the Tea Party comes out on top. Thirty-three percent (33%) prefer the Tea Party candidate, and 30% are undecided. Twenty-five percent (25%) would vote for a Democrat, and just 12% prefer the GOP.
Among Republican voters, 39% say they’d vote for the GOP candidate, but 33% favor the Tea Party option.
One reason why people are so upset, and either not voting or protest voting for Libertarians is because they are sick and tired of politicians promising the world and delivering more suffering.
We have never witnessed polls like this, Americans are showing a clear contempt for both political parties and after seeing this it becomes clear why Tea Party is polling ahead of both Democrats and Republicans. Also note the massive disconnect between the political class the the governed.
Speaking as a political scientist, these numbers show that the government is losing its legitimacy (please be sure you know what that word means in poli-sci terms before you comment). This can only mean big changes are ahead.
There is also an indicator that independents may be more conservative than Republicans now, if this trend continues it changes everything.
The founding document of the United States, the Declaration of Independence, states that governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Today, however, just 21% of voters nationwide believe that the federal government enjoys the consent of the governed.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 61% disagree and say the government does not have the necessary consent. Eighteen percent (18%) of voters are not sure.
However, 63% of the Political Class think the government has the consent of the governed, but only six percent (6%) of those with Mainstream views agree.
Seventy-one percent (71%) of all voters now view the federal government as a special interest group, and 70% believe that the government and big business typically work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors.
New Oxford (Pennsylvania) High School Marching Band
We have said it hundreds of times and the evidence never stops piling up, leftist universities and union leaders are pushing this nonsense on our kids. I took an economic class in 2009 and I asked the students if they had ever heard anything good about capitalism in any class ever and the answer was no; and that is not unusual.
A Pennsylvania high school marching band is raising eyebrows with a halftime performance that commemorates the Russian revolution, complete with red flags, olive military-style uniforms, and giant hammers and sickles.
“St. Petersburg: 1917” is the theme for the New Oxford High School Marching Band. Ironically, the school’s athletic teams are called the Colonials and their colors are red, white and blue. The band’s website features a picture of the group with students holding a hammer and sickle. [Which they have no taken down and password protected their entire web site. I guess the publicity wasn’t so good. Anyone with a residue of common sense knows such publicity is what happens when you trick kids into celebrating the birth of a regime that killed over 100 million people – Political Arena Editor.]
“There is no reason for Americans to celebrate the Russian revolution,” said one irate parent who alerted Fox News. “I am sure the millions who died under Communism would not see the joy of celebrating the Russian revolution by a school 10 miles from Gettysburg.”
The parent, who asked not to be identified, attended a football last Friday night with his children. He said he was shocked by what he saw. “It was Glee meets the Russian Revolution,” he told Fox News. “I’m not kidding you. They had giant hammers and sickles and they were waving them around.” “Who thought this was a good idea?” [A radicalized academic maybe? – Political Arena Editor.]
Rebecca Harbaugh, the superintendent for the Conewago Valley School District, told Fox News that the band’s performance was “not an endorsement of communism at all.”
“It’s a representation of the time period in history called St. Petersburg 1917,” she said. “I am truly sorry that somebody took the performance in that manner. I am.”
“If anything is being celebrated it’s the music,” she said. “It is what it is. I understand people look at something and choose how to interpret that and I’m just very sorry that it wasn’t looked at as just a history lesson.”
Besides, she explained, “in 2008 we did an entire show on freedom.”
But some critics said it’s outrageous for any American school to be celebrating such a violent era.
“It would be tantamount to celebrating the music of 1935 Berlin,” the parent said. “If I was Lithuanian, Estonian, or Ukrainian, I’d be a little hot. I’d be really hot. It’s insulting to glorify something that doesn’t need to be glorified in America.”
Paul Kengor is the executive director for the Center for Vision & Values at Pennsylvania’s Grove City College.
He initially thought the halftime performance was a joke.
“This is surreal,” he told Fox News. “This is like something out of the Twilight Zone – but it’s even stranger than that.”
Kengor said even if the school was not celebrating the revolution “they seem to be commemorating this to some degree.”
“The Bolshevik Revolution launched a global Communist revolution that from 1917 through the 1990s was responsible for the deaths of over a hundred million people,” he said. “What the Russian revolution unleashed was a nightmare – a historical human catastrophe. This is something that should be condemned and not in any way commemorated or laughed at.”
Gerson Moreno-Riano, dean of Regent University’s College of Arts & Sciences, told Fox News the performance is shocking.
“The Russian revolution was one of the most violent episodes of the 20th Century,” he said. “Lenin put into place a doctrine of mass terror to crush the opposition and thousands and thousands of people were murdered.
The history professor said there’s very little to celebrate in that movement.
“It’s full of violence, terror, destruction and in some weeks thousands of people were executed – some thrown with rocks around their necks into the river to drown,” he said.
“It’s quite frankly horrific that a high school would be celebrating that at a football game,” he said.
He was even more disturbed by the group photograph of the band in front of the hammer and sickle.
“To raise the emblems of the hammer and sickle – the emblems of so much violence, destruction and terror – is a lack of knowledge of history,” he said.
In the best case scenario, he said the editors were simply ignorant of the era. [Teachers and school administrators ignorant of the evils of collectivism and communism? How could this be? – Political Arena Editor.]
Now this is amazing, 40% of American Muslims were willing to tell a pollster that they want Taliban like law here and want the Constitution of the United States abandoned.
46% said that those who say anything bad about Islam should be prosecuted and some even said that it should be a death penalty offense. 98% of the Muslims surveyed are American citizens.
[The] Wenzel Strategies poll was taken Oct. 22-26 and carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3.98 percentage points.
The poll also found 40 percent of Muslims in America believe they should not be judged by U.S. law and the Constitution, but by Shariah standards.
And the big winner among Muslim-Americans in the presidential election is Barack Obama, the poll found. More than 72 percent said they are definitely supporting Obama, and another 8.5 percent are leaning that direction. Only 11 percent are for Romney.
Nearly 55 percent of the American Muslim voters say the U.S. is on the right track, and another 13 percent are uncertain. Virtually all of the respondents (98 percent) are American citizens and 97 percent are registered to vote.
“Almost half of those Muslims surveyed – an astonishing 46 percent – said they believe those Americans who offer criticism or parodies of Islam should face criminal charges,” said pollster Fritz Wenzel in an analysis of the survey’s results.
“Even more shocking: One in eight respondents said they think those Americans who criticize or parody Islam should face the death penalty, while another nine percent said they were unsure on the question,” he said.
Wenzel said even the 9 percent “undecided” on that particular question is alarming.
Brigitte Gabriel, who watched Islamists take over Lebanon from within and slaughter the Christians there with the help of leftist Christians and secularists who did so in the name of “fairness and social justice”, founded ACT for America to warn people about radical Islamic influence in our government and universities.
[Editor’s Note – This ad was produced with Jane Roe by Andrew Beacham and Randall Terry. In the interests of full disclosure Andrew Beacham is a friend of mine.]
The Weekly Standard has a piece about the production of this video.
Dead babies. There you have it. It causes discomfort, but I said it outright. Terry would approve, since that’s what he calls them, mirroring his conviction. It’s my conviction too, I suppose, since I’m a pro-lifer when I think about it, which like many of similar stripe, I mostly don’t. But if we’re being honest, I’m not as convicted as the kind of people who use formulations like “dead babies” in polite conversation. It’s the kind of talk that causes even many pro-lifers to nervously scan the horizon for avenues of escape from the barking mad guy who thinks he’s an Old Testament prophet.
“Dead babies” are words that arrive weaponized. You’ll notice Terry doesn’t call dead babies “the unborn,” or frame their plight in the context of the “right to life” or “reproductive choice.” He will often call a Planned Parenthood center an “abortion mill,” but otherwise rarely even uses the word abortion. “You abort the takeoff of a rocket,” he says mockingly. “You murder a human being.” He prefers calling abortion “baby killing,” and abortionists “baby killers.”
I dwell on the words “dead babies” because they animate and illuminate every corner of Randall Terry’s large and often messy life. They undergird his credo, which is elegantly simple, and it goes like this: If you believe abortion is murder, then act like it. He seeks not to persuade, but to offend. Or to persuade by offending.
Kids at Islamic Jihad kindergarten celebrate end of year by demonstrating how Palestinian prisoners are ‘tortured’ in Israel. Teacher: We educate them to love resistance, Palestine
Children attending a kindergarten in Gaza that is run by Islamic Jihad celebrated their graduation by dressing up in army attire, waving toy rifles and chanting anti-Israel slogans.
“It is our obligation to educate the children to love the resistance, Palestine and Jerusalem, so they will recognize the importance of Palestine and who its enemy is,” the kindergarten’s director said.
‘Palestinian prisoner tortured.’
The children were dressed up in uniforms of Jihad’s armed-wing, the al-Quds Brigades, and each of them received a toy rifle. Some of them held up photos of Islamic Jihad founder Fathi Shaqaqi.
‘Palestinian prisoner and Israeli guard’
The event was attended by the children’s relatives, some of whom belong to Islamic Jihad and other armed Palestinian factions.
‘Until I die as a shahid.’ Gaza kids during party
During the ceremony the children were asked to stand next to mock coffins draped with flags of the various armed factions. The flags bore the images of “shahids (martyrs).”
Kindergartners defend ‘al-Aqsa mosque’
One child, Hamza, said “When I grow up I’ll join Islamic Jihad and the al-Quds Brigades. I’ll fight the Zionist enemy and fire missiles at it until I die as a shahid and join my father in heaven.
“I love the resistance and the martyrs and Palestine, and I want to blow myself up on Zionists and kill them on a bus in a suicide bombing,” he said.
In the Spring of this year, US Army Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Dooley was condemned by the Joints Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and relieved of teaching duties at Joint Forces Staff College for teaching a course judged to be offensive to Islam.
The course he taught, Perspectives on Islam and Islamic Radicalism, was an elective course that Lt. Col. Dooley’s superiors judged as presenting Islam in a negative way. His superiors were persuaded to come to this conclusion after receiving an October 2011 letter in which 57 Muslim organizations claimed to be offended by the course.
The fact that Lt. Col. Dooley is a highly decorated combat veteran with nearly 20 years of service under his belt apparently held little or no sway with the JCS. As a matter of fact, JCS Chairman General Martin Dempsey “personally attacked” Lt. Col. Dooley on C-Span on May 10, 2012, during a Pentagon News Conference.
Yet the craziest part of all this is that “the course content, the guest speakers, and the method of instruction” for the course was all approved by the the Joint Forces Staff College “years ago.”
Former CIA agent Claire M. Lopez commented on the state of things: “All US military Combatant Commands, Services, the National Guard Bureau, and Joint Chiefs are under Dempsey’s Muslim Brotherhood-dictated order to ensure that henceforth, no US military course will ever again teach truth about Islam that the jihadist enemy finds offensive (or just too informative).”
[Editor’s Note – With this column we are very excited to welcome a truly wonderful mind in the form of Kate Dalzell to Political Arena. In this column Dalzell takes apart an all to common false narrative, a subject that is on our mind as of late.]
by Kate Dalzell
I have recently heard altruism defined as: a selfless and benevolent service to others and simply the rent we pay for living on this planet. While I am sure Joel Osteen and several other milquetoast pastors would nod their heads in mutual agreement the truth is it is an evil that I’ve personally witnessed creeping it’s way into the church and planting itself deeply into the spiritual lives of most Christians I interact with these days.
The problem is this altruist root of selflessness that lies at the core of all totalitarian systems, past, present, and future is that it is nothing more than a spiritual supplement. It offers outward reflection, a false humility, without the benefit of renewal or change that comes from a transformed life found in Christ. It is the religion of cults, atheists, Marxists, and all other totalitarian forms of worship. Altruism is the moral code at the base of all of these false religions, political systems and economies that have infiltrated not just our nation but, sadly, our church. It views human beings as objects of sacrifice, having no right to exist apart from service to others.
This is a lie from the pit of hell.
The truth is that the healthiest and most thriving nations are those made up of selfish, high regard for self, exceptional individuals that give and serve out of a charitable and humble heart, whereas the most stressed, and sometimes deadly, societies are founded on brutal and oppressive altruist premises. It is creating a disease so profuse in our culture that if not uprooted and destroyed, make no mistake, it will reduce Americans into second class citizens. Not only will blind atheists and evil Marxists be guilty of allowing this but so will the ignorant Christian.
Nathaniel Branden on altruism:
“Instead of the goodwill and mutual respect engendered by recognition of individual rights, altruism as a moral commandment produces only fear and hostility among human beings. It forces them to accept the role of victim or executioner and leaves them no standard of justice, no way to know what they can demand and what they must surrender. In order for human beings to accept self-sacrifice as a moral ideal, they have to remain ignorant of the concept of rational selfishness. Moralists have commonly declared or implied that our basic alternative is to sacrifice others to ourselves (which they call “egoism”) or to sacrifice ourselves to others (“altruism”). This is equivalent to declaring that our basic choice is between being a sadist or a masochist. Just as healthy sex consists of the exchange of pleasure, not pain, so healthy relationships of any kind consist of the exchange of values, not sacrifices.”
This is what happens frequently to Israeli soldiers:
Notice the certainty in the provocation and how secure the provocateur feels because he knows that Tsahal (IDF) will not touch him. Surroun
Filming the scene are journalists and left-wing activists eagerly waiting for the soldier to act, ready to capture any perceived misstep in order to use it to damn the IDF. Powerless but resolute, the soldier stands in the face of this provocation with restraint and dignity.
People like to believe in the veracity of their own perceptions; literally they want to believe what they believe is in fact true. That has always been a fact of life, and this writer isn’t going to change it. However, what has changed is that our culture and society no longer reinforces practices, ideas and daily rituals that helped to keep that particular problem in check, making Americans better critical thinkers, and gave Americans a special collective wisdom.
Years ago Professor Christopher Lasch penned an article in Harpers titled “The Lost Art of Argument” where he lamented the so called “objective journalism” (which is anything but) model (from Walter Lippmann) as a tool for elites to set agendas and control the conversation on main street. The power of the elite media narrative is difficult to overstate, as it is much like group think. Everyone wants to be included and accepted, and if you stand out against such group narratives some will resent it. Most people do not realize just how easily they are persuaded by manufactured group narratives. Allow me to demonstrate with a few examples of popular group think narratives that many people still believe.
“Gravitas”. For those who are politically aware, and were so before the 2000 election, the word gravitas conjures up an image of former Vice-President Dick Cheney. Why? Dr. Thomas Sowell explained it well:
RUSH LIMBAUGH has been having some fun lately, playing back recordings of politicians and media people, who have been repeating the word “gravitas” like parrots, day after day. Before Dick Cheney was announced as Governor George W. Bush’s choice for vice presidential candidate, practically nobody used the word. Now everybody and his brother seems to be using it.
The political spin is that Governor Bush lacks “gravitas” — weight — and that Dick Cheney was picked in an effort to supply what the governor lacks.
In other words, the fact that Bush picked somebody solid for his running mate has been turned into something negative by the spinmeisters. The fact that media liberals echo the very same word, again and again, shows their partisan loyalties — and their lack of originality.
How many people believe that “former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is ignorant”?
Perhaps some of you who are reading this very piece continue to buy into this false narrative. Just so you realize how much you have been effected I will pose the following: did you know that in her infamous interview with ABC’s Charlie Gibson ABC had edited out portions of her substantive answers to make her look ignorant? Did you know that ABC did this again in her interview with Barbara Walters. Remember when Charlie Gibson asked her a question about the Bush Doctrine that “Palin got all wrong”? Well, depending on what political historian you talk to there are five or six Bush Doctrines of which Governor Palin and Charlie Gibson each described one accurately. Atlantic Monthly, a left-wing political magazine, went back and did an exhausting review of her time as governor and concluded that she did a great job and pointed out how she was an innovative and competent executive. Odds are that people who buy into the false narrative that Palin is ignorant don’t know any of this.
“Republicans want to gut Social Security.”
The truth is that Reagan (Republican) saved the program with key reforms without decreasing benefits. It was President Clinton (Democrat) who increased the tax on Social Security benefits on the middle class which amounted to a benefit cut. It was George W. Bush (Republican) who tried to get at least a part of Social Security put into individual growth accounts so that Congress couldn’t spend your money (Democrats in Congress stopped him), and it was President Obama (Democrat) who has kept up a Social Security payroll contribution cut that is blowing an even bigger whole in the program. Odds are that people who bought into this narrative didn’t know any of that.
“Republicans want to get rid of Medicare.”
I regularly encounter uninformed voters who buy into this particular false narrative. It was Democrats, with Obamacare, who gutted $716 billion (over 10 years) from an already in trouble Medicare program without a single Republican vote. It was Republicans who added the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit (Part-D) which is not only popular, but gives seniors a choice of plans. This was accomplished at 40% under budget because the program was designed so well. One current Republican idea is to redesign the other parts of Medicare to work in a way that is similar to Medicare Part-D, so that it too can be more efficient and save money to help rescue the program. Democrats say no. Odds are that people who bought into this narrative didn’t know any of that (gee I am getting repetitive).
“Democrats want to tax the rich.”
This is perhaps the biggest false narrative of all. The Democratic Party leadership has never been interested in taxing the very rich. They have been “taxing the rich” for 50 years. Is it just a coincidence that they just happened to keep missing the target? President Obama gave the speech at Google, which paid 2.4% federal tax on 3.1 billion in income. In that speech he trashed the Chamber of Commerce for fighting against raising the tax on most small businesses which actually employ people from 35.5% to 39.9% . In the 2008 elections President Obama railed against Wall Street, but not only did he take more money from Wall Street and “the big banks” and such, but as if to add insult, their executives became the who’s who of those running his administration (LINK – LINK). Keep in mind that CNN once said Obama attacks private equity at 6am and is fundraising with private equity at 6pm. Wall Street and the big banks made more under three years of Obama than they did under eight years of Bush. His Treasury Secretary says that taxes on small businesses must rise so that government doesn’t shrink, and Obama’s new health care taxes target you, not just the rich. All of the stimulus and spending and so forth all in the name of the poor sounded nice, but look who got rich. Odds are that people who buy into this narrative know none of this (really there is a point to this).
Such false narratives are not merely myths that people fall into, they become emotionally invested in them, to the point where some people will say anything to support them:
MORE – Watch people lie about the political debate they never saw – VIDEO
False narratives rely on three crutches:
1 – The first is the selective promotion of key facts, combined with the suppression and/or omission of key fundamental truths. The use of a key fact that is partially true, when inserted into the false narrative, creates clear disconnects from the fundamental truths of the situation or event.
Politicians are masters of this. The second Obama/Romney debate is a classic example. In the debate section on the brutal slaughter of Americans at our consulate in Libya, the administration knowingly put out a false narrative that our people were killed by a flash mob upset by a video on YouTube. The White House created this deception because it was caught in a “Mission Accomplished” moment from having created a false narrative which stated that because Usama bin Laden was out of the picture, Al-Qaeda was beaten (The truth is that Al-Qaeda’s umbrella organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, has been actively helped by this Administration) . When caught, the White House tried to rewrite history, and focused on a key assertion–that Obama used the word terror in one speech describing the attack, as if that somehow dismantles two weeks of willing deception.
2 – Delivery of the few selected facts delivered with an attitude (an emotional trigger) that creates the false narrative.
A good example of this comes from a piece I read in the Washington Post some years ago. The article stated there had been documented misuses of the Patriot Act in order to wrongly access the private information of innocent citizens, and the Attorney General refused to state whether he would press criminal charges. This sounds quite ominous doesn’t it? Thirteen paragraphs later we learn that the error rate had been about 1.5%, comprised of honest mistakes, and all were caught by the internal Justice Department Inspector General whose job it is to find and correct errors. Consider the entirety of the pertinent facts, remove the emotionally charged delivery, and the message is quite different from the headline, would you not agree? Most newspaper editors know that the majority of readers never get passed the fifth paragraph in a newspaper piece. This type of deception is known as attitude change propaganda. Attitude change propaganda is not produced by accident.[Note – today reported abuses of the Patriot Act are higher. We are aware of this, so please do not blow up our inbox – Editor]
3 – Repetition. Joseph Goebbels said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie”.
This is why truth itself can become an enemy to some, and why those telling the truth are often disregarded, maligned and ridiculed. Once again we can look to the Washington Post for an example. Remember the Valerie Plame story? Remember when the White House outed a CIA Agent because her husband, Joe Wilson, had written a letter saying that President Bush made false claims in a speech? Well there was one problem; this entire story was based on a small stack of lies, and virtually none of the narrative that was repeated over and over in the Washington Post and the elite media was true, and the Post well knew it. This very writer wrote a 40 page article on the Washington Posts’ coverage of this story. Day after day, on page one, the Post repeated Joe Wilson’s lies and perpetuated the false narrative, while at times even on the very same day on the editorial page or buried in the paper, they would tell the truth about what was going on and explain how the evidence clearly showed that Wilson lied about nearly every aspect of his story.
I have been pretty tough on the left in this article because deception and propaganda is fully endorsed by many leftist/progressive thinkers such as Mao, Walter Lippmann, Joseph Goebbels, nearly all writers from the Frankfurt School, and Saul Alinsky. The progressive leadership in this country uses lies as a tool for calculated aggression.
This is not to say that the American right is free of the problems of false narratives, group think, and ideological boxes either.
There are/were many in the State Department, elite media and some in the Republican Party who have totally bought into the propaganda from the Muslim Brotherhood–that they want peace, free elections, and so forth–when anyone who studies their history going back to WWII knows very well what their agenda is. Bill Kristol from the Weekly Standard, as well as some on the famed internet Republican Security Council, fell for the “Arab Spring” false narrative. How quickly we forget history. The Mullah’s in Iran spoke to the Carter Administration about freedom, democracy and social justice; look at what they did as soon as they got into power. The same goes for what happened in Lebanon, and then Gaza when they had elections. Now look at the disaster that is Egypt and Libya, and yet some Republicans continue to say we should help Syrian rebels with arms, which would essentially be handing Syria as well to the Muslim Brotherhood/Al-Qaeda.
Republicans would love to see a genuine democratic, pro-western revolution in the Muslim world as we had in Eastern Europe, but today many forget that it took years of cooperation between Reagan, Thatcher, and the Vatican to cultivate pro-western forces and influences in secret right under the communist’s nose. We were ready to come in with monetary, logistical and other support when those forces made a major push. We knew very well who it was we were supporting, and we had an overall strategic concept in mind. Many Republicans jumped on the Arab Spring bandwagon because they bought the pie in the sky narrative from the State Department and they really wanted to believe it. Why? Because the false narrative targeted the freedom loving sensitivities of most Republicans perfectly. In short, they selected tidbits of truth, omitted others, and made a false reality that fit ever so perfectly into an ideological box.
Some so called “neo-cons” (by their critics) of the GOP may like to shape reality into something neat and tidy, but they aren’t the only ones. Many Ron Paul supporters are just as guilty of this. They argue that the U.S. should adopt some form of neo-isolationism. While it is clear that for the sake of finances we need to have a foreign policy that is less flamboyant, trade still needs to be protected with a serious Navy; the diplomatic credibility of the United States must still be backed up with military capability. If you want to see an economic collapse like the world has never witnessed, park the US Navy at home and it won’t take long. Many Ron Paul supporters say that “neo-cons” are “chicken-hawks” who have never served in the armed forces, and who would never send their sons to die “in some Middle East hell hole” (their words not mine). While it is true that some who may be labled as neo-cons have never served, the truth is that many who agree with at least some of that policy have served and have family who are serving.
Another example of taking reality and manipulating it is the often heard claim from Ron Paul supporters that militant Islamists attack us because of our foreign policy, and the argument that if it wasn’t for “neo-cons” we would not get attacked. When I run into people who say this I ask them, “Militant Islamists attack and kill Hindus in India. What is it about Hindu foreign policy that makes Islamists do this? How about the Buddhists who lived in Afghanistan? In Afghanistan the Islamists ran the Buddhists out and blew up their monasteries and artifacts. What about the Islamists in Southern Thailand who like to kill school teachers who dare to educate little girls? When the Muslim Brotherhood took over Egypt with the aid of the Obama Administration, what is it that Coptic Christians did to cause the Muslim Brotherhood to attack them with armored vehicles? This is usually about that time where I start getting called all sorts of colorful names. The most experienced Middle-Eastern war correspondent says that those who believe the “its because of our policy” argument are fooling themselves.
We are experiencing a wholesale breakdown of critical thinking in this country and most of the learned academics I know have confided this to me directly. I have noticed this myself in my studies. How did this happen? Professor Lasch was rather fond of the old fashioned “partisan press” that we used to have before the “Lippmann Objective Model”. In those days each town had two or more newspapers, each with its own partisan or philosophical viewpoint. Each day citizens would read them all and discuss the arguments of the day at the local barber shop, soda shop, or even at work. There is no better exercise for creating an informed, thinking electorate. Today we live in an electronic society where people can just push a button and anything that puts them out of their comfort zone vanishes instantly.
American society has become a place where people get beyond offended when told that they are wrong. We have teachers who too often cannot understand the difference between being presented an inconvenient truth that scuttles their narrative and a personal attack. We have people who refuse to take the argument of another seriously, so any truths another may have will not be accepted or even considered. Truth has become the new hate speech.
This must stop.
The sting in any rebuke is the truth – Ben Franklin.
[Editor’s Note – For a short video followup on this story click HERE – you won’t regret it.]
Saul Alinsky, the greatest smear artist of the modern age, said that nothing beats ridicule when it comes to political slander, but in truth, informed ridicule is far more effective. When you can ridicule someone and the mockery is based in truths that are at least directionally accurate, it can be enough to turn any brand into a sour note for many people.
A large majority of likely voters believes all Americans should pay some federal income tax — even if it is as little as one percent of what they make.
Seventy-nine percent say everyone should pay something, according to a Fox News poll released Thursday. That includes 85 percent of Republicans, 83 percent of independents and 71 percent of Democrats.
According to the IRS, last year approximately 41 percent of tax filers did not pay federal income tax. The Tax Policy Center estimates that will increase to 46 percent this year.
Most voters (73 percent) are at least somewhat familiar with the widely-broadcast videotape of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney talking about “47 percent of Americans” and the number of people paying no federal income tax. Romney also talks about his concern that the country is becoming an entitlement society and that many are too dependent on government. Journalists and pundits speculated the tape would damage Romney’s campaign. Yet a 63-percent majority thinks the substance of Romney’s comment about dependence on government is mostly (36 percent) or somewhat true (27 percent).
Three out of four voters believes the “average American” is at least somewhat dependent on government (76 percent), while less than a third says they personally are (31 percent).
The poll also shows nearly half of voters — 46 percent — think the federal government is “trying to do too much” these days. That’s more than twice as many as say it’s doing “too little” (22 percent). Just over a quarter says the government is doing “about the right amount” (28 percent).
“If you are not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” – Malcolm X
Political Arena 