Interestingly, today's small town/rural/born-again Republicans closely resemble and hail from the same roots as America's Prohibitionist anti-drinking movement of the 1920's. Both today's religious right and the Prohibitionists were determined, Taliban-style, to punish sinful city dwellers for having too much fun, as the devilish H.L. Mencken pointed out.
The Prohibitionists Are Back!
by Eric Margolis
I do a good deal of writing and broadcasting for international media. But it's not always easy to explain the quirks of our vast, complex nation.
As a native New Yorker, I try to explain how this great island metropolis off the New Jersey coast is physically in America, but it's not intellectually or emotionally part of the United States.
New York is cosmopolitan, educated, outward-looking and liberal – unlike much of the rest of inward-looking America, which considers the Big Apple a den of Godless moral depravity and a cesspool political vice.
In return, New Yorkers look down on the rest of America (San Francisco, Chicago, and the Pacific Northwest excepted) as "flyover country" populated by rednecks, hicks, and holy rollers. Crude stereotypes, of course, but there's some substance to these nasty views.
While at a base in Missouri during my Army service during the Vietnam era, I quickly learned to keep my mouth shut about being a Manhattanite after a sergeant asked me where I hailed from and then yelled out, "hey, guys, we got one of those rich shits from New York." I got pummeled by my brothers in arms from Arkansas and Alabama.
The last debates by Republican presidential candidates disturbingly reinforced the party's lack of interest in or knowledge of the outside world.
Leading candidates Mitt Romney, pizza mogul Herman Cain, and Texas tough guy Rick Perry barely mentioned world affairs, except to heap threats on the wicked Iranians.
The same malevolent Persians now stand accused of plotting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington by using Mexican drug cartel hitmen organized by a lame-brained used car salesman that strongly suggests the concocters of this melodrama need some new scriptwriters.
One of our dimmest members of Congress – I'm ashamed to say from New York – Rep. Pete King, just called the Iranian-Mexican imbroglio an act of war. On to Tehran!
When the Republican candidates did mention the outside world, it was to proclaim their undying loyalty to Israel, or to bluster, as Romney did, "the 21st century must be an American century." But no mention of where the money would come from to keep the world in the American Raj.
It takes lots of hard cash to run a world imperium. Right now, Washington has to borrow 40 cents of every dollar it spends from China and Japan.
One wishes the candidates had leveled with Americans and talked about the urgent need for a war tax to pay for America's foreign military operations that are now piled onto the gargantuan national debt.
Romney announced a slate of foreign affairs advisors drawn from the ranks of the Bush administrations wildest Islamophobic neoconservatives, wanna be West Bank settlers, and extreme right-wingers. The same crowd that brought us Afghanistan, Guantanamo, and Iraq, and now beats the war drums over Iran.
There was hardly any mention of the endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that are bleeding America's economy, or growing US military involvement in Yemen and sub-Saharan Africa, as witnessed by President Barack Obama's announcement last Friday that 100 US special forces where being sent to obscure places in Central Africa. On to Bangui! (where?)
Aside from macho chest-pounding over American greatness, some of the leading candidates made monkeys of themselves when talking about the outside world.
As a lifelong moderate Republican, I cringed with embarrassment at these later-day Dan Quayles.
Former senator Rick Santorum, a darling of the religious far right, thought exiled ex-Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf was still in power in Islamabad. Michele Bachmann stumbled around all those strange foreign names and seemed to be talking in tongues.
Herman Cain laughed off his own ignorance of foreign policy, making fun of the name "Uzbekistan." Swaggering Texas governor Perry confused India and Pakistan, both nuclear powers. Such stunning ignorance provoked shudders of dismay abroad, but at home no one seemed to care.
Ignorance has become a sort of badge of honor among many heartland Republicans, as witnessed by the popularity of the patron saint of lower IQ Americans, Sarah Palin.
Knowledge, education, being well read and, God forbid, speaking any foreign language except Mexican Spanish or Hebrew, are only for leftists, gays, and degenerate New York fops. Poor John Kerry never lived down being branded by Republicans as looking "French."
Only two candidates showed a firm grasp of world affairs: Rep. Ron Paul and former US ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman. Paul is the most honest politician in Washington. He calls for an end to America's foreign wars, eliminating the Federal Reserve bank, lowering America's foreign profile and rebuilding the run-down Unites States.
Because of these heresies, Dr. Paul, who is hugely popular among the young and independents, is systematically ignored or scorned by establishment media, even during TV debates.
Jon Hunstsman's Mormon faith is demeaned by many Protestants as a "cult." Romney is also a Mormon, a Church Elder and former missionary. Both are unpopular with rightwing Christian Protestants. Cain is a Baptist minister.
Both Paul and Huntsman are far too moderate for Republican party core voters, 44% of whom are believed to be born-again Evangelicals.
As author Kevin Phillips has documented, Republicans have become a theological party of the Christian white far right in America's heartland.These militant Bible Belt born-again fundamentalists are ardent Zionists and backers of America's military-security establishment. One recalls the fateful prediction of Sinclair Lewis,
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
Interestingly, today's small town/rural/born-again Republicans closely resemble and hail from the same roots as America's Prohibitionist anti-drinking movement of the 1920's. Both today's religious right and the Prohibitionists were determined, Taliban-style, to punish sinful city dwellers for having too much fun, as the devilish H.L. Mencken pointed out.
Of course, no one gets to be president by telling voters the hard facts they prefer not to hear. Synthetic, flag-waving patriotism still sells big in America's heartland and rural south. More important, America's political tradition, electoral system and political-media establishment will ensure that no candidate who strays from the party line is ever elected.
Still, looking at the latest crop of Republican candidates is pretty dismal.
America's next president, the world's most important leader, may believe that Earth was created only 10,000 years ago, as the Bible says. He or she may reject evolution and believes in Adam and Eve, and Noah's Ark. And believe, as do millions of Evangelicals, that Christ will return once all Jews are gathered into recreated Biblical Israel and then earth and its non-born again inhabitants will be destroyed by fire sent by God.
I pray New York City will be somehow saved.
www.ericmargolis.com
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Mr. Raghead says, “They piss their pants when they see us coming through airports”
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Ron Paul’s ‘Plan to Restore America’
Ron Paul's 'Plan to Restore America'
Posted by Tad DeHaven
October 17, 2011 @ 4:08 pm
Presidential candidate Ron Paul has released a fiscal reform plan that would dramatically cut spending and rein in the size and scope of the federal government. My reaction to the proposal can be summed up in one word: hallelujah.
Republican policymakers -- including the current GOP field of presidential candidates -- talk a good game about reducing spending, but very few are willing to spell out exactly what they'd cut. As NRO's Kevin Williamson puts it in the title of his write-up on the plan, "Ron Paul Dropping a Reality Bomb on the GOP Field."
The following are some of the plan's highlights:
- Paul would immediately eliminate five cabinet-level departments: Commerce, Education, Energy, HUD, and Interior.
- Paul says his plan would cut spending by $1 trillion in the first year alone, and balance the budget in three years without increasing taxes.
- Funding for the wars would end. That's not isolationism -- it's a common sense position that also reflects popular opinion. In addition, foreign aid spending would be zeroed out.
- Intelligent government reforms are proposed, including privatizing the Federal Aviation Administration and repealing costly Davis-Bacon rules.
- On entitlements, younger people would be given the freedom to opt out of Social Security and Medicare. Spending would be frozen for Medicaid and other welfare programs and they would be converted to block-grant programs.
That's an ambitious agenda to say the least, and one that the press is likely dismiss as a pipe-dream. Then again, Paul has managed to single-handedly turn the Federal Reserve into a campaign issue, which nobody could have foreseen just several short years ago. In fact, several of Paul's fellow candidates for the GOP nod have taken to echoing his anti-Federal Reserve sentiments. Hopefully, the other candidates will copy Paul again by getting specific on what they'd cut. If not, they should be prepared to explain to the electorate why taxpayers should keep funding the departments that Paul would ax.
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/ron-pauls-plan-to-restore-america/
Like Good Little Dhimmi, West Stays Silent About Coptic Oppression
http://www.aina.org/news/20111015203449.htm
Like Good Little Dhimmi, West Stays Silent About Coptic Oppression
Posted GMT 10-16-2011 1:34:49
I am looking at a reproduction of an engraving of Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulcher, said to the be the site of Jesus Christ's Crucifixion and burial. The church in this image, based on an 1856 photograph, has neither cross nor belfry. It stands in compliance with the Islamic law and traditions of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire, which ruled Jerusalem at the time.
I mention the engraving for a reason. It relates to last weekend's massacre of two dozen Coptic Christians in Cairo by Egyptian military and street mobs. The unarmed Copts were protesting the destruction of yet another church in Egypt, St. George's, which took place in Elmarinab following Friday prayers on Sept. 30. The trigger was repair work on the building -- work the local authorities had approved.
Does that explanation make sense? Not to anyone ignorant of Islamic law. Unfortunately, that criterion includes virtually all media reporting the story.
Raymond Ibrahim, an Islam specialist, Arabic speaker and author of "The Al Qaeda Reader," catalogs the events that turned a church renovation project into terror and flames.
With work in progress, he writes online at Hudson, N.Y, "it was not long before local Muslims began complaining, making various demands, including that the church be devoid of crosses and bells -- even though the permit approved them -- citing that 'the Cross irritates Muslims and their children.' "
Those details reminded me of the de-Christianized 19th-century-image of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher -- no cross, no bells. It becomes a revealing illustration of Islamic history repeating itself in this Shariah Autumn, the natural harvest of the grotesquely branded "Arab Spring."
Given our see-no-Shariah' media (and government), we have no context in which to place such events. That context is Shariah society, advanced (but not initiated) by the "Arab Spring," where non-Muslims -- "dhimmi" -- occupy a place defined by Islamic law "under terms of surrender as laid out in the 'dhimma' pact."
So writes theologian, author and Anglican pastor Mark Durie at markdurie.com. Such terms, Durie writes, "can be found laid out in countless legal textbooks." When non-Muslims violate these terms, they become subject to attack.
To place the dhimmi pact in comparable Western terms is to say the West has its Magna Carta, Islam has its Pact of Umar. Among other things, this seminal pact governing Muslim and non-Muslims relations stipulates, Durie notes, the condition that Christians "will neither erect in our areas a monastery, church or sanctuary for a monk, nor restore any place of worship that needs restoration."
Thus, this anti-Coptic violence, for the moment under world scrutiny, is Islamically correct. Westerners fail to grasp this fact. But Durie lays out the theological steps:
"For some pious Muslims in Egypt today, the act of repairing a church is a flagrant provocation, a breach of the peace, which amounts to a deliberate revocation of one's right to exist in the land."
As such, it "becomes a legitimate topic for sermons in the mosque [where] the faithful are urged ... to uphold the honor of Islam." In Islamic terms, then, it becomes "a duty to destroy the church and even then lives of Christians who have the temerity to repair their churches."
Meanwhile, dhimmi who protest the Islamically just church destruction "are also rebels who have forfeited their rights [under the pact] to '
'safety and protection.' " As violators of the "dhimmi" pact, they become fair game.
It's simple, but the theology eludes us. Why? To expose the facts about Shariah in the Western milieu is to invite their criticism. Such criticism is forbidden under Shariah. So, we remain silent -- something all good "dhimmi" do.
By Diana West
www.washingtonexaminer.com
Diana West is syndicated nationally by United Media and is the author of "The Death of the Grown-Up: How America's Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization."
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Fwd: [LA-F] Internet bigot Stephen Birrell jailed for eight months
17 October 2011 Last updated at 18:03 
Stephen Birrell admitted posting comments on a Facebook page about Neil Lennon
James Cook Scotland Correspondent, BBC News
Internet bigot Stephen Birrell jailed for eight months
Stephen Birrell admitted posting comments on a Facebook page about Neil LennonA man who posted sectarian comments on a Facebook page called "Neil Lennon Should be Banned" has been jailed for eight months.
Stephen Birrell, 28, from Glasgow, admitted posting the religiously prejudiced abuse earlier this year.
Sheriff Bill Totten said what Birrell had done was a hate crime which would not be tolerated by "the right thinking people of Glasgow and Scotland".
He said he wanted to send out "a clear message to deter others".
Glasgow Sheriff Court had previously heard how Birrell was caught after a police crackdown on sectarian internet campaigns.
A special team of officers began investigating hate comments after the so-called Old Firm "shame game" on 3 March.
Birrell posted sectarian comments about Catholics and Celtic fans between 28 February and 8 March, just days after being released early from a 12-month jail sentence.
*******
Analysis
James Cook Scotland Correspondent, BBC News The case of Stephen Birrell has reignited a debate about plans to tighten the law on religious hatred in Scotland.
Campaigners argue that the conviction of Birrell makes a mockery of the proposals, proving that powers to deal with such behaviour are already in place.
Dr Stuart Waiton, an academic running a campaign called Take a Liberty Scotland, goes further, describing the eight-month prison sentence as a "political imprisonment".
Given that Birrell did not actually incite violence, the jail term was "authoritarian and insane", he argued.
But the Crown Office welcomed the conviction and insisted the new law was also needed.
A spokesman said the new legislation would "ensure police and prosecutors have all the available tools in their armoury to punish offensive and bigoted behaviour whenever and wherever it occurs".
He pointed out that Scotland's chief prosecutor, the Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland, had twice given evidence to MSPs outlining areas where the law could be tightened.
A spokesman for the Scottish government said the Offensive Behaviour at Football Bill would give police and prosecutors "the tools they have asked for in tackling such hate by filling clear gaps in the current law".
*******
On 1 March, two days before the Old Firm match, Birrell posted: "Hope they (Celtic fans) all die. Simple. Catholic scumbags ha ha."
On 4 March, the day after the game, he wrote: "Proud to hate Fenian tattie farmers. Simple ha ha."
Four days later Birrell posted: "They're all ploughing the fields the dirty scumbags."
He also posted abuse directed at the Pope.
Passing sentence, Sheriff Totten told Birrell: "I am satisfied that the nature of this offence, and in particular your previous record, means that I require to impose a prison sentence on you.
"I do want to make clear today that in selecting a prison sentence I also have in mind that the court should be sending out a clear message to deter others who might be tempted to behave in this way."
Banning orderHe also told Birrell that there was "no place in our modern society" for the use of the internet to spread or support abuse or to target people.
Birrell was banned from attending all regulated football matches in the UK for five years.
The postings made derogatory references to Celtic manager Neil Lennon and also included remarks about Catholicism.
Speaking following the sentencing, Lesley Thomson QC, the Solicitor General, said: "The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service is absolutely determined to play its part in confronting the problems of sectarianism, religious offences and related disorder and violence.
"Whether the offences are at the football match itself, travelling to or from it, or as in this case online threatening communications, we will do all in our power to bring those who perpetrate such crimes to justice.
"Prosecutors will continue to prosecute anyone indulging in such behaviour which is completely unacceptable in modern Scotland."
At an earlier hearing defence solicitor John McLaughlin said: "These postings were distasteful and abusive. However, his postings did not contain threats or incitement to violence.
"There was no mention on them of Neil Lennon or the manager of Celtic."
Before sentence was passed it was said on Birrell's behalf he accepted that what he did was wrong.
-- Mario Huet Libertarian Alliance Forum List Administrator ********************************************** Words cannot picture her; but all men know That solemn sketch the pure sad artist wrought ********************************************** James Thomson, The City of Dreadful Night
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Re: America: With God on our side
Presidential candidates feel no shame in asserting divine purpose in
U.S. policies and actions
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it's ok to have a god on our side ... just not a specific flavor of a
god
U.S. policies and actions
----
it's ok to have a god on our side ... just not a specific flavor of a
god
On Oct 17, 12:45 pm, MJ <micha...@america.net> wrote:
> Op-EdAmerica: With God on our sidePresidential candidates feel no shame in asserting divine purpose in U.S. policies and actions. In this ubiquitous view of American exceptionalism, the nation is not bound by rules to which others must submit.By Andrew J. Bacevich
> October 16, 2011
> In the United States, despite a Constitution that mandates the separation of church and state, religion and politics have become inseparable. To lend authority to their views, presidential aspirants of both parties regularly press God into service. They know what he intends.
> So the claims made by Republican front-runnerMitt Romneyin a recent speech at the Citadel managed to be both striking and unexceptionable. "God did not create this country to be a nation of followers," Romney announced. "America must lead the world." Absent the "clarity of American purpose and resolve, the world becomes a far more dangerous place," with freedom itself in jeopardy. To avert this catastrophe, Romney declared, "this century must be an American century," with the United States economically preeminent and wielding "the strongest military in the world."
> Whence do these insights derive? "Why should America be any different than scores of other countries around the globe?" Romney asked rhetorically. His answer captures the essence of our present-day civic religion: "I believe we are an exceptional country with a unique destiny and role in the world."
> The Hebrew Bible provides no evidence to support this proposition. Nor do the teachings of Jesus Christ and his disciples. Yet the American Bible incorporates a de facto Third Testament, which validates this assertion of American uniqueness. That testament, fashioned from a carefully tailored rendering of the 20th century, recounts the story of a new chosen people serving as God's instrument of salvation, leading humankind onward to the promised land.
> For anyone aspiring to high office, professing fealty to this Third Testament has become all but obligatory. And Romney took care to do so in his Citadel speech. Genuflecting before the "generations that fought in world wars, that came through the Great Depression and that gained victory in the Cold War," he summoned his listeners to "seize the torch" their forebears had held aloft, continuing the inexorable advance toward "freedom, peace and prosperity." This, he made clear, defines America's calling, one to which citizens of all religious persuasions (or none at all) can subscribe.
> "This is America's moment," Romney insisted. He likened those who disagree to Third Testament villains, proposing that the nation should "crawl into an isolationist shell" and "wave the white flag of surrender," acquiescing in the claim that "America's time has passed." All of this Romney dismissed as "utter nonsense."
> Now duty confers prerogatives. And God's elect are not bound by rules to which others must submit. Among other things, they need not admit error. "I will never, ever apologize for America," Romney promised. Apologies imply misjudgments, mistakes or wrongdoing, none of which figure in the Third Testament's depiction of a nation unsullied by malign intent or sordid action.
> Above all, the United States need not apologize for its pursuit of permanent military supremacy or for its propensity for violence. "When America is strong," Romney declared, "the world is safer." The post-Cold War era, with unquestionedU.S. militarypreeminence going hand in hand with widespread disorder, offers little to substantiate this proposition. Even so, an insistence that American military power and its application are conducive to peace remains one of the Third Testament's central tenets. So, whereas a single Chinese aircraft carrier poses a looming danger, a dozen American aircraft carriers make theU.S. Navya global force for good. A brief Russian incursion into Georgia threatens peace; protracted wars resulting from the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan advance it.
> In his Citadel speech, Romney said nothing that a thousand politicians and pundits have not already said a thousand times and will say again. The significance of his presentation lies not in its originality but in its familiarity. Are Mormons really Christians? Romney has rendered the question moot. In all the ways that count politically, he has shown himself to be a true believer, committed to a faith-based approach to statecraft.
> No leading contender for the Republican nomination will challenge the positions that Romney laid out. After all, they share his certain knowledge that God has designated America as his earthly agent. They endorse Romney's emphasis on enhancing U.S. military power as the key to perpetuating an American century. And they mirror his lack of interest in the world as it is, indulging instead the pretense that it's still 1945.
> The eventual Republican nominee, whoever that may be, will argue thatPresident Obamabelieves none of these things hence his unworthiness for a second term. For his part, the president will exert himself to prove otherwise. As he has done before, Obama will signal his own allegiance to militant exceptionalism, offered as positive proof that he is authentically American. Rival messianic visions will compete.
> Most experts expect bread-and-butter issues to decide the upcoming election. Yet regardless of the final outcome, the real winner is going to be the concept of American exceptionalism. Whoever takes the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2013, will be someone who believes in the American Bible's Third Testament. In that regard whether for better or worse the outcome appears foreordained. One might even say that God wills it.Andrew J. Bacevich is professor of history and international relations at Boston University. He is the editor of "The Short American Century: A Postmortem," to be published next year.http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-bacevich-american-exceptionalism-20111016,0,3240927.story
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Obama’s “Jobs Bill” Explained
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Fwd: Watch My Major Announcement Live Today
 Dear Bruce, Later today, I'll hold a press conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, to unveil my budget plan to put our nation back on track, and I don't want you to miss out on this major event. Of course, I realize many who would love to be there can't make it, so my campaign has ensured you can watch it LIVE from your computer! You can stream it absolutely free, and you only need to click a button to be in on the ground floor of a plan I believe sets a new standard for the budget debate in this country and can restore America's prosperity. The press conference starts at 6pm Eastern (3pm Pacific), and you can click here to watch it live. Thank you so much for your support, and I hope you can join in as our campaign continues to lead the way toward restoring America now. For Liberty,  Ron Paul P.S. To make sure as many people as possible hear about our Restore America budget plan, my campaign has ensured you can watch it LIVE from your computer. Click here at 6pm Eastern/3pm Pacific to view our press conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. |
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