The Savage Republican

Friday, March 10, 2006

What WOULD Amy do?

The gents over at KvM have been asking this for some time now. Anytime that there is a vote in the Senate, or an agenda item proposed, the question is raised. It is time again to raise the question....if Ms. Klobuchar was serving in the Senate, how would she vote on this?

"In its latest move to draw attention to liberal ideas, the Congressional Progressive Caucus will introduce a plan today to divert $60 billion in defense spending to humanitarian assistance, social programs, energy conservation, homeland security and deficit reduction."

Remember, these are the same Democrats that are trying oh-so-hard to convince voters that they are not soft on defense! They are pulling money away from research on the next generation of smart weapons!

So tell us, Ms. Klobuchar...if you were in the Senate, would you support this proposal from the Progressive wing of the House of Representatives? Your prospective constituents are dying to know....

The Death of Feminism

For years, feminists have claimed to "speak" for the women of America. I have a couple of posts already, showing where these so-called "spokeswomen" have fallen flat in their defense of "womens rights". Well in honor of the "International Day of the Woman", Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review interviewed Phyllis Chesler, a feminist who authored a book called "The Death of Feminism". Ms Chesler has some stunning things to say about the feminist leadership in America.

"Feminists, as well as women, have some terrifying external enemies. For example, Islamists oppose the ideals of dignity and equality for women by their practice of gender apartheid. This is a system which includes some, if not all, of the following human-rights violations: female genital mutilation, veiling and hijab, purdah, normalized daughter- and wife-beating, arranged (child) marriage, often to first cousins, polygamy, honor murder, the imprisonment, torture, beheading, stoning to death, and hanging of rape victims, suspected prostitutes, and feminist dissidents — especially in Iran today.
Such Islamist misogynists have many Western allies and apologists... Among them are many academic and establishment feminists who are also apologists for Islamic religious and gender apartheid and for the international trafficking in women and girls. In this, they are feminism's worst enemies. For example, many academic feminists fear that any serious critique of veiling, purdah, or polygamy might be slandered as "racist." They are right. These days, telling the truth about indigenous Islamic barbarism towards women and men is quickly branded as "politically incorrect" and dismissed as "racist" and "imperialist" arrogance. It requires real courage and clarity to stay this particular course of truth-telling. While some feminists did sound the alarm about the Taliban, they did not rescue Afghan women physically, personally, militarily, or economically. In addition, feminists have not focused on the right to motherhood, but primarily on the right to abortion; they have not focused on creating a strong feminist foreign policy, but primarily on the rights of gays and lesbians. Personal sexual freedom and identity politics have trumped universal human rights."

Emphasis above is mine. I said here that it appeared that NOW was only concerned with the rights of left leaning, pro-abortion women. I am apparently not the only one who feels this way.

There are many eye-opening quotes in this interview that every woman in America (and anyone who loves women) should read. However, there are just a couple more that I would like to specifically point out.

Lopez: Did you actually get grief from feminist for writing about the "gender cleaning" of women in Sudan?

Chesler: Yes, I did. When I sent one such piece around, certain left feminists told me that they did not even want to read what I had written because they did not "approve" of my writing for conservative publications. Not even if my pro-woman pieces were solicited and welcomed in conservative quarters and totally censored in left-liberal mainstream quarters. I had a similar problem when I wrote about the refusal of Lukas Moodyson, the brilliant Swedish filmmaker, to allow his film against trafficking (Lilya-4-ever), to be shown at a feminist anti-trafficking conference in Israel. While he allowed the film to be shown in every country on earth where brothels, pimps, and traffickers flourished, he refused to allow anti-trafficking Israelis to show the film once because he disapproved of Israel's military policies. I wrote a piece about censorship and prejudice and about the demonization of Israel which was immediately rejected by the New York and L.A. Times. I published it in Frontpage Magazine and within 48 hours Moodyson reversed his decision and allowed the Israeli feminists to show his film. The fact that my piece got some immediate positive results did not matter. All that mattered was that I had published it in a so-called "right-wing rag."
In addition, as I write in The Death of Feminism, the level of anti-American and anti-Israeli propaganda and intolerance towards all those who do not kow-tow to it is fairly monumental on many feminist list-serv groups. If one does not believe that America "deserved" 9/11; if one does not view America as the true "terrorist"; if one does not believe that Arabs and Muslims are being persecuted in America for "racist" reasons; and if one does not simultaneously believe that the Jews are "imagining" or "exaggerating" anti-Semitism — then one is not welcome on such list-serv groups. In fact, I was literally "purged," Stalinist-style from one such group for my various pro-America and pro-Israel "Thought Crimes." It was a most instructive experience. "

Again, emphasis is mine. These are the same people that lecture Christians about tolerance!

Lastly...

"Lopez: To what extent is there easy common ground on the Right and the Left as far as a new feminism goes?

Chesler: Perhaps such categories as "left" and "right" are no longer useful. I write about this at length in The Death of Feminism. On the other hand, the "Left" is aggressively secular and anti-religious; considers pornography to be "protected" hate speech; considers prostitution and trafficking to be forms of "sex work" which should be de-criminalized or legalized; views paternal sole-custody of children as the feminist solution to the problems that mothers have when they juggle child care and career responsibilities; believes that men and women are actually the "same"; has absolutely no foreign policy except that of opposing whatever President Bush and America do or ever have done — they really might as well be French; and has no universal feminist policy vis-à-vis jihadic Islam and its Muslim victims. The "right" has opposite views on these subjects. Although some "right-wingers" have diverse views on abortion, civil rights for gay people, the role of multi-national corporations in a time of war, the importance of intellectual and ideological diversity; the dangers of appeasing the Islam, etc. there are few "left wingers" who are at all diverse on their issues. If I am wrong — I hope they start saying so quickly, loudly, and proudly."

Please take the time to read this interview. Ms. Chesler has been through much in her life....much that has helped shape these views. You need to understand what she has been through in order to understand these views. It is my fervent hope that women everywhere start rethinking the conventional wisdom about the feminist movement. The feminist movement no longer represents women! It is time that women woke up to this fact!

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Mike Hatch pick up another endorsement

According to MDE, Mike Hatch's gubernatorial campaign picked up an endorsement today. According to this post, ACORN has announced it's support of the campaign. ACORN is probably not the best endorsement to pick up. According to this from the American Center for Voting Rights, an ACORN worker in Minnesota was found with 300 voter registration cards in his car. MDE has a St Paul Pioneer Press article on his post that has a telling quote from the presumed DFL candidate for the US Senate seat held by Mark Dayton.

"Reed faces sentencing Jan. 20 before Hennepin County District Judge Joanne Graham, according to County Attorney Amy Klobuchar. As part of a negotiated plea agreement, prosecutors promised they will recommend Graham sentence Reed to no more than 60 days in the county workhouse, plus 15 days of community service.
Klobuchar said Reed never intended to use the 18 forgeries to allow anyone to vote more than once. Instead, his motivation was to fraudulently increase his earnings from the fee he was paid to register new voters, she said."

So Ms. Klobuchar, forging voter registrations is only worth 60 days in the workhouse and 15 days community service????? This is how you treat crime in Hennepin County?

My buddy Howard in trouble again...

or is it still? Poor Howard (Dean chairman of the DNC) just can't seem to catch a break these days. First he gets called out on the carpet by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid over his handling of DNC finances (here). Then his chief backer - the one who put him up for the chairmanship, George Soros, forms a new private group to compile a list of DNC supporters (something the DNC is supposed to be doing). Now Molly Ivins turns her ire on him and ALL the DC Dems.

"Every Democrat I talk to is appalled at the sheer gutlessness and spinelessness of the Democratic performance. The party is still cringing at the thought of being called, ooh-ooh, “unpatriotic” by a bunch of rightwingers.
Take “unpatriotic” and shove it. How dare they do this to our country? “Unpatriotic”? These people have ruined the American military! Not to mention the economy, the middle class, and our reputation in the world. Everything they touch turns to dirt, including Medicare prescription drugs and hurricane relief."

Good golly Miss Molly - tell us how you really feel.

Now you would think that I, as conservative, would be rejoicing over all of this. An ill wind appears to be blowing over the Democratic Party and the base is desperate! However, this is not necessarily good news for Republican candidates. A wild animal that is backed into a corner will attack - and the Dems are (currently) backed into a corner. Even their supporters (like Ms. Ivins) are bemoaning the lack of a coherent message out of the DNC. George Soros, meanwhile, is playing both sides against the middle - doing whatever he can to BUY the Presidency. Meanwhile, the media (who is desperate for a Dem in the White House) will do whatever it takes to make sure that these shortcomings are whitewashed as much as possible. Now more than ever, the Republicans need to stay on point. If they do stay on message, the Dems lack of message will be even more apparent and that will bring more and more "centrist" voters over to the right side of the aisle.

Where IS the National Organization "for" Women?

Last week I asked (rhetorically) this question in a post about human trafficing (aka slavery) in Minnesota. Today I ask that question again, but in all seriousness. Why, you may ask? Two stories came to my attention this week that, if they had happened here in the US, would have had certain groups on the left howling with righteous anger. Their silence angers me more than I can say...

"Tehran, Iran, Jan. 07 – An Iranian court has sentenced a teenage rape victim to death by hanging after she weepingly confessed that she had unintentionally killed a man who had tried to rape both her and her niece."

Thus begins the horrific story of Nazanin, a 17 year old who was sentenced to die because she committed the crime of being a woman who refused to submit to rape! Read her story and weep.

Secondly is this story from Front Page Magazine.

"Peter Raddaz let’s begin with you.

A man sees a woman and she is not veiled. He thinks to himself: “Oh, I must rape her now.”

No matter how much I try to figure this out, I can’t. What’s the mindset here?"

Remember a time when NOW and other "womens groups" would say that what a woman was (or was not) wearing is not an invitation to be raped? Why are we not hearing these same voices denouncing this mindset?

We women need to speak up to our government and to those organizations that "claim" to represent us. We need to demand that they get serious about all forms of womens rights, and not just abortion rights. We women are more than just baby making factories waiting for abortion services. We are wives and daughters and mothers and we want to live our lives in freedom and safety. NOW needs to quit representing the abortion industry and start supporting women throughout the world!

The horrible conditions at Gitmo

Recently I wrote about the abuses that are being visited upon the detainees at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility in Cuba. Well now comes this Reuters report that details even further abuse.

"Grignard told a news conference prisoners' right to practice their religion, food, clothes and medical care were better than in Belgian prisons.
"I know no Belgian prison where each inmate receives its Muslim kit," Grignard said."

Yep - that is abusive alright. Another leftist talking point shot down in flames. Sigh.....

Cartoons that offend

Time to catch up....

Remember the "Cartoon Jihad"? Remember all of the people killed and the boycotts and the buildings burned over a couple of cartoons that Muslims deemed "offensive"? Remember how "responsible media" shied away from publishing those cartoons out of a sense of "respect" toward a peoples religion? Where is that respect today? Anyone??? Bueller???

As I said here, I find it saddening, but not surprising that there is this sense that it is ok to insult Christians and Jews, but Allah forbid you insult Islam. It is fear, pure and simple. The left fears Islam, but we Christians with our "turning" of the other cheek give them nothing to fear. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I submit that it is a bad thing. I say this because as long as it is ok to mock Christians, it will be ok to silence them. Freedom to worship (or not) as you choose is threatened as long as there is a radical religious element that demands that the rest of the world submit to their religion. It is time to tell the radicals that they will not scare us into silence. We will not allow them to dictate and force their religion on those who wish to worship otherwise!

Monday, March 06, 2006

Medicare, Social Security and the danger of fiction believed as fact

Some time ago I wrote about the arrest, conviction and sentencing of Bernie Ebbers of MCI/Worldcom. The simple explanation is that his crime was using fancy accounting tricks to create the fiction that liabilities were assets and that MCI/Worldcom was doing quite nicely, though it was hemorrhaging money. And there was the resulting collapse as the market finally caught up with MCI and Bernie, et al. The market will prevail, just like the Mississippi WILL flood in spite of all the levees and dikes.
As I was sending off an email to a friend in response to one he sent on the current debt ceiling for the deficit. I copied the article from Dr. Walter E. Williams on the huge multi trillion dollar liability from Social Security and Medicare. Dr. Williams referenced the National Center for Policy Analysis.I went to the site and searched for "Medicare". And clicked on this analysis. And again, Medicare is an accounting fiction. It is the same fiction that sent one man to prison for 25 years. And that was only for a few billion dollars in fraud and fiction. The analysis politely calls Medicare "unstable". Medicare is a pay-as-you-go system. It is NOT insurance! No matter what it's called, it is not insurance. There is no risk pool. It is a pay in, pay out. And an accounting fiction. And that's just Part A. Part B is even more of a fiction.
And as we look at a mediocre and relatively minor figure of $8,000,000,000,000 for the deficit, we're looking at an additional $4,000,000,000,000 a YEAR in additional unfunded liability to Medicare.Friends, in case you missed it, that's in ADDITION to the $60,000,000,000,000-$70,000,000,000,000 in current dollars that we'd need to put aside today,now to pay for Medicare and Social security!
And the Charlie Brown public still chooses to believe the Lucy van Pelt Congress that there really is a football there to kick. And she'll let you.

The buffet of intellectual consistency

I remember reading a few years back in "Liberty" magazine a statement that there are really only two political parties in America: the party of big government with its left (Democrats) and right (Republican) wings (and various factions) and the libertarians. All we need to do is look at the past five years of spending and a trip by GWB to Louisiana and $200,000,000,000 in EXTRA spending is proclaimed so he doesn't have to endure criticism, and we see that Liberty magazine is right. 100%.
That being said, I see where my favorite non-responsive left wing Prairie Pravda columnist Nick Coleman says that babies are being "thrown out" because of stadium spending.
And so we see the bitter fruit of living in a democracy rather than a republic. Nicky shows the bitter struggle for HIS idea of forcing people to pay for HIS type of welfare while he excoriates others for wanting THEIR type of forced welfare. And so in a democracy, majority rules. In a constitutional republic this should never ever be a problem. All forms of welfare paid for out of forced takings of the citizens money would not be legal.
So, Nicky is not against welfare. He's not against legal thievery. He's just against welfare for the other guys.
And so I'd ask Nicky "And why do people go to the legislature and ask for money/special dispensation? Because they can. And babies do have a voice. They are called collectivists...like you."
Welcome to democracy- and the Constitution is over the horizon...in back of us.

Sunday, March 05, 2006

Human trafficing in Minnesota

Every now and then, the Strib prints an eye-opening article. Today was one of those rare instances. What bothers me about the online version of this story is that it does not include all of the information that was in the print version of the story. The most important missing piece (important for those who might be looking for a way out of slavery) was any contact information for a rescue group called Civil Society. A quick Google search on the executive director that was quoted in the article gave me this.

Another equally important piece of missing information was a map that showed where in the world these people are coming from. Of course, exact numbers are not known but according to this Wikipedia article on the subject, the vast majority come from Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa and (increasingly) Islamic states.

Most of these slaves are women, which begs the question - WHERE IS NOW???? Where are these women's rights groups that claim to speak for me when it comes to things like abortion and jobs? Why are they not speaking out against this horrific abuse of women? Could it be that they are only concerned about the rights of left leaning American women? While I certainly hope that is not the case, I fear it is.

I applaud Civil Society and their CARROT project and I hope that this article will lead to greater discussion about this hidden problem. Maybe this problem will get the exposure it so richly deserves when the issue of illegal immigration (remember these women are not in the country legally) is brought up.

On a side note

Posting is going to be sporadic for me this week. My computer is in the shop and while I will have internet access, I do have to share the family computer which means I won't have quite as much time to write. Throw in precinct caucuses, sports and a city council meeting and we are talking about a very full week.

However, I did want to get this posted. According to this article in yesterdays Star Tribune, Minnesota's population is declining (according to the latest census reports). Now there certainly can be (and 'm sure are) many reasons for this decline, but I would like to list just a couple for you.

1) Minnesota's high tax burden. While the tax burden has gone down since Governor Pawlenty has taken office, as I noted before, Minnesota is still one of the highest taxed states in the country.

2) our government's insistence on dictating every aspect of our lives...whether it is smoking bans in Hennepin County and St Paul or same-sex marriage, the state insists on interfering in the daily lives of average Minnesotans. Now I know that there are some out there who will say "wait - didn't you just defend government interference via defense of DOMA?" DOMA would not be necessary if it were not for judicial activists pushing gay unions on those who do not choose to participate in that lifestyle. Marriage has always been a union between one man and one woman. That is not to say that anything otherwise is "unacceptable" necessarily, but anything other than that is not marriage and no amount of denying it will make it so!

3) the Roe effect. There is no denying that abortion happens in Minnesota. Because of the liberal laws in this state, it probably happens a lot and as I said here, it is something that is a known factor in population studies.

The article does point out something that was noted in the article that was the subject of my previously linked post:

The big winners in the next decennial census sweepstakes appear to be Florida, Texas and Arizona -- all Sunbelt states that have been outpacing the Northeast and Midwest in population growth.
Texas could gain three seats, as could Florida. New York could lose two seats; Arizona could gain two.

What do those 3 states have in common? Hmmmm....

A print version of the Strib article said it all (link not available) when it ended saying that Minnesota needed to "grow or lose out". Gee...ya think?