05/4/16

Campus Conservatives and Pro-lifers Fight for Truth

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

Campus

Discrimination against conservatives on campus is a dramatic story being told by Peter Fricke and other great reporters at CampusReform.org. In many cases, however, pro-lifers at colleges and universities across the country are pushing back. Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, has been reporting not only on how “progressives” are running rampant, but how pro-life students are making their views and presence felt. Her organization has sponsored more than 900 student groups on campuses representing all 50 states. Here are some recent examples of where conservative and pro-life students and faculty are fighting back:

  • Notre Dame will be giving pro-abortion Vice President Joe Biden the oldest and most prestigious honor accorded to American Catholics at their graduation ceremony this spring. The Notre Dame Chapter of University Faculty for Lifeopposes the University’s decision, saying it’s “a scandalous violation of the University’s moral responsibility” and that Catholics should never honor “those who act in defiance of fundamental moral principles about the sanctity of life.” It notes that Biden “has for decades conspicuously rejected Church teaching about life. He has rejected it repeatedly and consistently in the context of abortion, where (he has been quoted as saying) he would not want to ‘impose’ this teaching upon a woman and her doctor. He also favors killing embryonic human beings for research purposes, even to the extent of committing taxpayers’ money to support it.”
  • Loyola Marymount University, another well-known Catholic university in California, has asked disgraced, pro-abortion former President Bill Clinton to give their 2016 commencement address. The Cardinal Newman Society called it “a new low in the University’s repeated betrayal of its Catholic mission.”
  • At the University of Iowa, the school administration decided that Students for Life sidewalk chalk messages were too “offensive” and had them removed. Themessages included “abortion stops 3200 hearts each day in the US,” “women deserve better than abortion,” “Students for Life supports pregnant and parenting students,” and “Smile, your mom chose life.”
  • At Southern Methodist University, the Students for Life group created a cemetery with 3,000 crosses to represent the number of lives lost to abortion every day. Members came out the next day to find out their entire display had been taken down.
  • The University of North Georgia Students For Life revealed photographs of decapitated baby cookies taken at a pro-abortion rally held by the North Georgia Skeptics Society, an atheist group on campus. The pro-abortion table includedbaby-shaped cookies, some with their heads cut off to signify dismemberment. The North Georgia Skeptics Society said it was a misunderstanding and that “many of the fetus shaped cookies broke of their own accord.”
  • The University of Colorado at Boulder initially rejected funding for the campus Students for Life group to host Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood Director and now pro-life advocate, as a speaker. The funding to the group from the university’s Cultural Events Board was denied because the Johnson speech was not considered “educational” and balanced. The Alliance Defending Freedomwas consulted for help in the case, and noted in response that speakers that the Board had previously funded included one-sided lectures from Angela Davis, recipient of the Lenin Peace Prize and former leader of the Communist Party USA; transgender activist Janet Mock; Bernie Sanders’ socialist buddy Cornel West, and Jose Antonio Vargas, a pro-illegal immigration activist. Eventually, the event received full funding and Johnson was able to come and give her speech.

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04/12/16

The Re-Education Camps We Call Universities

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

The totalitarian attitude on campus hit me in a very personal way on March 30 as I was sitting on an airplane at Reagan National Airport on my way to Albany, New York. I was informed that a campus debate I was scheduled to participate in later that day had been cancelled. I was told to get off the plane and go home.

I believe this is the first time on a college or university campus that a left-right debate has been cancelled because of objections to one side of the debate.

It appears the totalitarian left is so determined to crush the conservative point of view that it had to be suppressed even when a leftist was on the same panel.

My debate opponent, Jeff Cohen, the founder of Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), was taken aback. It was as if the far-left censors on the campus of theState University of New York (SUNY) at New Paltz didn’t think he could hold up his end of the debate.

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02/6/15

Why the West is Losing to Islamic Supremacists

By: Benjamin Weingarten
TheBlaze

During a recent lecture on the nature of and threat posed by Iran, with whom President Barack Obama’s Chamberlainian negotiations continue apace, an existential question arose: Why does the West remain asleep regarding Islamic Supremacism and the doctrine on which it is based?

I posit that there are three main reasons, which also go a long way towards explaining why we are currently losing to the global jihad: (i) Progressive multiculturalism, moral relativism and materialism; (ii) Profound willful ignorance; and (iii) An inability to cope with the staggering implications of the threat we face.

Since the days of George W. Bush, we have heard the oft-repeated trope that Islam is a religion of peace, and moreover one of the world’s great religions, with the same ethics, values and principles as Judaism and Christianity.

Originally, the Western elite argued that those who killed in the name of Islam were merely misinterpreting and perverting the religion. These, one should note, were the relatively more clear-eyed ones. Others attributed genocidal jihadism to poverty, lack of education or global warming.

Now we have completely severed the jihadist head from the Islamic body (theo)politic, arguing that the barbarians who comprise Islamic State, or as the Obama administration obediently likes to say, Daesh, in spite of the first “I” standing for “Islamic,” are nihilists.

For a people steeped in progressivism for decades, this can be the only reasonable conclusion.

Islamic supremacism does not comport with the belief system of our elites, who assert that all peoples are the same, all religions consist of the same values and beliefs, and that material concerns trump all others, including spiritual or idealist ones.

For those who honestly believe such things — as opposed to the ones who spout platitudes out of political expediency and to gloss over threats they dishonestly claim to have already defeated – throwing up one’s arms and claiming that jihadism stems from an ideology of nothingness is the most coherent of an entirely incoherent set of answers. Even better is to declare that violent extremism is the enemy, so as to smear conservatives while they’re at it.

This pervasive misunderstanding of Islam reflects a profound ignorance, in that it neglects the fact that the Koran and hadith comprise a unique belief system fundamentally different from, and in fact antithetical to the historically Judeo-Christian West.

For those interested, there is a mass of literature from authors such as Dr. Andrew Bostom, Andrew McCarthy, Robert Spencer, Ibn Warraq and Bat Ye’or who lay this out in concrete and copiously sourced terms.

Better yet, look to the texts and words of leading Islamic scholars such as Hassan Al Banna and Sayyid Qutb, prominent modern-day figures like Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Ayatollah Khameini, Hassan Nasrallah, and the content being taught at mosques right here in America.

If you would like to ignore the compendium of Islamic doctrine that calls for and compels Muslims to bring about a totalitarian world under which all submit to Allah’s rule, all one has to do is look at states whose governments are based in Shariah law to see Islam in practice.

(Image Source: PEW Research - The World's Muslims: Religion, Politics and Society, Q79a, Q92a-c, dated April 30, 2013 and Spring 2014 Global Attitudes Survey, Q100.)

Theory and practice aside, I am willing to wager that the vast majority of those commenting on Islam in the media and political establishment have never opened up a Koran, let alone heard the word hadith. Of the small percentage who have, invariably you will hear the argument that while parts of the Koran are violent, others are peaceful. Such a view evinces further ignorance however, as it fails to address two essential Islamic concepts: (a) Abrogation and (b) taqiyya.

Abrogation refers to the fact that as the Koran reflects Allah’s divine revealed word, where there are textual contradictions, those passages revealed later must supplant those that preceded it. These later passages are frequently more violent than the earlier peaceful ones.

Taqiyya refers to strategic lying and deception – covering up one’s true intentions so as to defeat one’s enemies. This manifests itself in acts of sabotage, subversion and the propagation of strategic disinformation, not unlike what the Communists did during and after the Cold War.

Others will argue that just as the Koran has violent verses, so too do the Old and New Testaments. But Jews and Christians do not go out and slaughter in the name of their G-d in a modern-day global Crusade like the jihadists are waging. Moreover, the values and principles that flow from these two religious systems have led to the miracle that is Western civilization. The Muslim world on the other hand, especially where Islamic doctrine is followed in its purest form, resembles the seventh century one that preceded it.

Lest you think those who have studied Islam in schools are better off, in America’s universities taqiyya has become an art form. Many of the Middle Eastern departments at our country’s most prestigious academic institutions have been found to put on a “moderate” public face while serving as Trojan horses for anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism and anti-Westernism — all consistent with Islamic doctrine.

This should come as no surprise, as these departments – and even K-12 schools — are often funded by Islamic nations who are the primary backers of Islamic supremacism themselves.

For those able to see past multiculturalism, moral relativism, materialism and actually study Islam in theory and practice, recognizing that the religion at the very least as understood by millions of Muslims is not only incompatible with, but hostile to our very existence, this is a staggering realization. It offends our pluralistic, tolerant sensitivities to think that such a massive, religiously-justified threat could exist. For while similarly savage enemies marched throughout the 20th century, none were tinged with theology, and Communism for its part was explicitly anti-religious.

Moreover, there are uncomfortable practical questions that such a threat raises. Who exactly are we fighting if there are millions of jihadists, aiders, abettors and enablers all over the world? How are we to fight them? What measures can we take to secure the homeland that are both sufficient and consonant with a free society?

Today, the West is clearly not even at the point of asking these questions, which reflects a lack of education on behalf of some, and denial on the part of others. That it is considered a bold act to utter phrases like “Radical Islam,” or “Islamic extremism” or “Islamism,” in the face of now over 25,000 jihadist attacks since Sept. 11, 2001 indicates as much. Imagine what kind of stones it would take to repeat after Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdoğan, that in effect there is no such thing as “moderate Islam” or “Islamism,” and such “descriptions are very ugly…offensive and an insult to our religion…Islam is Islam and that’s it.”

Rather than deal with reality, we figuratively bury our heads in the sand. Meanwhile, savage jihadists lop off and literally bury infidel heads in the sand.

If we are going to turn the tide in a war that we are currently not fighting, it is imperative that a sizable number of Americans wake up. It behooves all men and women of good conscience to educate their fellow citizens, and spark this awakening.

The future of Western civilization depends upon it.

01/3/15

‘Economics professors’ trash entrepreneurs, argue for taxing the rich

By: Renee Nal
New Zeal

Occupy

Photo Source: commons.wikimedia.org

An OpEd posted at the Tampa Bay Times by Economics professors William L. Holahan and Charles O. Kroncke (retired) begins with the sentence: “It is a common misconception that entrepreneurs create jobs.” Instead, they argue, taxpayer funded “investments” into education and infrastructure is what empowers the “true job creator: the workings of the market.”

The roads and bridges argument has been used by President Obama in his infamous “You didn’t build that” speech, where he argued that entrepreneurs are powerless without the help of others:

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.

He continued to tout the power of the government:

The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

This is a common argument used by advocates of big government and yes, contrary to the Constitution.

The federal government has no business spending money on local roads and schools. At least if one considers the Constitution, which many do not, of course. After a law passed for federal funding to build the Erie Canal, for example, President James Madison said that although the project was needed and valuable, he was “constrained” by the Constitution and he vetoed the bill.

But the canal was still built anyway. How?

…the New York State legislature took the matter into its own hands and approved state funding for the canal in 1816, with tolls to pay back the state treasury for upon completion.

As professor of history at Hillsdale College Burt Folsom observes:

The Constitution does not grant Congress the right to appropriate funds for infrastructure. Therefore, the Founders usually argued that states or private companies should do the work; neither good government nor just results occurred when the people in Georgia could be taxed to pave a road or build a canal in New York.

While speaking of the size of government, James Madison wrote in Federalist 48,

It will not be denied that power is of an encroaching nature and that it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it.

The authors continue,

The fixation on the ‘job-creator’ myth also distorts recession-fighting measures. For example, cutting business taxes when the problem is inadequate demand will not encourage employers to restore lost jobs or to hire more people.

If the problem is “inadequate demand,” the employers should be a bit more entrepreneurial… or fail. That is the beauty of the free market and why government intervention in industries always (always) fails. If an individual can provide a good or service that fulfills a need, he or she is on the way to job creation despite the federal government, which helps to keep innovators from success with their endless regulations and tax requirements. The government, in other words, only serves as an obstacle to true entrepreneurship.

While testifying that the website for the Affordable Care Act was getting closer to being fully functional, Kathleen Sebelius, former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said something very telling:

While there is more work to be done, the team is operating with velocity and effectiveness that matches high performing private sector organizations.

The private sector simply does it better.

The economists quote Nick Hanauer, billionaire venture capitalist and strong supporter and higher taxes, as saying:

Taxing the rich to make investments in the middle class is the single smartest thing we can do for the middle class, the poor and the rich.

Hanauer loves taxes, as evidenced by this recent tweet:

Holahan and Kroncke have written several articles previously and co-wrote the book “Economics for Voters.” In September, the dynamic duo also argued for a minimum wage increase, which has been found by numerous studies to have a negative effect on low-skilled workers. As reported at Politifact,

The last three federal minimum wage increases (2007, 2008 and 2009) were followed by significant job losses, but that was all taking place amidst the global financial crisis. [emphasis added]

It is not a stretch to consider that raising the wage is really just a political ploy, consequences be damned. The double bonus for the federal government (with their unpaid interns, exempting themselves from the Fair Labor Standard Act), is that minimum wage increases equate to higher taxes. Big government supporters continually and desperately attempt to justify the value of big government, but continually come up short.

This article has been cross-posted at Broadside News.

12/28/14

Jihad vs We The People