Thursday, June 22, 2006

Caustic but correct

Okay, so I put off the last couple of chapters of "What Would the Founders Do" by Richard Brookhiser in order to read Ann Coulter's Godless, the Church of Liberalism, which I finished last night.

Two things about the reaction to this book strike me in particular -
1) Much has been made of how Ms. Coulter delivers the messages in her book, not the messages themselves.
2) The vast critisizm comes from those who haven't even read the book. (Hey! I suffered through Roger & Me, Bowling For Columbine, and Fahrenheit 9/11, the least you guys could do is read a book or two!) But we'll get to the reactions later....

Ann's premise is simply this - Liberalism is in every way, shape, and form a religion. It is a set system of beliefs, values, and practices. And it is defended by its followers with hysterical and often unreasonable vigor and passion.

Human contact with DDT being fatal is as unverifiable as someone rising from the dead 3 days after being crucified - and yet, the liberals (in an attempt to bring down "Big Business") successfully asserted just that - and won!

Cerebral Palsy isn't caused by vaginal births, yet John Edwards claimed to be channeling the soul of a miscarried baby who told him that had she been c-sectioned out, she would be alive today. A regular snake-charmer we got there.

The church of liberalism has its own priests (educators), saints (Darwin, Scopes, Clinton) and ceremonies (abortion and protest marches) that bring the church together as a community, as well as furthering its belief system to the "infidels" and "unenlightened."

It has chosen spokespeople that (by virtue of having had "personal loss") are unassailable and untouchable from any criticism whatsoever, in effect - making them liberalism's human shields.

In typical liberal fervor, if one is to question Cindy Shitcan's shennanigans with Hugo Chavez, the liberal congregation shouts "her son died, how dare you disagree with her politics"... if the Jersey Gals are criticised for not pointing out the 9-11 commission's whitewash of "Able Danger" the choir leaps to its feat and calls you "meanspirited" for even questioning the wives of 9-11 victims.

Point-by-point and instance-by-instance Ann Coulter exposes the beliefs, values, and practices of the new liberal religion (Her book is chock-full of references, by the way). And, as with other religions, Liberalism's attempts to undermine and invalidate (from evolution to abortion to sex education) the beliefs, values, and practices of every other religion, particularly Judeo-Christian-Diest beliefs. (These, incidentially are the beliefs this country was founded upon, and that 80% of Americans still hold as "dear." )

But for the church of liberalism, there can be no other religion, and so all others must be maligned, undercut, and scoffed-at, and eventually destroyed (or made irrelevant -which has already happened.) Coulter chronicles these attacks clearly and suscinctly; rarely did I find the reading dry or "slow."

In GodlessAnn Coulter has accurately identified the un-named 300 pound gorilla in the room - Liberalism is indeed a religion. The fact that she did it in a particularaly un-sweetened or harsh way takes nothing away from the message itself.

Monday, June 19, 2006

Just spit in their faces !

... at least you'd have some integrity and wouldn't be two-faced.
A good friend of mine served in Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan campaign, for those that listen to NPR). He returned, and now his unit is rotating over to Bagdhad. He an I had a long discussion about his ongoing bout with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for those who get their news from CNN)
What exacerbates ("makes worse" for those who went to liberal schools) his stress and problems is the two-faced crap that some Americans are giving him about "we support the troops, but the war is a lie."
When he was in Kabul, he saw the positive effect our incurrision had on the country, the people, and the region. Children hugging our troops, mothers thanking him and praising the US for intervening. Friends I have that served in Operation Iraqi Freedom return saying the exact same thing - 35 million Iraqi's love us, and we're pissing off 20,000 people that want a return of the Ba'athists or are supporting a Taliban-style Caliphate.
Our troops in theatre see the schools and hospitals being built, see women going to school, voting, and even holding political office. Our troops over there KNOW what we are doing is right, just, and for the betterment of the region and the world. Then they get back here and they are told their friends "died for a lie", that the war is "wrong" and that they weren't liberators but pawns of a greedy oil-hungry administration. Then they hear "but we support the troops."
BULLCRAP!
It the same as saying "I love my wife, but marriage is a farce, an abomination to the natural order of things, and a complete sham." If you were a wife, how would you feel if your husband said that?
There was PTSD in WWII, my father had it, and years after the war, he still woke up with nightmares - one resulted in him hanging out an 8-story hotel window because he was dreaming a Japanese prisoner had escaped out the porthole of his ship.
But the troops truly felt supported by the American public. People didn't negate the good they had done by focusing on the 200,000 that died in the firebombing of Tokyo or the 60,000 that died in the bombing of Dresden.
It's time we faced our own responsibililty in making our troops lives WORSE by focusing on 7 people (out of 160,000) who abused their authority at Abu Graib, and by not recognizing the truly beneficial changes that are taking place because of the hardwork, the sacrifice, and the bavery of our men and women in uniform.
Either way, stop being two faced and saying "I support our troops.... BUT....." 'cause if you do, you're just a lying hypocritical sack of dung contributing to the PTSD of many brave men and women.