Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, who was a key supporter of Obama in 2008, told WOR710 today that he could not vote for President Obama’s re-election unless the president cuts ties with the controversial anti-Israel group Media Matters. He also warned that Obama’s association with Media Matters – which was raised by the Daily Caller in an investigative series this week – will lose him support in the pro-Israel community:…

He went on to state unequivocally that he could not and would not ever vote for anyone associated with Media Matters (like Obama) who did not clearly and fully repudiate said organization and its running-mates.

Dr. Dershowitz must have gotten a really good cup of reality…but then, as a strong supporter of the existence of Israel, Samuel Johnson’s observation about the prospect of immanent hanging having a tremendous effect in focusing one’s mine. In any case, welcome him to the daylight!

Make Mine Freedom

More timely now than it was in 1948.

ENEMIES!

Opponents or Enemies?

In any conflict, it is a deadly error to mistake or underestimate the adversary’s capabilities, will to employ them, or ultimate goals.

Around the globe, what was once confidently deemed “Western civilisation” is in an end-stage battle with champions of a collectivist and statist ideology which, over the last century, has enacted programs of redistributive taxation, borrowing, and spending whose unsustainability has now become self-evident and which, unless the present course is altered, will collapse in at most ten years. Further, the second- and higher-order effects of these policies have led to demographic collapse in the societies which have adopted them, crippled capital formation and the creation of productive enterprises, and been used as a justification for mass immigration from regions hostile to the culture and values of the West which have been responsible for its prosperity.

Those who would destroy a society, destroy first its language. As Orwell observed, when the terms of discourse are corrupted, the corruption spreads into every domain the language is used to debate. So deep has this language rot penetrated, that it is difficult to write an essay like this without succumbing to it—that is the intent of those who spread the contagion. The present-day culprits identify themselves as “progressives” or “liberals”. Take a step back and ponder how manipulative this is: if you’re a “progressive”, then you must obviously be on the side of progress, even though the outcome of the policies you advocate will ultimately roll back all of the advances in individual liberty and prosperity made since the Enlightenment; if you’re a “liberal”, surely you must advocate liberty, notwithstanding that the consequences of your prescriptions will be descent of society into serfdom for the masses, deemed property of the state, ruled by an unelected, unaccountable élite.

These so-called “progressives” or “liberals” are not advocates of progress or liberty: they are enemies of them, and the sooner champions of liberty acknowledge what they are, the better our slim chances for defeating them will be. Libertarians and conservatives are inclined toward civil discourse and respect for the rule of law. They must come to terms with the fact that their enemies—not opponents—are implacable, bent on winning whatever the cost may be, willing to use any means whatsoever to prevail and, once triumphant, to deprive their opposition of the means to reverse or even impede the implementation of their agenda.

They are enemies.

What is to be done?
In the middle of World War II, would it have made sense for Roosevelt and Churchill to have arranged a secret meeting with Hirohito and Tojo to try to “work out their differences” and “find a middle ground” where, say, Imperial Japan would be allowed to keep half of its conquests in the Pacific? Of course not: Japan was the enemy, and only its definitive defeat could undo the damage its conquests had wrought.

Enemies of individual liberty control the high ground today in most of the institutions through which they have made their long march in the last half century, and they perceive themselves as winning: with every generation they educate, inform, entertain, and rule, they create more dependent subjects who acquiesce to their rule and groom a new self-perpetuating class of élite. They are not people who have a different vision of how to create a society in which the aspirations of the majority of the people for themselves and their families will be achieved, but rather aspiring rulers of infantilised subjects dependent upon the largesse of their betters.

How does one deal with enemies? To survive and prosper, one does not negotiate with them—one defeats them. There is no “reasonable, achievable compromise” between liberty and tyranny, freedom and slavery. One must vanquish the tyrants and slaveholders and ensure that their spawn cannot reinfect society.

We will never defeat them as long as we view them as “opponents” who play by the same rules and share the same goals as we. They are enemies, and must be completely defeated and removed from the political stage. That is how they view us—they have no desire to compromise but rather intend to destroy us. [emphasis added] Until we take the battle to the enemy with an equal fierceness, we shall have no hope of success. Here are a few things we can do, starting immediately, once we come to terms with the fact we’re confronted with an enemy, not a well-meaning opponent.

Reclaim the language from the enemy.
We should have a “swear jar” for every time we utter the words “liberal” or “progressive” except in scornful irony. May I suggest “statist”, “collectivist”, “socialist”, or “communist” as alternatives?

Do not trade with the enemy.
Do not patronise businesses which support enemy causes; by doing so you support them yourself. While an individual choosing not to be a customer of a mega-corporation has negligible impact, millions of like-minded people deciding to go elsewhere can. On the local scale, telling the owner of the pharmacy who’s posted a petition supporting socialised medicine that he’s just lost your business and why does have an impact—I did this two weeks ago myself.

Don’t be taken in by enemy propaganda.
The mainstream media are almost entirely in the hands of the enemy. Help to make them the legacy media by ignoring everything they say, not subscribing to their enemy propaganda. Rely instead on first-hand reporting on the Internet whose veracity you can judge based on a network of trusted sources who comment upon it.

Do not entrust your children to the enemy. So-called “public schools” (the correct term is “government schools”, since in recent decades the public—parents—have lost all control over them) have been entirely captured by the enemy and become institutions of indoctrination and moral corruption which fail at teaching even basic skills. It is parental malfeasance verging on child abuse to send one’s offspring to these corrupt, corrupting, and nonperforming schools. If you cannot afford a well-run private or religious school (most have per-pupil costs well below that of government schools, but of course you have to pay that tuition on top of your taxes supporting the failed government schools), consider home-schooling your children, perhaps in conjunction with other like-minded parents. Even if you can afford it, don’t assume a private or religious school supports your values; talk to parents of students enrolled there and teachers: if they show signs of being enemies, don’t send your kids there.

Do not become indebted to the enemy. Higher education is overwhelmingly in the hands of the enemy. One of the greatest scams in recent decades has been the explosion in tuition and fees, which results in graduates of four-year and postgraduate programs burdened with six-figure debt they’re forced to pay off in the key years they should be saving to accumulate capital for starting a family, buying a house, educating their children, and retirement. This is not accidental: by blocking capital formation in people’s key earning years, they are rendered dependent upon the state for their retirement and health care in old age, which is precisely the intent.

What élite universities and professional schools provide for the exorbitant fee is a credential which offers entry into the ranks of the enemy, and the “education” they provide is indoctrination in the enemy’s belief system. If you need a credential, shop around and get what you require at a price that doesn’t sink you into debt throughout your peak earning years. Unless you’ve bought into the enemy’s credential game, where you went to college will be irrelevant after you’ve had a few years of job experience.

Do not hire the enemy. Are you an employer? Why should you pay those who support the destruction of your livelihood? In our information-intense age, nothing could be easier than determining the political affiliations and contributions of applicants for employment, as well as their sentiments posted on public fora. If they are enemies, don’t hire them. You wouldn’t hire somebody without a police background check to make sure they weren’t a crook, would you? So why should you employ an enemy who will use your paycheck to destroy the values you cherish and spread the enemy’s perverted belief system among co-workers?

Roll back the enemy’s gains. One of the enemy’s key intellectual force multipliers is the concept of the “ratchet”: that any movement in their direction is irreversible and that consequently the debate is only about how rapidly one will arrive at their destination. Those who view the enemy as an “opposition” fall for this completely—in effect, their slogan becomes, “We’ll deliver you unto serfdom, but later than the other guys”. This is not how one deals with an enemy: they must be definitively defeated, removed from all positions of influence, and their pathological beliefs cleansed from the society. Any politician who speaks about “reaching across the aisle” or intellectual who grants any legitimacy to the anti-human, liberty-destroying nostrums of the collectivists is a fool at best and a collaborator at worst. Failing to acknowledge that an enemy is an enemy is to preemptively surrender.

We do not compromise with enemy politicians; we defeat them, regardless of the political party from which they hail. If they’re enemies of freedom and the other party’s candidate is worse, challenge them in the primary.

We do not consent to enemy occupation of the media. These are businesses, and we will withdraw our support from them by letting subscriptions lapse and withdrawing advertising from them. This will provoke a “circulation collapse” death spiral for them. All public funding and subsidies for media must be defeated.

We choose not to fund enemy occupation of our educational institutions. All taxpayer-supported institutions must have their funding made contingent upon abolition of tenure (from kindergarten through university professorships) and retention based upon objective measures of merit by third parties outside the academic system.

In the U.S., many state judges are elected; Federal judges are not, and have lifetime tenure. But their courts are funded by the legislature, which can abolish them with the consent of the executive. Abolish abusive and misbehaving courts, and create new ones, and let that serve as a lesson to those who would legislate from the bench.

If you’ve gotten this far, go to the site and read the rest!

Amazing! You couldn’t make this up!

Perhaps it’s sour grapes, or perhaps it’s a recent reawakening, but in a speech by Nancy Pelosi at Tufts University earlier this week, the former speaker of the House had some advice for her Republican colleagues in particular and some reflections on elections in general:… “But the fact is that elections shouldn’t matter as much as they do.”

The application of logic dictates then that she feels that vox populi is something overrated and worthy of fear. Curious that she’s in a party that labels itself “Democratic”.

You just had to know that things would come to this, based on what has already been going on with regulation nad legislation dictating the availability and use of food. It is LITERALLY not too far out to call these types of food police Nazis. Hitler WOULD have approved…he was a strict vegetarian, tee-totaler, and non-smoker, although even he wasn’t ready to enforce his personal preferences on others…yet. Fortunately he met his fate, and that problem went away, at least until its latest revival.

To encourage healthful eating, Chicago school doesn’t allow kids to bring lunches or certain snacks from home — and some parents, and many students, aren’t fans of the policy

What’s next? 2-way “telescreens” with compulsory daily physical exercise under surveillance monitoring a-la 1984? What’s scary about that concept, is that we now have the technology to actually pull that off!

A Latin tag comes to mind: NON SUPER NOS – “You ain’t the boss of us!”

Transportation Safety Administration chief John Pistole and several senators from both parties defended the new, enhanced airport security screening procedures as necessary in the face of a persistent and evolving terrorist threat in a hearing Wednesday on Capitol Hill….

Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri said prior to Pistole’s testimony that she believed TSA was in a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation, because people would be hopping mad at TSA if Christmas bomber Umar Farouk Adbulmutallab had succeeded. She went on to say the new advanced imaging technology–which has caused uproar because of its leave-no-secrets imaging and potential health risks–is more of a blessing than a curse.

A blessing to the TSA pornohobbyists who have saved and promulgated scan images in spite of solemn assurances that this is impossible.

“I’m wildly excited that I can walk through a machine instead of getting my dose of love pats,” Sen. McCaskill said.

If the Senator is “wildly excited” by this, she has to be what is sometimes referred in college to as a “cheap date”. Also, maybe it WOULD be “Love Pats” to Barney Frank, but I have somewhat different standards…

Anyway, what’s really annoying is the assumption of these wanna-be Gestapo that THEIR plan is the only thing that can be done to give what they laughingly refer to as security…which is patently idiotic at best, or else something much worse…

The most secure airline on the planet is El Al…for obvious reasons. If you want to fly securely, THAT’S the one to use. Of course they make active and continuous use of that ultimate bugaboo of the politically correct: PROFILING! And it works!

Big Brother is arriving in what used to be known as Britain…but which now might more appropriately be given Orwell’s designation from 1984: “Airstrip One”.

All telecoms companies and internet service providers will be required by law to keep a record of every customer’s personal communications, showing who they are contacting, when, where and which websites they are visiting.

Despite widespread opposition over Britain’s growing surveillance society, 653 public bodies will be given access to the confidential information, including police, local councils, the Financial Services Authority, the Ambulance Service, fire authorities and even prison governors.

They will not require the permission of a judge or a magistrate to access the information, but simply the authorisation of a senior police officer or the equivalent of a deputy head of department at a local authority.

From across the pond, here’s the commentary from Samizdata from the UK.  They are similarly unimpressed, maybe there’s still some hope for Britain NOT to morph into Airstrip One, at least just yet.

NOW do you get what the movie “V for Vengeance” was about?  (By the way, Guy Fawkes Day was last week on November 5th.)

On top of all the other obstacles facing President Obama in his quest to pass health reform is this one: Does the U.S. Constitution allow the government to require uninsured Americans to buy medical insurance or impose a tax penalty if they refuse?

Congress has never before required citizens to purchase any good or service, but that is what both House and Senate health bills would mandate.

DUH – d’ya think really? What’s the first clue.

The question of the mandate’s constitutionality “hasn’t been part of the public debate, but the legal community has been debating it. It’s been on all the legal blogs,” said Michael Cannon, director of health-policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. He said “the Constitution does not grant Congress the power to force Americans to purchase health insurance.”

In 1994, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office noted that a “mandate requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance would be an unprecedented form of federal action.”

“The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States,” the CBO said.

THINK about this: American citizens compelled at gunpoint (remember the B.O. Presidium Czar reminding us a la Lenin and Mao that “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun”) to purchase something in order to reside in the country without being penalized?

Hello? What is spelled by the letters: T-O-T-A-L-I-T-A-R-I-A-N?

The president said he is “happy to look at” bills before Congress that would give struggling news organizations tax breaks if they were to restructure as nonprofit businesses.

Oh joy! Not only would we be subjected to the prevailing MSM tilt to the left, they would add injury to the insult by forcing us to pay for media crap that we don’t want!

They would LOVE the chance to be able to continue to indulge their political whims independent of the market pressure that is currently going through the process of rejecting their unashamedly biased stance as indicated my massive losses in advertising and subscription income.

“I haven’t seen detailed proposals yet, but I’ll be happy to look at them,” Obama told the editors of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Toledo Blade in an interview.

Sure he would – for the same reasons.

Obama said that good journalism is “critical to the health of our democracy,” but expressed concern toward growing tends in reporting — especially on political blogs, from which a groundswell of support for his campaign emerged during the presidential election.

Right – good journalism IS critical…but to assert that the MSM is good journalism is laughably surreal.

“I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding,” he said.

Fact checking? Hmmmm. Like CBS & Dan Rather CONTINUING to insist that a blatantly forged document provides valid information about President Bush? Or like maybe NBC using incendiary devices to set vehicles on fire in an “investigative report” on auto engineering safety?  Or how about most recently…with virtually ALL of the so-called “mainstream media” ignoring the exposure of widespread promotion of criminality by B.O.’s favorite ACORN, until the stench got so great that they were literally FORCED to take notice?

THIS is “fact checking”? This is supposed to be journalism worthy of being supported by tax dollars?

There IS a part of the Constitution that addresses free press…but it does NOT contain a clause that GUARANTEES that just because you print a newspaper that anyone will bother to read it…or, for that matter, that one is guaranteed the right to make a living at writing and publishing crap that is inaccurate, incomplete, and often offensive and directly opposed to the values and interests of the POTENTIAL readership or audience.

Let ’em join the fate of the buggy-whip manufacturers if they can’t make it on their own!

The alternative is to turn the media icons of the liberal establishment into the American equivalent of the old Soviet Isvestia and Pravda, or the Nazi Volkishcher Beobachter – dedicated solely to the service of the state.

This gives a pretty good clue where some of this sort of thing is originating:

DEADLY DOCTORS: O  ADVISERS WANT TO RATION CARE

THE health bills coming out of Congress would put the decisions about your care in the hands of presidential appointees. They’d decide what plans cover, how much leeway your doctor will have and what seniors get under Medicare.

Start with Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. He has already been appointed to two key positions: health-policy adviser at the Office of Management and Budget and a member of Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research.

Savings, he writes, will require changing how doctors think about their patients: Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, “as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others” (Journal of the American Medical Association, June 18, 2008).

Yes, that’s what patients want their doctors to do. But Emanuel wants doctors to look beyond the needs of their patients and consider social justice, such as whether the money could be better spent on somebody else. Many doctors are horrified by this notion; they’ll tell you that a doctor’s job is to achieve social justice one patient at a time.

Emanuel, however, believes that “communitarianism” should guide decisions on who gets care. He says medical care should be reserved for the non-disabled, not given to those “who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens . . . An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia” (Hastings Center Report, Nov.-Dec. ’96).

Nice turn of phrase that: ” irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens”. Those folks setting policy in the 3rd Reich Marching and Singing Society didn’t do nearly as smooth a job when they set about eliminating “useless eaters” (although tsomething may be lost in translation there).

Translation: Don’t give much care to a grandmother with Parkinson’s or a child with cerebral palsy.

He explicitly defends discrimination against older patients: “Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years” (Lancet, Jan. 31).

Now, SOMEBODY WITH GOVERNMENTAL AUTHORITY OVER LIFE AND DEATH WILL (of necessity) be making these sort of imposed decisions, and of course, Emmanuel isn’t alone in pushing things towards this Brave New World:

Dr. David Blumenthal, another key Obama adviser, agrees. He recommends slowing medical innovation to control health spending.

Blumenthal has long advocated government health-spending controls, though he concedes they’re “associated with longer waits” and “reduced availability of new and expensive treatments and devices” (New England Journal of Medicine, March 8, 2001). But he calls it “debatable” whether the timely care Americans get is worth the cost. (Ask a cancer patient, and you’ll get a different answer. Delay lowers your chances of survival.)

Obama appointed Blumenthal as national coordinator of health-information technology, a job that involves making sure doctors obey electronically deivered guidelines about what care the government deems appropriate and cost effective.

In the April 9 New England Journal of Medicine, Blumenthal predicted that many doctors would resist “embedded clinical decision support” — a euphemism for computers telling doctors what to do.

One would certainly HOPE this was the case…at least for your own doctor. But wait…there’s more (or rather, less) in store for us under these proposed neo-Soviet reforms:

Americans need to know what the president’s health advisers have in mind for them. Emanuel sees even basic amenities as luxuries and says Americans expect too much: “Hospital rooms in the United States offer more privacy . . . physicians’ offices are typically more conveniently located and have parking nearby and more attractive waiting rooms” (JAMA, June 18, 2008).

No one has leveled with the public about these dangerous views. Nor have most people heard about the arm-twisting, Chicago-style tactics being used to force support. In a Nov. 16, 2008, Health Care Watch column, Emanuel explained how business should be done: “Every favor to a constituency should be linked to support for the health-care reform agenda. If the automakers want a bailout, then they and their suppliers have to agree to support and lobby for the administration’s health-reform effort.”

Do we want a “reform” that empowers people like this to decide for us?

B.O. has stated that the direction of his policies can be seen by the quality and character of those advisors he surrounds himself with. Based on this, Obamacare looks more and more like something to avoid like a plague.