Are We Going To Win This War?

We’re at war. Our enemy is radical Islam. It's the aggressor and its goal is to put the world under Sharia Law. Its biggest obstacle is the United States of America because we are the epitome of Western Civilization. Our goal is to defeat radical Islam.

“Are we going to win this war?”

That critical question was asked by someone from the audience at a panel discussion called “The Sharia Challenge in the West,” I attended two weeks ago at the three-day CPAC 2011 (Conservative Political Action Conference). The panel of experts included former CIA Director James Woolsey; former US Attorney Andrew McCarthy who successfully prosecuted the first World Trade Center bombers in 1993; Clifford May - president of the Foundation For the Defense of Democracies; and Ayaan Hirsi Ali - one of the most courageous people alive.

“Are we going to win this war?”

None of the panelists answered with an emphatic “Yes” and that depressed me, even if it didn’t surprise me. Each indicated we could win, but whether we will or not depends on how much Americans want to win. That, unfortunately, is still an open question.Andrew McCarthy, Ayaan Hirsi Ali at CPAC 2011

Panelist Ayaan Hirsi Ali has the most to lose if we don’t win because she’s already marked for death by our enemy. She wrote the script for “Submission,” a movie directed by Theo Van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker and grand-nephew of the famous Dutch painter. “Submission” criticized Islam for sanctioning abuse of women. Both Hirsi Ali and Van Gogh were threatened with death if they released it, but they did so anyway.

Shortly after, in broad daylight on the streets of Amsterdam, a Muslim immigrant shot Van Gogh eight times, cut his throat, and pinned a note to his torso with a dagger, saying Hirsi Ali was next. Ever since, she’s been under armed guard 24-7-365. Even though she was an elected member of Dutch Parliament, her government has balked about paying to defend her. She moved to the United States and accepted a fellowship with the American Enterprise Institute. Her security is now paid for privately.

“Are we going to win this war?”

The question lingered in the air. Hirsi Ali said the way to win is to “offer an alternative vision,” and I couldn’t agree more strongly. Western Civilization is itself an alternative vision, but our universities and our media are dominated by liberals who blame it for the world’s ills. American colleges and universities are eliminating western civilization courses. And, The Muslim Brotherhood’s goal is to “bring down western civilization from within,” (If you hit this link, scroll down for the English translation). The American left (including many in the Obama Administration) supports the Muslim Brotherhood and its offspring, Hamas. Ramsay Clark, Bill Ayers, Code Pink, and A.N.S.W.E.R. tried to bring aid to Hamas by breaking the Israeli blockade of Gaza last year. The American Left abhors Western Civilization and cooperates with the Muslim Brotherhood to bring it down. “The way you fight this thing is to expose it,” said panelist Andrew McCarthy. Trouble is, leftists dominating our universities shout down speakers who try to expose it. Sharia is Islamic law. Under it, women cannot go out in public unless accompanied by a male relative. Thieves get their hands cut off. Adulterers and homosexuals are stoned to death. If you reject Islam, you’re killed. A woman’s testimony in legal issues is worth half that of a man.

The slogan of the Muslim Brotherhood is:

Allah is our objective.
The Prophet is our leader.

Quran [Sharia] is our law.

Jihad [holy war] is our way.

Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.

Our enemies are anxious to die for their cause. Millions are brainwashed from birth as was Ayaan Hirsi Ali growing up in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya. She said: “Their paradigm is a paradigm of death. That is their core vulnerability. It is a core of death. You defeat it by pushing a core of life.”She’s right of course. We need a massive propaganda campaign to expose Sharia Law and the theist totalitarianism of radical Islam for the dark-age depravity it is. We must contrast our enemy’s vision with the values of our constitutional democracy embodied in The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution with its Bill of Rights.

“We’ve inhibited ourselves,” said Hirsi Ali. “We’re not speaking out enough,” because too many of us have been indoctrinated with multicultural political correctness. “If they defeat us,” she added, “it’s because of our lack of confidence.”Right again. As our leftist media and our leftist universities continue their indoctrination, fewer and fewer Americans understand that our republic is the summit of civilization. Many won’t ever realize that unless we lose it. Then they’ll find out the hard way, but the rest of us need to witness confidently while there’s still time. We need a president who will celebrate Western Civilization, not apologize for it, who will call our enemy by its names: Radical Islam, Sharia, and jihad. We need a president who will champion American exceptionalism, who will foster patriotism in every American and proclaim the United States as the greatest country in the history of the world - because it is.

European leaders including Germany’s Angela Merkel, France’s Nicolas Sarkozy, and the UK’s David Cameron are finally declaring that leftist moonbat multiculturalism is a total failure. As columnist Pat Buchanan puts it: “Only in Canada and the U.S., it seems, is the issue still in dispute.”CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) will, no doubt, scream “Islamophobia!” But, as panelist James Woolsey put it: “If you’re opposed to the beating of women and the killing of apostates, you are not an Islamophobe.”

Please ponder this: How can we expect to defeat our enemy if we’re unwilling even to offend him?

TSA, Students, and the Fourth Amendment

Whenever possible, I weave in contemporary issues to exemplify concepts I’m responsible to teach in my 20th century US History course. Recent furor over full-body scans and pat-downs at airports is one issue likely to be decided in light of the Fourth Amendment. When asked if they’d personally gone through airport screening, about 80% of my students indicated they had.“Take out your laptops,” I told them, “and go to ‘Google Images.’ Then type in ‘19 highjackers.’” They did and the familiar lineup of Arab Muslim men showed up. “These men hijacked four planes on September 11th and flew three of them into buildings. They had put small knives to the throats of stewardesses and took over control of the planes. Ever since, small knives - even nail clippers - have been seized from airline passengers.

“Now type in ‘Richard Reid.’” They did and various images of the shoe bomber’s face showed up. “This guy joined al Qaeda and tried to blow up a plane over the Atlantic by lighting a bomb made with plastic explosive hidden in his shoe. Ever since, airline passengers have been forced to remove their shoes for inspection.

“Now type in ‘Mohammed Gulzar & Umar Islam.’ In 2006, these two and six other British/Arab/Muslim terrorists plotted to blow up seven US-bound planes over the Atlantic with liquid explosives hidden in soft-drink bottles. Ever since, airline passengers have been forbidden to carry on containers of liquids with more than 3.4 ounces. “Now type in ‘Christmas panty bomber,’ I instructed. “This guy tried to set off a bomb in his underwear on a flight from London to Detroit. As a result, airline passengers have been subject to pat-downs, and now to full-body scans which produce an X-ray image of passengers revealing all their intimate body parts, as you can see in those images near the ‘panty bomber’s’ picture.

“Turn to page 884 in your textbook,” I told them, “and read along as I recite the Fourth Amendment in our Bill of Rights: ‘The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated; and no warrant shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.’ What part of this Amendment applies to the full-body scans and pat-downs?” I asked.

“Where it says ‘right to be secure in their persons,” suggested a girl.

“That’s right,” I said, “against ‘unreasonable’ searches. Given how these security procedures have evolved, are they ‘unreasonable’? Who thinks they are?

Only three or four raised their hands in each class.

“Who thinks they’re reasonable?”

All the others raised their hands.

“Why are they reasonable?” I asked.

“Because we want the planes to be safe,” said another girl.

“If you don’t want to let them search you, you don’t have to fly,” suggested a boy.

“So, it sounds like most of you believe what the TSA, or “Transportation Safety Authority” does to search people is reasonable, right?” I asked.

Most of them raised their hands.

“Okay,” I said. “Now consider this case. A guy named John Tyner got tickets from someone who invited him to go on a hunting trip. He went online to check out security procedures at the airport in San Diego where he lives. He didn’t want to go through the full-body scan because of radiation and embarrassment, and the airport web site indicated it didn’t use them. But when he got there, some passengers were randomly picked for full-body scans and he was one. Most of the passengers just had to take off their shoes, etc. and go through the metal detector like most of you have. He said he was willing to do all that, but he was unwilling to have a full-body scan or an ‘enhanced” pat-down.’ When a TSA person tried to pat him down, he said, ‘Don’t touch my junk or I’ll have you arrested.’ ‘Junk’ is a slang word for his private parts - a new one to me.”From their reaction, I got the impression they knew the term already.
“The TSA person then reported Tyner to his supervisor. Tyner decided he didn’t want to go on his trip if he had to go through all that and just wanted to leave the airport. TSA, however, is filing charges against him and he’s subject to a $10,000 fine.”

I waited for all that to sink in and asked: “So, is Tyner’s experience with TSA reasonable?”

“TSA should have just let him go through the metal detector like the rest of the passengers,” said a girl.

“He shouldn’t be charged with anything if he just wanted to go home,” said another girl.

“TSA claims that if he went into the security area, he has to complete the process,” I explained.

“That’s ridiculous,” said a boy.

“Well,” I said. “We’ll have to see how a judge thinks the Fourth Amendment applies here and what he or she thinks is reasonable. That’s how our system works and the US Supreme Court would be the final judge of whether Mr. Tyner’s and other people’s rights are being violated or not.”

"Looking at pictures of the hijackers, what did you notice they had in common?" I asked.

"They all had dark complexions," said a boy.

"Anything else?"

"They all had dark hair," said a girl. "They looked Muslim."

"You mean they looked Arabic," I suggested.

"Yeah."

"Jews in Israel are more frequent targets of attack by Radical Muslims, but when I flew there and back three years ago, I didn't have to go through security procedures US airports require," I told them. "Israelis profile terrorists and give passengers who fit the profile extra scrutiny. Should US airports do that too instead of treating all passengers as if they could be terrorists?"

"No," said a girl.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because if they weren't terrorists, they might feel bad that they were singled out," she said.

"Okay," I said. "In September of last year, an al Qaeda terrorist tried to assassinate a Saudi Arabian prince with a bomb hidden up his rear end and set off by remote control. The prince was only slightly injured and the bomber was blown apart. One report I read indicated that rectum bomb could have blown up the fuselage of a passenger jet causing it to crash. Will all American airline passengers be required to submit to body cavity searches next?"

"Ee-yoo," said the girl.

"At that point, maybe profiling wouldn't sound like a bad idea."

Racism and Wolves

The villagers don’t all come running anymore when the NAACP cries “Racism!” It’s getting so they don’t take that organization any more seriously than they took the boy who cried “Wolf!” There used to be lots of racism when the NAACP formed, but they still claim to see it everywhere, even when it doesn’t exist. The shepherd boy who cried “Wolf!” in Aesop’s fable was bored and wanted to generate excitement with his antics, but that’s not the case with the NAACP. They cry racism lately because they’re afraid government programs they’ve lobbied for may be curtailed due to pressured from groups like the Tea Party.

There was a time “colored people” were oppressed by Jim Crow laws and white racism, but it’s almost half a century since the Civil Rights Bill was passed, the KKK was neutered, and racism turned into the racial preferences known as “Affirmative Action” which the NAACP supports. For nearly two generations, the deck has been stacked in their favor, but too many still play victim because it’s all they know how to do. As long as some “villagers” in the form of politicians and media keep running up, wringing their hands and appeasing them when they cry racism, they’ll continue. Many like me, however, stopped responding long ago. We’re not racists, we never owned slaves or oppressed minorities, and neither did our ancestors that we know of. We realize that all people have suffered throughout history - and there comes a time when we have to stop whining and get on with it.

Americans are getting mighty tired of that growing segment of our citizenry who see themselves as victims and who habitually blame others for their situation. There are many others who carry around guilt for having been born white, or wealthy, and will come running whenever someone claims “I’m a victim!” Victimology has become a lucrative racket for people like the Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and organizations like “La Raza” (translated: “The Race”) and AIM - the American Indian Movement. There many other victim groups whose grievances no longer exist, or have diminished to such an extent that they’re hardly recognizable, but they continue to sing the same old song.

As Walter Williams wrote this week: “Yesteryear, it was the Klan or White Citizens Council who showed up at polling places to intimidate black voters. During the 2008 elections, it was the New Black Panthers who showed up at a Philadelphia polling place to intimidate white voters and tell them, ‘You are about to be ruled by the black man, cracker.’ What's worse is the U.S. Department of Justice has decided to not to prosecute.”

Former Justice Department attorney J. Christian Adams resigned over this, claiming voter intimidation charges were dropped because of racial bias and corruption on the part of President Obama’s Attorney General - Eric Holder.

Racism isn’t the cause of astronomical crime rates or high unemployment rates for black men. Their self-made subculture is a much bigger factor, but few have the courage to point that out. Who wants to hire someone who drives up blaring obscene, angry rap music with his hat on backwards, his pants sliding off his rear end, and purposely speaking in fractured English? I sure wouldn’t. Black men are not arrested and imprisoned at higher rates because of racism. They’re arrested and imprisoned more because they commit more crimes.

Young black men today are not victims of racism as much as they’re victims of race-hustlers who profit from perpetuating the myth that racism is what’s keeping them down. They’re victims of their own thinking - that if they study hard, do their homework, get straight jobs, save money, and walk the straight-and-narrow, they’re “acting white.” They’re victims of government give-away programs that have subsidized their irresponsible behavior for half a century.

It’s those continually-expanding entitlement programs - which disproportionately high percentages of black people and other minorities have come to depend on - that are threatened by the Tea Party, because they’re bankrupting local, state, and federal government. Rather than examine the efficacy or affordability of those programs, the NAACP cries “Racism!” It worked for most of a century, but it’s wearing very thin now.

Whenever I hear the incessant, deep-base cadence of rap music, I feel a visceral negative reaction. Not only does it glorify illegal drug use, exploitative and degrading attitudes toward women, nasty sexual behavior, and violence against law enforcement and rival gangs - it’s celebrated by the entertainment industry as “authentic.” That industry meets annually to bestow awards on the “artists” who produce it instead of condemning them for the malignant mindsets they spread.

When this subculture is mimicked by the rural white boys I teach, no good results that I’ve ever been able to see. We tolerate them walking around in schools and other public places with their pants down below their asses and this malignancy has infected young males from the sticks to suburbia. My least functional male students wear the outfit and imitate the behavior. They think “acting black” is cool. They revel in music and the anger it drills into them. They disdain learning. They’re rebels without a cause. They’re caught up in a contagion of anger and belligerence, and they think it must be normal because too many of the so-called adults around them seem to accept it as such.They accept it because if they criticize it, they might be accused of racism.

Peace Through Strength

It’s beautiful where I live and peaceful too, most of the time. I like to sit on my back porch, smell the woods, hear the birds and animals, feel the wind, and watch the sun light everything from different angles as it moves across the sky each day and sets over the mountains. But then I’ll hear coyotes yipping and howling as they chase down some other animal to eat. I’ll see an owl and listen to the other birds cry in distress at its presence. I’m reminded that it’s a struggle to survive out there and if you’re not careful, you might be eaten up. Keeping strong, wary, and ready to fight enhances survival. Most predators are smart, preying on the weak and avoiding the strong. Strong is good.

Late one night I was woken by screams outside my bedroom window and it took several seconds to realize they weren’t human. Animals were struggling violently, but I didn’t know what kind and I still don’t. I got up and peered through the screen into the darkness, but I couldn’t see anything except movement. They were screams fear, panic, and pain as the fight moved into the woods on the other side of the road. After a minute or so, it ended and I went back to bed wondering what had happened. The next morning, I saw smears of blood on the road and leading into the woods where ferns were trampled. There were no tracks I could discern, and no remains. Either the victim got away, or it was killed and eaten somewhere deeper into the woods.

Months later, a couple of young thugs tried to invade the house across the street about fifty yards from where the animals had been fighting. One said later under interrogation that they intended to kill the elderly couple living there and take their vehicle for a joy ride. They had knocked on the door, demanded keys at gunpoint, cut the telephone wires, and then fled after the man slammed the door on them and they heard him yell: “Get the gun!” to his wife. They were arrested later for attempted home invasion and conspiracy to commit murder, and sentenced to prison.

Most people are harmless and many are kind, but we mustn’t forget there are predators everywhere - always have been - and the human variety is the most dangerous. Thank God these two young men happened to be stupid predators or my elderly neighbors would have died. Ever since, I’ve kept a loaded pistol within reach and encouraged my wife to learn to shoot with it. I’ve always had rifles and a shotgun around, but they’re bulky and not well suited to handle something like a home invasion. People have to be ready to defend themselves because police can’t be everywhere.

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance,” as Thomas Jefferson said, and that applies to us as individuals as well as nations. Our freedom and our very existence depend on readiness to fight whenever necessary. What troubles me lately is that most Americans seem to have forgotten this, if they ever knew it. Our country has changed. We’ve elected a President and a Congress who believe it’s possible to discuss our way out of any potential conflict. They believe criminal predators among us are victims of poverty, poor childhoods, severe toilet training, or whatever, and that police and the courts should be the only ones to deal with them and citizens should be disarmed. They apply similar skewed logic to international relations, believing the United States has oppressed other countries and that’s why they hate us and attack us. They think that if we just make nice, conflict can be avoided.

They place more confidence in United Nations resolutions than the United States military, and the human predators out there in the wide world know this very well. They don’t understand that we must be strong and ready to fight at all times, and if we are, it’s less likely that we’ll have to do so. However, our president goes around the world apologizing for our past use of force and promising to set limits on how we’ll use it in the future. Our military wants to pass out medals for not shooting the enemy instead of killing them. We still have by far the strongest military the world has ever known but we seem to lack the will to use it, and our enemies sense that. Violent conflict therefore becomes more likely, rather than less.

Should these trends continue, we’ll have to again learn the hard way that weakness, real or perceived, is a bigger threat to peace and freedom than strength.

Tense At The Arizona Border In Nogales

My wife left a message on my cell phone that the US Border Patrol called our house in Lovell, Maine three times. “I picked up the third time,” she said. “They asked what your date of birth was and I told them. Hope that was all right.” It had been an interesting day on the border at Nogales, Arizona - Nogales, Sonora on the Mexican side.

I had called her earlier to report that I survived my foray into Mexico and was on the highway driving back to Tucson. I told her that I’d been escorted off the US Border Patrol facility in Nogales, AZ and I’d explain later why, but that I was fine and not to worry.

I’d driven down to Nogales from Tucson where I’d been staying because I’d been hearing so much about goings-on there. Arizona and other border states are overrun with illegal aliens from Mexico and I wanted to see for myself. I discovered that the reports are quite true, and, if anything, they’re played down. “This is the busiest border station in the country,” one agent told me. I'd listened to US Senator Jon Kyl interviewed on an AM Talk station as I drove south on Route 19. He'd told constituents in Phoenix the other day about a private meeting with President Obama during which Obama told him: "The problem is, . . . if we secure the border, then you all won’t have any reason to support ‘comprehensive immigration reform.’” [Audible gasps were heard throughout the audience.] Sen. Kyl continued, “In other words, they’re holding it hostage. They don’t want to secure the border unless and until it is combined with 'comprehensive immigration reform.'" That, of course, is a euphemism for amnesty.

After walking over to the Mexican side for a few hours (seeing Obama's and Napolitano's pictures prominently displayed behind US border officials), I walked back and drove along “International Street” on the American side. The road parallels the border fence, and BP vehicles move constantly chasing illegals sneaking in. One BP agent was sitting in his modified Dodge pickup - modifed by wire mesh installed over the vehicle’s windows the way some Range Rovers have screens over their headlights. “You can’t go past here,” he said as I pulled up alongside and lowered my window.

“Why not?” I asked.

He abruptly put up his hand to an earpiece and said, “Gotta go.” He gunned it in reverse to get around me then shot up a steep hill in a cloud of dust.We were within the Nogales city limits, no more than 300 yards west of the border crossover point into Mexico I’d walked back and forth over that morning. I watched as he and two other BP agents scrambled around and talked into their head-mounted communication devices. I locked my rented SUV, strolled around and took pictures, very glad I’d invested in a 18-270 mm lens last year. When two BP vehicles parked next to each other up a steep gravel road, I got into my SUV and drove on up the steep rise where they were talking. I expected them to be angry and to order me away, but instead one uniformed agent, the one who had to scramble away so quickly, told me it was dangerous for me to be up there. “If you get hit in the head with a rock, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Is that why you have that wire mesh over your windshield?” I asked.“Exactly,” he said.

“Do you guys need help keeping a lid on things here?” I asked.

“This is the busiest section of border in the country,” he said. “We arrested 57,000 illegals last year and that was down from 100,000 in 2007.”

“Right here in Nogales?”

“Yup. Right here in Nogales.”

“Probably have no idea how many got by you, right?”

He shrugged. "Somebody can cut a hole in that fence in about forty seconds."

"I saw where somebody had cut a doorway in it right over there," I said, pointing, "and somebody else welded it back up."

"Um-hmm."

“It looks like the federal government wants to seem like it’s controlling the border without really controlling it,” I said. “Would you agree with that?”

He hesitated. My sense was that he did agree, but didn’t want to say. I’d revealed that I was a columnist from Maine and he was from Maine as well. “I suggest you talk to the Public Information Office about that. I don’t want to comment.” He referred me to Jorge Uques and wrote down his phone number. “We’re so busy here in Nogales, we’ve got our own Public Information Officer.”

“Where is he at?”

“1500 West La Quinta in Nogales. About three miles from here.”

I thanked him, plugged that into my GPS, and drove off.Looking through border fence from Nogales, AZ yesterday

1500 La Quinta looked like a military base. There must have been hundreds of green-and-white Border Patrol vehicles as well as horses and ATVs. I waited at the guard shack by the entrance but nobody came out, so I drove on in, parked in the designated visitors’ parking lot and walked inside. I stated my business to a receptionist who called Mr. Ugues on the phone.

“He’s not in. His grandmother died and he’s away. Someone else will come down.”

Agent Richard Funke, pronounced “funky,” came down the stairs and we shook hands. We exchanged business cards and I asked if he minded me recording our conversation. Wrong move. “Actually, you’ll have to talk to our Public Affairs Officer in Tucson,” he said. “He handles media relations.” We shook hands again and I walked out. I saw agents training with what looked like blue M-16s on a hillside and took pictures.Prominently posted in Nogales, AZ Historical Society building

Then a vehicle drove up and another agent told me “This is a federal facility and you shouldn’t be walking around without an escort. How did you get in here?” I explained, but that didn’t satisfy him. “What did you take pictures of?” He took my camera and erased the ones I took at 1500 West La Quinta, and gave it back. Then he called two other agents to escort me off the property.

Don’t know why they wanted my date of birth. Must be investigating me. I’ll be talking to the Public Information Officer in Tucson today.

More later.

Census Nonsense

The 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Our government, however, is the biggest discriminator. It’s obsessed with race, but Americans are so used to it we hardly seem to notice anymore. When teachers get in-service training on how to administer standardized tests, I always make it a point to ask officials why we need to know what race students are and what their national origin may be. There’s always a pause, and then an answer like, “Well, umm, so we can tell how one group does compared to other groups.”

“Yes, but why?” I ask again. “What will you do with that information?”

Sometimes they get irritated at this point and I can tell that they’ve never considered the question and were not prepared to answer it, so they say something like: “We report it up the line.”

“If a racial differential were discovered,” I then ask, “would officials up the line program differently to address it?”

“Probably.”

“Wouldn’t that be racial discrimination, which is supposed to have been illegal since 1964?”

It they hadn’t shown irritation before, they display it at this juncture and say something indignant like, “Well, it would only be to help them,” and then quickly go on to something or somebody else hoping I’ll shut up.

Government always thinks it’s beneficent when it discriminates on the basis of race, or sex, or national origin because it sees itself as conferring an advantage on the downtrodden. What they almost never consider is that by advantaging one group, they’re disadvantaging another. Government officials think themselves pure-hearted and morally superior when compared to anyone else who discriminates, so they think it’s okay when they do it.

Girls, for example, have been advantaged so much in education the past few decades that now, according to the book “Why Boys Fail,” by Richard Whitmire: “Among whites, women earn 57 percent of bachelor’s degrees and 62 percent of master’s degrees. Among blacks, the figures are 66 percent and 72 percent.”

Discrimination is wrong no matter who does it. As Martin Luther King summed it up in his famous 1967 speech: “I have a dream that someday my children will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” No righteous person could argue with that, but government continues to discriminate. Consider how often you’ve been asked on a form what your race is, what your sex is, or what your religion or national origin may be. Why does government want this information? There’s a legitimate reason for asking a person’s sex because there are real differences between males and females, but race? With its Affirmative Action policies, government ignores “the content of their character” and imposes racial and sexual quotas in all its operations. That’s discrimination no matter how you slice it.

We’ve all seen the US Census form by now. Page one starts by saying: “The census must count every person living in the United States on April 1, 2010.” As far as I know, that’s all the Constitution requires but it’s grown far beyond that. The census helps maintain the republic which, by definition is: “a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them.” The census enables to determine representation in a shifting population.

Now, however, the government wants lots of other information, especially whether we’re of “Hispanic origin.” Right after Question 7 asking for Person 1’s age and date of birth, it says: “NOTE: Please answer BOTH Question 8 about Hispanic origin and Question 9 about race. For this census, Hispanic origins are not races.”

Oh. So, for some other census they are? Why?

Question 8 asks: “Is Person 1 of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin?” There’s a box for “No.” Then there are four boxes including: “Yes, Mexican, Mexican Am., Chicano”; “Yes, Puerto Rican”; “Yes, Cuban”; and “Yes, another Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin - Print origin, for example, Argentinian, Colombian, Nicaraguan, Salvadoran, Spaniard, and so on.”

There are no categories for other origins like Irish, German, Jewish, Italian. Why is it just Hispanics government wants to know about?

Question 9 asks: “What is person 1’s race? Mark X in one or more boxes.” Next to each box are categories including: “White”; “Black, African Am., or Negro”; “American Indian or Alaska Native”; “Asian Indian”; “Chinese”; “Filipino”; “Japanese”; “Korean”; “Vietnamese”; and “Other Asian.”

This is racial discrimination, pure and simple, and it’s long past time to end government obsession with it. Question 9 ends with a box next to which it says: “Some other race - print race.”

Please, when you fill out the census form, check that box and print HUMAN.

Three Monkeys

Lots of news last week: Haiti’s earthquake, Scott Brown’s victory, the Pentagon report on the Fort Hood Massacre, and the beginning of the Geert Wilders trial in Holland. Three out of the four stories pertain to Radical Islam. Only Haiti doesn’t, but it and the Massachusetts election drowned out coverage of the last two stories.

One of the many facets of Scott Brown’s upset win was what his Democrat opponent Martha Coakley, said about the Afghanistan’s Taliban in their debate. Even though the Taliban has been killing American soldiers in Afghanistan for years, and at a accelerating rate, Coakley said: “They’re gone. They’re not there anymore.” That is astonishing ignorance in someone vying to become a US Senator during wartime. The scary fact that she almost won makes me wonder: How many other high officials in our government are that stupid? A big clue is in the Pentagon’s report on why Major Nidal Hasan shot forty-something people at Fort Hood. It looks like the answer is quite a few of them are - perhaps even most.

When I was a little boy, I had a recurring nightmare in which I was in the back yard of our suburban Boston home being chased by a monster. My father was cooking at his grille but didn’t even look up. I knew my father could defeat the monster if he would only look and see what was happening, but he never did - and that’s what scared me the most.

Now I’m afraid that way again, only this time it isn’t a dream. The Pentagon report on the Fort Hood Massacre, says columnist Diana West, “is 86 pages long and doesn't mention the words ‘Muslim,’ ‘Islam,’ ‘jihad,’ ‘Sharia’ (Islamic law), ‘Koran’ -- despite the fact that we know, among other things, that the killer, who initiated his massacre with a cry of ‘Allahu Akbar,’ was a Muslim inspired by Islam to perform an act of jihad as sanctioned by Sharia derived from the Koran.”I’m afraid. I’m very afraid. As I wrote last November: “After US Army Major Hasan openly admired Muslim suicide bombers, declared the US an ‘oppressor’ of Muslims, asked an al Qaeda recruiter what he could do “to further the Jihad,” shouted ‘Allahu Akbar!’ while he gunned down forty-three US soldiers. President Obama said: ‘Well, look, we -- we have seen, in the past, rampages of this sort. And in a country of 300 million people, there are going to be acts of violence that are inexplicable.’ Inexplicable? We’re in deep trouble.”

Then, three days after the Christmas Pantybomber burned out his crotch trying to blow up Northwest Flight 253, Obama said Abdulmutallab was “an isolated extremist.” Then, last week, the Pentagon again pretended Radical Islam had nothing to do with the Fort Hood Massacre.

Some of us look for the truth. Some of us run from it. Others of us claim there’s no such thing. Dutch Member of Parliament Geert Wilders went on trial last week for rubbing the painful truth in the faces of his countrymen. He made a film called Fitna in which he quoted sermons made by Radical imams (clerics), and quoted from the Koran as well - juxtaposing these words with images of Radical Muslim attacks. Then he compared all this with quotes from Mein Kampf - Hitler’s autobiography. The similarities were obvious, painful, and apt. No one questioned their veracity. Radical Muslims threatened Wilders with death if he released the film, but he released it anyway - knowing he would have to spend every minute of every day under armed guard for the rest of his life.What did the Dutch government do? Did it root out the radicals in its midst? Did it offer protection to a member its Parliament threatened with death? No. Incredibly, it charged Wilders - one of its own - with hate crimes for “offending” Radical Muslims with their own words! I wish I were making this up, but that’s what is happening. Last week, the Dutch government started laying out its “case” against Wilders. If convicted of “hate speech” for telling the truth, Wilders faces two years in prison and fines of 18 thousand Euro, or about $25,000.

Multiculturalism trumps truth in Holland - and in the rest of old Europe as well. Radical Muslims are killing us, but we mustn’t hurt their feelings. It's as if we had do discuss fighting Hitler's Germany without mentioning the evils of Nazism.

The truth is - there is evil in our midst once again. It threatened western civilization twice during the 20th century in the form of fascism and communism. Both times we ignored it, then appeased it, until it got so bad that tens of millions died before it could be subdued. We listened to wimps like Neville Chamberlain and ignored leaders Winston Churchill until it was almost too late. Then "sophisticated” and “nuanced” intellectuals ridiculed Ronald Reagan for calling the Soviet Union “The Evil Empire.” Then they scoffed at George W. Bush for calling Syria, North Korea and Iran “The Axis of Evil.” Now the USA, the UK and the EU are the three monkeys of “See no evil, Hear no evil, and Speak no evil.”
Those monkeys seem to have originated with an 8th century Chinese proverb, declaring: “If we do not hear, see, or speak evil, we ourselves shall be spared all evil.” But we won’t be spared until we pull our hands away, look Radical Islam in the face, and call it what it is.

Deadly Infection

Only recently have I become aware of the depths to which political correctness has permeated our culture. I knew it was bad, but I didn’t know how bad. It’ll be the ruin of us if we don’t kill it and comb its nits out of our hair.
I began to get a clue at a private reception for Dutch Member of Parliament Geert Wilders in Washington last February. After Wilders was escorted out by his bodyguards (radical Muslims ordered him killed for making a movie called “Fitna.”), I found myself in extended conversation with a young Defense Department analyst who had been tasked by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to research and report on the ideology of our radical Muslim enemies. He immersed himself in Islamic law and came to the conclusion that it’s the radical Muslims who appear to have the doctrinal base in Islam, not the moderates.

He said that most of the highest officials at the Pentagon rejected his brief. Then they rejected the young man himself - and that was during the Bush Administration. The Pentagon, he said, “as an institution,” wanted to believe that the Radical Muslim interpretation of jihad, which is holy war against infidels worldwide - convert them or kill them, was an aberration.

I had hitherto believed that our National Security planners knew the threat, but were just being polite in their public statements. Not so, according to my young friend. Radical Muslims posing as moderates had more influence with Pentagon planners than he did, he told me. It was their advice the Pentagon was heeding. I’m withholding his name because that’s how he apparently wants it at this point. Last week he was interviewed by Bill Whittle of Pajamas TV (Go here, then click on "The Islamic Infiltration, Part 1") and appeared only in silhouette as he told his story.

Next, Whittle interviewed a former FBI special agent (also a silhouette) who spent most of his fifteen-year career working on the Islamic movement in the United States, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Islamic doctrine. He said our Department of Homeland Security is being advised by people from the Council for American Islamic Relations or CAIR. The trouble is, he claims they’re a front for Hamas - a Radical Islamic organization. The Muslim Public Affairs Council and the Islamic Society of North America - ISNA - a huge financial entity for Hamas in the United States.”

A little background for readers: The Muslim Brotherhood, according to author Robert Spencer, spawned both Hamas and al Qaeda. Khalid Sheik Muhammed, who planned the September 11th attacks for al Qaeda and goes on trial in New York City soon, belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Now back to the anonymous FBI agent in Whittle’s interview: “CAIR and ISNA (both closely affiliated with Hamas),” he said, “are the two groups that DOD, DHS, the State Department all use to do their Muslim outreach in North America. “They sit in on brainstorming about investigative techniques that our agents are using in the field.”

“I have to stop you,” said Whittle, “because, frankly, that sounds so absurd that I have to really make sure I’m understanding you correctly. Are you saying that the radicalized Muslim groups are invited in to learn our investigative techniques, that they’re invited in to get their feedback on how we’re going to fight against them. Is that what I understood you to say?”

“Yes,” he answered. “The General Counsel of the FBI invites them in as well as the ACLU and other groups in [to make sure that whatever our government agencies did] was okay and not offensive to these organizations.  . . . that’s nothing short of outrageous.”

“So you’re giving away the farm in order to make sure their feelings don’t get hurt,” said Whittle.

Evidently, political correctness could be fatal.

“There’s no training for local law enforcement officials about the real nature of the threat,” said the agent. “The training they get is given by agents of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

“How did this happen?” asked Whittle. “How did [it] get this far?”

“The Muslim Brotherhood has a long-term strategy,” said the agent. “They’re well organized with hundreds of front groups that support their public relations, their research arms, they have insinuated themselves into our largest universities. They have Muslim Student Associations (MSA), which is [sic] the first Muslim Brotherhood organization that formed in the United States in 1963. MSA is on every major college campus in the United States recruiting people to the Brotherhood on our own campuses.”

No wonder we haven’t captured Osama Bin Laden after eight years.

When we know how closely foxes are consulted on the design our National Security chicken coop, we can begin to understand why our Commander-in-chief said he wasn’t sure Fort Hood’s Major Hasan was a radical Muslim after he shot more than forty of our soldiers while yelling “Allahu Akbar!” or why he said the Christmas Pantybomber was “an isolated extremist.” We can understand why he won’t call this a war with Radical Islam and instead refers to it as “Overseas Contingency Operations.”

Radical Muslims are fanatic, yes, but they understand us better than we understand ourselves. They know we’re so infected with political correctness that we’re more afraid of offending them than we are of losing a war to them.