As The Insanity Season Approaches…

Get a head start on stocking stuffers

“To make the baby…”

Deciding on designer dog names- and exercise for the bored and stupid.

Coming to Ebay, more stocking stuffers

The Girl Who Ate Everything. Really. Check out the pics and you’ll know why.

First Came The Day The Music Died, Then Came the Delusions

I can’t remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride,
But something touched me deep inside
The day the music died.

- Don McLean, American Pie

The music died on September 11, 2001.

It was on that day the the leftist and radical Islamist ideologies bit the dust, because on that day, civilization, bloodied but unbowed, lurched forward. On that day, it was only a matter of time that Goliath that was Leftism, was dealt the first blow that would result in the demise of the Left.

On that day, the civilized world asserted that civilization will always press forward. Notwithstanding the need of Leftists and moral relativists to upend that truth, civilization will not do an about face and recede into darkness.

In the end, democracy will come to the Arab world. In the end, Hamas and their supporters will be seen for what they are, nothing more than racists and bigots, all intent in claiming their share of the corruption pie. Radical Islamists will be reviled by Muslims in the way that Nazis are the shame of Germany.

In the end, Mr Bush will have been proved right. His beliefs that the Arab world will greatly benefit and then blossom when democracy becomes a reality- even it that doesn’t happen in his lifetime. Al Qaeda too, will eventually be seen for what they are- thugs and beasts that terrorized nations and their coreligionists. Civilization moves forward, always. What the Leftists have yet to learn are that there are no do overs, for very good reasons. As long as we believe that there are do overs, we will not learn the lessons of a meaningful life.

…there are no do-overs, because we must learn to be accountable. It is only by being accountable that we really learn. To learn mercy, we must know the pain of weeping and to know forgiveness we must know the shame of our own deliberate blind eyes and failures. If we were able to go back and ‘fix our mistakes,’ we would never learn the things that validate and confirm us…

Ronald Reagan was denounced and vilified by the left, but in the end, the wall came down and Eastern Europeans voted for democracy. In the end, it was Mr Reagan and not the Leftists that came to represent the hopes and dreams of the vast majority of those behind the iron curtain

Civilization always moves forward. Hugo Chavez, that tin pot dictator already hated by many in his own country, will be forgotten, just another another in a long list of failures. His brand of government will give way, sooner or later, to democracies that form of government that has the unparalleled track record of empowering people.

Like Fidel and Che, he too will be forgotten and despised in a generation or two. They will be reviled because the truth the left has tried so hard to hide, will come to the fore. The trail of bodies, the beloved ‘people’ they purported to represent, were nothing more than butchers that killed hundereds of thousands over the years, for no reason other than that they were labeled ‘enemies,’ because they dared to think for themselves or question the status quo.

The Anchoress, in speaking of the Muslim reaction to what will Pope Benedict’s most misrepresented speech, notes that

…the reason we Christians do not feel the need to resort to rage and violence is because we understand that God can pretty much take care of Himself – “Vengeance is mine,” says He. So, we can correct and admonish our brothers and sisters lovingly and trust that He will deal justly with them. In this way, we may live in peace. Or, we try to.

Which was the whole point of Benedict’s speech, in the first place, and of his invitation to dialogue. Which all Muslims, even the fundamentalist Muslims, should be able to understand, if they would consider looking past unending umbrage.

But listen, the Muslims quoted above have said this “Day of Rage” is not “Jihad.” They’ve said they need the world to see that they are “aggrieved,” again. So good, say I; do it. Have your day of rage. Let the world see how very, very angry you are. But when you’re done raging on Friday and it comes to Saturday…then what? Then will you be ready to sit down and talk about your faith and your grievances, like adults? Finally? Will that be the point at which you can settle down and talk to the rest of humanity like human beings, in the same respectful tones you say you seek?

What do you think will happen after your “Day of Rage?” Do you think the world will offer you Benedict XVI, so you can slaughter him and dance in his blood? That’s not going to happen. So, you need to plan on how you’re going to deal with the world the next day. Because you can’t keep on raging. That simply won’t do. It’s getting more than a little tiresome.

The Anchoress might just have well been speaking of the Leftist community- and that explains the Leftist alliance and sympathy with some of the most dysfunctional and brutal regimes in the world. They too, see themselves as above and beyond reproach and questioning and they too, do not believe they ought to be subject to the same moral and ethical standards as everyone else. Truth, honesty and decency are optional. What applies to others does not apply to themselves. They believe that if they rail against decency so that their agendas might see the light of day, perhaps that very decency itself will be up on the altar for slaughter. Just like those who would sacrifice the forward movement of civilization and the future of millions, so as to promote their own failed agendas.

Like the radical Isamists, the Leftists cannot admit they represent and are monuments  to failure.

We are in good company. In Speaking Truth To Pouters & Doubters, Gagdad Bob also notes the connection between the Left and radical Islam:

…what the pope said was just as insulting to the secular left as it was to Muslims. It’s as if there is a secret affinity between the left and the Islamists–what Eisenhower famously called the “mullah terror & nasty-old-leftist complex”–as the left riles up the Muslims so as to encourage them to act out their own aggression.

Gagdad Bob also addresses another sacred cow. He talks of the future heavily influenced by the Leftist ideologies.

But in the west–particularly in Europe–the covenant between faith and reason has been relentlessly attacked and almost completely vitiated by various secular and materialistic ideologies, with truly grave and deadly results. In the long run, it is doubtful that Europe can even survive its own cognitive and spiritual pathologies, because they are now steeped in a philosophy and a way of life that was never intended for humans. Their “spiritual environment” cannot sustain a truly human community, if only because it cannot passionately defend itself.

That “way of life that was never intended for humans” is among other things, a reference to a way of life that excludes and precludes individual expression. It is almost as if the Left and radical Islam want to mankind revert to non think herds, dedicated to ‘following the leaders.’

Finally, Gagdad Bob’s Money Shot:

Now, secularists habitually steal things from religion and then either pretend that they invented them or presume that they can be wrenched from their sacred context without doing grave damage to them. For example, secularists benefit just as much as anyone else from the blessings of Judeo-Christian values, while at the same time doing everything possible to attack or belittle the source of those values. Again, many things we take for granted in the west developed specifically in a Christian context and nowhere else: the infinite worth of the individual, liberty, democracy, science, etc.

This is one of the primary reasons why secular progressives are so ironically named. They can never really be progressive, since their materialistic metaphysic denies meaningful progress at the outset. Scratch a leftist and you will always discern a nostalgic, backward-looking, non-friction metaphysic–the painful recollection of the lost entitlement of infancy and the desire for a romantic merger with the conflict-free eden of childhood–only projected into the future.

Read Gagdad Bob’s post- it’s another keeper, for sure.

Looking ahead by looking backwards? No one is really that stupid.

Deluded, maybe, but not stupid.

Mama’s Insight

Maxed Out Mama has a terrific post, The Culture Wars, in which she directs her critical eye to current events:

Benedict seems to have laid out in one stroke the moral and intellectual crisis in the west, which has nothing to do with Islam at all. The west has the power right now to end any possible threat emanating from Muslim populations in the ME or in our own countries. However, our ethics dictate that we should not do so, and these ethics are based on moral principles that for many of us stem from faith, and for many others of us derive from philosophy. In arguing for full inclusion of these principles in western intellectual life, Benedict is also defending the right of Muslims to be Muslims in the west, just as he is defending the right of atheists to be atheists, and Christians to be Christians…

To me the idea of the essential freedom of human conscience is a necessary principle for any sane society, and it is also clear to me that Pope Benedict XVI has brought to the fore the worst threat to Muslims in the west. That threat is the possibility that the west would accept the NY Times and CAIR’s idea that Muslim ideas and ethics could not be debated, which would completely unfit Muslims from participation in political life. Our political and social freedoms are based on the idea that we are all subject to questioning.

MOM goes on to note

Hatred and killing is a human problem. There will, at times, be religions and political movements based on hatred and killing in the pursuit of power. But there can never, ever be a society based on something other than the principle that “might makes right” which refuses to rebuke and openly debate those who seek power through violence. IMO the type of Islam that’s a threat to the world today is not a religion but a political party. I fail to see why we should not debate it, and all of its precepts, and no threat by anybody is going to make me believe that shutting up is going to save lives.

Maxed Out Mama’s post is a rational and dispassionate look at the events of the day and how our perceptions of those events are shaping our society. This is no small matter- it is imperative that we understand not only the events as they unfold, but also, that we are able to discern the impact those events will have on our society, culture and value system.

For a further clarification and insight into the current brouhaha, be sure to read MOM’s Two Churches Attacked In West Bank This Morning. That post is a must read. In speaking of the Pope’s remarks, MOM notes that

Okay, I understand and agree with him, but it then must follow that religion and ethics must be subject to criticism and analysis, for without criticism and analysis, reason has no function…Surely the pontiff must intend to recall to us that we have faced the fall of our civilization before, and that we will see our civilization fall now unless we mount a concerted defense of it.

…the primary front is western civilization’s seeming willingness to abrogate full reason in favor of a falsely objective scientific standard. Science, due to its self-limitation to the verifiable and material, cannot alone provide an ethical basis for a workable society. Science gives us knowledge, but knowledge alone does not give us solutions to societal problems. Science gives us more ways to solve problems, but does not tell us which will succeed in the long run or provide a foundation for making a decision.

Taken together, MOM’s posts transcend the events of the day and they address the bigger and multi dimensional picture and provide much needed insight into how those events may very well come to influence our culture, one way or another.

That insight is a gift that doesn’t come around too often.

Phony Outrage Begins To Wear Thin, Other Observations And A Proposal

As the phony radical Muslim outrage over the Pope Benedicts’s recent remarks continue, there are a few things that are becoming clear.

Firstly, if radical Muslims believe that their behavior is seen and understood as defending the dignity of Islam, they are deluded past the point of no return.

Secondly, in continuing to disengage from reality, radical Muslims assure themselves of even further marginalization. For example, in the light of the current obscene response to the Pope’s remarks, the civilized world will be hard pressed to bestow any kind of credibility on leaders from the Islamic world, given their support or tepid regrets for the calls to more violence and more demands that the Pope kowtow to the demands of Islam, as defined by the dysfunctional radicals.

That there are political leaders of failed and dysfunctional regimes that continue to support and demand that Muslims continue violent demonstrations and confrontations and demand the Pope apologize to them, is an outrage. These leaders, who have done nothing but molest and exploit their citizens are hardly in a position to declare that the Pope has insulted Islam. It is they and their ilk that have abused Muslims for decades, day in and day, with a a lot more than words. For the Muslim world not to be incensed that these ‘leaders’ are speaking on their behalf and claiming to speak on behalf of God, is an outrage. It wasn’t the Pope that defiled Islam and Muslims.

The continuing outrage also points out another distinction that severs the notion of moral equivalence between radical Islamists and the rest of the civilized world.

We do not believe that God demands that we exact revenge on His behalf. We believe that God is perfectly capable of taking care of His own interests. We do not believe that God instructs us to kill and then celebrate the savagery. If God wishes to visit trials and tribulations on anyone, He can do so Himself.

Radical Muslims have made it a cornerstone that God alone is the author of the trials and tribulations of Muslims, yet they assume the role of speaking for God when they visit trial and tribulations upon others. Apparently, God is incapable of asserting His will on non Muslims. It is this bizarre travesty of faith that radical Muslims have made palatable- that they can speak for God at will, in any manner they choose.

In speaking of the cartoon riots, Baldilocks noted another truth:

…burning down the New York Times building or issuing some form of Christian fatwa–an idea that is completely foreign to this Christian at least–on the artist (Chris Ofili) would violate the tenets of everything in which Christians believe and bring absolutely no credit upon Jesus Christ nor his followers. The editors of the New York Times know this. That’s why they feel total comfort in publishing a photo of this painting, but balk at showcasing the Danish cartoons in question.

The longer the riots and outrageous demands continue, the wider the chasm between Islam and the Judeo-Christian world becomes. A universal truth is highlighted: Neither Christians or Jews engage in barbarism in the name of God. There will of course, be those fools who claim that this administrations policies are the result of some kind of religious ‘crusade,’ but that is absurd. If this, or any other administration wanted to engage in a ‘Holy War,’ we have the firepower to make the confrontation very short. The same is true of the Israelis. If they really had wanted to commit genocide, there would be no Palestinians left. It is ironic that despite claims of horrific ‘genocide,’ the Palestinian population has increased- as have Israeli services to that population, prior to the Intifadah, intiated by the Palestinians themselves.

It is perhaps the magnitude of radical (and sadly, not so radical) Muslim hypocrisy that cause so much eye rolling and under breath chuckling in the civilized world.
For decades, most Muslims turned a blind eye as Muslims slaughtered each other.

As three, four or five dozen Muslims are killed each day in Iraq, Muslims are silent. The same is true of sectarian violence in Pakistan. That barbarity and savagery is ignored- and as such, appears to be tacitly accepted. That truth is not lost on the kaffirs.

Listening to radical Muslims today, one would imagine that the Pope’s speech to a group of academics was the biggest threat to Islam today.

In the interest of world peace however, SC&A wish to submit a modest proposal.

We propose the Pope apologize for his remarks, fully and without equivocation, just as soon the leaders from the Shia and Sunni communities issue their own apologies.

We will wait for Muslim apologies addressing the vile and despicable Muslim world portrayals of Jews, Judaism, Christians and Christianity, as well as religious pronouncements of the same.

We will wait for the Muslim apologies and outrage, directed at the regular bombings, shootings and mosque church burnings in Pakistan- with worshipper inside.

We will wait for Muslim apologies, outrage and mass, violent protests against the barbaric practice of beheading and other kinds of torture so often found in the Muslim world.

We will wait for the Muslim apologies outrage at the fact that according to the UN Report on Human Development, the Arab World has the lowest standard of education in the world, with the exception of sub Saharan Africa.

We will wait for the Muslim apology and outrage at the 100 million women that have suffered Female Genital Mutilation.

We will wait for the Muslim apology and outrage directed at the GIA, Algerian fundamentalists that raped children (before dismembering them), as a matter of religious policy (it is astonishing how many more radical Muslims are offended by a speech made by the Pope.

We will wait for the Muslim apology and outrage at the ongoing Arab slave traders in Mauritania.

We will wait for the Muslim apology and outrage at the slaughter by the Arab tribal Janjaweed Muslim women from singing as their ‘men’ rape women).

We wil wait for the Muslim apology and outrage at Arab world Holocaust denial and the excoriation of Iran’s Almadinejad’s stated aim of ‘wiping Israel off the map.’

We will wait for the Muslim apology and outrage directed at Muslim cleric that whip their flock into a frenzy, with cries to ‘Slaughter the Jews!’ and ‘Slaughter the Christians!’- and how all too often, parishioners leave prayer services, looking for victims.

We will wait for the Muslim apologies and outrage at ‘honor killings’ and acid attacks against women.

We will wait for the Muslim apologies and outrage directed at cultures where Mein Kampf is at the top of the best seller list.

The very moment those apologies happen, we are all for having the Pope apologize for his deliberately misinterpreted and misrepresented speech.