Sanity Squad Does Hollywood, Abortion And Other Cultural Shibboleths

The latest Sanity Squad Podcast of psychological brilliance, insight and intellectual illumination is up.

The scintillating minds of Neo-neocon, Shrinkwrapped, Dr Sanity and ourselves, gathered round the couch and sat in a circle on our very own red carpet. We discuss the court jesters of Hollywood, their selfishness, self absorption and the meaningless culture they have come to represent.

Our conversation becomes more relevant, as the discussion of the Hollywood illusions that have clouded our cultural, political and societal realities merge with both sides of the abortion debate and the lasting impact of abortion.

The Wednesday Weekly Whacky Award Goes To….

The SC&A Academy of Extremely Peculiar Pathologies, is pleased to announce the winners of the first of our Weekly Wednesday Whackjob Awards, commonly referred to as the ‘Whacky’s.’

Nominations will open each week until 10:00 PM, EST (After the broadcast of House, M.D.).

Each week, a ‘Whacky‘ will be in each of the following categories:

The Thorazine Shuffle and Dance Award, presented each week to the politician who dances and shuffles without actually answering a question, goes to Hillary Clinton and her on again, off again mambo with her Iraq war vote record.

The Thomas Szasz Psychotherapy Award, presented each week to the biggest idiot therapist we can find, goes to the psychiatrist that prescribed Zyprexa to a 2 1/2 year old child.

…if not for the disruption by Rebecca’s untimely death, this family represented five steady customers for the “mental health industry,” with 100% of the costs for doctor’s visits and prescriptions paid for by public health care programs.

Psychotropic drug expert, Dr Ann Blake Tracy, Director, International Coalition for Drug Awareness, and author of “Prozac: Panacea or Pandora?,” says, “this is what is referred to as the “Family Discount,” when everyone in the family is drugged.”

And this is the type of tragedy she worries about, Dr Tracy says. “The parents unable to function, the children acting up and unable to function – all due to the effects of the drugs.”

The Valium Award, presented to the dullard of the week goes to the Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall, for “Going back in time.”

The Prince and the Duchess came across the campfire scene during a visit to Bastakia, a heritage site where the homes of Persian merchants were built in the 1890s.

The area was saved thanks to Charles, who suggested a number of years ago to the Dubai authorities that the area should not be redeveloped but restored.

When he arrived, Rashad Bukhash, chairman of the UAE Historical Society, thanked the Prince for his efforts saying: “If it wasn’t for you this would not be here now.”

The Trojan Award, presented each week to the person we wish had never been born, goes to Ronald E Kuch. No amount of therapy can fix some pathologies.

The NutriSystem “I’m Not So digusting to My Spouse Anymore” Award, given to the biggest loser of the week, is awarded to the Media Conspiracy To Make Hillary Look Good.

…actual humans are not buzzing about Gore’s Oscar. They’re buzzing about Rudy on one side and Obama on the other.

The Haldol Honor awarded each week to the person or persons most out of touch with reality, either on or off medication goes to the ‘Nazis Who Call Jews Racists.’

Although Massad’s lecture began with an acknowledgment of Israel’s “substantive and psychological” desire for peace, he soon added that Israel has simply requested that the world recognize its “right to be a racist state.”

Now for a bit of reality:

Anyone who hopes for peace should be horrified by the content of the latest set of Palestinian schoolbooks. In many respects, these new books for Grade 12, written by Fatah-appointed Palestinian educators, are the worst of the textbooks produced by the Palestinian Authority since 2000. These newest books deny Israel’s right to exist, anticipate its destruction and define the conflict with Israel as religious, not merely territorial…

Because Israel has no right to exist, and must be fought and destroyed for Islam, violence and terror against Israel since its founding are justified and glorified as muqawama, resistance: “The tragedy of Palestine of 1948 and afterward the muqawama in which the inhabitants carried acts of most glorious heroism and sacrifice” (Arabic Language, Analysis, Literature and Commentary, grade 12 p. 105).

The Methamphetamine Medal, awarded each week to the most hyper, histrionic, hysterical, spaced out documented behavior goes to the teacher who cut a pupil’s tongue with a pair of scissors.

The teacher, a support tutor on a temporary contract, risks being fired from the elementary school.

The Viagra Statuette, awarded to the wimpiest metro sexual (male or female), goes the person who demanded to know Why Don’t Men Wear Makeup?

(Third Runner-up, Second Runner-up, First Runner-up)

The ECT Battery Award, presented to the most shocking news story of the week, goes to the man who lost three, then found three.

Darmi Ali lost his three daughters and wife to the 2004 tsunami in Aceh. The 44-year-old remarried and last week became a father again – of triplets, all of them female.

The HRT Prize, awarded weekly to the loudest and most inconsequential feminist drivel the SC&A jury can find, goes to Journey To Enlightenment. There are no words.

Read the entire post.

Nominations for future awards can be emailed to sigmundcarlandalfred at gmail.com

FLASH NEWS! 

Dr Sanity Goes Hollywood! 

Defending Rape: The Next Cause Celebre For The Left

Watch for the words ‘root causes’ to be overused and the victims to be blamed.

Gang Rapes Jewish Women As Revenge.

A gang of serial rapists has been prowling the North, raping Jewish women as revenge for IDF actions in the West Bank, police revealed Tuesday after arresting six suspects.

“We are raping Jews because of what the IDF is doing to the Palestinians in the territories,” one of the six suspects told investigators from the Northern District Central Investigative Unit (CIU) during questioning. During their questioning and their brief appearance at the Nazareth Magistrate’s Court Tuesday, none of the four main suspects indicated that they felt remorse for their actions…

The whole story can be found here.

Notwithstanding the revulsion at the outrageous and heinous behavior by residents of the Arab village from which the perpetrators hail, look for leftists to blame the victims, of course.

We noted that

We are all too willing to attach ‘root causes’ to immoral behavior and actions only after the bad acts and immoral behaviors. Before they occur, we are told the perpetrators are ‘just like us.’ Well, you can’t have it both ways. Either the perpetrators are ‘just like us’ or or they are dysfunctional. The Palestinians are either ‘just like us,’ people from whom we can expect civilized behavior, or they are dysfunctional. While poverty, child abuse and politics may influence a person or society, in the end, the ‘root cause’ of most ugly and immoral acts is an immoral character.

The left will call into question logic itself- that Israel, and Jews, need to sufficiently defend and explain their right to self defense.

Rather than deal with the cults of death worship, hate and religious bigotry that so dominates Palestinian culture, the left has to insist that Israel is to blame.

Why? Because in truth, ideologies that espouse, promulgate and teach terror are not brought on by poverty or political unrest or dissatisfaction. Hostages are not taken and held to be traded for economic aid. Planes aren’t flown into buildings in response to GDP of the free markets of the western world versus the GDP of the many tyrannies of the Muslim world. Women- and 13 year old girls- are not raped to avenge a stalled peace process.

In fact, the terrorists aims are deliberately misrepresented by the much of the left. The terrorists and their leftist supporters don’t want to see western values and successes brought into the Muslim world. Indeed, that is what they are fighting against. Religious freedoms, abortion rights, gay rights and human rights are anathema to Radical Islamist ideologies. That ideology demands the murder of those whose behavior they find offensive- usually administered in a cruel and brutal fashion. These are truths many on the left somehow manage to forget. The truth is that the adversaries of freedom are not, ‘Just like us.’

If the terrorists and their ‘progressive’ supporters and apologists really wanted to better the lives of hundreds of millions of oppressed people, they would use America and the west as models for success. Instead, terrorists and their ‘progressive’ supporters seek to destroy the freedoms that have authored success. They deliberately want to keep failed leaders and failed ideologies in place.

When nations that are that are led by or are under the influence of tyrants or dictators, attempt to justify those actions, we can rightly assume that justification is false. Tyrants and dictators do not make moral choices, because moral choices can only lead to the demise of the tyranny.

Anyone that comes to the defense of tyrannical regimes and their leaders, have themselves made a conscious choice to defend and stand by what is immoral. They themselves consciously adopt an immoral posture.

Here is another truth. As we noted in Show Me The Money And Other Leftist Failures,

Leftists see the redistribution of wealth and materialism as an expression of values. That is why they believe they can buy their way out of any confrontation of evil. They cannot accept the truth that evil is defeated by defending and insisting upon a set of values and behaviors from everyone and standing firm.

Eliminating poverty does not- and cannot- change a mindset. Economic status does not determine morality and codes of conduct. Only values, born of dignity and the recognition that all men and women are of equal value, determines morality and codes of conduct. It is an ideology that drives people to exceed their potential for good. And it is also an ideology so terrifying to those who preach hatred, that it will drives other people to even more hate people to hate and destruction.

Terror and hate- and the defense of terror and hate- are driven by an ideology of evil, period.

Freedom and democracy are antithetical to hate and terrorism because freedom usurps the power of the terrorist. With out the power to instill fear and punishment, the terrorist is nothing.

In the Middle East, the icons of freedom are the US and Israel. Freedom of all kinds, success and ever growing potential are what the terrorist must destroy. Prosperity is the fifth column the terrorists fear most. They cannot abide by a culture that is prosperous, because that culture seeks growth and progress. The terrorists cannot abide economic and educational progress because those things weaken their grip.

Terror and hate must be dealt with directly. We have also noted

The fact is, we need more hatred of evil. We need to be outraged at Darfur and the other places like it. We must be so outraged that we must be ready to inflict a pain so great and a punishment so profound, that the evil doers will take note and cease their brutality…

The evil doers must tremble in fear from the thought of our hate for them, and at the thought of retribution.

The real threat that America poses to much of the world is neither economic or even social, really. America represents ideas that have changed the world and have upset the status quo. In fact, no nation has helped nurture more people and more societies escape the bonds of repression, persecution and that great bond of enslavement to hate, than America. Freedom is the antidote to victim hood and hate.

As we have noted many times, ‘to presume that we must somehow persuade populations that freedom is better than tyranny, is absurd. That kind of argument presumes that tyranny and freedom are of equal value and standing. In fact, we appear foolish- and weak- when are forced to plead our case. In reality, when we argue the case for freedom as equal to tyrannical regimes, we belittle freedom.’

With freedom, comes the truth that there will far fewer victims for the left to embrace.

“Of the almost 7 billion people on this planet, only 300 million are Americans. To put that in perspective, less than 5% of the population of this planet are Americans- and yet, the world is obsessed with our existence and what we represent. In the course of just over 200 years, we have provided the world with ideas, contributions and realities that are in the consciousness of every human being on the planet. Given our numbers and short history, we should not have had this profound influence on history and mankind- and yet, we have. The secret to our our successes and influence can be attributed to one powerful word: Freedom.”

For decades, leftists have defended those who use terror, hate and the murder of innocents as a way of life and as an acceptable form of political expression. Defending rape is just business as usual.

See Fausta’s Gang Rape As Revenge for a look for further insights and implications of using rape as a tool of political expression.

Name That Tune

Earlier today we wrote,

…leftist ideologies abhor restraints on behavior. There are no behaviors that are unacceptable- none. The only constraints are the claimed justification of those behaviors. Some are acceptable, some are not. To kill a political/religious opponent in the name of leftist ideologies is good. To kill defending oneself from those ideologies is bad.

Of course, it didn’t take long for our point to be validated.

Dean Barnett, writing at Town Hall (h/t: The Anchoress) noted some leftist responses to the attempt on the Vice President’s life.

“Cheney’s spokeswoman said he was fine. F**k.”

“So Cheney is personally responsible for the deaths of 14 innocent people…and then he waddles off to lunch!! What a piece of s**t!”

“To (sic) bad they missed!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“What a different world we would be living in today if they had succeeded.”

“In 1944 Claus von Stauffenberg’s bomb unfortunately missed Hitler. I see the parallel and the inherent risk. This is to that what 9/11 was to the burning of the Reichstag. I am waiting for this effort to obliterate Cheney to be linked to Iran just like 9/11 was purposefully linked to Iraq by the ghouls who control our country.”

“Isn’t this the moral dilemma that Deitrich Bonheoffer found himself in when he chose to join a plot to assasinate (sic) Hitler. If we know that Cheney is plotting to light up the entire Middle East region by instigating an attack on Iran, if we know he is lying to do so, if we know that he is launching these wars to line the pockets of his corporate friends, and establish hegemony around the globe, if we know that he intends to hijack civil liberties and destroy constitutional government in this country, should we cheer if someone could stop him before hand?”

Yup, Bush and Cheney are the real problem. The world would be a perfect place without them. Sudan, Mauritania, Syria, Iran, Sierra Leonne, the Congo and the millions butchered by regimes supported or ignored by the left. After all, what could be more important that BusHitler, right?

Here’s more:

“Bush did this.  You all know it.  He’s gonna bring in that Nazi Giuliani and his mob to act as veep, and together they’re going to declare martial law, and we’ll never have another election in the whole world!  Free Tibet!!!!

“%&$# Bushitler killed his own veep to try to keep us scared about terrorism.  Yeah, I bet that so-called “suicide bomber” was wearing a Skull and Bones ring and regularly takes it in the butt from both Bush Boys! F**king Nazis!”

“We have to do something, NOW!  We need to march on the White House and forcibly remove this murdering bastard before he can install his brother Jeb as the new VP and insure his familie’s oil and Mercedes Benz dynasty for all time!!! Who’se with me!”

“America is over…I grieve for America which has become Amerikkka under this murdering swine, George Doubledumb Bush, who has stolen all of our civil liberties, crashed our economy and our ecology and made the world a very unsafe place, and this makes me feel very sad.  I may strangle my puppy and that will be Bush’s fault because he’s made me so desolate…my puppy must die so that Barney the frat-boy puppy can live and Mrs. Beasely.  Ohhhh, I hate that f**ker, Bush.  I hated Cheney, but he should have been murdered by Bush.  Even Cheney should have known better than to trust Bush.”

“I agree!  Cheney should not have been killed by Bush!  He should have been murdered by the oppressed muslim people by submerging his head in a vat of his own precious Halliburton oil…not killed by Bush so that Chimpy can get a dead cat bounce and a little public sympathy!”

“Code Pink calls for urgent action: protest outside the Veep mansion until Lynne Cheney hands over to us their pregnant lesbian daughter so that we can teach her to finally love herself and come away from the dark side of those eeeevil conservatives.”

Surprised at the rhetoric? Why? That’s nothing new.

John Sylvester, a radio host in Milwaukee referred to Condaleeza Rice as ‘Aunt Jemima’ and called Colin Powell an ‘Uncle Tom.’

In response to criticism, Sylvester said

He said he was planning a giveaway on Friday’s show of Aunt Jemima pancake mix and syrup. “I will apologize to Aunt Jemima,” he said.

This is nothing new. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been referred to as an ‘Uncle Tom’ and Condaleeza Rice has been called an ‘Uppity House Nigger’ by leftist ideologues.

And the leftist band plays on.

Show Me The Money And Other Leftist Failures

“Show me the money.”

That loaded expression has surfaced as the mantra for a generation, but not for the reason many people think, because in fact, “show me the money” is the embodiment of part of the extremes of either side of the the value system that is our own.

The center of conservative ideology revolves around morality and ideas. Behavior, responsibility and accountability are the foundations of society.

The center of leftist (as opposed to classical liberal) ideology revolves around wealth- or rather, the redistribution of wealth. As far as leftists are concerned, responsibility and accountability are one way street. Government and the approved ideologues are responsible and to held accountable for the redistribution of wealth. Further, leftist ideologies abhor restraints on behavior. There are no behaviors that are unacceptable- none. The only constraints are the claimed justification of those behaviors. Some are acceptable, some are not. To kill a political/religious opponent in the name of leftist ideologies is good. To kill defending oneself from those ideologies is bad.

Leftist believe that consuming wealth is the same as creating wealth. They also believe that a consumer society is the same kind of society that facilitates the creation of wealth. To that end, those to whom redistributed wealth is apportioned, are good. Those who create the wealth, are bad. That in a nutshell, is the definition of populism- a government says ‘We will take care of you, cradle to grave. We will give you what we take from others.’

Leftists see the redistribution of wealth and materialism as an expression of values. That is why they believe they can buy their way out of any confrontation of evil. They cannot accept the truth that evil is defeated by defending and insisting upon a set of values and behaviors from everyone and standing firm.

Leftists do not want to acknowledge that evil is defeated by values and not by sharing wealth. That is why leftists are comfortable with taking the sides and defending some of the most dysfunctional and despicable tyrants to be found anywhere. They believe that their ‘enlightened’ ideas of wealth distribution will change pathological behaviors.

For example, they believe that Arab misogyny, homophobia and racist hate will abate, once there is a ‘redistribution’ of wealth (and ideological values) from the west. In the event that doesn’t happen, leftists believe they and their ‘values’ will be excluded from persecution. After all, they have proved themselves to be a useful part of the ’cause.’ The dysfunctional Arab world leadership is only too happy to keep this generation of ‘useful idiots’ under the ether.

One might be tempted compare the leftists of today  of today to the Jews of prewar Germany, blind to the horror and the inferno that was about to engulf the world.

The Nazi era German Jews desperately wanted to believe that German racist ideologies were really expressions of political rjetoric. The German volk were a civilized lot, cultured and well educated. The social, cultural and political elite, those who filled the Berlin salons with progressive ideas and discussions that centered around sophisticated philosophy, art, literature  and the new kultur would in the end, never allow for such brutality. They would never turn their backs on the persecution and wholesale slaughter, predicated on racialism.

We all know how that turned out.

Leftists today believe that in the end, the redistribution of wealth, will ‘enlighten’ the tyrannies they support and bring them into line with their own relativism, multicultural and a value system that honors nothing but the self. Unlike the Jews of prewar Germany, the left are supporting regimes that already have a track record of evil. The Nazis attempted to hide and deny their evil- the darlings of the left, the Arab world, cannot be bothered. The left cannot say they knew nothing of the misogyny, racism and bigotry, because in fact, those behaviors are in plain view. Nevertheless, they choose to support and defend the tyrannies.

Leftists have failed women because they have chosen to embrace regimes and causes that oppress and betray women. Leftists have failed the gay community because they will ‘out’ a gay person if and when it suits their needs.

The leftist dance is reminiscent of the Nazi era, with German government officials denying their atrocities by taking Red Cross workers to ’show camps’ where Jews and other minorities were portrayed as ‘happy guests’ of Reich generosity and largesse, even as the gas chamber and ovens were going at full tilt just down the road.
Why the leftists go to extremes to defend evil isn’t hard to understand.

There is a phenomena of the self hating Jew, an individual who denies his or her own identity, culture and faith, and seeks to identify and support those who make no secret of their own pathological agendas, directed against Jews.

The pathology of the self hating Jew is not new. Jews were attracted to communism and socialism, because someone said, “We are all equal. You are a comrade.” For the first time, Jews believed they were to be ‘free.’ After centuries of relentless oppression the idea was intoxicating.

After the horrors of the Second World War were made clear, there were a whole sub culture of Jews, even the children of Holocaust survivors that migrated to the self hating brigades. Why? Because those Jews believed that if they could be unlike the Jews (and more like their oppressors), then no one would come for them. They would be safe and secure. Surely the oppressors would see there were ‘good Jews’ too, noted just evil and hated Jews.

The same is true today of leftists (Jews included) who believe that siding with the racist, bigoted and dysfunctional oppressors might save them from the destiny of those their new friends promise. They are the Kapos of this generation, willing to sacrifice their own so as to save themselves.

Prewar German Jews could at least hope against hope that there would be no Holocaust.  Leftists of today cannot argue ignorance.

Leftists today hate freedom and democracy because those ideas have created the environment for success. Assistant Village Idiot recently noted in a comment that Arabs don’t hate us because we have succeeded, but rather, because they have failed. The same is true for the leftists- their burning hatred of democracy stems from their failure to create a single instance of a functioning society that isn’t a least a generation behind our own.  Not even the redistribution of wealth can make up for the values and freedom that create an environment that allows for the creation of wealth.

For the left, it is the appearance that becomes the brass ring. Iran, like North Korea, wants the ‘materialism’ of nuclear technology so that they might be perceived as equals. They do not understand that materialism has nothing to do values. Free western nations can easily have more in common with nations that share our values than with nations who enrich uranium.

Appearance is not a substitute for substance. Religious garb is often spoken of as a sign of religiosity that must be respected, as if appearance alone were to be regarded as sacred. When it is all said and done, religiosity is not measured by what goes on the head, but rather, what goes in the head. That ‘magnificent’ Mohammed Atta spent the the night of September 10, 2001 in a strip club, paying for lap dances with a Quran at his side. So much for his religiosity.

The left will support the redistribution of ‘nuclear wealth’ to unstable totalitarian regimes that threaten their neighbors and other- especially if they hate American and western freedoms.  In their mind, that gives these regimes the appearance of equality with the west. The believe that appearance of equality, precludes us from noting their hypocrisy and their failures.

(On the other hand, the very suggestion that a non nuclear western and democratic nation go nuclear is sure to set the leftists off into a wild frenzy.)

Of course, it is only by managing behavior of those who threaten us or our allies that we can ensure our security. When values and beliefs are shared, we do not need to ‘manage’ behavior. We do  not need to manage our relationships with other free nations because free and democratic nations do not go to war with each other. Free and democratic nations do not need to institutionalize racism, bigotry and religious hate.

In the end, it is not the redistribution of wealth that will ensure our security. Rather, it is the redistribution of principles, values and beliefs of free nations that will make all the difference.

Love, Law, Legs And Lane Changers

There’s road rage and then there’s rage.

The legs of Saint Peter?

All aboard the Love Train!

How about a law for Mexican women?

We’re all for heavy petting!

Love hurts, love costs…

An Exchange Of Cowboy Hats For Keffiyahs? Nope

Fortress Islam- one would think that Muslims the world over were under assault, a coordinated effort by Israel and the US.

In an ever shrinking and increasingly homogeneous world, the self imposed isolation and separation of the Islamic world from everyone else, is curious. Other ethnic and religious groups are as fiercely protective of their own heritage and religion as the Islamic community, but few, if any, have resorted to the same kind of ideologies and strategies, such as deliberate (and at times violent) confrontation, or espousing, teaching and promoting racist ideologies, in the preservation of their identity.

So, what is going on? We will look at some of those things that might be contributing factors to ‘Fortress Islam.’

Individuals, groups an communities that fear integration and assimilation, do so because they are insecure with themselves or their community. To be sure, there are groups and communities that choose to eschew assimilation into society at large, but they do so quietly, for a myriad of reasons. They do not demand attention or that the general society bend and accommodate their needs. For the most part, they ask only to be left alone so that they may pursue their beliefs. Occasionally, those beliefs may come into conflict with the beliefs of society at large (some religious sects refuse any medical care beyond the most basic treatments), but rarely if ever do those confrontations become violent. Those groups want to be left alone. They do not choose or relish adversarial confrontations. It is unlikely that cartoons depicting the Amish in a negative light would result in violence.

It is also true that insecure people need to believe they, their culture or religion are superior. Insecure people believe they are under assault from the world and in turn, need to fight back. Reality is of little consequence- if it were, the Arab world, revolutions in the Arab world would have occurred decades ago. As we have often noted, the Arab world is a smorgasbord of dysfunction, led by leaders that are little more than corrupt tin pot dictators. Notwithstanding obscene oil wealth, Arab populations do not demand better education and schools or actual functioning economies or jobs (Arab world education is just about at the bottom of the global barrel, according to the UN and Arab world economies combined are less than that of hated Israel). The Arab world demands the destruction of Jews and Israel- as if that would change Arab world realities overnight. Their superior society and culture would be recognized instantly, if it were not for the enemies they so desperately want to destroy. They believe that the oppressive tyrannies under which they live would disappear once the hated Jew and Israel were destroyed. In the mind of much of the Arab world, they are like the long suffering artists, unappreciated and misunderstood. If only they could kill the artists with which they compete and the art critics, all would would be well.

We have noted in Blind Poets, Peace and Evil that

Our eyes become irrelevant if we can only see ourselves. Allowing ourselves to retreat into our perfect fantasy, while a pleasant distraction at times, in reality, only widens the gap with truths and realities that need to be dealt with or understood. Our personalities become great as we relate to others and not as we relate to ourselves. Lakes become great because of their depth and not the length of their shoreline.

A poet does not become a poet by writing words. A poet becomes a poet by having the words he writes become meaningful to others. It is in the understanding that the meaningfulness and depth of his words are part of a compact, an agreement we have with each other, that it is what we have in common, the shared ideals and values, more than anything else, that determines our worthiness.

It is in understanding that it is our universality and not our individuality that we can determine our highest truth. When we live in a world where only our own thoughts, ideas and needs count, we live in a prison. Our greatest joys and achievements have come as the result of sharing and in the union with others. This truth applies in every human endeavor, from love to business. If we allow the conflict between individuality and universality to manifest itself within us, we suffer great pain- and separation from that which might allow us our greatness.

Societies and cultures are measured by what they build and not by what they destroy. They are also measured by how they compare with each other, no matter how much political correctness abhors that truth. The character of a nation can be determined by the institutions that nations enshrines. That is no less true in the Middle East.

Israel has built some of the finest educational institutions in the world. Her neighbors have some of the worst.

Israel has built a self sustaining, first world economy. The Arab world’s singular notable achievement has been in achieving almost universal hatred of Jews. Mein Kampf remains an Arab best seller and the desire to ‘finish what Hitler started,’ is more essential to the Arab world than and the study of physics.

Israelis celebrate humanitarians, scientists and artists. In the Arab world, terrorists and terror leaders are hailed as heroes. Schools are named after suicide bombers that target innocents. In Syria, the ‘Lion’ leader, Hafez al Assad is an object of veneration. The reality that 20,000 to 30,000 were slaughtered in Hama, is of little consequence, at least publicly. Assad hated Israel and Jews- that was enough. The Syrian regime was relieved of it’s obligation to her citizens.

The Arab world believes that Europe is supportive of their delusions and dysfunction. They are wrong. Europe finds the Arab cause as temporarily useful, and no more. Why? Because for the time being, anti Americanism and anti Semitism are once more, politically acceptable and au courrant, in Europe.

Europe will not trade cowboy hats for keffiyas. To believe otherwise, even for a moment, is absurd. The Arab world does not understand that they are no more than this generations ‘useful idiots’ for the fickle Europeans. The nations of Europe will be no more loyal to the Arab world than they were to each other. History tells that tale.

In rhetoric and deed, Arab world leaders have more in common with Pol Pot, Hitler and Stalin than Washington, Jefferson or Winston Churchill. In following their leaders, the Arab world reveals more about itself than they might care to admit.

This post was originally published on July 31 2006 

Glass Does Not “Respond”

From Haaretz:

Three Arab states in the Persian Gulf would be willing to allow the Israel Air force to enter their airspace in order to reach Iran in case of an attack on its nuclear facilities, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Siyasa reported on Sunday.

According to the report, a diplomat from one of the gulf states visiting Washington on Saturday said the three states, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, have told the United States that they would not object to Israel using their airspace, despite their fear of an Iranian response.

Al-Siyasa further reported that NATO leaders are urging Turkey to open its airspace for an Attack on Iran as well and to also open its airports and borders in case of a ground attack.

According to a British diplomat who spoke to an Al-Siyasa correspondent, Turkey will not repeat the mistake it made in 2003, when it refused to open its airspace to U.S. Air Force overflights en route to attacking Iraq.

British newspaper The Daily Telegraph reported Saturday that Israel is negotiating with the U.S. over permission for an “air corridor” over Iraq, should an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities become necessary.

The existential threat posed by a defiant nuclear Iran has managed to do what was once thought impossible: Israel stands united. After decades of hand wringing, despair and inertia over the Palestinian/Israel peace process, Iranian threats have united usually contentious Israeli political parties.

Israelis are famously divided on almost every issue, but there is strong consensus regarding an urgent need to do something to curb Iran’s nuclear program.

The debate is about what to do and when.

…Evoking the Holocaust, the ex-prime minister said: “This is 1938. Iran is Germany and it is about to arm itself with nuclear weapons.”

…acquires a nuclear bomb, it will mean that for the first time Israel will face an enemy who could deal it a fatal blow. While others may think it, Iran has been the only government that has stated that it wants to eliminate Israel. Syria doesn’t say this. Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gadhafi never said it even when they were threatening Israel.”

Iran’s small fleet of Su-24 bombers has been conducting in-air refuelling training missions at night recently, according to Jane’s Defence Weekly. In theory, these Soviet-era aircraft could drop a nuclear bomb on Israel.

Predictably, as the Arab world recoils in horror at the implication of Iranian nuclear weapons, the Palestinian factions are yet again on the wrong side of history. As Abba Eban famously noted, “The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” Instead as being perceived as population in search of legitimate nationhood, they are gleefully siding with the Iranians and threatening Israel with retaliatory action if Israel- or anyone, attempts to neutralize the Iranian threat.

The public stance taken by Palestinian factions will ensure decades more of Palestinian failure and dysfunction.

“Our strategy is not to leave the Islamic alliance (Iran) alone against the enemy. All Palestinian organizations will work together in shooting rockets, suicide bomb attacks and other steps and actions decided closely.”

All the major Palestinian terrorist organizations are preparing to work together and hit out at Israeli targets in the event Iran is attacked, Abu Ahmed, the northern West Bank chief of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, told WND.

A senior leader of the Islamic Jihad terror group, which Israel says is backed by Iran, claimed during any attack his organization has been directed by Iran to “wreck havoc” on Israel with suicide bombings, rocket attacks and “special surprises.” He said rocket attacks would be launched from both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank…

He said overall Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Shallah has been coordinating war plans with Iran, Syria and the Iranian-backed Hizbullah Lebanese militia. Shallah resides in Damascus and travels frequently to Tehran.
He threatened his terror group will target American interests in the Middle East whether any purported strike against Tehran is carried out by Israel or the US.

“The Zionists and the Americans are coordinated 100 percent. It doesn’t matter who attacks Iran, we are planning to hit them both,” said the Islamic Jihad leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he said the topic was “very sensitive.”

The recent willingness to use of chlorine gas as terrorist weapon in Iraq are of particular concern to the Israelis and Americans.

In 1990, during Gulf War One, CNN broadcast images of frenzied Palestinians, dancing on rooftops and screaming ‘GAS THE JEWS’ as Saddam rained SCUDS down on Jerusalem.

Of course the Iranians are issuing their own threats nd responses, promising all kinds of ’surprises’ directed at American and Israeli interests world wide (for an an example of what that means, see this).

In the end, glass does not respond.

Emergency Brain Intubation

The research laboratories located in the dark, damp and excellent electrical current conducting basement of the SC&A Institute (heretofore referred to as the ‘dungeons’) have developed a new life saving protocol, BPR (Brain Power Resuscitation).

The BPR protocol was developed because of the widespread epidemic that has led to the exponentially increasing death of your brain cells. All over America, brain cells are dying by the millions, made comfortable in a Disneyworld enviroment of intellectual paralysis (yes, we’re talking about you).

This is no small matter. The most recent government studies indicate a direct connection between stupidity and global warming. Alarmingly, there are now those who believe there are actual connections between Teddy Kennedy, sobriety and advanced driving skills. In six weeks you will have more in common with a beagle, Al Gore and Boy George than the kid who drys your windshield at the car wash.

End the slaughter of brain cells immediately. Say no to brain cell murder and say ‘yes’ to Dr Sanity’s Carnival of the Insanities, the first step in the two stage process that will make up Advanced Brain Life Support.

Of course, Emergency Brain Intubation is only the first phase of BPS.

Advanced Brain Life Support (ABLS) are called for, to once and for all stop the meaningless slaughter of your innocent brain cells. If you care about baby seals or puppies, you can care about your brain cells.

BPR and ABLS are not like vitamin or Ron Popeil’s rotisseries, where you ‘just set and forget it.’ Brains saving techniques require your own efforts to bring you back from the abyss of psychosis, delusion and CSS (Chronic Stupidity Syndrome).

These brain saving technique works seamlessly with the SC&A Wednedsay Whack Job Awards. Taken together, they will save your sorry asses from the lifetime of mediocrity and dysfunctionality you are so familiar with. As added bonus, patients who participate in their own ABLS will have children who will be unable to regard you as mere briskets, wrapped in layers of fat, irrelevant, out of touch and utterly clueless.

If properly followed, these protocols will result in the future therapist of your children being unable and unwilling to blame you for your children’s whining and miserable and totally ineffectual lives. You will be exonerated and regarded with the highest esteem.

Staying with the protocol will allow you to emotionally and permanently scar your your children with unwarranted worship and adoration for you. They will be forever wracked with guilt for not living up to your expectations and pursuing their own selfish happiness. As an added bonus adherence to the ABLS protocols will allow you to assign permanent blame to your spouse and in laws for passing on mediocrity by providing so much substandard, loser genetic material.
Start the protocols immediately! Proceed immediately to Dr Sanity for emergency brain intubation.

Carnival of the Insanities. Save your sorry ass selves!

And Now, A Few Words On Sex

 

“I believe that sex is one of the most beautiful, natural, wholesome things that money can buy.”- Tom Clancy

“Clinton lied. A man might forget where he park or where he lives, but he never forgets oral sex, no matter how bad it is” – Barbara Bush, former First Lady

“You know “that look” women get when they want sex? Me neither.” – Steve Martin

“Having sex is like playing bridge. If you don’t have a good partner, you’d better have a good hand.” – Woody Allen

“Bisexuality immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night.” – Rodney Dangerfield

“There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal, particularly in women. Chief among these is the Mercedes-Benz 380SL.” – Lynn Lavner

“Leaving sex to the feminists is like letting your dog vacation at the taxidermist.” – Matt Barry

“Sex at age 90 is like trying to shoot pool with a rope.” – George Burns

“Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation. The other eight are unimportant.”- George Burns

“Women might be able to fake orgasms. But men can fake whole relationships.” – Sharon Stone

“My girlfriend always laughs during sex —no matter what she’s reading.” – Steve Jobs, found Apple Computer

“My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch.” – Jack Nicholson

“Ah, yes, divorce, from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man’s genitals through his wallet.” – Robin Williams

“Women complain about premenstrual syndrome, but I think of it as the only time of the month that I can be myself.” – Roseanne Barr

“Women need a reason to have sex. Men just need a place.” – Billy Crystal

“According to a new survey, women say they feel more comfortable undressing in front of men than they do undressing in front of other women. They say that women are too judgmental, where, of course, men are just grateful.” – Robert De Niro

“There’s very little advice in men’s magazines, because men think, I know what I’m doing. Just show me somebody naked.” – Jerry Seinfeld

“Instead of getting married again, I’m going to find a woman I don’t like and just give her a house.” – Rod Stewart

The Cost Of The Abortion Debate

Shrinkwrapped’s series on abortion provides a particularly useful and non emotional look into one of this nation’s great divides.

His four part series is a readable and cogent dissection of the impact abortion has had on American culture and society. He takes no position on abortion, other than to look at the effects of abortion.

In Part I, Shrinkwrapped sets up the parameters that will contain his observations:

Please note that I am not taking a moral stand for or against abortion. I fully understand the view of those who believe, for religious or moral reasons, that life begins at conception. I also appreciate the views of those who believe that an unwanted pregnancy in certain circumstances, due to bad luck or irresponsibility, can be a personal disaster for the parent(s) and the child(ren). I would like to set those questions aside for the moment and concentrate on what abortion means to those who have been affected by it; perhaps through such a discussion, the moral and ethical arguments can become clearer.

Part II begins to address definitions:

For a couple who desire a child, life begins before conception. A couple trying to become pregnant find that each month, if the woman has her menses, there is a small feeling of loss; the hoped for and already loved child has not appeared. When, finally, the woman determines she is pregnant, often responding to barely conscious and unconscious bodily signals that herald the changes taking place within, the child begins to take on a reality, a life of its own. By the time of “quickening”, typically in the fourth month or thereabouts, the child is already a baby in the minds of the parents. There is no question that wanted children are psychologically already babies from very early in the sequence. Furthermore, a wanted child is the repository of all that is best in the couple. They imbue the soon-to-be infant with all sorts of possibilities and qualities. Most first time parents have significant anxiety over their ability to parent and raise a child, but there is no question that from the moment of the positive EPT, reinforced each step of the way (heartbeat, sonograms, movement), the woman is carrying a person, not a fetus, and not a clump of cells.

Contrast this with an unwanted pregnancy. The language and the psychological processes couldn’t be more different. The future abortion is dehumanized from the start. It is a clump of cells or a fetus. It is the repository of all that is rejected and ambivalent in the parents.

In Part III, Shrinkwrapped delicately attempts too

…tackle the most problematic aspect of abortion on demand, its effect on the generations of children who have grown up in its shadow…

The difficulty for our post-Roe children is that a child growing up in a culture that supports abortion on demand is a child growing up in a culture where even a wanted child is treated (by the larger society, certainly not by all parents) as a commodity. This, of course, fits right into the unconscious agenda of the narcissist, who views the importance of every relationship as hinging on how the other person affects him. Even children who grow up in families which for religious or other reasons are pro-life, recognizes that the surrounding society, for all the lip service that is offered to the notion that our children are our most precious possessors of the future, does not value children in the most basic way possible. For children whose parents are pro-choice, the problem is more difficult. For those children whose mothers have had abortions, the problem becomes acute. The idea that your parents have chosen to have a particular number of children is not at issue; the idea that your parents have parents decided to abort a potential sibling is a significant issue, made more so when done in a perfunctory manner as a matter of course. Such a “choice” unavoidably conveys the message that a child’s life is hostage to the parent’s desires.

Consider the impact of a child growing up in a society which believes that a child is a gift from the Deity. A child in such a culture knows that their surround considers them precious above and beyond the love they may receive from their all too human and fallible parent. While such an “archaic” notion opens one up to ridicule in the precincts of sophisticated thought where the liberal pro-choice views hold sway, it was the prevailing wisdom not that long ago. In contrast, a child who is growing up in a culture which idealizes the freedom of women to abort for no more reason than her comfort or convenience, is a culture that fundamentally does not value children. Children who experience themselves as commodities whose existence serves the needs of others, have a natural tendency to treat themselves and others as mere “need satisfying objects.”

Part IV is Shrinkwrapped’s final installment. His look at the effects of abortion moves from the clinical/academic types of discussion to a ‘boots on the ground’ experience.

He makes no grand, sweeping conclusions about abortion. He does not attempt to predict global weather patterns. Instead, he looks out his window and says,

‘It’s raining. What kind of actions must we take to keep ourselves dry? What kind of environment can we create for ourselves that will limit the damage too much exposure to the elements?’

During a session in the midst of the episode, while Susan was complaining of her loneliness, that no one would ever love her because of what a terrible person she was, and how her hostility drove everyone away, some barely conscious awareness led me to ask when she had had her abortion. I don’t recall the exact circumstances in the session, but the question felt organic, as if it arose from the material, though I could not describe precisely what chain of associations by Susan or myself led to this. She was silent for quite a while, an unusual state for Susan, and then tentatively offered that she had her abortion in April, 10 years ago. Inexplicably, for the first time in her treatment, Susan began to cry. She told me the baby had been in its fourth month and she was convinced, though never told, that it was a girl. She never told anyone that she had actually named the baby Cynthia. She recalled a moment of sadness, with a clear mental image of an infant baby girl, in a pink dress with bows in her blond hair, and then put Cynthia out of her mind. She became overwhelmed with tears and sadness. She told me that lately she had been fixated on little blond girls and now understood why. With a start she realized that almost every girl she had ever had a fling with was blond. Over the course of several weeks, Susan explored her feelings about her abortion. She had never realized it was still alive within her. She had killed her child and could understand why no one would ever see her as worthwhile or lovable. How could she have done something so terrible. She hadn’t even thought of it at the time. She had just done it.

The reverberations of the event were felt and worked through over the course of another 2 years in her analysis. She learned, another barely repressed memory, that her mother had had an abortion when she was 4 years old. Her mother did not want to lose her slim figure, of which she was so proud. Susan began to understand her tendency to gain weight as related to unconscious wishes to become pregnant again, as well as to differentiate herself from her mother, who championed a woman’s right to choose.

Like it or not, the issue of abortion is one of the Great Divides of the Americal political landscape.

One of the great tragedies of this divide is that both sides of the abortion debate have politicized the debate. Abortion has been used by both sides as a lightening rod to attract or repel voters of all stripes.

We are going to look at both sides of the coin.

Pro life supporters need to realize that having a baby is not like having puppies. Until there is a guarantee that there will be enough volunteers to adopt, raise and care for millions of children put up for adoption, abortion will remain a real option for women who might otherwise agree with pro life sentiments. We cannot insist that women have babies they are unable or willing to care for and then walk away.

No rational adult likes abortion as a form of contraception, save for the bitter feminists who don’t really care about women or children to begin with. That said, until women that are faced with making a choice believe that having that child isn’t a choice between bad and disastrous, not much will change in how many view abortion.

Hillary Clinton noted that

Seven percent of American women who do not use contraception accoint for 53 percent of all unintended pregnancies.

See Safe, Legal And Never, Hillary Clinton’s anti abortion strategy. Irresopective of your opinion on Hillary Clinton, she raises issues that need to be a part of new discussion on Roe v Wade and what are issues that surround abortion that need to be discussed. As the author of the article notes,

I’ve heard a few liberals complain that this message is too preachy and encroaches on the sexuality of teenagers…Many proound things are at stake in the abortion debate. Afternoon delight isn’t high on the list.

While overturning Roe V Wade is unlikely, that does not mean the issues of abortion cannot and should not be revisited.

Partial birth abortion (most often a form of contraception used by women who could not be bothered to deal with their pregnancy earlier) needs to be banned. Unless the mother of the child is at risk, there is no reason for the procedure to be performed on a full term fetus.

It is ironic that supporters of partial birth abortion usually rail against capital punishment.

Contraception needs to fully funded and be to made available t both women and men, if we are as a society, serious about eliminating or reducing the number of abortions performed in this country each year.

Sex education is as important as religious and moral instruction. The biggest part of real sex education is the discussion of values, choices, respect and responsibility. While sex education that focuses on bananas and condoms are a part of the program, they are a small part of the program. Our identities are not shaped by our genitalia, but rather, by our character. Will kids have sex? Yes, as they have since time began. Let’s at least teach them about character and emotional maturity are also components of intimacy.

No one wants their kids to grow up and be identified and appreciated for their sexual proclivities only.

Like it or not, girls need to learn that they and they alone are responsible for their bodies. If prevailing culture has no problem with girls and women obsessing over their sexuality and appearence, they must acknowledge that they are responsible for their sexuality if and when their clothes come off.

It is unfair, perhaps, that when it’s all said and done, women are indeed responsible for contraception. Whether it is God or biology that is to blame, is irrelevant, because in the end, it is women who get pregnant (the flip side being that women who want to get pregnant wouldn’t change that for anything).

If a woman is unhappy with that state of affairs, sterilization is an option. Abortion is not an ‘alternative’ to irresponsible behavior anymore than abortion is a valid expression of any kind of political ideology.

The nature of the national abortion debate is a cancer that has attacked the political, moral and social fabric of this nation- and a generation of Americans on both sides of the political divide have been made to pay the price.

Religion, Denial, Leaders And Followers

 

John Paul II was loved because he was an ‘everyman.’

He wasn’t distant and he wasn’t removed. His manifestation of faith was centered in this world- and not the next. We understood that faith through his eyes was the same as the potential of faith through our own eyes. If we tried, we could be like him, in matters of faith. We could share the very same values, morals and beliefs. Imagine that- we could be like him.

He was of course, the Pope, and as such, endowed with institutional obligations and duties, but we never saw that. He was a humble man. He was never the CEO- has was ever the parish pastor. He didn’t want to be regarded any other way.

We believed he was closer to us than to God- and that was a good thing. He was, one of us.

As ‘one of us,’ he had a past- and we liked that. With words and with his actions, it was his very human past that made him what he was.

He survived Nazism and Communism, up close and personal. Real life was no ivory tower or detached reality.

He saw beyond the church like no one before him. Because of him, Catholic parochialism was buried. He was respected and revered by Jews, Protestants and everyone else,because of the kind of man he was- and not because of the position he held.

He didn’t reach out because of his role as Pope. He reached out because of the kind of man he was.

John Paul II didn’t really change the Catholic Church. In fact, his real achievement was in letting the Church be what it was supposed to be, without being encumbered by political or agendized ideologies. The Pope that survived Nazism and Communism set the Church free. The lessons of Christ were to be true expressions of love. Under his watch, they became unconditional. They would not serve an agenda and they would not be be tempered.

True love, is of course, unconditional. When someone says, ‘If you realy love me, you’ll do this,’ or ‘If you really love me, you won’t do that,’ you can be sure the love is not real, but rather, the words are a hollow expression of a self centered existence. True love is based and predicated on the acceptance of the individual, for who they are.

When we read, ‘The meek shall inherit the earth,‘ the message is directed as much to the strong as it is to the weak. The words, ‘Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you, are directed as much to those who believe thay have the answers as they are to those who don’t. John Paul II made that clear. Under his leadership, the church was unbound.

There were mysteries, of course. When John Paul II went to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, or when he visited Auschwitz in his native Poland, it was never made clear, and rightly so, for whom wept more- The Church or the Jews. Of course, it doesn’t matter. Manking was especially blessed that day. Christians were rightly proud on thiose days. The humble priest from Krakow showed us what an unbound Church means.

Religious teachers teach students to accept and deal with the complexities of life. Students are taught how to make the right decisions and are given the tools to do just that.

Radical, political and power hungry zealots, masquerading as religious teachers, instruct students that life is black or white and decisions will be made for them, because the students are incapable of doing so themselves. The frenzied rage is cultivated, directed and orchestrated by pretend ‘religious’ radicals. The student submits him or herself willingly- not to God, but to the agenda of the radical teacher.

John Paul II didn’t tell anyone how to live. Instead, he gave Catholics and the rest of us, the tools we need to determine for ourselves the path we should follow. Those who oppose religion and faith often deliberately mischaracterize real religion with those who abuse religion. That deliberate deceit, designed to tar and feather all believers, is the equivalent of equating all physicians as barbarians, because of one Dr Jozef Mengele.

The impression (much of it reinforced by a groundswell of anti religious agendas) is that true faith was replaced by creed and worship has been replaced by discipline. Love has been succeeded by habit and routine, the intimate expressions lost to predictability. The crises we face today are ignored because they impinge on the neat and orderly splendors of the past. Living faith has in reality become an heirloom and not a vibrant, colorful and relevant expression of who we are.” We went on to note that “Too much of religion has come to speak in the name of an imperious authority and less in the voice of real compassion.

In fact, religion that loses touch with the ebb and flow of real life, is as AJ Heschel says, a ‘false religion.’ He also notes in ‘God in Search of Man,’ that it is God who reaches out to man with religion. We do not become closer to God through religion. Rather, God becomes closer to us.

The bar we face is a high one. God reaches out to us and we must know that and understand what that means.

John Paul II understood what God reaching out to us meant. He announced clearly and to all that Christianity was not no ‘false religion.’ In fact, through word and deed, he showed that Christianity was compassionate and inclusive- far more inclusive than most of her critics. He made clear the relevance of Christianity and he went to great lengths to be an example of what it meant to be a Christian, in no uncertain terms. Those who would accuse him and the Church were forced to deal with an unpleasant reality. John Paul II came to represent all those who defended faith in God with a thundering clarity. His message was clear and unimpeachable.

The inquisitions of today are no longer religious in origin. Pope John XXIII said at Auschwitz, ‘We have crucified Him Again.‘ John Paul II called that evil place the ‘Golgotha of the modern world.‘ The recognition of the evil that transpired, clearly enunciated by these two Popes, will insure that at least in the Christian world, such terrible events will not happen again-unless we allow our faith to become polluted by indifference and by attempts to appease of evil.

The real inquisitors of today are those who preach and seek to ‘finish the job’ and either seek new holocausts, with new victims or ignore today’s holocausts because they interfere with their political agendas. The the foot soldiers of the real inquisitors of today are those that would withhold freedom from those less fortunate, and leave them to be devoured by the beasts of tyranny.

Those with the most blood on their hands are those who support the call for more death and destruction or an advancement of a scenario that would do just that- and do so with a religious zeal, pretending all the while to do so in the name of ‘peace’ or ‘love.’

The real inquisitors are those who who support an agenda of hate as opposed to John Paul II’s agenda of faith. The real Inquisitors are those who deliberately mischaraterize faith and those who choose faith as a way of life. That deliberate mischaracterization is a deliberate result of denial- an attempt to negate even the possibility that people with religious beliefs and values are moral equivalents to those who are non believers.

In the third installment of Strategies Dealing With Denial, Dr Sanity writes,

At the center of all psychological denial is a hidden agenda. That agenda is usually not completely consious- meaning the denier has not always thought through the issues surrounding his denial.; and may not even be aware of what his motivation is in asserting something is true when it isn’t; or false when it isn’t.

Denial need not be absolute and completely cut off from reality. Even among alcoholics and drug users there is a varying level of awareness of their problem. Some accept that they are in jail or sick because of their substance use, but yet are still not willing to do anything about it. Some may recognize some facts about their drinking (like that they get put in jail), but completely deny the impact of those facts on themselves or their families; or the future implications of continued drinking or drug use (e.g., that they are killing themselves and will die).

Simply put, denial is about denying the reality of one’s own agenda, deliberately obfuscated and camouflaged so as to appear ‘neutral,’ as it is about denying the ‘other.’ In fact, Dr Sanity’s remarks make clear that ideas that are deliberately presented as complex, ethreal and abstract, are often a deliberate attempt to hide and obfuscate ideas and agendas that on their own, would be recognized for what they are- unacceptable expressions of agendized ideologies and beliefs.We noted elsewhere that MoveOne.org ( a highly effective and well run organization) is now calling for Fox News to be ‘excluded’ from the presidential debated and ‘de certified’ as news organization. Why? Because they don’t like what Fox News has to say.

In other words, MoveOn wants to do exactly what many on the left openly accuse the right of doing- stifling speech and opinion inconsistent with their. Funded by the free speech rights of George Soros money, MoveOn want to ensure their free speech is the only truly free speech.

Even as they accuse the Bush Administration of stifling free speech, that is exactly what a mainstream leftist organization is doing. One does not have to sit down with the Board of MoveOn to understand the disconnect and the pathologies involved. One does not have to sit down with the Board of MoveOn to recognize behavior paranoid behavior (”Make them go away. We are afraid of what they have to say. What of people like them instead of us. We don’t like what they have to say. Make them go away.”)

Further, (and actually, even more troubling) one only has to regard the lack of outcry on the blatant assault on free speech from other leftists and realize, from an observational standpoint (almost conclusive, in fact) that issues of denial and projection are in full bloom.

A real commitment to a principle (free speech) is not dependent on who is speaking. That MoveOn and others, with their silence, want to do the same thing they accuse the Bush administration of doing (and so viciously denounce), is more than disingenuous- it is pathology of serious nature. This kind of behavior is indicative of a lack of credibility, which in fact, is the ‘welcome mat’ for deceit.

As Dr Sanity notes,

That awareness was so frightening, that a temporary psychological bargain evolved into a binding contract that allows the person to suspend cognition and reason so that he is able to ignore any knowledge or evidence that alters his fantasy reality.

Too many people treat ideas like fashion: ‘I look good in this color, so I’ll stick with it.”

That does not work for ideas or dealing witn an ever changing world. We have to be able to see the world and recognize our place within that changing world. While our values must guide us, we cannot view the world and our realities with the same tinted lenses all the time. We need to be able to see clearly and without the filters of politically correct ideologies.

The consequences of denial can be deadly.

At the other end of the spectrum are those people, groups, and nations committed to the denial of reality the way others are committed to truth. Their entire sense of identity is dependent on a certain view of the world and they would rather die than relinquish that view.

Those individuals, groups, or nations who live in the world of deep denial are practically untouchable by reality or rational argument. They go through their daily lives secure in the knowledge that their self-image is protected against any information, feelings, or awareness that might make them have to change their view of the world. Nothing–not facts, not observable behavior; not the use of reason, logic, or the evidence of their own senses will make them reevaluate that world view.

Ah, the religion fanaticism of the non believers. In a couple of hundred years, their religion too, will come round.

 

 

 

Announcing The SC&A Wednesday Whack Job Awards

The SC&A Academy of Extremely Peculiar Pathologies, is pleased to announce that beginning on February 28, 2007, we will commence the Weekly Wednesday Whackjob Awards, commonly referred to as the ‘Whacky’s.’

Nominations will open each week until 10:00 PM, EST (After the broadcast of House, M.D.).

Each week, a ‘Whacky‘ will be in each of the following categories:

The Thorazine Shuffle and Dance Award, will be presented each week to the politician who dances and shuffles without actually answering a question.

The Thomas Szasz Psychotherapy Award, will be presented each week to the biggest idiot therapist we can find. (Sanity Squad members are ineligible due to their sustained and documented brilliance).

The Valium Award, will be presented to the dullard of the week (Al Gore cannot be nominated. He had already won the Lifetime Achievement Award in that category).

The Trojan Award will presented each week to the person we wish had never been born (Boy George is not eligible for nomination in this category. Mr George, with Marilyn Manson, have already won the ‘This is What You Get When You Use Contraceptives Past The Expiration Date’ Award).

The Prozac Prize, awarded each week to the most unrelentingly depressing person in the news with little likelihood of improved prognosis.

The NutriSystem “I’m Not So digusting to My Spouse Anymore” Award, will be given to the biggest loser of the week.

The Haldol Honor will be awarded each week to the person most out of touch with reality, either on or off medication.

The Methamphetamine Medal will be awarded each week to the most hyper, histrionic, hysterical, spaced out documented behavior.

The Viagra Statuette will be awarded to the wimpiest metro sexual.

The ECT Battery Award will be presented to the most shocking news story of the week.

The HRT Prize, will be awarded weekly to the loudest and most inconsequential feminist drivel the SC&A jury can find.

Nominations can be emailed to sigmundcarlandalfred at gmail.com

Where The Psycho-Therapists Roam…

Check out Small Dead Animals, for an always filling smörgåsbord of interesting posts, links and ideas.

The Paradox Of Multiculturalism. “When the concept of “multiculturalism” was introduced to Canadians, most assumed it meant “more pavilions at Folkfest.”

An Open Letter On Iranian Holocaust Denial Conference. Even in what is a jungle, civilized voices can be found.

Take the Warmonger Test.

“Under which US President (1980-2004) was a US soldier most likely to die while on active duty?”

No trick questions.

Fighting The Law, and the law lost…

Justice of the Peace Kristine Robidoux decided to release Albert Walter Brazill, despite the fact he had 65 convictions for crimes from kidnapping, extortion and armed robbery to forcible confinement — and was wanted on Canada-wide warrants.

More Clinton era grab ass.

Al Gore supported rendition before al Qaeda had declared war on the United States and hung its battle flag on the Khobar Towers, the USS Cole, the African embassies, the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, the Bali disco, the Madrid trains, and the United Nations. But after those defeats, Al Gore changed his mind. Has any reporter for any major news organization bothered to ask Gore to explain his reasoning?

Be sure the click the link Kate provides.

And The Number One Issue Of 2007 is…

Thank you, Kate.

Questions And Observations On Culture, Women And The Media

As the Lewis ‘Scooter‘ Libby verdict rests in the hands of a jury, The Anchoress free associates and contemplates the candidacy and antics of the Hillary Clinton campaign. Those Damned Anti Clintites Strike Again! Geffen!, is dryer than a James Bond martini, stirred not shaken:

…it seems to me that a strong and confident campaign does not demand that other candidates denounce their supporters and return contribution checks to them, but this is what Hillary Clinton’s campaign does all the time! Particularly if an opponant’s donor has dared to say something mean about poor old Hillary, who is just a girl and should be treated nice, because politics is about niceness and sweetness, and she would never, never indulge in a scorched earth, slash-and-burn sort of politics, herself…

I guess when you feel you’re entitled to your presidency and don’t really have to do the hard work of explaining much of anything, then you shouldn’t have to endure the typical heat of politics. But all of this demonstrates to me exactly why Hillary has stayed out of the kitchen and away from baking cookies all these years: She cannot stand the heat. And she is utterly artless. She gallumphs, spins, ducks, weaves, hauls out Bill (or simply mentions his holy name) as soon as things get difficult, and then runs for cover.

This is a woman who never, ever apologizes for anything but she always seems to need apologizing to.

She wants to lead the nation, and the free world. And our troops. But let someone with a little disposable cash cast a disagreeable eye her way, and Hillary thrusts out her lip, plays the victim, calls them “mean” and demands that they pull back and let her win!

‘Artless.‘ Did you read that? Is that beautiful and perfect, or what?

Anway, The Anchoress post caused us to reflect. We have some questions we’d like to ask.

Firstly, how the hell did up to 900 FBI files of Clinton political opponents get into the White House, make their way into Hillary Clinton’s private study, and then into her desk? How is it possible that no one knows anything about that?

And thereare people who believe Lewis ‘Scooter‘ Libby posed a security problem??

See this for a brief bit of background.

Judical Watch has more to say- and they have more questions.

Now, why aren’t the MSM asking the same questions? How is it possible that the Libby farce is front page news while the illegal procurement of Clinton political enemies FBI files into the White House is shrugged off?

Notwithstanding Hillary’s recently discovered pain at the ‘politics of persoal destruction,’ why aren’t the media asking about the Clinton’s decades long use of private investigators to dig up dirt and to intimidate political opponents? We asked,

…why wasn’t Hillary Clinton’s hiring of of private investigator Anthony Pellicano looked into? Why would she hire a man who reputation for intimidation, brutality and propensity to violence was well known? One time Clinton confidant and political ’spin doctor,’ Dick Morris said the hiring of a man with Pellicano’s reputation was deliberate. Hillary’s objective was to oversee

a systematic campaign to intimidate, threaten, frighten, discredit and punish innocent Americans whose only misdeed is their desire to tell the truth in public.

Anthony Pellicano had just the credentials Hillary Clinton was looking for.

Barbara Olsen, former congressional investigator wrote that

In the political life of the Clinton’s is was she [Hillary] who pioneered the use of private detectives. It was she who brought in and cultivated the professional dirt-diggers and smear artists.

While it is true that the break-in at the Watergate Hotel was a terrible- and illegal- dirty trick, it is safe to say that a middle of night burglary is nowhere near as despicable- and probably illegal- threats of intimidation and retribution for simply wanting to tell the truth.

The Anchoress also takes a critical look at pop culture in America and the media, not through the lens fashion or entertainment, but rather, through an examination of our values- or lack thereof. This is no small matter.

She casts a critical eye at a culture and the journalistic ethics that would devote more time and attention to Britnety Spears than to Nazanin Afshin-Jam, the Canadian beauty pageant winner that once and for all dispels the notion that brains, beauty and compassion can’t be found in one package. Afshin-Jam worked tirelessly to secure the freedom of ‘a woman imprisoned in Iran for the crime of defending herself against rape. ‘ The Anchoress, in Britney&Nazanin And Our Warped View Of News notes ,

The feminist left does not lionize her and shout her name and call her “good for women.” The press doesn’t cover her. But Britney…she’s ubiquitous, she’s and her sad, desperate bald head are all over the place…not for doing anything heroic, mind you, but for entertaining us with her misery, for allowing herself to be consumed, if that is what it takes to get our attention. Where is the press on this story? Why is Nazanin Afshin-Jam not on the cover of Newsweek? Why aren’t they covering this remarkable celebrity, when any two-bit pissant Hollywood cracker can be heralded as a wise and benevolent prophet for cursing at the president and Christians, or crying over Africa? Why isn’t the new feminist icon of journalism, Katie Couric – or Oprah – talking about this story, and the larger story behind it – the one that for some reason “liberal” feminists are too timid to mention – honor killings, the cold-blooded murders of rape victims who have “dishonored” their families by being unfortunate enough to be raped.

Many have wondered how it has to pass that we do not demand better from the media. The media in turn, respond and reply that they are only serving the demands of the community they represent.

What drivel. What utter drivel.

Perhaps it is true that we have gotten the journalism – the media – that we deserve. I hope not. Gerard Vanderleun writes affectingly here about how easy it is to look at a picture of a machete-chopped-up child and then go out to supper with friends and have a good time. We compartmentalize. We read or see a news story, we gasp and wonder, and maybe we even tear up a bit…then we turn the page, or a commercial comes on, or a newscaster brightly announces the debut of a water-skiing canary, and we forget – we move on…

Journalism can cast down or raise up. It can serve us horrifyingly clear pictures of mutilated children, or it can mutilate a celebrity for us, just to keep our interest piqued. But it needn’t. If we would stop reading the crap, the sinful stuff, the stuff that treats human beings like mere things to be used to increase circulation for as long as they last – then maybe the press would stop serving it up. If we would stop treating barely literate celebrities like PhD’s and Eco-scientists because they once played a character who wore a lab coat, maybe the press would stop trotting them out to speak their assigned lines, and there would be room in the paper for redemptive and hopeful stories about people like Nazanin Afshin-Jam. Maybe attention might finally be paid to Caneze Riaz, and her daughters, Hannah, age 3, Sayrah, 16, Sophia, 13, and Alisha, age 10, whose deaths surely deserve notice.

Children learn from what they see. No parent can be perceived as a credible or moral authority by a child that grows up in a home devoid of real values and real morality.

A while back, The Anchoress wrote about what happens when values are predicated on pop culture. She wrote about the deflating cult of Madonna:

…am I the only one who finds her latest stunts merely predictable and perfunctory? Hey Madonna, it takes no courage to ape the Crucifixion of Christ or make a vulgar joke about George W. Bush – those are the safest things in the world to do – you want to really be daring, try this. Instead of simulating sex and bondage (didn’t you DO that back in the ’80’s?) why not come onstage wearing a Burka…yeah, that’s it…and then you can have your crew simulate a genital mutilation or an honor killing…got it? Now that’s edgy, honey, especially if you then have some dancers show up like US Troops who liberate you, and you kiss a mask of George W. Bush…now THAT would be brave and daring. THAT would be something worth looking at, too. THAT would justify the press’ pavlovian response to every ringing of your bell.

Why haven’t I written more? Well, to be honest, I just don’t care about either of these over-hyped, over-exposed things.

I have not bothered to get myself into an uproar about Madonna and her crucifix (how old, anyway…remember the burning-crosses, necking with St. Martin de Porres in church while she gets stigmata video…from the 1980’s? She’s been confused for a long time…) or about DVC is because…well…

There’s a reason Madonna goes by the name Madonna and there’s a reason she uses religious imagery in her show. Like a McDonald’s quarter pounder, we know what we will get- predicatbility. It isn’t fine dining, for sure, any more than Madonna is ‘art.’ As had been said for years, Madonna, like McDonald’s, is about extraordinary- and successful, marketing. Instead of burgers and fries, she’s pitching S&M and religious symbols as expressions of phallic pathologies.

Of course, there is a reason the media are so attached to Madonna, too.

Madonna offers the media a vacation, a way to not have to work or offer a meaningful contribution to society. Madonna also offers the media an outlet from which they can predicate the deceit that says values and morals need to ‘challenged’ by art and that we evolve and grow as a community by accepting ‘progressive’ values and morals.

It’s just business, of course, for Madonna and the media. When she isn’t on tour, articles about Madonna extol her new found religious and moral sensibilities and her devotion to home and hearth.

In fact, the media, like Madonna, are repeating themselves. They have come to believe that they are the arbiters of culture and values. Madonna and the media have nothing new to offer- and they know it. As long as silly critics and even less sophiticated music consumers rehash and redefine the same McDonald’s quarter pounder as fine dining, why should she redefine herself and her art, and why shoud the media really extend itself?

The Anchoress notes that in the end, the pendulum always swings back. She notes that

And thirty years from now there will be another book, another play, another photograph of a Holy Thing dunked in urine. And everyone will gasp again and controversy will fly…and it still won’t matter.

What The Anchoress does not address is the cost of all this shallowness.

Then again, that’s what windows and mirrors are for.

Sanity Squad Faces Off Against Regularly Scheduled Stupidity

The latest Sanity Squad podcast is up- and it didn’t take long for the foot soldiers of the Idiot Brigade to show up.

Our scintillating conversation this week centers around the early presidents- Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln and the lasting contributions they made. Profound thinker, hip-hop icon and analyst extraordianiore  Shrinkwrapped, former ballet diva and bad girl Neo (rumored to have danced with either Rudolph Nureyev or one of the flying Wallendas) and big shot former NASA flight surgeon and inventor of flight diapers Dr Sanity make the weekly podcast a must listen.

One noteworthy and magnificent idiot left a comment on PJM that excoriates Lincoln for freeing the slaves- far too offensive an endeavor for real patriotic (Democrat) Americans, like him.

That Abe Lincoln was some bastard. Our commenter notes

In truth, in “saving” the Union, Lincoln destroyed two republics: the one born in 1861, and the one born in 1789.

That is only a whiff of the foul smelling stupidity, an odor rivaled only by Arab world school curriculum’s so dysfunctional that even bad weather and potholes in the sand are blamed on Israel, Jews or Americans.

There is no better argument against public schools and for school vouchers than this idiot com mentor. Like Jared of Subway sandwich fame, he needs to paid and be made the star of the ‘the this is what you end up with when public schools fail‘ roadshow.

Of course, we responded to the very self esteemed idiot in our usual delicate, empathic and gentle manner.

Liberation, Enslavement And Abortion

Shrinkwrapped has penned another absolute keeper on abortion.

In Abortion And Vicissitudes, Part II, (see part one here), Shrinkwrapped delicately defines what is all too often for may, an ethereal (and impersonal) concept- the beginning of life:

For a couple who desire a child, life begins before conception. A couple trying to become pregnant find that each month, if the woman has her menses, there is a small feeling of loss; the hoped for and already loved child has not appeared. When, finally, the woman determines she is pregnant, often responding to barely conscious and unconscious bodily signals that herald the changes taking place within, the child begins to take on a reality, a life of its own.

…Contrast this with an unwanted pregnancy. The language and the psychological processes couldn’t be more different. The future abortion is dehumanized from the start. It is a clump of cells or a fetus. It is the repository of all that is rejected and ambivalent in the parents…

SW’s post is an eye opener not so much for new ideas or thoughts, but rather for something far more important. Once and for all, we are offered a crisp and clear definitions, clarification and clear insight into the social, communal and personal impact of abortion.

Yesterday, I recounted my own personal (and unresolved) experience with abortion.

Personally, abortion makes me uncomfortable- actually, it makes me very uncomfortable and angry. I can’t debate the science of conception and I don’t have to. Ask any infertile couple trying to have a child and they will tell you a fetus is not ’tissue.’ That is enough for me.

By the same token, I do believe an individual has a right to choose what is right for them. It may not be what I agree with and I may find immoral, even. But until I’m in that person’s shoes, what right do I have to tell someone what is moral for them? Should not morality come from within and not be imposed? There are people out there that want to do just that- impose a set of values on us that we disagree with. That imposition of morality goes against everything we believe in.

That is not a baseless argument. There are people out there with terminal diseases or in dire need of organs. Despite the desperate situations and the pain and suffering some have to endure, we do not force anyone to donate their bone marrow or organs, even in the event of death (i.e., after death-SC&A). In not doing so, we condemn those people are ill, to death. These individuals are innocent and defenseless. We do not mandate that like it or not, everyone must donate what may be lifesaving to another. Is that moral? I don’t know.

Why is the life of a fetus more important that the life of a kid who needs a new liver?

After my ex had the abortion, for a few years I would consciously drive by the ‘clinic’ on the anniversary of his death (the choice of words is deliberate- I cannot say ‘killing’), as if I were visiting the cemetery. I would drive around the block, over and over and have a conversation with my son. I would tell him how well things were going or how tough they were. I would tell him he was missed and thought of every day (In some small measure, I know exactly how Robert Avrech and his wife feel) and how really, I know he would not want me to feel the burden of pain every day, but I couldn’t forget, even for a day, no matter how hard I tried. I told him about the day his sister was born- and I told him how sorry I was that he never had a real birthday. I tell him I know he would have been a good brother and I tell him his sister would adore him.

I named my son David.

Shrinkwrapped wrote,

…the disavowed infant lives on in the unconscious. When explored, they often become aware of their repressed feelings of loss and sadness. There is often significant guilt involved in such choices…

Abortion doesn’t always liberate.

Read Shrinkwrapped’s post here.

“I Once Was Lost, But Now I’m Found” And Pointing Fingers

Glenn Reynolds is a nicer guy than I thought. Rather than hold up the fun house mirror that most accurately reflects the wholesale intellectual vacuousness that is Paul Campos, he engages his critic in a calm and rational way. Mr Reynold’s is clearly the master of his own Zen.

When your mother used to say, ‘don’t run with the wrong crowd,’ she knew what she was talking about. Paul Campos is an idiot, for which middle of the road Americans as well as those Americans that are right of the center ought to be grateful. Once and for all, the values of the left are put into crisp focus. When the likes of Paul Campos are held out as the virtues of leftist ideologies, the sharp distinctions cannot be glossed over.

In attempting to excoriate Reynolds for his suggestion that Iran’s leadership and nuclear scientists be targeted for assassination, Campos exposes his own bias and limited understanding of reality and phony piety.

Here’s the deal.

Diplomacy only works when the parties involved shared like minded values. Diplomacy effects compromise, which is easy to come by when dealing with Australia, Luxembourg or Canada.

Political and military opponents are adversaries with whom we share fundamental values. We may have a disagreements with them and at times even go to war, but in the end, that is usually the result of a dysfunctional government or leaders.

An enemy, as opposed to an opponent, is a very different creature.

An enemy is someone with whom we, as individuals and as a community, have fundamental differences. An enemy has values and beliefs, that are very different than out own. An enemy wants to deprive us of our beliefs and values, because that enemy finds our beliefs repulsive or threatening to their own. Enemies will fight to the death, should they choose to engage us or we choose to engage them.

That is a bitter lesson.

Had we bombed Berlin and rid the Germans of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi political leadership, 50 million lives would have been spared.

Had we assassinated the likes of Josef Mengele and other Nazi ’scientists’ and ‘doctors,’  untold horror and tragedy would have been averted and tens of thousands of ‘medical experiments’- many thousands of which the German ‘doctors’ meticulously noted were done without anesthesia, would never have taken place. The wholesale slaughter of Jews, Gypsies, gays, and ‘mental defects’ would never have occurred.
There are people who believe that enemies are opponents- that is, they can reasoned with and rationalized with and common ground can be had. Believing that an enemy can be an opponent is what led much of Europe to appease Hitler, in the beginning. Herr Hitler, it was believed, was after all a European. Surely he could be reasoned with. Surely he would respond to the rational idea that war was catastrophic.

The world watched and listened as Germany stated her objectives and prepared for war- and remained in denial about the obvious German intentions. The Germans could never be enemies, they believed. They might be opponents- but never enemies.

They were wrong.

Reynolds is absolutely right. If we do not deal with the mullahs and other racist, bigoted and dysfunctional leaders in Tehran and the Arab world, we and our allies will pay dearly. The conflict will not be limited to Africa or other far away places that the media can ignore. We are facing a confrontation in our own back yard.

This kind of denial and moral bankruptcy from the left is not surprising. They have not stood up against any slaughters or tragedies. Stalin, Pol Pot, post war Vietnam,  Che, Darfur, Rwanda, Sierra Leonne, Mauritania and Algeria are only a few places of the the left saw fit not care about. The truth is, the only victims the left have consistently proved to care about are themselves.

We recently asked,

‘What will the left fight for?’

The governing regimes in Tehran and Ramallah are no different than the Nazi regime upon which their ideologies and stated intentions are based. They make no secret of their admiration of Adolph Hitler and the Third Reich, nor do they make secret of their desire to ‘finish what Hitler started.’

Dr Sanity remarks

The left pretends their behavior is motivated from” love” or “peace” or “patriotism“; but these are only words they use to rationalize to themselves their actions, which demonstrate exactly the opposite. Their self-deception and denial is simply stunning in its sweeping grandiosity and self-righteousness betrayal of the good.

In fact, disagree with them and you are evil, or racist, or a fascist. It matters little to the left the vile nature, character, racist, homophobic or stated intentions of those who threaten this nation.
Paul Campos is the hero of the day for the left, but in the end, he will be forgotten, in the same way Bill Clinton was forgotten after his infamous interview on Fox News, in which he pointed his finger at Chris Wallace and looked directly into the camera. Everybody knows that when Bill Clinton leans forward and points his finger, he’s lying.

In speaking of Bill Clinton’s infamous interview with Chris Wallace 0f Fox News, we wrote,

This week, Bill Clinton went down in flames- nobly, of course. The MSM and the left are all a twitter, because Bill Clinton, beautifully and articulately lied his pants off. It didn’t matter that Mr Clinton wasn’t telling the truth- the proud moment was achieved because he lied with polish, poise and earnestness. The MSM and left are so proud!

Rather than be ashamed of a former President of the United States boldly lying on national television, much of the MSM and the left believe they can finally touch themselves in public, for a change. It matters little to them that a former president has annointed himself with credibility equal to that of Robert Mugabe, Hugo Chavez and Bashar Assad. Clinton lied, with panache and style and so, he’s a hero to many.

Of course, Mr Clinton is a very smart man. Mr Clinton knew his record would be examined and he also knew that record would not bear him out- and it is precisely because of that, he felt compelled to lie.

Mr Clinton will not leave the legacy he so desperately wants to leave. His image will not be chiseled onto Mount Rushmore, awarded that lofty status by a national groundswell of love and admiration.

In lieu of that, Mr Clinton has chosen to be victim- the perfect victim. He wants to be seen as hounded by the right and Fox News, and denied his destiny by the evil of his persecutors. It doesn’t matter that he lied, to the nation, a Grand Jury, or Chris Wallace. Mr Clinton meant well, and that is enough. We do not need an honest president- we just need one who means well, defined as anyone that adopts an agenda of the left and articulates any disagreement as persecution.

The MSM and left are perfectly happy with those arrangements.

Paul Campos too, attempted to tug on the heartstrings of the nation. He too will be forgotten after a brief moment in the sun, having crashed and burned in his own deceit and fraud.

See the light, see the road that needs to be taken.

The Psychological Consequences Of Abortion On Demand

Shrinkwrapped has begun a series on abortion, Abortion On Demand: Reverberations And Vicissitudes. He remarks:

…one of the critical divides between the left and the right, between religious and non-religious, traditional and non-traditional;

His observations promise to be a dispassionate but critical look at what abortions in America means, in both the psychological and political senses.

In my work with patients who have had abortions, or whose mothers have had abortions, as well as in the psychoanalytic literature, several important themes emerge, which are germane to any discussion of abortion and will be the subject of future posts on this subject.

…and how a re-examination of Abortion may help or hinder the reconciliation of our cultural “split” psyche.

He goes on to say,

…the very high percentage of patients who have been touched by abortion in one way or another, is quite striking…

In my work with patients who have had abortions, or whose mothers have had abortions, as well as in the psychoanalytic literature, several important themes emerge, which are germane to any discussion of abortion and will be the subject of future posts on this subject…

Please note that I am not taking a moral stand for or against abortion. I fully understand the view of those who believe, for religious or moral reasons, that life begins at conception. I also appreciate the views of those who believe that an unwanted pregnancy in certain circumstances, due to bad luck or irresponsibility, can be a personal disaster for the parent(s) and the child(ren). I would like to set those questions aside for the moment and concentrate on what abortion means to those who have been affected by it; perhaps through such a discussion, the moral and ethical arguments can become clearer.

It is with these thoughts in mind that I wish to republish a personal account- my own experience with abortion. Almost two decades later the events of that day have not been forgotten. The psychological after effects are still troubling and confusing. My remarks are only representative of my own experience.

I have to be one of the luckiest guys around.

Since I have begun blogging, I have had the opportunity to read and learn from some very fine minds, bloggers all. Some are like minded, some almost like minded and some not so like minded. I have learned from them all. I am grateful for that.

Writing this blog has been an eye opener. I thought I’d have so much to contribute on my own, but in reality, whatever few words I do write are much influenced by my peers, bloggers and readers alike. I have learned from my readers– and that has helped me see things in ways I might not have, otherwise.

It is also true that in terms of influence, I am aware that for the most part, bloggers are ‘preaching to the choir,’ as Ruth of Chaos Theory has noted on more than one occasion. She is right, of course. The successful blogger is one who manages to have their reader think.

There is one undercurrent that seems to bind bloggers that write about the issues of the day. That is issue is morality. Everyone, it seems has a view, opinion and belief structure that helps define them in a world of the mundane.

I like that. Those issues of morality, more than any other, helps me focus on the things that are important to me.

Moral struggles are important, if for no other reason than they make us uncomfortable.

Morality is a moving target. You can’t just nail it once and call yourself moral. Some of the moral choices we are faced with are easy, some are more difficult. There are choices we face everyday and others we face once in a lifetime and everything in between.

There are also matters of morality that are cultural and religious. Yes, Virginia, there is a difference.

There are choices that we make that are intensely personal and others that are more communal in nature. There are some choices we make that we’re never sure of, either and there are some choices we make we wish we could take back. There are also choices we have made, that if given the choice again, we’d still struggle with.

Before I was married to my ex, she got pregnant and had an abortion. It wasn’t a matter of carelessness or indifference. The pregnancy happened.

To my ex, an abortion was no big deal. She was raised in communist Eastern Europe and as a matter of course, abortion was considered a form of birth control. She was a nominal Catholic and had a limited amount of religious instruction. In the 70’s and 80’s, that’s how it was in Eastern Europe. As in the Arab world today, citizens believed what they were taught- at first, anyway.

God, religion and morality were ‘cultural’ in the same way national costumes and national dance were cultural expressions of a society. Science and art (approved art, of course), were the defining character of her place of birth. Church was for older people and even national spokespeople who spoke for the Church were state approved. The State was the real religion. The laws of the state were canon law.

This wasn’t a lifetime ago. The Wall came down in 1989, only 16 years ago.

In any case, my ex had an abortion. By that time, she understood that there was an issue. She had been in the west long enough to know that there was indeed a different morality. Still, that is what she chose to do. She had her reasons. Whatever they were, some of you would concur and others would not.

It would be easy to to criticize her, but I didn’t back then and I won’t now.

Personally, abortion makes me uncomfortable- actually, it makes me very uncomfortable and angry. I can’t debate the science of conception and I don’t have to. Ask any infertile couple, trying to have a child and they will tell you a fetus is not ’tissue.’ That is enough for me.

By the same token, I do believe an individual has a right to choose what is right for them. It may not be what I agree with and I may find immoral, even. But until I’m in that person’s shoes, what right do I have to tell someone what is moral for them? Should not morality come from within and not be imposed? There are people and societies out there that want to do just that– impose a set of values on us that we disagree with. That imposition of morality goes against everything we believe in.

That is not a baseless argument. There are people out there with terminal diseases or in dire need of organs. Despite the desperate situations and the pain and suffering some have to endure, we do not force anyone to donate their bone marrow or organs, even in the event of death. In not doing so, we condemn those people who are ill, to death. These individuals and unfortunates are innocent and defenseless. We do not mandate that like it or not, everyone must donate what may be lifesaving to another. Is that moral? I don’t know.

Irrespective of the argument, we all make choices. We are endowed with free will, for better or worse.

I chose to write about this because someone I respect a great deal, emailed me and questioned me on my post, below, Abortions and Elections, Past and Future. That person remarked that I was a principled individual and appeared to stand by my convictions. I’d like to think so, of course. In truth however, the principles and convictions I have don’t always come easily. I know I will be criticized by some and I will disappoint others. A few may even agree with me. Regardless, there are some things I struggle with.

America is unique in many ways. One of the most important I think, is that this that one of this country’s most contentious issues is a moral one. I cannot think of any other place where moral issues divide a society as much as they do here.

The tension is a good one, I think. As long as there are moral issues at stake, we focus on our beliefs and values. It may not be pretty at times, but for the vast majority of us, the non professional agitators, both sides of a moral debate give us pause, even if we don’t admit it. That we anguish over morality is a moral choice in itself. Europe has long since abandoned any moral debate and they are the poorer for it.

Unlike the societies and cultures that have a ‘one size fits all’ mentality and structure, we know, on a visceral level that we need to constantly define and redefine ourselves and values. There is great value in a society that allows for that debate, as difficult and hurtful as it is at times. We learn from it and we grow.

The Founding Father’s offered us the ‘Pursuit of Happiness.’ There was no guarantee of happiness for us all– only the pursuit of those ideals that each of us believe in, be they material, spiritual or physical. We are only guaranteed the right to express ourselves and beliefs. We cannot impose on our neighbors those things that they may not agree with, until they do agree. Abortion is no exception.

I am proud to say I’m the father of one child, a beautiful daughter. My ex is a wonderful mother– I couldn’t be more blessed that way. I love the ‘dad’ thing and the relationship I have with HRH (Her Royal Highness, as I refer to my daughter).

I’m at an age where people still ask if I’d want to be a dad again. My stock answer is that it isn’t only up to me. Truth is, I wouldn’t mind, but if that isn’t in the cards, well, I’ve fulfilled my paternal instincts.

I can’t say what I would do if I were faced with the same situation I was in, years ago. Neither can my ex. I know what I believe and what I think the moral choice would be. Some of you might be upset with me, others less so, for my lack of sureness.

Since that event, I have tried to be more moral. It had an effect on me that still resonates, deeply, in many ways. I think of that time, every now and then.

My son would be 17 years old.

Another post with more personal reflections and experiences, Liberation, Enslavement and Abortion, written as a follow up to this post, was written on February 21, 2007.

Descending Into Chaos And Other Political Follies

Aldous Huxley said,

At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols.

There is no mistaking the evil that is Hizbollah, Hamas, and the terror supporting regime in Tehran for anything other than what they are. What ever distinctions there are between them only serve to highlight the degree of depravity that they have in common. Some groups are more depraved than others. The notion that it is ‘ideology’ that separates these groups is absurd.

That monument to mediocrity and hypocrisy on the East River are demanding that America and Israel cease their assault on hate filled ideologues that make no secret of their intent. European anti American ideologues at the UN have tried mightily to cast Hizbollah, Hamas and the Iranian regime as legitimate political entities- as if they could wash away the openly racist and bigoted ideologies these nations openly embrace. Emboldened by anti American Europeans,Hizbollah, Hamas, Iran, et al, usually forget they are expendable pawns in a political dance, designed more for domestic political theater than for anything else.

In order for the ideologies of hate to gain ground, they need an environment of chaos. This of course, is antithetical to the momentum and progress of civilization, which requires that order replace chaos.

Deriving order from chaos. A big part of our lives is derived from engaging in that very endeavor.

That effort has been the basis of every culture, society and religion. Cultures, societies and religions that have predicated their values on deriving order from chaos have thrived and endured. Cultures, societies and religions that have predicated their values on chaos and disorder, have proved to be failed entities, unable to keep up with and compete with the natural evolution of progress. Cultures, societies and religions fail because they fail to adapt to new realities or because they are influenced by political, religious or cultural leaders for who progress represents a threat to their control.Every teacher will tell you that a child learns by finding order in the chaos of new ideas as the child works to make sense of the world around him or her. The best parents and teachers encourage that exploration and the questions that are a necessary component of learning. The worst parents and teachers are threatened by a thinking and questioning child, fearing the loss of control.

For example, the organized study of science has been broken down into various disciplines, so that we might better understand our universe. That is accomplished by finding order and understanding scientific phenomena. The ‘Eureka!‘ miracle drugs and technologies that have so impacted our lives, came about as the result of finding understanding and harnessing the order from the chaos. In the future, the cure for cancer and other diseases will come about because scientists diligently examine and learn from studies in chemistry, biology, anatomy and a host of other scientific disciplines. Progress in all human endeavors is the result of finding order from chaos

The primary goals of psychologists and psychiatrists, are to help their patients find order in the chaos that has overtaken their lives and in some cases, to recognize the ‘triggers’ that might upend their lives. The degree of successful therapy is measured by how well the therapist taught and empowered their patient in managing heir own lives- again, order out of chaos.

Religion, faith, the search for God and finding meaning, is very much about finding order from chaos. That said, there are religious ideologues believe that never ending violence or the threat of is an acceptable form theology.What happens when our natural instinct and need to find order from chaos is impeded? In our time, there is a clear attempt to replace the theology of reason with the theology of violence- and a clear attempt to deal with this dysfunction as if replacing theologies of reason with theologies violence was an acceptable expression of equal ideologies. The disastrous implications are clear. Maxed Out Mama notes

I want to reiterate this: for every act of violence in the west, there are ten in the Muslim world. The ideology of Violence must be defeated, because it will never surrender – but that need not mean that Muslims must be outcast, or that being Muslim is at all incompatible within being humane and just. What we should do is speak and live reason, even if we have to carry a gun to do this. I must, in the end, have a radical addiction to freedom, because I would rather live in an armed society than in one which carried out pogroms against innocent Muslims.

Let’s examine this a bit more closely. For those who need to impose an ideology or theology of violence over reason, it becomes necessary to subvert those who might seek order from the chaos. In societies, cultures and even religions, the notion of order from chaos is upended if violence is given reign over reason. When violence or a culture of violence is given dominion over reason or a culture of reason, we are going back in time, reverting to more primitive instincts.

Those for whom reason and order are the ‘prime directive,’ cannot allow the wholesale degradation of a people into violence or chaos, led by a few dysfunctional and evil men. This is not a matter of religion. Anyone, regardless of religion or even belief, realize that real believers understand that we were not put here to blow each other off the face of the earth. If we turn a blind eye or ignore the plight of Muslims under these repressive and dysfunctional regimes, we do so at our own peril.

We noted in Peace In The Middle East Starts At Home, that

The biblical tale of Abraham and Isaac is instructive. Now matter how willing his servant is, God does not allow Abraham to sacrifice his son.

God does not demand from Abraham that he obviate his role as a parent. He insists rather, that Abraham resume his natural role as a parent. God does not need Abraham’s son as a sacrifice.

God demands a theology of reason over violence, and order from chaos. We are not meant to sacrifice our children, to use them in fact, as weapons to kill others in God’s name.
To parent and elevate our children is to find order and reason in the most important part of our lives, as custodians for the next generation.

If we are to help each other, nourish each other and support each other as we fulfill the human destiny of progress, we must accept that our mission on this earth is not to destroy each other. Rather, we must accept as truth that the principal raison d’etre of our lives is to keep reason and order as an anchor against the vile and foul winds that are violence and chaos. This is the message we repeat over and over again. The problems in much of the Islamic world are very fundamental and are in no way the result of anything other than a spectacular dysfunctionality. To place the blame elsewhere (on America, Israel, Jews, Christians, etc.) is no more than an attempt to validate the idea that chaos can take precedence over order, if and when that serves a particular need.

The accumulation of our contributions, as we endeavor to always demand and expect order rather than chaos, are what defines civilized society. Those that do not contribute or demand to that chaos rule the day, exclude themselves from civilized society.

Our adversaries, by deliberate deed, action and by their own admission, have come to value violence over reason. They have destroyed much and wish to destroy even more. They wish to upend the truth that we are not meant to destroy each other.

A civilized society does not exclude others easily or separate itself from others with great pleasure. It is an undisputed and sacred reality that civilized societies are built on the principle and foundation of inclusion. We wish peace with our neighbors. Peace by definition, means order and reason, a live and let live culture. Societies that share the values of order and reason have proved to be the most successful societies in history, from cultural, educational, legal and economic standpoints, among others.

Tragically, there are those that claim to want peace- but only if that peace is based on the threat of violence and capitulation to an evil that destroys, hates and rules by threat of chaos.

Dr Sanity, in Repression And The Mirror Of Insight, prefaced her remarks by noting “Freud is reported to have said that the very act of entering into civilized society entails the repression of various desires, impulses and feelings.”

In her post, Dr Sanity discusses order over chaos, albeit indirectly:

The most psychologically healthy… are those those that allow us to transform the primitive instinctual energy of even the most destructive emotions into works of art or entertainment that give pleasure to others (sublimation and humor); or behavior that is socially beneficial (altruism, anticipation, suppression). People who achieve optimal psychological health are those who have come to satisfactory terms with their neurobiology. They are people who have learned to accept their anger, rage and other potentially deadly emotions and, instead of destructively acting out, repressing, denying or projecting; have creatively expressed those feelings in a way that improves life both for themselves and for others…

Insight is a wonderful thing. The power or act of seeing into a situation and apprehending the inner nature or motivation of one’s self–especially the why–can be extremely liberating… Only by being aware of these kind of hidden truths and inner motivations can a person gain control over them and correct the behavior that they generate.

Without real insight, we are playing a kind of lottery, not only with our own lives, but with the welfare and future of our community as well.

In one form or another, we are all weighted down. We all carry some kind of baggage- our responsibilities, our home life and the influences of our childhood all contribute to the ‘load’ each of us bears. It is true that with the help of a therapist, we can learn to ‘unload’ that baggage and bask in a kind of new found freedom. That said, without real insight into ourselves and understanding why individually and collectively, we must constantly work at finding order from within chaos, we will find ourselves weighted down again, very quickly. Without real insight, freedom from chaos soon becomes ethereal, because learned dysfunctional behaviors and biases reassert themselves.

In other words, a prerequisite to civilized society a clear demand that we find order in chaos. We must come to insight- to understand what motivates us and to recognize our biases and those dysfunctional behaviors that influences the choices we make. When chaos or violence, even dressed up as ‘reasonable expression,’ is allowed to the fore, our ‘civilized society’ suffers- and we and society reverts back to more primitive behaviors.

Those voices that call for or defend the policies of those who place violence over reason and demand chaos over order, are equally as dysfunctional as those for whom the ideologies of violence and chaos are a reality- and they are equally threatening to civilized society.

Portions of this post have been previously published.