Israel's First Olympic Gold Medal: In Honor of the Slain 11

Cox & Forkum Editorial Cartoons: "August 27, 2004
HaTikvah

From The Miami Herald: Windsurfing Olympian brings a 'wave' of hope to Israel"

Ruckus at the Republican Convention

Lowell Ponte describes the domestic terrorism group, The Ruckus Society, that plans to disrupt the Republican 2004 convention in New York. He also describes its connections to the Kerry/Edwards campaign. FrontPage magazine.com :: Ruckus at the Republican Convention by Lowell Ponte

It's official: The Bush Administration wants to use government force to stifle freedom of speech

The New York Times reports that President Bush is getting together with Sen. John McCain to use the courts and possibly legislation to stifle political expression by American citizens. The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Bush to Urge Court to End Independent Political Ads: "'The president said he wanted to work together to pursue court action to shut down all the ads and activity by these shadowy 527 groups,' the chief White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, told reporters aboard Air Force One."

As I wrote in a previous post, whatever conservatives are trying to conserve, it sure as hell isn't liberty. And wherever liberal champions of free speech went to, it certainly wasn't to the barricades of protecting freedom of political expression.

Write your congressman: abolish McCain-Feingold, and all similar anti-freedom of expression legislation masquerading as campaign finance reform law.

So Much for Free Speech (washingtonpost.com)

This is a good editorial showing how campaign finance reform bills like McCain-Feingold are eroding our freedom of speech in the realm that matters most, i.e., political speech.

All freedoms are related. Freedom of economic transactions and freedom of speech: the government cannot infringe upon one without infringing upon the other.

Write your senator and your congressman: Repeal McCain-Feingold!

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth - Kerry Campaign Backtracks On First Purple Heart Award

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth - Kerry Campaign Backtracks On First Purple Heart Award: "KERRY CAMPAIGN BACKTRACKS ON FIRST PURPLE HEART AWARD" This is the second instance where the Kerry campaign has changed their story Kerry's service in Vietnam.

Bush & Kerry vs. Freedom of Speech

Bush Calls for Stop to Outside Ads Lauds Kerry's Vietnam War Record

Far worse than Kerry's lies about his Vietnam service are Bush's and Kerry's attacks against the freedom of speech in calling for the Swiftvet ads to be stopped. It is unbelievable that both the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates are advocating that the government prevent a group from airing its political views in a public forum during an election campaign.
This is absolutely outrageous, and Americans of both political stripes should be up-in-arms about it. The Founding Fathers must be rolling in their graves. It is just dispicable that both candidates would resort to attacking one of our most fundamental freedoms to gain short-term political advantage. Where the hell are the liberals? Aren't they supposed to be advocates of freedom of speech? Where are the conservatives? - whatever they are trying to conserve in trying to force these ads off the air, it sure as hell isn't freedom. Where are the media? - so much for those supposed champions of the freedom of political expression.

God damn it America, wake up! It is time to write your senators and congressperson and newspapers and let these jerks know that they can't trample our freedom of speech for any reason.

August A Disaster for the Kerry Campaign

Chris Lynch chronicles how August has been a disasterous month for the Kerry campaign, and how Kerry deserves it.

Dishonesty or Insanity: The Left's View of the War Against Saddam Hussein

I have never encountered a political debate so contentious, in which one side was so wrong, so completely misguided on their analysis and policy prescriptions, as that over the War in Iraq. In this debate, the political Right has not always adopted the best possible strategies to defeat our Islamist enemies. Yet the political Left is so clearly irrational about the proper strategy to take in this War that there is no conclusion other than they are either being dishonest or they have lost touch with the political and moral realities involved.

You can argue that Iraq was not the first country after Afghanistan that the U.S. should have attacked. You can argue that the U.S. should have first attacked Iran or Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. And you can argue that the U.S. should have devoted more resources to securing Afghanistan and preventing the escape of Al Queda terrorists and Taliban members. However, you cannot argue that it was even remotely immoral to attack and oust Saddam Hussein’s regime. Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship was psychotic, megalomaniacal, and mass murderering; and any nation had the right to end such a regime, even if there was zero evidence of WMD and terrorist ties.

However, given the fact that there was tons of evidence of WMD and ties to terrorist organizations; and given the fact that almost every expert and interested politician (including Bill Clinton, John Kerry, Hans Blix, and Richard Clarke) believed that Hussein had these weapons and ties in the years leading up to the war; and given Hussein’s hatred of the U.S., there is absolutely no remotely reasonable justification for saying that the Bush administration’s war against Hussein was based on "false premises" or was "immoral" or "illegal". That is, unless you are more worried about the U.S.’s "prestige" with the U.N. and France and Germany and Russia, than in doing what is right and in America’s self-interest.

Thought for the Day

Do NOT draft your posts online in the blog window. First, write them in Word or WordPerfect, THEN copy and paste them to the blog window. Otherwise, if work on a draft online and you accidentally hit the wrong key, you take a big chance of losing a whole hour of your work!! Dammit.

Individual Glory

Emily Berns in the Daily Standard pays tribute to Lance Armstrong's great achievement in winning his 6th Tour de France and demonstrating The American Spirit of Individual Glory vs. the European Spirit of Collectivism Envy

Translation from Democratese to English

Cox & Forkum perceptively point out that the Democrats new slogan: "Stronger at Home, Respected in the World" is just a euphemistic way of saying, "More Socialism At Home, Less Military Self-Defense Abroad."

Is Liberal vs. Conservative the Only Alternative?

Have you ever wondered why liberals and conservatives believe what they believe, and which side is right and which is wrong? Have you ever thought that something is fishy when the two main competing political viewpoints in Western Civilization are no closer to resolving their differences after endless years of debate? Doesn’t it seem that, if one side were largely correct in its beliefs and the other side were largely incorrect, most people on the wrong side of the debate would have given up by now and started going over to the other side, if only to stop losing the arguments and to be on the winning side?

Well, if you have ever thought that something is not right about this situation, and you don’t want to be just another conservative or liberal lost in the endless debate, and you want to figure out what’s really going on here, then its time to step back and consider the underlying premises - the fundamental philosophical ideas - that liberals and conservative hold.

I have often wondered about such issues, and I am sure that many other thoughtful people have wondered about them as well. In the following posts, I am going to try to elucidate these questions and try to reach some conclusions.

First, let’s briefly look at the most prominent policies that liberals and conservatives advocate.

Conservatives advocate religion as the basis of a good society - specifically the Judeo-Christian religion. They argue that a good and just society requires good and just people, and that religion provides the values necessary for people to aquire these moral characteristics. Along these lines, conservatives advocate many laws originating from their religious doctrines, e.g., regulating obscenity, outlawing abortion and gay marriage, allowing religious prayer in public schools, and more recently, providing government funding for religious charities. Conservatives argue that individuals are responsible for their lives and actions, and therefore, they generally advocate limiting government power in the economic realm, allowing businesses to function freely so long as they do not violate minimum regulations. Also, they advocate lowering taxes, as well as allowing individuals the right to possess firearms. Finally, conservatives advocate a strong defense function for the government, both domestically, and internationally. This has been highlighted especially in recent years since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Liberals advocate extensive domestic government activity in the economic realm as the key to achieving a good and just society. They argue that such strong government activity is necessary to enable people to achieve a better quality of life and to prevent other large social institutions, primary large corporations, from exploiting and harming individual citizens. Examples of such government activities include extensive regulation of businesses, and government provision of healthcare, welfare, schooling, and retirement benefits. Also, connected to their advocacy of strong domestic government regulation, yet a separate category in itself, liberals believe that the government must protect nature, or the environment, from intrusion and exploitation by human economic activities. Liberals are strong supporters of international institutions, and they largely reject actions taken by the U.S. in defiance of international opinion. Finally, in concert with their less doctrinaire acceptance of traditional religion, Liberals are advocates of the rights to abortion and gay marriage.

To be continued.