Thoughts of a Black Conservative

Spencer and Gellar attack Dr. Zudhi Jasser

2011-02-14T09:11:00.000-08:00

First of all, I have an enormous amount of respect for Robert Spencer and Pamela Gellar. While I don't always agree with them, I do respect the fact that they are attacking radical Islam and that takes a lot of courage.

Now having said that, I think that their recent attacks on moderate Muslim, and one of my heroes, Dr. Zudhi Jasser are counterproductive and a waste of time. Spencer and Gellar imply that Jasser is covertly a radical Muslim and just lying about his support of America. They say that being a Muslim and being a loyal American are incompatible because, basically, all true Muslims who adhere to Islamic doctorine hate Israel and America. They say that he is lying when he says there are Muslims that have no problem with Israel.

In all honesty, I can say, is, from my own first hand experience, I am on Jasser's side on this one. There is an incredible amount of anti-semitism, racism and anti-American feeling within the hearts of many Muslims around the world, but having said that, there are over 1 billion Muslims. I see no reason to antagonize them all and say that they are all terrorists. That they are all fanatics. Because they are not. The real problem with Muslims, is that they are brainwashed. Their imams and other religious leaders, for the most part, preach intolerance and hatred of those who are not Muslim. There are many Muslims who accept this narrative but there are some who do not. And we should work with and support those who wish for peaceful co-existance. As I have said many, many times before earlier, some of my biggest influences are Muslims such as Dr. Tawfik Hamid. I am far from someone who hates Muslims. However, having said that, it doesn't mean that I'm going to stay silent when I see crimes being committed by individual Muslims and Islamic governments. I'm not going to stay silent in the face of Islamist groups that advocate destroying America and other countries.

In fact, throughout history, there are many points where Muslims were the more enlightened ones, the more tolerant ones than the Christians. This is no longer the case and hasn't been for some time, but having said that, it does prove that the argument of some on the right, that Christians were always and will always be better than Muslims is incorrect.

Now having said all of the above, it is an undeniable fact that these people are in the minority. But in our battle against Islamic extremism, Islamism, we can take all the allies we can get. The absolute last thing we should be doing is attacking our friends, and Dr. Jasser is, without a doubt, a freedom fighter and patriotic American.

The fact of the matter, what everyone forgets, especially most Muslims, is that radical Islam, besides being a threat to Jews and Christians, is in a way, an even greater threat to liberal Muslims, Islamic reformers, people who want to modernize the religion because the radicals consider them worthy of death, just like Jews and Christians. Therefore, moderate Muslims have a strong incentive to work with us in order to defeat the radicals.

The Black Male Education Disaster

2010-11-12T21:42:00.000-08:00

The following story is from the New York Times. I have added my comments below:

Proficiency of Black Students Is Found to Be Far Lower Than Expected
By TRIP GABRIEL

An achievement gap separating black from white students has long been documented — a social divide extremely vexing to policy makers and the target of one blast of school reform after another.

But a new report focusing on black males suggests that the picture is even bleaker than generally known.

Only 12 percent of black fourth-grade boys are proficient in reading, compared with 38 percent of white boys, and only 12 percent of black eighth-grade boys are proficient in math, compared with 44 percent of white boys.

This is a complete and utter disaster. What is holding black America back is this lack of education and the black community needs to tackle this like the disaster that it is. It is time for us to abandon the usual "reasons" and "excuses" and actually work together to get to the bottom of this and get this resolved. Instead of spending millions protesting racism and shaking down business, Jesse Jackson and the other so-called black leaders need to get together and actually work together to improve this situation. I can't see anything more urgent and important.

Poverty alone does not seem to explain the differences: poor white boys do just as well as African-American boys who do not live in poverty, measured by whether they qualify for subsidized school lunches.

Yes, the problem in part is cultural. We have more and more black children being raised by the government. There is no father in the house and the mother is working all of the time. In fact today, 70 percent of black children are being born to single mothers. This situation makes the child more likely to do poorly in school, drop out early and get involved with gangs and drugs.

The data was distilled from highly respected national math and reading tests, known as the National Assessment for Educational Progress, which are given to students in fourth and eighth grades, most recently in 2009. The report, “A Call for Change,” is to be released Tuesday by the Council of the Great City Schools, an advocacy group for urban public schools.

Although the outlines of the problem and many specifics have been previously reported, the group hopes that including so much of what it calls “jaw-dropping data” in one place will spark a new sense of national urgency.

“What this clearly shows is that black males who are not eligible for free and reduced-price lunch are doing no better than white males who are poor,” said Michael Casserly, executive director of the council.

Because in the black community, there is an expression called "acting white." Children who are achievers, who work hard are often said to be "acting white," implying that high academic achievement is not a genuinely "black" trait. This acts to discourage children from getting good grades.

The report shows that black boys on average fall behind from their earliest years. Black mothers have a higher infant mortality rate and black children are twice as likely as whites to live in a home where no parent has a job. In high school, African-American boys drop out at nearly twice the rate of white boys, and their SAT scores are on average 104 points lower.

The analysis of results on the national tests found that math scores in 2009 for black boys were not much different than those for black girls in Grades 4 and 8, but black boys lagged behind Hispanics of both sexes, and they fell behind white boys by at least 30 points, a gap sometimes interpreted as three academic grades.

Besides the cultural issues discussed earlier, we need to actually allow black children to escape these horrible inner city schools and get into schools where they are educated. These same children, who are failing in public schools, are much more likely to succeed in private schools. And they must and should have this option, something that the leftists hate to discuss.

The search for explanations has recently looked at causes besides poverty, and this report may further spur those efforts.

“There’s accumulating evidence that there are racial differences in what kids experience before the first day of kindergarten,” said Ronald Ferguson, director of the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard. “They have to do with a lot of sociological and historical forces. In order to address those, we have to be able to have conversations that people are unwilling to have.”

Those include “conversations about early childhood parenting practices,” Dr. Ferguson said. “The activities that parents conduct with their 2-, 3- and 4-year-olds. How much we talk to them, the ways we talk to them, the ways we enforce discipline, the ways we encourage them to think and develop a sense of autonomy.”

No. It doesn't have anything to do with how much children are talked to. It has everything to do with whether they are being taught by competent teachers teaching in a good school. It has everything to do with whether they come from a family with two parents. That is what makes the difference. What never ceases to amaze me about liberals is they can go on and on about the evils of voucher programs, yet the liberal elitists don't send THEIR children to public schools. Why is that? If the schools are so good, why don't they send their children to them. It is the absolute height of hypocrisy.
The report urges convening a White House conference, encouraging Congress to appropriate more money for schools and establishing networks of black mentors.

What it does not discuss are policy responses identified with a robust school reform movement that emphasizes closing failing schools, offering charter schools as alternatives and raising the quality of teachers.

In other words, in typical leftist fashion, they can identify the problem, but they can't actually face the solution. This whole idea of increasing funding for the schools is frankly, a bunch of BS. China spends less per pupil than we do and their children, along with the children of many other countries which spend less money per pupil than we do, score higher on standardized tests. So that isn't the problem. Things are actually so bad today, that the level of literacy in the African American community today, is lower than it was during the era of Jim Crow.

The report did not go down this road because “there’s not a lot of research to indicate that many of those strategies produce better results,” Mr. Casserly said.

This conclusion is absolutely ridiculous and I am the living proof of it. My parents who I love and adore, struggled for years to send me to private school. I never went to a public school and today I have a great job in the IT field, working in the entertainment industry. There is NO way I would be where I am today, if I had gotten the substandard, shoddy education that so many young black men get.

Other have a different response. The key to narrowing the achievement gap, said Dr. Ferguson, is “really good teaching.”

One large urban school district that has made progress is Baltimore’s, where the dropout rate for African-American boys declined to 4.9 percent during the last academic year, down from 11.9 percent four years earlier. Graduation rates for black boys were also up: 57 percent in 2009-10, compared with 51 percent three years earlier.

Andres A. Alonso, the chief executive of the Baltimore City Public Schools, said the improvement had little to do with changes at the margins, like lengthening the school day or adding mentors. Rather, Mr. Alonso cited aggressively closing failing schools, knocking on the doors of dropouts’ homes to lure them back and creating real-time alerts — “almost like an electrical charge” — when a student misses several days of school.

“Hispanic kids and African-American kids this year had a lower dropout rate than white kids,” Mr. Alonso said.

This is a good start, but much, much more needs to be done. Like how about linking the money to the student instead of the school. Let the child go to ANY school he wants to, private, public or charter. The pressure of the free market will force the schools to improve. The teachers who are good at what they do will get more money, because the competition between good schools will increase the demand for good teachers. And the bad teachers will find themselves without a job. And the children will actually get educated. And again, I don't care about the excuses. The excuses are simply excuses. What we need are actual, workable solutions like school choice, not more excuses.

Want to get rid of Terror? Stop Supporting It

2010-11-05T23:22:00.000-07:00

In the west, we have a schizophrenic relationship with radical Islam. On one hand we defend the biggest exporters of radical Islam, Saudi Arabia. We sell them our most advanced weapons and are at their beck and call. The Saudis and the Gulf states control most of our foreign policy when it comes to the Middle East. Our elected officials, both Democrats and Repulicans refer to these countries as United States "allies" while they spread the most hateful propoganda and teachings about the West, Christianity, Hinduism and Judaism, the religions of our allies. While they teach their citizens to hate us and kill us. While they created and today support groups that are fighting America, like the Taliban, in Afghanistan.

Then when a generation of youth raised to hate America and the West arrises, these very same "allies" work with our enemeies to arm these people and before you know it, there is suddenly a global "hot spot" in some country and America has to go in and blow some country to pieces to get at some Islamic terrorists. But simply going in and fighting is a short term solution. Yes, terrorists have to be destroyed, but you can't bomb forever. And the big problem with going in and bombing areas is you inevitabely hit innocent civilians. And when you do that, you create even more enemies where you didn't have enemies before. When someone is sitting in their house and it has been bombed out, or they are looking at the corpse of some family member or friend, you have created an enemy. You have created someone that is going to do everything he can to destory you. So this doesn't even fully solve the problem. In the end, simply bombing, shooting and fighting are not the solution.

And the liberal solution, to simply tolerate this kind of teaching and say that it is acceptable is also not workable. Becuase then you are permitting the cancer to grow.

The solution, is that America and the West need to stop their unconditional support and defense of regimes, like the one in Saudi Arabia, that are exporters of the terrorist ideology. They need to realize that in some cases, spreading hatred is as bad as or worse than, spreading actual weapons. They need to realize that the oppression, by these regimes of their citizens is simply creating a siutation that will later boil over and in the end, require more US military intervention.

We need to drill here. In the lower 48 states, there is as much oil as Saudi Arabia, if not more, but we just haven't drilled. So we need a crash drilling program, to drill here in America, drill everywhere their is oil, so we are not sending billions of dollars over to that part of the world, which they use to incite violence and hatred towards us.

Another part of the solution is education. Instead of unconditionally supporting radical Muslims, such as those that compromise the governments of Saudi Arabia and many other Arab states, we should support moderate Muslims, like my hero Dr. Tawfik Hamid. We should support moderate Muslims that teach peaceful interpertations of Islamic verses. We need to listen to Muslims that want to work with us peacefully, and are willing to live in peace with the West, such as Dr. Zudhi Jasser. We need to work to gradually detoxify Muslims of the hatreds they have been indoctrinated in. These are the real long term solutions. This doesn't mean that you don't defend yourself. You have to. Terrorist groups, like the Taliban, have to be defeated. But that doesn't mean that all that you do is fight. You have to fight but you also have to change the ideology so that you don't have generations of young Muslims being raised in hatred.

Police Brutality and Oscar Grant

2010-11-05T22:51:00.000-07:00

This post will not earn me many kudos with my fellow conservatives, but I have to say, that the sentencing of former police officer Johannes Mehserle to prison for two years for killing an unarmed man, Oscar Grant, is simply disgusting. The video shows that the man was unarmed and was not a life or death threat when the officer shot him. I understand that Mehserle says it was a mistake, and mistakes happen. But it is also true that Grant had a family. He was someone's son. Someon's relative. People cared about him. Some mistakes have consequences and I know that if someone "accidently" shot a cop or if Grant was the son or relative of an important figure, the leading politicians would be up in arms, demanding justice, demanding an investigation. But I don't see that happening. And frankly I find it disgusting.

That is one thing that I disagree with some of my fellow Republicans about. Police brutality. Yes we do need to be hard on crime. Without a doubt. But there is absolutely no reason to shoot someone who is lying on the ground handcuffed. There is no reason to beat someone up for no real reason, something which certain police officers have done and has been reported in the media. This doesn't mean that you go the opposite way and argue that criminals are poor abused things. You don't. But at some point there has to be a point of view in between, where you are not leniant on criminals but at the same time, there is no senseless violence towards suspects, becuase frankly, needless violence increases lawlessness.

Republican Revolution

2010-11-03T09:08:00.000-07:00

I am so happy and excited that the Republicans have swept to victory in the US midterms. This is a strong rebuke to Obama's behavior over the last two years and will, if the Republicans are conservatives, act as a roadblock in Obama's push to turn America into a European style socialist state.

Now that the Republicans have won, it is important that they, at least for the most part, keep the promises they made on the campaign trail. They need to work to cut government, cut taxes and therefore get the economy moving in a positive direction.

The Blame Game

2010-11-03T09:05:00.000-07:00

As I have said before, my ideas regarding the middle east are close to those of one of my biggest influences, the Muslim hero, Dr. Tawfik Hamid, who I deeply admire and several other "renegade" Arab Muslims and Arab Christians. In fact, a lot of my passion about the subject comes from having read the writings of people such as Dr. Hamid, as I said before, Brigitte Gabriel, Kameel Saleem and others. The bottom line is that the hatred that so many Arab Muslims have towards Jews and Christians hurts us, but to a much greater extent it hurts the Muslims themselves. As I have said many times before, I do not hate Muslims. I do hate the sin that is being done in the name of this religion but this hatred is towards the sin and not the sinner.

Some months ago, I read a book called Cruel and Usual Punishment by Nonnie Darwish. I am a strong man, but there were parts of this book, where she went into the suffering of the Arab Muslim people, which made me almost cry. She talked about how, in the name of Islam, rich Muslim countries refused to do anything for other poor Muslims who were poor and suffering. In an era where far too many Muslims struggle, hungry, without a consistent source of clean drinking water, rich Islamic countries, like Saudi Arabia donate barely any money towards helping other Muslims. I read about Muslim women being beaten and treated like trash in the name of Islam. Of Muslim women being killed simply because they were the victim of sexual attacks by men. All in the name of Shariah, Islamic law. And from my earlier studies, I know that these kinds of abuses are the tip of the iceberg. Whenever Islamic law rules, there is human suffering and injustice. And that is why I oppose it. I read the Islamic press, I watch Arab language broadcasts, and instead of tackling the root cause of these problems, radical Islam and extremist Islamic laws, dictators and corrupt Arab princes, they blame the Christians and Jews. That may be satisfying for a minute, to believe that your suffering is due to Israel or the United States, but in the long run it is simply a lie which permits oppression to continue, since if the root cause of something is not faced, it will continue to exist.

For example, let's say that a person doesn't have a job and therefore doesn't have any money. Instead of developing skills and getting a job, they decide to blame, for example, German people for their lack of a money. The person might feel good for a while being able to blame Germans for his situation, but in the long run, the situation will not resolve because the root of the problem is not Germans, it is the fact that the person doesn't have a job. And until the person confronts the fact that they don't have a job and need a job in order to get money, they will continue for a long time with no money. In fact, they can go on for decades, with the false idea that the reason they don't have any money is due to Germans. But thinking this, talking about this will never solve the problem. Only getting a job will ultimately solve the problem of not having money. However, let's say they never came to his realization, and they got really angry with these German people and even killed some of them, simply because he didn't have any money and expected that G-d would reward him, give him some money if he killed Germans. Why obviously, since these actions are not aimed at getting a job, the jobless condition will continue to exist and the person will continue to be poor. Until the real reason for the lack of money is confronted, which is not having a job, the problem will continue to exist. If this person has a friend, the friend needs to clearly and consistently tell him that his irrational obsession with Germans is in fact an irrational, insane obsession and in order to get money they need to stop blaming others and get to work.

And that is my point of view when it comes to the Arab world. All of this blame of Israel and the United States does not make the Arab world more successful. All the blame in the world will not feed hungry Muslims in Darfur. It will not give clean drinking water to all of the desperately poor Muslims throughout the Islamic world that don't have access to clean drinking water. A true friend of the Arab people will point this out and get them to look at what they can do to resolve their own issues instead of joining into their blame game which may feel good but doesn't really solve anything.

And for the record, I feel the exact same way about my fellow black people. We as a community do the same thing as the Arabs, but to a lesser extant. We are always blaming this one, blaming that one for our own situation, but we never look at what we can do ourselves to resolve our condition. For example, we have a situation today where 70% of black babies are born out of wedlock. These babies are statistically, less likely to succeed and more likely to be poor than babies born to a married couple. They are less likely to go to college. They are more likely to be poor. Yet we demand endless government programs to resolve something which can, in actual fact, be resolved by simply following biblical values and abandoning leftist "values" promoted in large part by social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists. The anything goes culture, where a girl is "sexually free" to have sex with however many guys she wants is not the right path. The idea, avidly promoted by many so-called mental health professionals, that teenagers have the right to explore their sexual barriers free from any sort of parental morality is in actual fact, not good for the black community and does not lead to good mental health.

We look at the poor state of our communities, we are angry about our representation, but what do we do? We vote for the liberals, the same people who introduced these destructive ideas into our community in the first place. We fight the conservatives who promote solutions that really will help resolve the issues that we are facing. But we can't accept the ideas because it comes from "racist" Republicans, despite the fact that a higher number of Republicans voted for the civil rights act than Democrats. Despite the fact that the leftist ideas, that the Democratic party avidly promotes, have only harmed the black community.

And then our so called leaders, instead of confronting real issues in our community, such as the appalling number of black men in prison, the out of wedlock births or the large number of our young people on drugs, spend endless amounts of time blaming Jews, White people, Republicans or the government. And this is completely counter-productive and a waste of time. That energy needs to be focused on taking advantage of the programs that we already have and working to put back together the black family for starters. We need to work to instill moral values in our young people. We should demand that instead of children studying the latest anything goes philosophy from some leftist psychologist, who says that parents should not "repress" children by disciplining them, they should spend that time becoming more familiar with religious moral values, starting with the ten commandments. Instead of teaching them deviant sexuality in school, how about teaching them how to take care of children and hold together a family. Teach them the value of saving sex for a committed relationship. It is funny, so many children know everything about abortion, they know about homosexuality, they know various sexual positions. They know that it is "normal" to have lots of sexual partners. But they don't know the basics of taking care of children. They don't know the slightest bit about maintaining a successful relationship. They can't get a job because they read way below grade level. The are behind grade level in their other subjects. Why aren't the succeeding? Because most black children go to absolutely awful schools, staffed by, for the most part, inadequate teachers that have no fear of being fired because of teachers unions which are the biggest thing that prevents change in the education system. Yet election after election, blacks vote for Democrats, the very same people that support these failing teachers and this situation that keeps us down. These Democrats and our so-called Black leaders are constant opponents of things, such as school choice, which would help children move out of these failing schools and get a real education. Yet the black community votes for politicians that are against this time and time again.

And the Jews? Some of them do the same thing. From some on the Israeli right, I hear constant noises about the Arabs. The Arabs this and the Arabs that. The Arabs are responsible for everything bad that his happening. Blah, blah, blah. And yet, I hear a curious silence when it comes to the actions of the anti-Zionist Jews, like George Soros who are actually worse, in my book, than some of the Muslim anti-Semites like Louis Farrakhan. Farrakhan is not generally believed, but Soros, who has much of the same point of view, vis-a-vis Israel as Farrakhan, is believed. And there is the matter of money, Soros is a billionaire, yet Farrakhan lives off handouts from the Muslim world. I could go on and on for pages about this. The biggest thing that Jews are not facing is the fact that they think that they are only in a war against the Palestinians, when in fact, while they are in a war against Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups, they are also in a war against the anti-Zionist Jews and self-hating Jews in their midst. And frankly the former war would have long since been won and be over if it weren't for this second, civil war, the war of ideas within the Jewish community. The war between Jews who want to live and Jews who want to die. Of Jews who love Israel, and of Jews, like Soros, who would be happy or wouldn't care if it were destroyed. That is the biggest war they are fighting, yet the Israeli right doesn't focus anywhere near enough on this war. This has gotten so crazy that a Jewish professor in Israel, in Tel Aviv university, openly consorts with neo-Nazis and spreads Nazi propoganda, yet he continues to be funded by the state and keeps his position teaching. The only word for this is insane and suicidal. Yet all we hear about is the Arabs. Yes., there are some Arabs who are bad, as I have amply described in my many posts on the subject. But as I have also said, there are many wonderful Arab people, the majority are in fact good people and I'm sure would be peaceful if they weren't raised with such religious and racial hatred towards other people. Even with all of that propoganda, you do have people who reject it. The statement by some on the right, that all Arabs are bad, is just frankly false and non-productive. You can blame other groups forever, but sometimes it is necessary, when resolving a situation, to also look at your own group and handle people within it as well.

So,the blame game, whatever you are blaming, may feel good, but in the long run it doesn't lead to an actual resolution of the situation. The only real way to solve these kinds of problems is to look at what you can do to resolve problems that you run into and work towards a resolution, instead of simply blaming other people or other groups.

Wikileaks Publishes Army documents

2010-07-30T22:59:00.000-07:00

Below is an article from Voice of America, called "WikiLeaks, the Pentagon and the War in Afghanistan"
with my comments:

"This week, the website WikiLeaks published more than seventy-five thousand American military documents on the war in Afghanistan. These documents from the Army and Marine Corps included secret reports from the past six years. ...

Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the problems they describe are not new. But he says their release could harm troops and damage American relationships in that part of the world. He says intelligence sources and methods will become known, and Afghans who have helped American forces may now be in danger."

"ROBERT GATES: "Will people trust us? Will people whose lives are on the line trust us to keep their identities secret? Will other governments trust us to keep their documents and their intelligence secret?"

Gates is 100% right. People will not trust us. This will make it much more difficult to recruit spies and informants in any country. If a lowly soldier can access their identities and put their lives and the lives of their families in danger, then they won't feel safe. And if they don't feel safe, they won't cooperate.

This makes it much harder to get accurate intelligence on the ground. And this means that the war will continue longer and more people will die. And in fact, the lives of people who have trusted the United States, who have helped to save the lives of our soldiers are now in danger.

MICHAEL MULLEN: "Mr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing. But the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family."

"In London, Mr. Assange said WikiLeaks is still examining fifteen thousand more documents. He says the released documents do not include any top-secret reports or names of informants or information like troop movements.

JULIAN ASSANGE: " This material doesn't just reveal abuses, this material describes the past six years of war, every major attack that resulted in someone being detained or someone being killed."

WikiLeaks is a nonprofit organization that publishes documents from governments and businesses. It released the military documents on Sunday. It gave early copies to three news organizations in the United States, Germany and Britain.

This is a true crime against humanity. At this point, it is not known how many people will die because of this lunatic. But I could easily see it running into the thousands if not tens of thousands. Julian is a true criminal and should be arrested and put in solitary confinement for the rest of his life.

There is a class of people, who care nothing about human life, who can kill with no remorse, no caring, no regret. George Soros is one of these people. But also so is Julian Assange. A person who leaks documents, which will result in the deaths of not only American troops, but also Afghanistan citizens who helped us and their families. And Assange holds this up as some great achievement. True evil.

The White House is urging WikiLeaks not to not publish any more classified documents about the Afghan war.

Good call. I agree with the Obama administration on this. But they need to do more than simply request this. They need to take legal action against the founder and backers of Wikileaks and shut them down. This is a true crime. And I don't believe that they are serving some "higher purpose" by doing this. They are simply getting more people killed. And a full investigation needs to be rapidly done to determine who got these documents to Wikileaks. I don't think it was one person, I suspected a group, considering the number of documents.These soldiers need to be placed for the rest of their life in solitary confinement.

This is yet another example of how the hard left, as represented by Assange, cares nothing about human life.

NAACP vs Tea Party

2010-07-25T21:38:00.000-07:00

The NAACP is the last group that should be criticizing the Tea Party for being racist. The NAACP supports a number of black racists, such as Louis Farrakhan and others. If the NAACP is SO concerned about racism, they should start by condemning some of their supporters that are racist against White people and / or Jews.

Lessons from School

2010-07-25T21:36:00.000-07:00

I had the wonderful fortune to be able to attend a private school which taught me a great deal.

The school, which is not going to be named here, demanded extremely high academic achievement. Every student was expected to excel. Period. There were no excuses. If a child was not doing well in school, what that meant in their mind is that they were not consistently getting a B or better grade, there was something wrong. And in their mind, that was due only to a few reason:

1) Student needs help. In this case the school provided tutors to work with students so they did better. Sometimes older students acted as tutors for younger students, but not always.

2) The teacher is lousy -- If a lot of students in a class were not getting the material, eventually the teacher would be shown the door. There wasn't a lot of talking. You either made the grade or you didn't. You either performed or you didn't. End of story. One child doesn't equal a lousy teacher. But lots of them do.

3) Student Refuses to behave -- Sometimes students would refuse to do homework, refuse to work with the faculty. Sometimes students would get involved with drugs. In any event, the solution was that the student either had to shape up or ship out. In other words, if they consistently refused to get with the program, and work hard and turn around their grades, they would be shown the door. Same thing with students who beat up other students or got involved with drugs. Same punishment. They had to leave.

No other excuses were listened to. Nobody was interested in hearing how there were some other excuses to lack of achievement. Literally, nobody cared. It was one of the above. Period. And believe it or not, most of the children rose to the occasion and actually got their grades into an acceptable range. And the ones that were not interested in learning left. It was just as simple as that. The ones that wanted to be there were given help when their grades slipped. As long as they had the will to learn, the school was there to help them (for the most part.) But the student had to really want it and be willing to put in the long hours of homework necessary to succeed.

But after this tough regimen, when students went to college, they often did really well. One of my friends went to college after this heavy regimen and ended up getting on the Dean's list. He was so used to the pressure this helped him succeed when he went to college. And other students ended up getting good jobs right out of high school, simply off the reputation of the school. A friend of mine was hired right out of high school as a software programmer by a major Fortune 100 software firm based primarily on the reputation of the school and the strength of my friend's technical skill.

So the lesson I learned in school is NOBODY CARES. All that ANYONE cares about is getting the job done. Excuses are just that, excuses and nobody really cares about them or you. That is why you have to work hard and excel.

In public schools today, students are given a million and one excuses as to why they can't or won't perform in school. From the fact that they are Black, to the fact that they are poor, the list goes on and on. But in the end, when they try to get a job, nobody cares. And so many young black men think that racism is preventing them from succeeding and this is true sometimes. But most of the time what is holding them back is lack of skills and behind this lack of skills is a government run, leftist high school that don't teach them the basics they need to work. Misguided, stupid leftists promote that anyone has the right to stay in school, no matter their misbehavior and all this ends up doing is making things harder for the students who actually want to learn.

So, if more schools taught the lessons my school taught me, we would have a true renaissance in education.

"Land for Peace"

2010-07-10T21:20:00.000-07:00

The biggest mistake in my mind, that Israel continues to commit is continuing to withdraw from territory with the hope of peace. It is a clear failure yet Israel continues to do this. It is Israel's solution to everything. Withdraw from more territory. And I can't stand when they do this. It actually drives me crazy. Experience has shown that when Israel withdraws from territory,there is never more peace, only more war.

Let's take Israel's withdrawal from south Lebanon. It actually boggles my mind how stupid some Israeli government officials are, chief among them, defense secretary Ehad Barak. Stupid, stupid, stupid leftist. Stupid. I admire his bravery in combat, he is an extremely decorated soldier and I respect that. But his decision, strongly supported by his friends and fellow travelers on the left to abandon south Lebanon to Hezbollah terrorists and to betray Israel's allies among the Christian Lebanese was beyond stupid and actually criminal in my mind. So Israel withdraws and their is all of this talk about how this will bring peace. Weakness never brings peace. Whoever promotes this is actually deluded or on drugs. Or doesn't know anything about how the Middle East works. Or a combination of the above.

Israel under Barak's direction abandons south Lebanon and betrays its allies, the Christian Lebanese. The Christians, lacking any friends, completely abandoned and stabbed in the back by Barak and his leftist friends, join the emergent power in south Lebanon, Hezbollah, not necessarily because they agree with their ideology, but of course in the world of the Middle East, you have to either be powerful or have powerful friends in order to survive, especially for a relatively weak community like the Christians are. Hezbollah builds up military might in the south, now assisted by the Christians who of course, have no choice but to support this and they begin attacking Israel, since their purpose is to exterminate every Jew everywhere starting with Israel. This action puts Israelis living in north Israel under rocket attack, the IDF responds and the Christians are caught in the crossfire. Thousands of people die, who did not need to die if Israel would have done the right thing, the thing that they promised the Christians they would do when they first moved into Lebanon, which is help the Christians expel the terrorist Muslims and restore the government to Christian rule. But of course leftists can't face what it actually takes to achieve victory. And they seem to always be confused when their stupid solutions backfire on them. Now we have Barak and his friends on the left demand that Israel withdraw from more territory which is complete suicide.

Everything above applies to the Gaza withdrawal. It is true that Barak doesn't bear complete responsibility for this, it is another stupid move by the Israeli government which has brought about more problems. Before the Gaza disengagement, there were problems in Gaza, but nowhere near the problems that we have today,with rockets being fired into south of Israel and a terrorist organization ruling the land. Israel has to go into Gaza in order to stop the rockets. Roughly 1300 people die, 600-700 of them were terrorists, but a lot of innocent people died as well, which breaks my heart because one of my good friends is from Gaza. And none of these people had to die. None. If Israel had simply done the right thing and stayed in Gaza, there would have never been any rockets. But no, Israel has to bend to the will of the anti-semitic "international community" instead of doing the right thing, the moral thing.

And yet, today, for some strange, crazy reason, many Israeli leaders are calling for giving Arab terrorists yet more land. Now looking at what happened in Lebanon and Gaza, what do these people think is going to happen once they get land. Are they going to make peace with the Jews? Are they going to adhere to any peace treaties? No. Absolutely not. They haven't so far, so why would they once they got more land. This is a complete idiocy.

The whole idea of land for peace reminds me of this story. A criminal keeps breaking into a safe and stealing thousands of dollars. The bank hires a security guard who tries to stop the robber but is ultimately ineffective in stopping all of the thefts. The security guard goes to the president of the bank and says, "There is no way to stop a bank robber. He steals two thousand dollars a week so the only way to stop him is to give him $10,000 a week." It is actually that stupid. It is rewarding misbehavior and when you do that, all you get is more misbehavior. In the above theoretical example, the bank robber, once he starts getting $10,000 a week from one bank manager will take this money and work on extorting more money. In other words, the problem doesn't end it only gets worse.

It boggles my mind that the state of Israel, with more PHds per capita than any other country can't grasp this simple truth. Reward bad behavior get more bad behavior. Punish bad behavior and get less bad behavior (terrorism). When I see more Arabs joining anti-Israel organizations I can't say that I am totally surprised. If Israel and America show themselves to be weak partners, liable to changing their mind and betraying their allies, naturally people won't want to support these countries. They will go with a group that appears to be a long term partner that will defend them. I'm not saying this is right, I'm simply saying that this is the way the Middle East, and much of the rest of the world, works.

A Problem with a "Non-interventionist" Foreign Policy

2010-07-10T20:43:00.000-07:00

Radical Leftists, Ron Paul supporters and many people in between advocate what is called a non-interventionist foreign policy. In other words, we should never get involved with the internal or other affairs of another country unless they are attacking the United States. That we should trade with every country equally and treat repressive regimes like that in the Sudan the same as we treat democratic allies such as France with the assumption that everyone will be friendly towards us if we are friendly towards them. I understand the attraction of that point of view, things are much simpler in the world if you believe this. But unfortunately life doesn't go that way. Ignoring evil doesn't make evil go away. Evil can't be reasoned with and it must be confronted and destroyed. And ignoring evil, allowing evil and injustice to persist is what is at the heart of a the so-called "non-interventionist" foreign policy.

In fact, as I have extensively covered in past posts, in many cases, a non-interventionist foreign policies can lead to far more deaths to our current foreign policy, which is, as I have also covered before, extremely flawed. But if their were a choice between our current foreign policy and a non-interventionist, completely pacifist foreign policy, I would choose what we have now. The reason for this is clear when you actually face evil, when you actually confront it and understand it for what it is, you will realize that there is no actual reason, that exists for evil actions. While evil individuals and groups tend to make up reasons for their actions, they are all imaginary, the only place they exist is the mind of the person doing the evil actions. When evil is not confronted and handled, this leads to more injustice, harm and deaths. For example, let's take Vietnam, there were a stream of Leftists who protested around this nation during the 1960s and early 1970s to end the US involvement in Vietnam. The propaganda of the Leftists clamed that all of the US was committing attroicities on the people in Vietnam and everything would be perfect if we simply left. Non-interventionist propaganda, adding up to the "fact" that the US should not get involved in conflicts with countries that are not directly attacking the US was spread around. The US government foolishly followed this advice. In the wake of the US withdrawal from Vietnam, the Communists committed crimes against humanity, in three years they killed as many innocent civilians as had been killed by both sides in 15 years of fighting before this point. So looking at this, what was better, to stay a few years and actually win the war or cut and run. Obviously staying would have reduced the number of civilian deaths. Yet leftists will choose the path which leads to more civilian deaths and say that this in fact is the more humanitarian path, which is of course a lie. Now having said there, if there had been a way to break the will of the communists without resorting to war, if there had been a way to get them to leave alone Vietnam without resorting to war, of course that would have been better. And I also believe that the war was grossly mishandled, there was no need to drag it out for 20 years. When a war needs to be fought, the enemy needs to be overwhelmed with heavy force (not an atomic bomb, but lots of conventional bombs on strategic, military targets) and quickly forced to surrender. Not piecemeal attacks here and there.

So what we can learn from this is confronting and destroying evil leads to peace. It leads to fewer deaths than waiting for evil to develop and then attacking or even worse, allowing evil to develop.

The Black Community and Excuses

2010-07-09T13:01:00.000-07:00

One reason the black community is in so much trouble is the tendency, within the community to blame other people as opposed to looking within for the reasons behind bad situations. For example, let's look at the increasing number of babies being born to single mothers. This is a major problem that hasn't been faced fully by the NAACP and other black civil rights organizations. Statistics show that a child born in a single parent household will, statistically, not do as well as a child born in a household run by a father and a mother. For example, children of two family households are more likely to go to college, they are more likely to stay away from a life of crime, they are more likely to succeed. But you seen an endless stream of black "leaders" blaming these problems on the "white man," "Jews," "the racist society," the government and other such things. But the real problem, is that we have 75% of black children being born out of wedlock. We have an increasing number of young black men who are not staying with their children. We have an epidemic of children being raised in the streets instead of being raised by their family and that along with a horrible education system, run by government bureaucrats and unions and a tendency of two many in the black community to, instead of having faith in a higher power, to have faith in government and leftist ideas. Those are the real things causing the problems that we run into.

But instead of facing this and moving forward, there are an endless stream of excuses emanating from so-called black leaders. Excuses which, in the end get in the way of what we actually need to do, which is take responsibility for the crime and other bad conditions in our community. We, as black people, need to face the problems and a group and solve them. We need to start with our friends and our family members who are not taking as much responsibility for their families. While we can't control their life we can make them know that we disapprove of their behavior. We can encourage them to do the right thing. And if we all do this, we will see a change. We can stop supporting welfare state policies which have only shown, statistically to harm our community and we must insist that policies are implemented on a state and federal level which help small business expand so that their are more jobs. We can stop supporting the socialist teacher's union that only holds black children down. We must recognize that in order for us to become more successful, we need a better education system for our children, one that through the free market rewards competence and punishes schools that are failing like the vast majority of the schools in the black community are.

The absolute last thing we need is more excuses which simply are designed to make us feel better but do not, in the long run solve any of the problems that we face.

Ron Paul is Wrong

2010-07-05T22:47:00.000-07:00

This is a difficult post to write. For most of my life, I have been a Ron Paul supporter but over the last year I have come to realize, through my extensive study of history, that, while Paul is right about the need to examine government agencies and eliminate useless agencies, his foreign policy is completely off the wall. His belief, and the belief of many of his libertarian followers, that we can get rid of every single regulation, including regulations dealing with civil rights for minorities is also wrong.

His thinking, along with the thinking of many libertarians is flawed. The basic flaw is that everyone is reasonable. That reasonable people will make reasonable decisions. That all government regulation is bad. That no regulations are needed at all. And that point of view is as wrong as the Socialist point of view that everything needs to be regulated. They are opposite sides of the same coin and both are wrong.

The fact of the matter is that while they make a good point, there are far too many regulations, the solution is not to get rid of all regulation. The solution is to look at these and get rid of many as possible. But Ron Paul and his son Rand actually go too far when it comes to this. Let's take Paul's position on discrimination. Both Rand and Ron believe that private companies, operating off of private land should be able to discriminate against black people since private industry should not be subject to controls by the government. Now of course this is wrong, since the private land is being defended by public resources. Government agencies are paving the roads that bring people to the business. They are being defended by the state and local government. Therefore they should be subject to a minimal level of regulation. Not over regulation. But they should have to serve me and not be able to refuse me service because I am black. The government has done a lot of bad things, but the civil rights act of 1964 was not one of those things.

Another area where Ron Paul is 100% wrong is foreign policy. And this is one of many reasons why I can't support Paul as President. His thinking, that if we leave other countries alone, they will leave us alone is just not true. Even a casual study of history shows that this is the case. We should minimize the number of wars we are in. War should definitely not be the first thing that we do in the face of a disagreement with another state. But the fact of the matter is, that there are valid cases for war. For example World War 2. In fact, a major problem with World War 2, is that we didn't enter the war soon enough. We waited until we were attacked and by the time we were attacked the Germans, Italian and Japanese had already built up their war machine. Germany should have been attacked right after they tried to invade Czechoslovakia. But we didn't. And 60 million died as a result.

Another thing he loves to talk about is the Islamic world. In his thinking and the thinking of people with similar points of view, the Islamic world would love us if we would simply desert Israel and all of our allies in the region. This is dangerous and highly flawed thinking. From the beginning of the Republic, America has faced attacks from Islamic extremists. For example, the Barbary pirates, who were controlled by the Islamic leader, the Caliphate, waged jihad against the United States starting shortly after we got independence from the United Kingdom. We had done absolutely nothing to deserve these attacks -- when these attacks started we didn't even have an effective Navy. We were definitely not occupying anything or posing any threats to Islamic countries. These attacks only ceased once the Muslims were soundly defeated in the early 19th century. So, Paul's assertion that the Islamic world would love us if we went back to being impotent is idiocy. This incident, and others throughout history show that we have faced attacks from Muslims because we are "infidels" pure and simple.

Happy 4th of July

2010-07-04T17:04:00.002-07:00

To all my readers, God bless America and have a wonderful 4th of July.

Racism

2010-07-04T17:04:00.000-07:00

One point which I disagree with the mainstream Republican establishment is on the subject of race relations in America. While I believe that things are far better than they were 50 years ago, far better, I don't believe that we live in a color blind society. Now having said that, that doesn't give Blacks a blank check to become apathetic and give up. We simply need to go to college, work hard and overcome any barriers that we run into.

But I don't believe, like some on the far right do, for example Rand Paul, that we need to weaken laws designed to protect against racial discrimination. We still need some government oversigt in this area because, people still discriminate and there needs to be a way to resolve things when they do. There needs to be a happy middle. Are the majority of white Americans racist. No. Are some racist. Yes. Does there need to be laws against those who are racist. Yes. Is there reverse racism. Yes. And all forms of racism are evil.

Having said all that, the ultimate solution to racism is for people to become more familiar with people with other races so they can realize that people are more alike than they are different.

Israel US relations in Crisis

2010-06-27T10:31:00.000-07:00

I saw an interesting article in of all places, The Guardian from the UK, entitled
"Israel-US relations rocked by 'tectonic rift' Israel's ambassador to Washington says situation has 'moved beyond a crisis that eventually passes'." Quotes from the article, and my comments are below.

Relations between Israel and its staunchest ally, the US, have suffered a "tectonic rift", according to Israel's ambassador to Washington.

Michael Oren briefed Israeli diplomats on the sharp deterioration between the countries ahead of Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu's visit to the White House early next month.

According to those present, Oren said the situation had moved beyond a crisis that eventually passes. "There is no crisis in Israel-US relations because in a crisis there are ups and downs," he told the diplomats in Jerusalem. "Relations are in the state of a tectonic rift in which continents are drifting apart."

Of course they have. Obama is an anti-semitic, anti-Israel fanatic. We have to face the fact that there is no reason to continue to try to reason with Obama. He wants to destroy Israel. Why do I say that? His actions prove it. What so many Jews and other people as well, fall down on is listening to his words and not observing his actions. Words are cheap. Words mean NOTHING, if not followed up by actions. AIPAC and the rest of the pro-Israel crowd got taken in by Obama's words, but never actually faced his 20 year history of anti-zionist connections and activities. Israel needs to simply take the actions that are in its best interests, end of story.

Oren said President Barack Obama made judgments about Israel on the basis of cold calculation in contrast to predecessors George W Bush and Bill Clinton, who were motivated by historical and ideological factors. He suggested that Obama was less likely to be influenced by pro-Israel supporters inside or outside the White House. "This is a one-man show," he was quoted as saying.

In other words, Obama is willing to sacrifice the safety of Israel in order to please the international community. Obama in this respect is similar to Neville Chamberlain. Neville was willing to sacrifice Czechoslovakia in order to achieve "peace" with Adolf Hitler. We all know how well that worked out, 60 million dead. All could have been saved if Chamberlain and the rest of the Europeans did what they should have done, which is bomb the German military into the stone age when they started making aggressive motions towards their neighbors. Yes, tens of thousands would have died. But this would have saved the lives of tens of millions.

It is the same with Obama. He is so worried about the opinion of the international community, he is willing to sacrifice the safety of millions of people, in his desire to appease the Islamic world. Unfortunately, for Obama and his advisers and the rest of the world, if Israel goes down, we all go down. The Islamic terrorists that Israel fights have said time and time again, that their target is not only the Jewish state, but it is also the entire Christian world. In other words, first Saturday and then Sunday. The plan is to first kill the Jews, the Saturday people and then go after the Christians, the Sunday people and EVERY OTHER non-Muslim. Muslims who support human rights, who are not extremists will also be targeted. I have read interviews with Palestinian terrorists where they say this exact thing. They are very clear about this in their writing and speeches in Arabic. Yet so many in our government don't do the common sense thing and simply listen to what they say. This shows what a low IQ in fact these people have. So it is very foolish to try to appease them.

The agenda of next week's meeting is unlikely to prove painless for Netanyahu. As well as discussing the flotilla debacle, Obama is expected to press for further action to allow imports, exports and people to move more freely to and from Gaza. In addition, Obama is expected to again raise the vexed issue of settlement construction. The 10-month partial freeze, wrung out of Netanyahu after months of pressure and negotiation, is due to end in late September.

It would be suicide for Israel to agree to this. They need to stand firm against Obama and the other jew haters in his administration. Any imports that are allowed will be used to prop up the Hamas terrorist regime. Increased freedom of movement means more freedom for terrorists to attack Israel.

As to settlements, the fact that this is even being discussed shows how much the "international community" and specifically the Obama administration hates Jews. As I have said before, I'm not Jewish, but I have friends that are Jewish and I think it is extremely bigoted and racist to not allow people, solely because of their ethnic background to live in a certain area. And that is what Obama and much of the "international community" stands for. Discriminating against people because of their ethnic background and religious beliefs which is, simply disgusting. My belief is that as long as a person is loyal to Israel as a Jewish state, is not a terrorist and doesn't support any terrorist organizations, as long as they are not a security threat and are a citizen of Israel, they should be free to live where they want to live.

And as much as the Palestinians love to cry about discrimination, as a group, they are far, far more racist than the Jews are. That is one of many reasons I support Israel and the Jews over the Palestinians. I have watched Palestinian authority TV and it is just hate from beginning to end. Hate blacks, hate Jews, hate Kurds, hate Americans, kill Americans, kill Jews. And every once in a while, a statement of support for the president of Sudan who, backed by the Arab world, is killing and enslaving blacks. And this is what the "moderate" Palestinian Authority supports. Enslaving blacks, killing blacks, killing Jews, killing Americans. These are the values these people have. Am I talking about every single one. No, absolutely not. There are some that don't. But the majority do. And their leaders certainly do. So before the Palestinians and other Arabs start crying about racism, they need to clean up their own house. They need to stop hating blacks, hating Jews, hating Americans, hating other people. They need to realize that just because someone is an Arab Muslim, it doesn't mean that they are superior to everybody else. And when the Arabs actually stop their own racism, then MAYBE I'll listen to their complaints.

Obama Administration and the Internet

2010-06-17T22:03:00.000-07:00

Senator Joe Lieberman introduced a bill, called Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act which would allow Obama to shut down the Internet in case of a "national security" emergency.

This bill is wrong on so many levels I could write up hundreds of pages on the subject, but one of the main problems is Obama frankly, is in a dream world. He is not connected to reality and is WAY over his head. Therefore he, nor is any government politician qualified to exert control over the Internet. Especially Obama, since he has stated that he wants to control and in some cases shut down news outlets that disagree with him. Or levy special taxes on these outlets to give money for his friends in the mainstream media. And because of this and many other reasons, he can't be trusted with this type of power.

Lately I have been disappointed with Lieberman. He proposes bills like this, but never thinks things through.

Republican Party and the Pharmaceutical Industry

2010-06-17T21:41:00.000-07:00

Another area which I disagree with the mainstream Republican party is on the subject of value of alternative health and the dangers of prescription drugs. I have seen a number of Republicans bash alternative medicine and practitioners.

I do not believe that medical drugs should never be used. I do. There are a great many cases where a person would need a drug for a certain purpose. But today, far, far too many people are taking drugs for specious reasons. People are literally seeing an ad on TV for, say a heartburn drug, and then going and seeing their doctor and getting prescribed this drug which, in truth they did not need. Or they have a mild condition and instead of making lifestyle changes to handle their issues, they are lazy and simply take a drug, when this was not actually necessary. For example, if a person's blood pressure is only slightly high, they can often resolve the situation by dietary changes, exercise and reducing the stress in their life. So instead of taking these common sense measures, the person chooses to take drugs despite the fact that these are not necessary.

Another solution, when it comes to conditions is alternative medicine. Not all of the time, but sometimes medical conditions are caused by simple mineral or vitamin deficiencies. For example, for years I had trouble sleeping. In the end, it turned out that I was not getting enough calcium in my diet since I am lactose intolerant and therefore don't drink milk. Because of this condition I needed to supplement my diet with extra calcium and other minerals. I started doing this and the sleeping problem resolved itself. No need for Ambien or some other expensive drug.

And what so many fail to realize is that prescription drugs are not candy. They are dangerous substances that can injure or kill. Hundreds of thousands of people die from these prescription drugs and they are nothing to mess around with. Now again, there ARE some cases where a person legitimately needs a drug. But today, these drugs are being given out like candy and the force driving the boom, direct to consumer advertising of prescription drugs, defended by Republicans and some Libertarians, continues unabated despite the obvious fact that ordinary people are simply not able to determine what drugs they need and don't need. And doctors in many cases are unable to do what they should do, which is when asked about a drug, just say no. Don't prescribe it if the patient really doesn't need it.

So instead of bashing these alternative health solutions, such as vitamins and minerals, we need to embrace them. They can't cure everything, not by a long shot, but it can definitely solve some common conditions.

Values Clarification and Mental Health "Professionals"

2010-06-17T20:10:00.001-07:00

I did a blog post a while ago on leftist intellectuals and the harm they cause.

The mental health field is a prime example of this. They have been completely taken over by leftists and as a result, it is no surprise that increasing numbers of people, including myself find it difficult to take seriously, the endless stream of pronouncements from people who call themselves experts on mental health.

For example let's take values clarification classes, done in schools and developed by mental health professionals. The ostensible reason for these exercises is to help a child "discover his or her own values." There are a number of values clarification exercises in schools that these "experts" have developed, from asking a child about his religious beliefs and then holding these beliefs up to attack and ridicule by the rest of the class to carefully explaining to children that whatever sexual decisions they make are OK and every decision is equally moral. For example, the decision to wait for a committed relationship before having sex is, morally, the same as a homosexual man having sex with hundreds of partners. All decisions are equally valuable. As a whole, these values clarifications exercises are designed to weaken a child's moral compass.

There is no reason for a child to "discover" values or to be made to question values he was raised with. His or her parents, along with their Church or Temple are the correct sources of moral values. If they are confused as to what is moral, they should talk to their parents, or if they feel this is difficult, they should, reach out to their minister or rabbi and have a heart to heart discussion with this person. Or they can reach out to a youth pastor. If a person is Christian they can also study their bible. There is no reason for someone to "discover" new values. For Christians there are biblical values. For Jews, there are Torah values. These are values that mankind have lived with for thousands of years. They are time tested values and lead to a moral life. Other religions have other books which outline their moral values, for example, Hindus have holy books with their values. In any event, it is important that children have a moral backbone, and this DOES NOT, come from some leftist teacher, psychologist or psychiatrist, who hates Christians and traditional values.

What these leftists hate to face is the fact that when people adhere to these moral values, things go better. Leftists hate this but facts are facts. When the black community was focused on the Church, things were much better. Children were growing up in two parent households. They were getting jobs. Things were better. When the black community became leftists and embraced left wing values, things got far worse. And the more we embrace these left wing values, the worse things get. So it is obvious that these values are unworkable and are in fact harmful.

Republicans and Religious Tolerance

2010-06-04T22:20:00.000-07:00

I am a devoted conservative in that I agree with much of the Republican platform but there are some things which some Republicans do, which really annoy me. And one of these things is being intolerant of other religions.

There are far too many Christian conservatives in the Republican party that automatically hate anything that isn't Christian. This isn't true of all of them, or the majority of them, but it is true of too many of them. Yes, we all oppose radical Islam. But there is absolutely no reason to attack one of my strongest influences, Dr. Tawfik Hamid, who happens to be a Muslim. Or another one of my heroes, Dr. Zuhdi Jasser who is also an Arab Muslim. Or Sheikh Professor Abdul Hadi Palazzi. Or any of my friends that are Sikhs. Or Jews. Or Druze. Or Buddhists. Or whatever.

When it comes to religion, my overall philosophy is that as long as you aren't hurting anybody else, you should be left alone. Everyone should have the right to practice their religion in peace and it shouldn't be brought up in a political campaign. Everyone has different religious beliefs. The important thing is that they have moral values and are loyal to their country. And if a person is not Christian, if they are a Buddhist, like a few of my friends or some other peaceful religion, I don't think that this should be a problem or issue. There was a campaign several years ago, between State Senator Stephen Martin and now Representative Eric Cantor, who is Jewish. Martin slammed Cantor's religion by making one of his campaign talking points that Cantor, because he was a Jew, didn't have moral values that represented Virginia. This is obviously insane and absurd. And anti-semitic. My belief is that people only get into religious mud slinging when they don't have anything better to discuss.It is an extremely lowbrow tactic and disgusting.

If someone is an Islamic terrorist, do we have to defeat them? Yes. Without a doubt. We must not hesitate to destroy evil or evil will destroy us. And, as I have said before, my problem with Islam, as it is taught today, is that instead of moral values being taught, in most Islamic mosques today, values of racial and ethnic hatred are taught. In other words, people are taught that it is moral and good, to kill others based off their ethnic and / or religious backgrounds. And this is bad. Any group doing this must be destroyed. But we must not generalize and think of everyone who is simply different as evil. And we must recognize that even within Islam, there are reformers, such as Dr. Hamid, who need our love and support. And prayers (if that is what you do.) We must also recognize that just because the West is having such a problem with Islam, it doesn't mean that every non-Western religion is bad. In other words, we can't equate every religion with radical Islam. For example, Sikhism. I had a few friends growing up who were Sikhs. They were calm peaceful people. In fact, they were as a whole, very pacifist. More peaceful than many Christians. Yet some criticize them because of their religious beliefs, while not even understanding these beliefs, which is foolish.

This is very important and while most conservatives understand this, there are some that definitely do not and it is important that we, as conservatives, work on this.

Israel defeats terrorists, world issues condmenation

2010-06-04T22:18:00.000-07:00

Israel stops a ship full of terrorists, boards it and kills nine terrorists that are attacking Israeli soldiers and trying to kill them. An obvious case of good soldiers versus evil jihadists. Yes, maybe to me and you. Yet the mainstream media, in typical liberal fashion, appear to be unable to recognize the difference between good and evil and are lost in a sea of moral confusion.

Any person has the right to defend themselves. Any country has the right to defend their citizens against terrorists. Yet when Jews defend themselves, this somehow considered a "crime" by the UN and the rest of the "international community"

Just shows how useless the UN and other international bodies are. They are so morally confused, they don't even consider that self-defense is moral.

The Importance of Human Life

2010-05-18T22:05:00.000-07:00

My belief is that every life is precious, from the unborn child in the womb to the disabled child, to the poor mother, to the mentally ill, to the elderly. All life is precious. We must do what we can to protect human life which is a gift.

And this brings me to one of many reasons I can never be a leftist. Leftist policies result in the destruction of human life. Whether their foreign policy ideas to their point of view on health care which the demand include abortion on demand, the common denominator is destruction of human life.

You look at the promotion of Planned Parenthood clinics on practically every city block in black and Latino areas, yet there are nearly no clinics in the "good" areas that are primarily Caucasian. Millions of black babies have been aborted but this is not enough for these people. Instead of common sense solutions, such as teaching children in school to NOT have sex outside of a serious relationship, they actually encourage this behavior, which results in pregnancies and many of these unplanned pregnancies result in abortions. I personally hate abortion, but on the other hand, I don't want women dying in illegal abortions. We really need to work towards a change in the Black and Latino cultures so that girls and boys have a moral backbone and aren't engaging in casual sexual relationships that result in unwanted pregnancies but liberals would never agree to such a thing. Because they want to keep from offending young people by encouraging them to not have casual sexual relations, they doom the community to countless abortions.

Now we will move onto wars. "Progressives" love to say that conservatives are warmongers. And granted, there are some conservatives who are. There are some conservatives who don't care about killing people who are different. This is unfortunate. But the good news is my experience, is that these people are in the minority.

But what the liberals never want to talk about, is that their policies CREATE and LEAD to wars. That is what they never want to face. President Jimmy Carter's leftist, weak, insane foreign policy is fully responsible for the situation we face today in Iran. Carter has the blood of millions of Persians and others on his hands. How could this be, you might say. The Shah of Iran, while flawed and imperfect was a United States ally. The Shah was FAR, FAR better than the Ayatollah. The CIA, during the Presidency of Jimmy Carter, betrayed the Shah and allowed the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to step in and overthrow him. Despite many opportunities to assassinate the Ayatollah, he refused to do so. He, like many Leftists at the time, viewed the Ayatollah as someone who would bring justice to the Persians who had been suffering under the Shah. And the fact is, the Shah and his men did commit many horrible abuses of human rights. And because of those human rights abuses, the leftists believed that the Ayatollah as a saint. He was praised in liberal publications such as the New York Times, the euro-progressives supported him. Because of course, anyone who hated America and the Shah was perfect in their eyes.

Fast forward 30 years. Tens of millions of people, including millions of children, have been killed by the Islamic regime. These are people who were killed in the Iran Iraq War. These are people killed outright, for disagreeing with the regime. So, the question is, who should have been supported. The Shah, who killed a few thousand people or the Islamic regime that has been responsible for, directly or indirectly for the deaths of millions. The Islamic regime which has stated that they are willing to bring about the deaths of every man, woman and child in Iran, in order to bring about "victory for Allah." Whatever that means. They are insane religious fanatics. They could have easily been stopped. The deaths of a few HUNDRED people could have saved the lives of MILLIONS of people. Yet the international left would prefer the option that results in the deaths of millions. Today we are looking at the strong prospect of a war with Iran, brought about by the failure of Jimmy Carter to order the CIA to kill a relative handful of people. The deaths of the Ayatollah and his circle would have saved us from this situation. But no, we can't do something like that, because that projects America's strength and in the mind of the left wing wackos, that is unacceptable.

That is the real problem with progressives. They never look at the long term effects of the policies they promote. They are missing the ability to see the long term results of their actions and their positions. They are missing the ability to predict consequences for their, for the most part, foolish and naive policies.

A Reason I support Israel

2010-05-07T23:28:00.000-07:00

I feel there are many reasons to support Israel, from its human rights record, to the fact that it is the only non-racist, non-apartheid state in the Middle East, the list goes on and on.

But one of these reasons is very simple. Israel is the canary in the cole mine. Israel is the front line in the war the West is fighting with Islamic extremists. There are some people, who are either misinformed, leftists or both, that believe that groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah only hate Israel and would sit around and be good citizens if God forbid, Israel fell. This is the furthest thing from the truth. Our enemies, would be emboldened and they would start on their next target, which would probably be Europe. From there, they would seek to force the world to become Islamic. There is no appeasing these people. Their goal is an Islamic caliphate. In Islam, the caliphate is a religious and military leader of the Muslim world. Very similar to the pope, but different in that he is not only a religious leader but a military leader as well. This position started with the death of Muhammad and continued up until the early 20th century, when it was abolished and Turkey, the home of the last Caliphate, was declared a secular republic.

Anyway, over 1200 years ago, before the advent of Islam Jews, Christians and Pagans all lived together in what is now known as the Islamic world. Was everything always perfect. No. Absolutely not. There was a lot of fighting, it was the seventh century after all. There were tribes. Some were Jews, some were Christian, some were Pagans. Wars went on between clans, there were alliances, kingdoms rose and fell. However, what we now know as jihad was not a developed concept. In the Middle East, outside of the Christians, there wasn't the heavy (there was some) anti-semtism. Many of the Pagans and Persians were allied with the Jews. Many of the Christians were allied with the Byzantine empire. But every tribe had its own priorities. In fact, one of the kings of Persia was a Jew. One of the kings in what is now Syria was a Jew. While there was fighting between the various tribes, there wasn't this complete, pervasive racism and hatred that we see today against Jews, Christians and other "infidels." Medina was a JEWISH city, before Muslims stole the land. In fact, when Muhammad was persecuted in Mecca, which was a pagan city, Jews were the only people who gave him and the early Muslims shelter.

Anyway, Muhammad came and first fought certain Jewish tribes. And then when these were destroyed or subjugated he moved onto the Christians. These tribes were subjugated by the Muslims and then the other tribes fell. This fall was do to the fact that the other tribes didn't unify, band together and fight the Muslims. Due to their far superior numbers they could have defeated them. Even after the Muslims had conquered the Arabian peninsula, things were still not too late. If the remaining Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, Hindus and Pagans had joined together, they could have handled the problem. But everyone thought, well they are just angry with the Jews and some Christians. Who cares. The problem has nothing to do with us. In fact we have a shiny peace agreement with them. Which, in the end ended up being worthless. Absolutely worthless. The Prophet of Islam, Muhammad, spoke positively of Africans and then his followers when into Africa and killed over 100 million defenseless Africans, not to mention the hundreds of millions of Hindus, Jews, Pagans and Christians that were killed in cold blood by these people. None of these groups thought to unite. I can imagine, they probably thought, "the Jews deserve their fate." We aren't Jews so we don't have to worry about what they are doing or something similar.We can't bring the hundreds of millions of innocents that were killed at the hands of Muslim jihadists back, but what we can do, is learn from the mistakes of the past.

And, like many things, the instigator started with the Jews. What starts with the Jews NEVER ends with the Jews. So, the failure of some Christian, Jewish and Pagan tribes to join against the Muslims and destroy them, which they could have done so as their numbers were far greater than the early Muslims, resulted in hundreds of millions being slaughtered.

Does this mean every Muslim is bad. No, absolutely not. It means that certain Muslims, the ones that carried out these acts are bad however.

Today, we have a repeat of this situation. We have extremists, terrorists, racists, who say they want to "wipe Israel off the map." However, due to the enormous advances in technology between the seventh century and today, it would not take over a thousand years to kill hundreds of millions of innocents. It would only take a few well placed nuclear blasts. Blasts which the perpetrators believe will ensure them a place in heaven, which is the thread which links the earliest jihadists to the present day ones. In the seventh century, the goal was a global caliphate and today, the Islamic jihadists have as their goal, a global caliphate. In other words, the entire world living under Islamic, called Shariah, law, subject to the whims of the Caliphate. So while in the past we didn't unite to defeat the evil which eventually cost the lives of so many of our brothers in sisters, today we must unite and defeat this evil and the extremist ideology that spawned it once and forever.

The Republican Party and Gays

2010-05-07T23:17:00.000-07:00

I am a staunch conservative, but one thing I disagree with some of my fellow conservatives is when it comes to gays. Frankly, I don't care what a person does behind closed doors. Just as long as they are with a consenting adult, I could care less. I think that the party spends too much time talking about gays and instead needs to focus on the real issues -- terrorism, growing size of government, deficits, etc.

Having said that, I don't believe in gay marriage, simply because I don't want this taught in schools and many of the organizations pushing gay marriage want it, once it is passed, to be taught in schools. And I consider that offensive and obscene. For the record, I'm against any kind of straight sexual education as well. I consider that offensive and obscene as well. Children should be going to their parents for sexual information, not getting it from some school teacher or official. It would be one thing if the sexual education that children were being taught was factual. But it is not. It is politically correct nonsense. All sexual choices are not the same. The choice of a girl to sleep with 10 boys in high school is not on the same moral level as a girl deciding to wait until she is in a committed relationship.

I also disagree with the whole idea of forcing churches to perform marriages for gays. Personally, I don't care if someone wants to affirm their relationship, but no priest should be forced to marry anyone they don't want to marry.

I think where gays go wrong is flaunting their sexuality all over the place. This turns the general public off. What they should do is reach out to people, show them that they are normal people and deserve rights and handle it through talking. But these loud protests, with naked people and offensive banners are not the way forward. Again, as I said before, I don't care less what a person is doing in private or with whom they are doing this with, provided that the participants are consenting adults.

If there were a bill to give gays more rights, without at the same time violating the above two principals, I wouldn't oppose it. But when certain gay groups, insist on violating these two principals, I must oppose them.

Teachers Unions, the Black Community and Education

2010-05-07T22:35:00.000-07:00

Anyone wondering whether Leftist ideas work need not look further than their nearest ghetto. Black "leaders" keep on talking about how blacks are being oppressed, but they are 100% wrong as to the source.

Our condition is not due to "oppression from the white man," "the Jew," "the Uncle Tom" or any other convenient target who has not paid off Al Sharpton or any one of the other failed black "leaders." The real source is the Teachers Unions and other Leftist organizations who have taken the black community away from God, the Church and self reliance and systematically taught us to instead, rely on the government. This is something which has failed time and time again.

Let's take schools as just one example of this. We have nearly 50% of black children dropping out of schools. We have many of the children graduating these schools completely unprepared for life. Many of them are not in fact not prepared to enter the work force. They are a product of teachers and school administrators who are failing their students. Who graduate children who may know all about gay marriage, Harvey Milk, condoms and every other pet subject of the left but don't know the basics. They don't know Algebra. They haven't read our Constitution. They have a 6th Grade literacy level, or worse. In most cases they are not educated to the point where they can take a book of average complexity, read it and understand it. That is the problem. There are some teachers who try to teach children, try to do their best, but they are bogged down in a million and one useless regulations from the state and federal government regarding teaching. These restrictions are lobbied for, in most part, by Teachers Unions and other Leftist organizations. And that is a major problem. Things are so bad that my late grandparents, who went to school in the early 20th century and left after the fourth grade to work on the family farm, had a higher literacy rate than many college graduates. Failed ideas, such as sight reading where a child is expected to memorize words instead of actually being able to sound them out and understand them, a technology which is a complete and utter failure, are pushed heavily by the Teachers Unions, despite the fact that sight reading is a proven failure.

And then, we look at sex ed. This is the most useless subject ever. Trust me, teenagers do not need to learn from schools about various sexual positions and techniques. If someone is interested, they can learn from their friends. In fact, the way sex ed is done today it is actually destructive. This is very old fashioned, but my belief is that young people should not be having sex. Period. End of story. When I was in high school, I did not have sex. I am not an ugly guy. But I made the decision that I was not going to have sex, get a girl pregnant and ruin my life like so many young black men do. I love children, don't get me wrong. But they need a stable family environment and married parents, a mother and father. And a teenager is not able to provide this kind of environment. There are some wonderful people who were raised by their mother. Their are some wonderful teenage parents who put everything together, despite the bumps in the road. But it doesn't change the fact that sex is best in a monogamous, committed relationship, ideally marriage.

Yet, in the average Sex Ed class, children are not being taught these basic, key, core values. They are instead being taught that they are sexual creatures, and whatever kind of sex they decide to do is OK. Don't want the baby? Have an abortion. Whatever sexual perversion you feel like is OK. Parent's say no. Report them to us because they are obviously "stifling your sexual freedom." Having been a teenager, I can tell you first hand, that it is possible to control yourself. You do not have to run around and have sex with 10 different girls or guys, if you are a girl. You can be responsible. You can make responsible choices. And when you get older and are in a committed relationship at the very least, or marriage, it will be wonderful exploring this part of you with someone you really care about. But this is not what children are being taught and that is the problem. They are being taught everything but this simple truth.

As Dr. Mirriam Grossman, the brilliant psychiatrist points out, condoms don't protect from every sexually transmitted diseases. There are some activities, for example, Anal, that are much, much more likely to transmit these infections than other activities. And 25% of young people are infected with these kinds of diseases. And I'm not even covering the psychological wounds that come along with this kind of behavior. Too many psychologists and psychiatrists, many of whom are leftists, go along with the politically correct line, that girls are just like boys. In fact, if a girl or boy wants to random, causal sex with a different person every other night this is "normal experimentation." Nothing could be further from the truth. This kind of activity has real consequences. Young people who engage in this kind of activity are far less happy than young people who abstain. And when these teenagers get depressed, too often this is misdiagnosed as some major psychiatric condition, when in fact, it is the natural result of engaging in this kind of behavior. Sometimes some of these psychological wounds can heal if a person simply stops engaging in this kind of lifestyle and instead does something constructive.

And you can see the results of this kind of education all over the black community. Back in the days of Jim Crow laws, things were horrible. There was overt discrimination, blacks were oppressed, it was simply awful and unacceptable. But despite all this oppression, most black children were being born in two parent families, they were graduating high school, they were working hard and trying to overcome the racism inherent in that system. Today, we have most black children being born out of wedlock.

In order to solve these problems, we need real school choice. We need to be able to take black children out of these failing Leftist schools and put them in schools where they will get real values. A real education. Not a fake education. Then they will have a much better chance to succeed.

Obama's failure on Jobs

2010-05-07T22:24:00.000-07:00

It never ceases to amaze me how left wing politicians can't spot the obvious economic laws which drive a country. They are so simple and easy to grasp if one simply observes, I can't help but wonder about the extremely low level of intelligence of the "very best people" in our government.

The complete lack of an ability to observe in so many graduates of our Universities is frankly depressing. They graduate as loyal foot soldiers for Greenpeace, AFL-CIO or some other left wing organization, but when it comes to common sense, especially among too many of our economics and history Phds, they are lacking in these skills.

Let's take the economy. Jobs and the economy are actually very easy to understand. Factors leading to job growth are actually very simple. You reduce taxes and regulations, it is easier for small companies, which make up the bulk of new job growth, to add new jobs. If you create more regulation, if you force people to buy their employees health care or force them to pay more taxes, obviously they won't hire more people. They don't have limitless amounts of money and these things cost money. This isn't hard to understand. Yet it is so difficult for our President and his other useful idiot leftists who have gone to all the best schools, are part of all the "best" organizations, yet can't spot the obvious.

The excuses that politicians make, are frankly, specious. They seem to make sense but are lies. I hear all of this imaginary concern from the Left about poor people, and how people are struggling. Well, the solution to that, as I have said in earlier blogs, is to cut regulation, deep business tax cuts, so that money is freed up to hire new employees. Cut welfare and other programs that allow able bodied people to live off the government without doing anything. Get these people trained for jobs. As companies have more capital, they will increase hiring, including hiring for entry level positions. Gradually these people, if they work hard and apply themselves, will move out of poverty. This is the real solution. Not another government program. Not another government handout.

The Failure of Western Foreign Policy

2010-03-27T16:55:00.000-07:00

I have gotten numerous messages saying that I never criticize Israel and therefore I think they are perfect.

Well I can tell you that I do not believe that Israel or any other country in the world is perfect. They are ALL extremely flawed. America has made tons of mistakes. The United States government (apart from the military) is extremely stupid, inflexible and bureaucratic. It is a wonder that they get anything done. The same applies to a degree to the Israeli government. The Jewish state has more Phds per capita than probably any other country, yet I see its government make stupid decision after stupid decision. It show their and America's complete lack of understanding when it comes to the Arab world and to a lesser degree foreign affairs with other countries.

The reason for this deep stupidity when it comes to these things is because both countries, and many other in the West rely on Ivory tower intellectuals. These are people who have been to universities for many years, have studied all about an area, are considered "experts," but have no practical experience in that area outside of the government or academia. For example there take an "expert" in economics who has a PHd in economics and has been teaching it in Harvard for 20 years. This person has never run a business or done anything of value outside of teaching at Harvard. These are the kind of people the government loves to hire, because everyone agrees they are "brilliant" but they are actually some of the worst people to hire, since they have no practical experience.

A five star example of a group that represents this in spades is the Council on Foreign Relations. The CFR is filled with ivory tower intellectuals. Everyone is "so smart." Everyone has been to school and graduated with the best degrees. Everyone graduated at the top of the their class. Everyone agrees that these people are the "best and brightest." But they can't understand even the fundamentals of a foreign policy. And while the CFR is primarily a United States organization, their influence allows their stupid ideas to spread around the world. And that is the problem. Stupid foreign policy ideas originated by leftist intellectuals talking to other leftist intellectuals in some University somewhere with no actual experience.

You look at Obama, where does he get these stupid ideas from. Why is he encouraging Middle Eastern countries to allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, which it says it will use to kill 15 million Muslims and at least 5 million Jews. On its surface it seems extremely unintelligent to allow a regime like this to develop these kinds of weapons. Yet we have two ivy league intellectuals, writing in the pages of Foreign Relations, the official magazine of the CFR, recommending that America allow this country to develop nuclear weapons and even to setup an alliance with them!?!?! You see Zbigniew Brzezinski, Obama's advisor recommending that America actually shoot down Israeli jets if they try to take out Iran's nuclear facilities. This is clearly madness.

Why is Obama insulting our allies, such as the United Kingdom, and coozing up to dictatorships like those in Russia and Venezuela. Since Obama himself is an intellectual and was a college professor things are far worse than with any other President. Not only are all of his advisers straight from various ivory towers, he is as well, with no real experience outside of left wing organizing and government. He probably spoke at length with other professors and other "smart" people about how we simply need to talk to these foreign countries, how nobody has ever talked to these people. All of his leftist friends such as Bill Ayers, probably agreed to this. But the problem with these ideas is that they only rarely work in the real world.

It would be beneficial for the US government to lay off everyone who solely has experience in college and hire people with actual real world experience.

I am not pro-war. I don't think that war is always the solution. But I will tell you something interesting, which Obama and his advisers don't seem to be able to grasp. If you have force and you are willing to use it, often you don't need to use it. But if you display weakness, if you are afraid to use force you are weak, you will actually end up in more fights. This is not a rule I invented. It is simply life. That law is why many people who learn Karate or another Martial Art often find that they don't need to use it. Because they know how to handle possibly violent situations, they are not afraid of them and therefore end up in less of them. Compare that to a frail person who is completely terrified of everything and will do anything to not get into a fight. He will be much more likely to get into a fight.

Europe is like this but far, far worse. There foreign policy consists of appeasing any foreign power that may be hostile. They just role over and agree to any demand. You see threats from Islamic terrorist groups against the Europeans and what do they do in the face of terrorist groups? What do they do in the face of critical foreign governments? They bend over backwards to try to do what these groups want. This is the losing path. This is the path to enslavement. The only way to handle any adversary is to display strength and that has to be the key point to any foreign policy strategy. Because European governments are filled with these intellectual types, far more than in even the United States government, their heads are filled with stupid ideas that would only work in the back of a university. Just look at Spain. Al-Qaida bombs Spain and they promptly withdraw from Iraq. This is the WRONG thing to do. In the face of terrorism, it is vital that a country NOT do what the terrorists want and show strength. That is the real way to handle the problem. Display strength. In other words, they should have sent MORE troops to Iraq as a result of the bombing.

Then across the ocean you have Israel. A country with, as I said before, the highest IQ per capita of probably any country in the world. They have developed so much wonderful technology. For example parts of the Intel microchip were developed in Israel -- our computers rely on Israeli technology. And that is just one example, there are many other things these people have developed.

Yet when it comes to terrorism and foreign policy, the Israeli government, while being more realistic than either the European or United States governments, having dealt with the problem longer, is still kind of stupid. Because suffer from the same disease that afflicts Europe and the United States. Leftist intellectuals, giving their leaders flowery ideas that will never work in the real world. A five star example of this is the silly dream of a two state solution, where all the Arab states will recognize Israel and a state of Palestine will be near Israel and will live in peace with the Jews. I have a whole blog post on why this is idiotic and would never work, but anyone who has even casually studied current Islamic teachings regarding Jews would realize that this is a fantasy, no more realistic than the tooth fairy. The heart of the problem is not, like some leftist intellectuals say, "settlements." In other words, according to the leftist narrative, Jews building a garage or a new home is somehow a "barrier" to peace. What a completely silly idea. The real barrier to peace is the fact that many Arab Muslims have an extremely deep racism and hatred towards others. By others, I mean anyone who is not a Arab Muslim. For example, if Israel was replaced by a country populated by dark skinned Hindus, they would be fought as well, since in the Arab Muslim mind, these people are racially and spiritually inferior. If there was a group of African Muslims in the middle of the Middle East, these people would and have been considered racially inferior, "animals." There have been cases on record where black Muslims have had stones thrown at them in Islamic countries. Blacks are regularly called "Ibid" which is Arabic for black slave, in English, the word would be "nigger." During the 1970s, the King of Saudi Arabia stated that he didn't want any Blacks, including Black Muslims to work in the country because Africans "pollute" the country. Despite their persecution under the Islamic regime in the Sudan, the only country that gives African Muslims shelter is Israel, the Jewish state. Just shows how racist the rest of the Arab world is. I'm sorry if this offends you, but this is just the way it is.

So my whole point in bringing this up is, if these people are unable to live with each other, how are they going to live in peace with a JEWISH state when their religion teaches them to hate Jews and others. This idea of negotiating a settlement is a fantasy. If Israel wants a real foreign policy that will work, they need to bring in my mentor, a total hero and my strongest influence, the head of Islam for Peace, Dr. Tafwik Hamid. He would tell them to stop talking and communicate a very simple message that anyone can understand. Bother me and I will f*ck you up. Leave me alone and I will leave you alone. Another message they need to get out is NO LAND FOR PEACE. PEACE FOR PEACE. These messages needs to be reiterated over and over again until the Arabs get it. It isn't complicated. Even the stupidest leaders can grasp this. Again, no negotiations over land. Just repeat the message over and over again in words and actions. Let's say Hamas launches some rockets. Israel's response to this should be expelling Hamas and taking over Gaza and building some "settlements." Let's say there is violence from Fatah, in the West Bank. The perpetrators say they do it because they are frustrated over settlements. Ok. Israel kills the individuals who committed the terrorist acts and creates far more "settlements." At least double or triple the number of "settlements" before the incident of terrorism. Repeat the cycle and suddenly you have peace. Throw the whole idea of freezing construction or freezing "settlements" in the trash.

So when you have a solution that could be implemented so simply, why doesn't the Israeli government implement a common sense solution to this problem like the above. Leftist intellectuals filling their heads with idiotic ideas or reasons that have nothing to do with reality. If Israel would only project strength, discard this stupid land for peace policy they would be able to achieve the peace they have sought for so long in very short order.

Healthcare Reform

2010-03-27T16:48:00.001-07:00

Barack Obama has really shown his true colors, as the Socialist he actually is with the passage of the health care reform bill.

A complete power grab a taking over of 1/6th of the American economy and a complete disgrace, not only because it is the absolute wrong thing to do, not only because it was opposed by the majority of the population, but also unconstitutional. There is absolutely nowhere in the constiution where our founding fathers outlined healthcare as a basic right and in fact, this kind of socialized health care has failed time and time again.

The government health care programs that now exist, Medicare and Medicaid are abject and utter failures. They never should have been passed into law and if Republicans had some real backbone they would work to privatise these programs, along with Social Security. Due to the massive amount of waste, these three programs alone take up over 50% of the United States budget. It is obvious adding another program will only hurt our country.

So the question is, why did the Democrats support this bill and overrule the will of the people. Was it because they are dedicated Socialists? Was it because they want to destroy the country? Is it both?

Trial Lawyers

2010-03-06T22:48:00.000-08:00

A lot of my conservative friends disagree with me when it comes to trial lawyers and tort reform.

I actually (gasp) agree with some liberals when it comes to tort law. Many in the Republican party have called for restricting lawsuits against doctors because they say that it drives healthcare costs up and all of these lawsuits are without merit. They are partially right but mostly wrong.

Yes, there are junk lawsuits and this is disgusting. There should be some sensible regulations put in place to cut down on these types of lawsuits. But eliminating tort law, like many Republicans have proposed, is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. For example, take Texas, a state which has passed tough tort reform legislation. Yes, there are less lawsuits and therefore fewer costs are passed on to doctors. But things have gotten so crazy that there was a famous case where a doctor in a case of blantant malpractice, cut off the wrong leg, and the patient was unable to sue! This is absolute madness. Yes, if the doctor looked at you the wrong way, you shouldn't be able to sue. But a healthy leg was cut off. This is going to impact the person for the rest of their life, they sure as hell should be able to sue over this. But in Texas they aren't able to.

Or take the case of a California doctor, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, based out of the Bay Area. For years he was considered one of the top practitioners in his field. His speciality was children who had been abused and he was extremely well thought of. But he was hiding an extremely dark secret. He was molesting some of the children who came to him for treatment. Instead of treating them for their abuse, he was abusing them further and then threatening them in order to ensure there silence. This went on for 20 years. Each patient thinking he was the only one. Each patient terrified to speak out. Anyway, some years ago, the whole house of cards came crashing down around this doctor and he was exposed for what he is, a serial child molester and arrested. Dozens of former patients came forward and testified against him. Everyone knows that an experience like this can scar a person for life. It is more than fair for these former patients, these victims of a doctor who took advantage of his position, to be able to sue.

Or let's go into another example. A large pharmceutical company produced a drug which, according to their own studies, was dangerous for pregnant women. The drug, when taken during pregnancy, could cause birth defects in children. Anyway, the drug company submitted this drug to the FDA and knowingly witheld this study. One day, a young mother is prescribed this drug and assured by her doctor that it is safe to take during pregnancy, since all of the information he has shows no problems. She takes this drug and her child is born with major birth defects. She will NEVER live a normal life as her heart wasn't formed properly as a result of the mother taking the drug. This heart condition almost always results in death in the first few years of life. And the life the baby lives is very uncomfortable, with constant visits and stays in hospitals. Healthcare costs for this child could easily reach millions of dollars throughout her short life. Obviously, this mother should be able to sue. In fact she did sue the company, GlaxoSmithKline, won a settlement and also forced them to reveal the study and turn it over to the FDA. The FDA promptly placed a warning on the label of the drug to warn other pregnant women of the dangers of the drug. But none of this would have happened without a lawsuit.

Obviously, the kinds of things I have described above don't happen every day. But when they do happen, the only way to resolve them is to sue. I don't advocate suits every day, but sometimes lawsuits need to be filled in order to correct an injustice. And simply banning lawsuits isn't the solution. The FDA doesn't always have all the information. The FDA isn't always right. Again, sometimes the only way to get to the bottom of things, the only way in order to get justice is to sue someone.

Leftist Intellectuals

2010-02-15T09:49:00.000-08:00

The problem with the Obama administration and leftist governments throughout the world is their philosophy is shaped by intellectuals, who have been in universities for years, writing papers and discussing ideas with other intellectuals. Almost all of these people have never worked a day in their life outside of academia. Almost all of these people have an idea, that they are smarter than everyone else, know everything and can't learn anything from another person who hasn't received tenure in another university. This prevents liberal intellectuals from seeing what is plainly right in front of their face. They are so absorbed in theories and ideas as to how something should work, they miss the reality of how things do work in the real world.

For example, leftist intellectuals run around talking about the glories of "wealth redistribution," "fairness" and "cultural relativism." But the fact of the matter, what these people can't face is that everything is not equal to everything else. This is a basic truth, that is easy to see if one simply opens ones eyes. But these people are looking at large books that talk about life instead of simply observing life.

Let's take taxes. Obama is a proponent of raising taxes and wants to raise these, both on individuals, including middle class individuals, and on businesses. This is an idiotic idea as it punishes productivity. And during a recession, more incentives are needed to become successful. The Government should be taking less money and leaving more money to the private sector to innovate and create jobs. If we implemented DEEP cuts in corporate and personal income taxes, if we got rid of the capital gains tax, if we cut out most of the stifling business regulations, which serve only to employ bureaucrats, we would have a job boom like we haven't seen in the last 20 years. Companies would take the savings, from not having to comply with stupid regulations and the savings they would achieve by not having to pay burdensome taxes, and hire new workers. As more workers were hired and the total number of unemployed workers diminished, the value of each worker would go up, which would generate an increase in the standard of living of these people. The fact that both businesses and individuals had more money to spend would generate a surge in demand for consumer goods, which would create even more jobs. If you reward something, you have more of it. If you penalize something you have less of it. These aren't complicated, difficult to grasp concepts. Yet, for whatever reason, leftists don't seem to be able to understand these simple truths.

The next thing that intellectuals love to complain about is "class and racial inequities." This is another area where liberal intellectuals can't see the truth that is staring them in the face. Inner city schools are absolutely awful. Children are graduating who do not know how to read and write. They don't know even the basics, when it comes to geography and are lacking in the other subjects as well. Obviously, not all children who go to these schools show this shocking lack of knowledge. But many of them do. And it is not lack of money. My late grandfather worked on a farm. He only went to third or fourth grade. Yet his literacy level was greater than many college graduates today. He didn't rely on the welfare or other government program to take care of my mother, my aunts and my uncles. He worked hard. Very hard. He had several jobs and did whatever he had to do to make sure that his children were provided for. And this was during an age where there was rampant and widespread discrimination against Blacks. He didn't believe in excuses, he just believed in making things happen through hard work and persistence. He is an inspiration for me today. The inner city schools don't suffer from a lack of money, they suffer from something that the liberal Democrats have in spades. The racism of low expectations. If you don't demand excellence, if you don't expect for people to excel. If you allow bad behavior, if you use something that ended nearly 150 years ago, slavery, as an excuse, you will end up with what you have today in so many inner city schools. Political correctness, which the liberals said would help protect the minority community, has destroyed it. You need to only look at Detroit to see the affect of over 20 years of liberal control. A destroyed city. And I don't hate the teachers. I think that many of the teachers are doing the best they can under the circumstance. But the problem is the system. And the system should eventually be disbanded. Yes, we do need schools. These schools should be free. However, they should be under local control and not under state or federal control. Parents should be given vouchers, good for any school, public or private. The money should be allocated to the schools based on how many students are attending. The free market will weed out underperforming schools, they will go out of business. Successful schools will flourish. And that is the way the world works. The people who work hard and produce what they need to produce will flourish, those that don't will not. That is the way the world works. For example, if a company is producing TVs and the TVs don't work, that company will not be in business long. And it is so obvious to see, yet many intellectuals are unable to perceive this basic truth.

Last topic, for now. National defense. Leftist intellectuals run around proclaiming that everything would be OK if we simply stopped interfering with other countries. If we simply cut defense spending. If we simply respected the Muslims. Blah, blah, blah. Well, none of these ideas are realistic. They work great when someone is sitting around Yale or some other elite university, never in real life. The fact of the matter is, there are people around the world, primarily radical Muslims and Leftists, how hate America. They hate America becuase it stands for freedom. They hate America because it is the most just and tolerant country in the world. They hate America because it stands in the way of their plans to make an opressive society, where people would have no rights, no fugure, no hope. That is why they hate America. Fascists, Communists, Nazis and radical Muslims hate us because of the ideas of freedom, tolerance, equality, which America stands for around the world. They hate us because most of us our religious. America is inperfect, all countries and peoples are inperfect. There are a lot of things that America has done that are wrong. But the good things are much more plentiful than are misdeeds. And America is the most free country in the world. People here have more rights and opportunities than anywhere else. Leftists love to criticize the West. They look at all the problems the West has. Yet they fail to face the fact that, with all of the problems the West has, we are still far, far better than the alternative, living under a communist / fundemantalist Islamic state. The basic problem is that leftists compare the West to an unatainable ideal instead of doing the sensable thing and comparing existing countries to each other and seeing which ones are more free compared to ones that are more opressed. If they simply did this, they would realize that the West, with all of its flaws, is still better than the rest of the world. And while I don't think we should encourage war, in fact we should do everything possible to avoid war, the fact of the matter is sometimes wars are needed. Sometimes there are rogue countries that can only be stopped by force. Our dislike and fear of war should not prevent us from applying force when it legitimately needs to be applied. The best way to avoid war is to have lots and lots of weapons, a large military and a willingness to use them. These things are deterrents to wars. These things make diplomacy more effective.

Do I really hate all Arabs?

2010-01-18T21:19:00.000-08:00

No. What a silly idea. I don't hate Arabs or any group of Arabs, such as Saudis, Palestinians or anyone else. Anyone who has visited my Youtube page, http://www.youtube.com/modelfan1979 will notice that I refer to several Arabs, some of whom are Muslims, as heroes. So how could I hate all Arabs?

Brigitte Gabriel, Dr. Tafwik Hamid and Walid Phares I look upon as my biggest influences as to my thinking on the Middle East. I also have been influenced by the speeches and writings of Shaykh Prof. Abdul Hadi Palazzi, a Muslim Sheikh. These people are ALL Arabs. A few of them are Muslims. Much of my information on the Middle East history and current situation comes from these people. As to current events and points of view among Muslims, I watch translations of Arabic language news among other things. So I know what I am talking about. I have seen the hatred and racism with my own eyes.

I don't hate people based on their race, but what I do hate is racism, bigotry and ignorance. I hate this trait whether it is displayed by a Jew, Christian, Hindu, Indian, African or a person of any other religion or race.

Unfortunately, the fact of the matter is, the religion that is teaching hatred the most is Islam. The religion that is teaching violence and bigotry, far, far more than any other religion is Islam. Facts are facts. Yes there are a handful of Muslims that don't agree with this, such as my hero, Dr. Tafwik Hamid and speak out against it. But we must face the fact that these voices are in the minority and the people who do speak out against violence committed against "infidels" and bigotry against non-believers are threatened, beaten and often killed. We must also face the fact that Islam, as taught in the majority of mosques within the United States, Europe and the Middle East, teach anti-semitism, bigotry and hatred.

And now your probably thinking, what about the extremist Jews and Christians. Look at all the crazy things Jews and Christians have done to Muslims. You are right. I condemn Goldstein, who killed 29 Palestinians and other Christian / Jewish extremists. But what is not being faced today, is the points of view espoused by these extremists, towards minorities are nothing compared to the points of view that is expressed routinely by Islamic media towards Jews and Christians. Again, bigotry and racism are wrong no matter who is racist. Let's take Rabbi Meir Kahane, the man the left loves to hate and has been labeled by many as an extremist. I can't comment since I don't know that much about him and his philosophy. But let's say that everything that the left and Arabs say about him was correct. He wanted to expel all Arabs from Israel. He hated all Arabs and wanted to fight them. Ok, let's start from there. If he were an Arab, espousing these beliefs about Jews, he would be considered a moderate. It would be no big deal, since Hamas and other radical Islamic group are so much more extreme and want to bring about an Islamic state, kill all the Jews and Palestinians who disagreed and force the remaining Palestinians to live in the 7th century. There is no parallel in any other religion. There is just no equal.

Again, if a group of people are calling themselves Muslims and they are loyal to the country they live in, don't oppress women and children, don't hate other people based off their religion or race, aren't violent and reject this, fine. I don't care how or when a person prays. I don't care what they worship or don't worship in the comfort of their home. I just don't care. I'm a religious libertarian. Whatever makes you happy is fine with me, provided you aren't harming others. But the problem is, Islam is not taught that way today. What is taught today is Islam supremacy, political Islam. That is the problem.

Some have said that I hate every Palestinian simply because I oppose terrorist groups such as Hamas and Fatah. Or that I believe that people who hate where they are living should leave. You must understand that these beliefs don't stem from hatred of people. Any people. They simply stem from the desire for these people to stay alive, be happy and at the same time, not threaten the lives of anyone else. In fact, Palestinians are more likely to be victims of these terrorist barbarians than Jews or anyone else. If someone, no matter what their race, is living in the country of and they hate people in the country they live in, they should leave and go to somewhere where they are happy. For example, if there was a black couple who was living in the middle of France and they hated French people and had a strong desire to kill them, that couple should leave. This example doesn't mean that I hate every black person, I'm a black person myself. But it does mean that anyone who is unhappy where they are, should find a place where they can be happy. And in the case of those Arab Muslims who are anti-Semites and bigots, they are not going to be happy in a Jewish state and would be happier in an Islamic state. And if that is the way they feel they should leave. If a person is not this way, they should be allowed to stay. Again, I judge people based on actions, not race. I condemn racist Jews. I condemn racists of any race or religion. Don't take my columns as excuses for racism towards anyone. But judging based on group membership and public statements from those specific groups is not racism.

For example, let's say a Mexican is a member of a gang, called the Bloods. They are a known street gang that deals drugs. So if someone is a member of the Bloods, he is not going to have the freedom that a person who is not a member of this group. For example, police will arrest this person more than they would arrest someone else. This person would not have the freedom to, for example, teach in a school. It would be wrong to simply judge him because he is a Latino. But the fact that he is a gang member means that he is a violent criminal who must be restricted.

Let's make another example. Say a person is living near a Buddhist temple and they have a deep hatred of Buddhists. In fact, they are so opposed to people meditating, they shoot anyone who tries to meditate or they hear of as meditating. That person should simply leave the area of the Buddhist temple. They should go off somewhere where they are happy, where they aren't people who are doing this. Or they should change their beliefs about Buddhism and meditation.

This has nothing to do with the race or religion of the people involved. It is just simple common sense. People shouldn't live where they are unhappy. If they hate the country they are living in so much, they should go back to where they came from or another country which they like. Today, America is a primarily Christian country, so is Canada, Australia and the rest of the Western countries. Israel is the Jewish state. This state includes Gaza and the West Bank. If you are unhappy where you live, if you want Islamic law, you should go to a country that has this, such as Saudi Arabia or another Muslim country. If you are a Christian and are living in a Muslim state and don't want to, you should leave the Muslim state. Whoever is living where they don't want to live should leave. End of story.

Obama's Idiotic Ideas to Repair the Economy

2010-01-16T15:03:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure what is going on in the mind of President Obama. My gut feeling is that, as a card carrying member of the hard left, he can't face the fact that leftist solutions are simply fairy tales. There is no tooth fairy and government can't turn around this downward spiral in the economy.

The only thing that will turn this around, the only solution that will really work is something which the Democrats would never do. And that is deep tax cuts, deep reductions in government regulation and spending. That is all. This is what Reagan did when faced with a collapsing economy. This is the formula that will work to turn around the country.

Liberals talk on and on about how fair or not fair this or that is. And the fact of the matter is, is that life isn't fair. Nothing is fair. And in life, the people who work the hardest get the most money. End of story. There is no reason to punish business owners that work hard and build up their businesses. Instead, these people should be given incentives to increase their production.

Anti-Zionist Jews

2009-11-28T21:50:00.000-08:00

One thing which never ceases to amaze me, is the hatred that some leftist anti-Zionist Jews have for their own people, and the Jewish state. I look at the lies from leftists such as George Soros, Noam Chomsky and their supporters. I look at their support of Nazi elements in today's society and I frankly, become disgusted. Their statements of and support of, groups that have as their admitted goal, the destruction of the Jewish state is simply an insanity. For example, George Soros supports groups, such as J-Street and the Arab American Institute that work to implement policies that will result in the destruction of the Jewish state and the deaths of millions of Jews. The head of the Arab American Institute is an extremist anti-Semite who believes that the Jews are behind 9/11. J-Street is an organization that is backed by Arab Muslims, such as the royal family of Saudi Arabia and works, hand in hand with other leftist and Muslim organizations that want to destroy Israel and kill Jews.

And what I really don't understand, it what can be going through the minds of the Jews who are working for J-Street. Or are working for similar groups. This is an utter and complete insanity.

And the problem with such people, is by their support of extremist Muslim elements, they are not only condemning their own people to death, they are condemning countless untold numbers of Arabs, both Muslims and Christians to their deaths. If the extremist Muslims got their way and were able to complete the holocaust, they wouldn't stop with the Jews. What starts with the Jews doesn't end with the Jews. The Shiite Muslims, Christians, moderate Muslims and other "infidels" would be killed. If the extremists had their way, hundreds of millions would lose their lives.

I have far less respect for people like this, than Arab Muslims who have simply been brainwashed. Some time ago, I spoke to a young Palestinian who expressed his admiration for Adolf Hitler and his support of war against Israel and the West. But I can't be angry with him. I can only be sad. He, and so many other Arabs have simply been brainwashed. I don't hate Arab Muslims for their beliefs, they have simply been filled with false information from birth throughout their lives. My belief is that if the education system in the middle east were truly reformed, if Islam was truly reformed and made a real religion of peace, we would have far, far fewer conflicts between the Islamic world and the West. The true root of the conflict is false information.

But what I really can't understand, is why someone, growing up among other Jews, growing up among their own people, would work with racists in an attempt to eliminate their own race. This is a sickness.

During slavery, there were a handful of black people who participated in the slave trade. These people, would happily sell fellow Africans down the river. They simply didn't care. Soros, Chomsky, Sara Roy and their ilk fall in this category of humanity. They will do anything to make a buck. They have no conscience. Absolutely no conscience. Especially Hungarian Jewish Nazi collaborator George Soros, who, in 1999 on a 60 Minutes TV show, expressed his belief that his collaboration with the Nazis was a positive thing, a thing which helped improved his character. When asked if he had any regrets, he said he had absolutely no regrets and if presented with the same situation today, would again collaborate with the Nazis against his own people. It is true that some Jews were forced to collaborate with the Nazis in concentration camps, but the case of Soros is nothing like this. He wasn't in a Concentration camp. He expressed pride in his service to the Nazis. The situations aren't in any way comparable, especially when you look at the fact that today, Soros lives in a free society, yet voluntarily collaborates with the Islamofascists, who are the modern day Nazis.

Some would say these people are simply confused. I don't. I say anyone who wants to eliminate any race of people, is simply evil. Pure and simple.

Healthcare

2009-11-28T20:57:00.001-08:00

President Obama's plans for health care reform go far beyond simple ignorance and go into what can only be termed evil. From death panels to mandatory end of life counseling it is simply rotten to the core. And the taxes that would be necessary to support this nightmare plan will definitely cripple our economy. Because in this global economy, when companies can save millions in taxes by moving to another country, they will. Are business taxes in this country are already way, way too high. Today, capital gains and business taxes are much lower in CHINA, a communist country. In this day and age it is actually easier to start a small business in China than in America which is ridiculous.

And that is the real problem with these "Utopian" leftist programs. The people who push them never think the thought through. The country is already going bankrupt paying for Medicaid and Medicare. In fact, each year 44% of the total budget of the US government goes to just three entitlement programs, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And they only cover a portion of the US population. The government is trillions in debt paying for just those programs. And now Obama is supporting a plan that will only accelerate the bankruptcy of this country. Disgusting.

The solution to the recession is extremely simple. Deep tax rate cuts. Cut the long term capital gains tax to 10% or lower. Drop the health care bill. Review existing business regulations with the aim of repelling as many of them as possible. The result of this would be a huge increase in capital for business and this would result in more jobs.

The next step would be to eliminate many of these welfare programs. We have over 50 separate welfare programs. Of course, if a person is permanently physically (not mentally) disabled or a child, they can't be left without food and shelter. But if someone is able bodied, they need to get to work. I can see temporary assistance, limited to 2 years for every 15 years worked. But we need to eliminate the entitlement culture, where over 30% of Americans are dependent on one government program or another.

Van Jones, Obama's Green Jobs Czar

2009-09-06T14:56:00.000-07:00

Today, Van Jones, Obama's green jobs czar resigned his position. And I have to say, thank goodness.

van Jones was the latest in a number of highly flawed appointments by Obama. Jones was a self described "rowdy communist" who believed that the US government was behind the September 11th attacks.

According to investigative reporter Aaron Klein, Jones was the leader and founder of a radical group, the communist revolutionary organization Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, or STORM. STORM's manifesto sates that the organization has a strong "commitment to the fundamental ideas of Marxism-Leninism." "We agreed with Lenin's analysis of the state and the party," reads the manifesto. "And we found inspiration in the revolutionary strategies developed by Third World revolutionaries like Mao Tse-tung and Amilcar Cabral." Cabral is the late Marxist revolutionary leader of Guinea-Bissau and the Cape Verde Islands. STORM worked with known communist leaders.

This appointment is another sign that Obama is a closet Socialist who wants to transform America, from an economic superpower into one of the European socialist welfare states.

Israel's mistakes

2009-08-09T14:16:00.000-07:00

I have received numerous emails stating that I believe that the Jews are perfect and Israel is perfect. Nothing could be further from the truth. Israel, the United States and many other governments in the West are extremely flawed. They suffer from inefficiencies, they take stupid actions, some of their laws are extremely stupid, etc. Being a conservative, of course I disagree with the graduated income tax which exists in all Western Democracies, including Israel. Israel is very much a work in progress and it is important that Israeli citizens participate in this country's political process in order to make things better.

And in truth I could go on for pages on various things that Israel can do to improve. But today I'm only going to cover a few.

1) Constantly displaying weakness. In the Arab world, the one who is strong, sometimes called the "strong horse" is the one that is followed. NOT the one who holds the most conferences. Not the one who treats their enemies in hospitals. The most unreasonable, strong, tough force wins. This is the way it has been in the middle east for thousands of years. Withdrawing from territory is a sign of weakness. Allowing your enemies to openly pray for your destruction is a sign of weakness. Failure to destroy your enemies is a sign of weakness. Displays of weakness embolden your enemies. Instead of handling this by displaying strength, Israel turns over and displays more weakness by talking about this, talking about that. All this weakness does is embolden forces that want to tear the country apart.

Some Jews in the wake of the violence from anti-Israel Arab forces both within and without the country respond to this pressure by saying that the only solution is to expel their Arab citizens. This is actually misguided. They don't need to expel anyone. They could easily end all terrorism from Hamas and Fatah. They could do this with nothing more than they have today. They can do this by displaying strength. Stopping the endless negotiations. Actually handling terrorism and terrorists in a sensible way, in a way that shows the Arabs that this kind of stuff will absolutely not be tolerated at all. For example, due to the insanity of some leftists within the Israel government, Hamas leaders and officers captured in the IDF are put into "country club" prisons where they are allowed all kinds of visitors, they have recreational activities and are treated well. The obvious question that nobody is asking is how does this discourage terrorism. It doesn't. When Israel allows Islamic clerics to openly preach anti-semitism and incite against the state, this simply emboldens radical elements. Everyone has the right to freedom of speech, but incitement to genocide is not protected speech.

Let's say that Israel captured ten key Hamas terrorists. They kill these ten people and drop their bodies over Gaza. This sends a message. That we will not be messed with and if you kill us we will destroy you. Yes, there will be a lot of anger from the Palestinians. But I'll tell you this. They will think twice before messing with Israel. Repeat this process with other key terrorists and suddenly everything will be calm. Yes, a few hundred terrorists will be dead. But think of the thousands of people who will not die as human shields, once the will of Hamas and the other terrorist groups is broken.

2) Not sufficiently supporting moderate Arabs. While there are many Arabs who would love to see Israel destroyed and the Jews wiped out, there are also some Arabs who would be all too happy to live in peace. My hero Dr. Tawfik Hamid, an Egyptian Muslim is among these people. Walid Shoebat, a Christian Palestinian is another person. There are many of these people among the Israeli Druze, in fact the majority of the Druze serve in the IDF. These people should be backed up to the hilt. Supported in every possible way.

Instead, I see foolish actions being taken, I see hundreds of millions in aid going to the Palestinian Authority, I see aid being shipped to Gaza, when Druze and poor Sephardic Jews desperately need resources. Their has been a lot of concern in the Druze community over insufficient funding compared to Jewish towns. This whole situation is simply stupid. The Middle East is a rough area of the world. Extremely rough. You never want to leave your friends out in the cold. And this is a principal that all leftists seem to be unable to grasp, especially those leftists in the Israeli government. Yes, your allies may be imperfect. But who cares. They are your allies. The Israeli Druze, while Arabs are Israel's best friends. They fought alongside the Jews in the War of Independence and generations of Druze have served in the IDF. They are loyal citizens for the most part. So why does the Israeli government persist in funneling hundreds of millions to the Palestinians while these people are left poor with inadequate services to their communities. It is a very dangerous mistake. I am not against the humanitarian aid to Palestinians, but if we have humanitarian aid, it should first go to the people in the state that are loyal.

The whole idea of punishing the enemy and rewarding friends is something that is not sufficiently understood in Israeli society or the rest of the West. The left is always talking about how poor the Arabs are and how they deserve to be supported. The right often says that all Arabs are disloyal and we should cut funding to their towns or expel them or some combination of the above. But nobody seems to come to the sensible solution which is between these two extremes. Which is that those who are loyal should be rewarded and those that are disloyal should be punished, no matter their race.

In my mind, their is no difference really, between George Soros and, for example, Louis Farrakhan, although I have more respect for Farrakhan, because, while Soros and Farrakhan share similar beliefs about Jews and Israel, Soros conceals these beliefs to a large extent while Farrakhan talks about these beliefs. In other words, Farrakhan we know is an anti-semite, but Soros harbors a similar hatred of Jews and Israel, despite the fact that he himself is a Jew, yet covers this up which makes him more dangerous. So considering that these people are extremely similar vis a vis Israel, why would there be any reason to treat these people differently. Israel would never let Farrakhan in, why does it let Soros in and his friends, such as Norman Finkelstein or Sara Roy into the country? The fact that they have Jewish ancestry and Farrakhan doesn't is actually irrelevant. Their points of view are similar, so they should be treated the same. And Farrakhan, Soros, Roy and Finkelstein should be treated the same as Edward Said or any other prominent Arab calling for the destruction of Israel. These people are all similar and made out of the same spiritual cast. It doesn't matter what race they are. They are not loyal and hate the country -- so they shouldn't be there. People like Shlomo Sands, of Tel Aviv University, who is friends with various Neo-Nazis and believes in the destruction of Israel should be shipped either to Saudi Arabia, Lebanon or another Arab country if they are so unhappy with the country they live in.

On the flip side, there are prominent Arabs, such as Brigitte Gabriel and Walid Shoebat who support Israel and are friends. Or the Israeli Druze who are serving and have served in the IDF. So why would you lump these Arabs in with the other ones. There is no reason for this. They are loyal. They should be supported.

Why Gun Control doesn't work

2009-08-09T13:55:00.001-07:00

Our latest Supreme Court Justice, Sottomayor, along with many of her friends on the left are engaged in a battle, whether they talk about it publicly or not, to restrict firearms so that only cops and military personnel will have guns. They think that this is a good idea, they talk endlessly about how guns cause violence. How violence would decrease if only get rid of the guns. They believe that if only enough laws were passed against these guns, they would disappear and we would somehow live in a Utopian, perfect society.

What liberals never seem to understand is the following simple truths. Law abiding citizens with guns, by definition, don't use them to commit crimes. Criminals, by definition, use guns to commit crimes and don't follow laws. So therefore, it doesn't matter how many laws you pass against guns or regulating guns. The criminals won't follow them. They only cause problems for the law abiding citizen, the person who wasn't going to commit crimes anyway. Now I will say that there are a small number of gun laws that are needed. For example, gun shops shouldn't be selling weapons to people who have spent time in mental institutions, because they are crazy. Little children shouldn't be able to have guns obviously. But the necessary number of regulations is small.

Facebook, Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust museum shooting

2009-07-20T11:38:00.000-07:00

As you may or may not have heard, there was recently a shooting in the holocaust museum in New York by 88 year-old anti-Semite and racist James W. von Brunn which killed a security guard. This is an absolute tragedy. But the ideology of hatred that drives extremists such as von Brunn and other ilk is unfortunately, still alive and reaches countless new minds through the Internet.

And one of the most popular Internet sites, one which gets a ton of traffic, far more than 99.9% of websites is Facebook. The CEO of Facebook is Mark Zuckerberg, who is a Jew and sadly he has decided to allow his site to be used as a forum to promote anti-Semitism.

While von Brunn and ONLY von Brunn is responsible for his evil and disgusting actions, it is a fact that sites promoting these kind of hatred do, without a doubt, contribute to the kind of hatred that leads to this kind of violence. And while I fully support freedom of speech, calling for the murder of people, whether they be gay people, Jews, Christians, blacks or any other group is simply wrong. Anyone who condones this kind of hatred is contributing to it.

And that is where Facebook comes into play. Facebook tolerates the most virulent, neo-Nazi, anti-Semetic hatred on their system, while systematically cracking down on groups that seek to expose Islamic extremism. For example, it is acceptable on Facebook to deny the holocaust, label people a "Nigger faggot, Jew nosed cunt” and openly promote racism and anti-Semitism. They consider it acceptable for people to refer to Jews as a vermin, as a disease. Yet when people who support Israel and by extension, support the Jewish people, put up pages opposing, for example, the Ground Zero Mosque, this is immediately deleted. And it is not only that page, there is a systematic pattern at Facebook of censoring conservative voices. Another conservative, wrote an excellent article on it entitled "Is Facebook 'Censoring' Conservatives?" (http://www.uncoverage.net/2010/08/is-facebook-censoring-conservatives/) It is pretty clear which side of the fence Zuckerberg and the Facebook company stand on. And again, while von Brunn is solely and fully responsible for his actions, it is an undeniable fact that the kind of hatred promoted on Facebook and around the Internet does encourage the kind of violence that we have seen recently.

How real peace can be achieved in the Middle East

2009-06-18T22:01:00.001-07:00

You may think, reading my previous post, that I believe that a just solution is not possible for the Israel / Palestine conflict and I definitely do not believe that. I wholeheartedly believe in peace and furthermore, I believe in a lasting, permanent peace.

However, the peace that the Israeli group Peace Now and other liberal activist groups promote, is actually suicide. Real peace is when you either don't have any enemies (unlikely in the modern world) or when your enemies are absolutely terrified of fighting you, because your army is so strong that you can defeat them pretty rapidly. That is the peace that Israel needs. A true peace brought about because the Arab states have either recognized Israel as a Jewish, Zionist state (unlikely), or are scared of fighting them because they are so strong so vicious so harsh that no one dares bother them. And that is what is needed. The various anti-Western terrorist groups and the countries that sponsor them, such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, need to be terrified of Israel and the West. They need to realize that sponsoring terror will absolutely not be tolerated. Ideally this would be done by diplomacy, but in the case of Iran, I don't see this as happening, barring a total meltdown of the current Iranian Islamic Republic. So, whatever needs to be done, needs to be done in order to get this idea to the Arab states. It may be necessary to set further examples until they get this idea and cease this activity.

As to Palestine, kick the disloyal "Palestinians" out. There is no race of Arabs, known as "Palestinians." This race has never existed. There has never been a country called Palestine. These people are actually Egyptians and Jordanians and they have the right to leave Israel and go back to their home countries of Egypt (Palestinians in Gaza are Egyptians and the ones in the West Bank are Jordanians) and Jordan if they are not loyal to Israel. Again, I am not a racist and I'm aware that there are many Palestinians who are good people. I have friends who are Palestinians. However, at this time in Gaza and the West Bank, such people are in the minority. The vast majority don't support Israel and don't want to be there. So, people who feel that way need to leave. If someone is a Palestinian and can swear an oath of allegiance to Israel as a Jewish, Zionist state and has in words and deeds shown support for the state, fine stay. But otherwise they have to leave. And the same thing needs to be done for the "anti-Zionist" Jews. If they support the Arab enemies so much and openly wish for the destruction of the Jewish state, they need to leave.

Why the two state solution will never work

2009-05-25T13:56:00.000-07:00

Recently Obama met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently, in order to impress upon him, the necessity of forming a Palestinian state. Obama stated that a key part of solving the crisis with Iran is for Israel to give up the entire West Bank and Gaza strip in order to form a Palestinian state, which would be run by the Palestinian Authority. This is nothing new, Bush supported this position, along with Clinton.

My hope and prayers are that Bibi (nickname for Netanyahu) doesn't cave to this pressure and implement this suicidal solution. While there are definitely some good Arab people within Palestine, people who simply want to live in peace and quiet with Israel, the people with the guns, the people in charge, will never settle for a state only in the West Bank and Gaza. They will never be satisfied with anything less than the destruction of Israel.

The underlying problem, they linchpin that is keeping this conflict going is that the Arabs (not every Arab, but most living in the Middle East) are EXTREMELY anti-Semitic. The reason behind this, are twofold. The first is religious and the second is political.

The Prophet of Islam, Muhammad, had a war with some Jewish tribes and the Muslim holy book, the Koran, contains several statements running down Jewish people, calling them apes and pigs and worse. Muslim religious leaders criticize Jews regularly. For example, Egyptian Cleric Muhammad Hussein Ya'qoub, who appeared on Al-Rahma TV in January 2009 stated: "If the Jews left Palestine to us, would we start loving them? Of course not. We will never love them. ...Your belief regarding the Jews should be, first, that they are infidels, and second, that they are enemies. They are enemies not because they occupied Palestine. They would have been enemies even if they did not occupy a thing."

The political reason lies in the fact that most of the Middle Eastern governments are extremely corrupt. Billions are ripped off from the treasuries of every Arab country, money that should rightfully be spent on the welfare of the people within that country and given to royalty and / or moneyed elite within the country. And the rest of the people are kept in crushing poverty, too many struggle with the basic necessities of life, such as food, shelter and good medical care. To keep from being overthrown, to keep from being torn to pieces by the angry mob, the Arab governments, such as Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt and others push through their official media, education system and other channels, that the reason for the suffering of their people is the Jews. "It is all the Jews fault" is the constant mantra of too many Muslim societies. As to the Palestinian leaders, they are a willing part of this strategy of lies and disinformation as well. Billions have been ripped off from the Palestinian Authority. While heads of both Hamas and Fatah live in luxury, people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank live in crushing poverty, which is of course, blamed on Israel and the Jews. Hamas has even committed atrocities on their own people, such as bombing innocent Palestinians or murdering Palestinian children, so that these tragedies can be blamed on Israel. They too have a vested interest in keeping the conflict going and the attention of their people on this conflict and away from the corruption within their own governments. Because of the above, there is a lot of support from various Arab countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and others to militant groups within the Palestinian territories that commit violent acts therefore keeping the conflict going.

Considering the above, it should come as no surprise that both Fatah, the party of the late Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat and Hamas are very clear, in Arabic, that they will never recognize Israel and will only use a "Palestinian state" as a stepping stone to taking over all of Israel. This fact is very clear in statements that the Palestinians (when I say, the Palestinians, I'm not referring to every single Palestinian. I'm referring to their leaders) say in Arabic which makes their intentions very clear. In order to really understand what is going on in the Middle East, it is vital to examine these statements as well as their actions. Since these leaders almost never tell the truth in English, it is vital only their statements in Arabic statements and actual actions are examined. So the following are some translated statements, where they lay their intentions bare:

In March 2009, Fatah leader, Muhammad Dahlan, admitted on Palestinian Authority television that Fatah - just like Hamas - still does not recognize Israel. Furthermore, he said that the Palestinian Authority's apparent "recognition" is to make the PA "acceptable" to the international community, and therefore allow it to continue to receive international aid. He stated:

"I want to say for the thousandth time, in my own name and in the name of all of my fellow members of the Fatah movement: We do not demand that the Hamas movement recognize Israel. On the contrary, we demand of the Hamas movement not to recognize Israel, because the Fatah movement does not recognize Israel even today." It is only the Palestinian Authority government, Dahlan insisted, that must "recognize" Israel - not out of conviction or sincerity, but in order to receive the needed help of the international community. This help would not come, says Dahlan, if the PA government did not "recognize" Israel.

This thinking has been with Fatah for a very long time. In a March 31, 1977 interview with the Amsterdam-based newspaper Dagblad de Verdieping Trouw, PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization, the governing body of the Palestinians, headed by Fatah) executive committee member Zahir Muhse'in said: "The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism. For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

In the 1965 constitution of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, there is no claim to the West Bank and Gaza, which were at that time being occupied by Jordan and Egypt respectively. There is a claim to various Israeli cities well within Israel's boarders at the time. Also, articles 8, 9, & 12 of the 1965 Fatah Constitution, stated the following:

"Article (8) The Israeli existence in Palestine [the land occupied by the state of Israel in 1965] is a Zionist invasion with a colonial expansive base, and it is a natural ally to colonialism and international imperialism.

Article (9) Liberating Palestine and protecting its holy places is an Arab, religious and human obligation...

Article (12) Complete liberation of Palestine, and eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence [Complete destruction of the state of Israel]."

As to Hamas, they are even more blunt. The extermination of Jews is Allah’s will and is for the benefit of all humanity, according to an article in the Hamas paper, Al-Risalah. The author of the article, Kan'an Ubayd, explains that the suicide operations carried out by Hamas are being committed solely to fulfill Allah’s wishes. Furthermore, Allah demanded this action, because “the extermination of the Jews is good for the inhabitants of the worlds.”

Sheik Ahmad Bahr, acting Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, and Hamas member declared during a Friday sermon in May 2007 at a Sudan mosque that America and Israel will be annihilated and called upon Allah to kill Jews and Americans "to the very Last One."

The Hamas charter advocates the direct extermination of every Jew. It states:

"The Islamic Resistance Movement ... aspires to the realization of Allah's promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:

'The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).'"

So based on this, and based on the countless similar statements on both Hamas' TV station in Gaza and official TV and radio in the Palestinian Authority in Arabic, there has never been and there never will be a genuine intention for there to ever be peace with Israel absent a monumental change in the mindset of the Palestinian people and their leaders. And until that change occurs, until there is a long prolonged period of peace, we shouldn't even be talking about giving them their own state. The land which Israel did give to the Palestinians, Gaza, was turned into a terror state with thousands of rockets launched against Israel from that land. So, if they had control of the West Bank it would only be used for more violence.

Miss California USA Carrie Prejean

2009-05-24T11:30:00.000-07:00

I have a lot of respect for Miss California Carrie Prejean and I believe that she a lovely and classy lady. It disgusts me when gay marriage activists in the media and Hollywood fight so hard against Carrie and try to destroy her. She, along with most politicians, including the liberal "messiah" Barack Hussein Obama, are opposed to gay marriage. So why does the media love Obama and then when Miss California dares to state her belief, which Obama has gone on the record agreeing with, she gets visciously attacked.

Frankly, I hear about things like this and it just disgusts me. Believe it or not, years ago, I didn't care about gay marriage, I was actually OK with gays getting married. But the last few years have showed me that the gay marriage movement is not simply about getting rights. It is about forcing everyone to accept what gays do behind closed door. It is about trying to get everyone to be supportive of what you do behind closed doors. In many cases it is about destroying organizations and people, such as Carrie who happen to have a different point of view.

Frankly, I don't want to know what ANYONE does behind closed doors. I don't think that it is fit for public discussion. People are people. What two consenting adults do behind closed doors is their businesses.

But this kind of behavior frankly, is disgusting. Besides attempting to destory the life of one young woman who has so much potential, it is actually counter-productive for those on the left who do push gay rights.

Homosexual Group Attacks Catholic Church

2009-05-24T10:35:00.000-07:00

As you may or may not have heard, the Empowering Spirits Foundation, a gay rights organization, has filed a challenge with the IRS to the tax exempt status of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Maine. This action comes in the wake of the Diocese's work gathering signatures in order to overturn the recently passed same sex marriage law in Maine. Gay rights activists in California attacked churches and some parishioners after they supported proposition 8, the constitutional ammendment to ban gay marriage.

Gay rights activists like these need to get over it. There are some non-profit organizations that are going to be for gay marriage. There is no reason to take vindictive actions against these groups and actions such as the above, simpy make more people opposed to gay marriage.

Personally I don't hate gays. I really don't have any problem with what two people do behind closed doors. The government shouldn't have ANYTHING to do with sexual acts between two consenting adults. Ok you are gay. Or you are not. Fine. I don't need to know about it. You have the full right to live your life and I have the right to live mine. As to rights such as the right to inherit benefits from a partner, hospital visitation rights and other such things, this is no problem. Gay couples should have rights via civil unions. But I don't see the battle of gay marriage as about that.

In states where gay marriage has passed, activitists have worked to get curriculm in schools to teach children about these non-traditional "mariages." That is where too many gay marriage activists are crossing the line. The line is crossed when you try to enforce your beliefs regarding gay marriages and gay relationships on children in schools. This is unacceptable. I believe that all sexual instruction in schools is completely out of line. Information on all relationships both gay and straight need to come from the parents. It is actually the job of the parents to teach children this. And I don't want liberals instilling in my children (when I have them) or any other children their San Francisco morality which includes, abortion, promiscuity and the virtues of trying drugs.

The line is also crossed when you force faith communities to accept your lifestyle and your versions of marriage. There are churches that do marry gays. And if they believe in marrying gays, I'm not going to stop them. But I don't want my church to be forced to do this.

And since traditionally, marriage has been between a man and a woman, for thousands of years, there is no since in changing it now. The reason why a marriage is a marriage, is because it involves two people, a man and a woman coming together and forming a unit, that sometimes results in children. There are many books and articles on the benefits of marriage, one such book is The Case for Marriage.

Barack Obama and Socialism

2009-04-29T21:56:00.000-07:00

As it has now become apparent, Barack Obama is a socialist. And no, socialist is not a code word for black. Far from it. Many notable blacks throughout history have been opposed to what socialism stands for which is the opposite of freedom. The fact that he is a socialist is not very suprising to us that didn't vote for him simply becuase he is black. Or simply because he is a Democrat.

Those of us who looked into him and his history found a very different man than what he pretends to be in front of the screaming crowds chanting his name.

In his books, Obama talks about attending socialist conferences. He talks of hanging out with Marxist professors. In the 70s he developed a close relationship with Frank Marshall Davis, who is a known member of the Communist Party USA, which was subservient to the Soviet Union. In later years he called for a rewrite of the constitution so that things could be made more "fair." In other words, people's wealth would be confiscated and given to others who didn't work. More recently, during his campaign, he called for wealth redistribution. At the time, a survey was done of Americans which found that his idea to "spread the wealth" around as either non-offensive or actually a good idea. Now that he is actually in office, with a Democratic majority in congress, he is actually working to carry out these insane ideas.

When will the sheep ever learn. There is absolutely no such thing as a good socialist / communist country that works out exactly like the politicians say it will work out. One for one, these socialist / communist "paradises" always end in disaster -- or they survive by introducing free market principals like China has. And speaking of China, believe it or not, China's business tax is less than America's. America has a capital gains tax. China doesn't. Even China, a communist country realizes that these things don't work.

The Black Community

2008-09-20T20:57:00.000-07:00

I consider myself a black conservative and agree with most Republican principals but I feel that the leadership has betrayed the principals of the party. I'm a huge supporter of Ron Paul.

The Black community doesn't need more hand outs. Where have the handouts gotten us? Nowhere. Believe it or not, black literacy levels were higher in 1910 than they are today 80% versus today's rate of around 64%. How many handouts did we have in 1910? None. And don't get me started on teen pregnancy. It doesn't cost any money for teenagers to simply not have sex. When I was in high school, I knew where I wanted to go and knew that having a baby too early would put a kink in my plans. Since the only way to be sure not to have a baby is not to have sex, I decided not to have sex until I was out of high school. Such a simple solution but it is actually the answer to the teen pregnancy problem. Don't do something if you can't take responsibility for the consequences of your actions. Seems so simple but some can't appreciate the simplicity of the solution and instead push for a million different liberal government programs which actually ENCOURAGE teenagers to have sex.

What we, as a community, need to do is to stop compulsively voting Democratic and explore our options. Are some Republicans racists? Definitely. However, so are some Democrats. There are racists in both parties. But look at what positions the Republican party has put blacks in. We have a black woman as Secretary of State. What Democratic administration put a black person in a position of this caliber? None.

What the black community needs is free market solutions. It is amazing to me that most black politicians talk about school vouchers like the world would end if this was passed into law and then send their children to private schools. Why the double standard? Why can't inner city black families have the same choices that they have.

On the subject of taxes, I'm sick of Barack and the other Democratic leaders talking about raising taxes on the "wealthy." Why is it that if a person works hard and succeeds in life they are horrible in the eyes of the Democrats? The problem with all of this raising taxes nonsense is that if you take away all of the incentive to work hard and become successful, no one will put in the work to become successful or they will move outside of the United States in order to avoid paying the taxes. Government revenue will decline. Then who will pay for all of the government programs that have been passed into law. I have several friends who could be considered by some to be rich. What most Democrats will never understand is that these people work like mad. They work far, far harder than your average worker. They certainly work far harder than your average far left / socialist university professor. It is not unusual for them to work 60+ hours in a week and often work longer hours than that. And they have worked that way for many years(often 10 or more) to get where they are. Some people do inherit wealth, but the vast majority of the rich earn their money the old fashion way -- working very, very, very hard. Anybody can become rich. Hard work is the key. Luck has very little to do with it. I have found that the harder I work, the luckier I become.

And last but not least, I think Barack Obama is a very bright man and is an excellent speaker. I have a lot of respect for him personally. However, I disagree with his socialist agenda. I don't think that this is what the country needs.

Religolulous

2008-09-09T20:56:00.000-07:00

Based off the trailer, this has got to be one of the most offensive films that has come out in a long time. Bill Maher expects his atheist beliefs to be respected but he makes fun of and mocks the beliefs of others. In one clip it appears that he is comparing God to Santa Claus. What?!?!

I have no doubts that he will act surprised when this movie comes out and there is a massive backlash against it from the Christian and Muslim communities and there should be. Everyone has the right to their own religious beliefs -- these are sacred and I don't see any logical reason to knock these. Even an atheist can see, if they really want to, that religion has had a very beneficial effect on mankind. The people I know of who are religious and go to a church of their choosing are on average a lot happier than those that don't.