Vivat Libertas!

It was a fun week, boys and girls. Stocks went up. Stocks went down. Stocks went up again. Oil just went down. The Barry & John show droned on, both of them sniping at each other. Congress took a long-deserved break -- we're the ones who deserve it, not they -- from doing nothing to go home and . . . well, do nothing. A different John got caught with his pants down. Something major's going on in Peking, but I really couldn't be bothered to pay much attention. And some people said some stuff about things, but I didn't pay too terrible much attention to that, either. While I wasn't paying attention to all this I was paying attention to the slow, backwards slide of liberty in various parts of the globe. A couple of stories caught my eye, and I'd like to share them with you.
O Canada!

It is that attitude which exposes the bankruptcy of the ethos of political correctness. The PC code demands that we accept anyone and everyone into our societies, no matter how vastly divergent their own moral or political ethos may be. Therefore we are presented with the hypocrisy of Muslims who emmigrate to the West in order to enjoy the wealth and prosperity we've built over the past few centuries and yet refuse to accept anything else about our society or culture. We live in a land literally flowing with milk and honey, and our streets might as well be paved with gold. But all this prosperity is the result of the western concept of freedom, and part of that freedom is a) the right to speak one's mind, and b) the responsibility to accept criticism. Muslims are the worst offenders, in this regard. In filing their conplaints, the CIC simply proved Steyn's point: criticize or otherwise disagree Islam and Muslims will use the organs and power of the state to shut you up. That's hardly what I would call tolerance. The hypocrisy is all the more egregious when you consider the existence of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. The OIC consists of fifty-seven Muslim-majority member states devoted to, among other things, the preservation and promotion of Islamic ideals. Now, if you wanted to live in an Islamic society you have fifty-seven choices, all thoroughly vetted and approved by the OIC. That's twenty-six more choices that Baskin-Robbins used to offer, and that was only for ice cream. But the Muslim world never invented anything as successful as Baskin-Robbins, or Dunkin' Donuts, or McDonald's, or even cheap, industrially-produced steel. And therein lies the rub: Muslims must leave their own societies in order to enjoy the prosperity those very soceties have failed to provide, and when the get here they demand that we remake our society to suit their tastes. Never you mind the fact that it was western ideals which made such prosperity possible in the first place, and don't you dare mention it out loud or somebody might get upset and have the government come down on you like a ton of bricks.
The best laid plans of mice and bureaucrats . . .

This is a blatant and weaselly usurpation of power by a small elite. EU bureaucrats have never bothered to explain what the EU is about or why it's really necessary; all they ever do is make vague statements about co-operation and European unity, as if these things were ends in-and-of themselves, rather than merely the means. They haven't even bothered to state a compelling unifying principle, something which would bind the people of Europe together, something which would give Europeans reason enough to cede power and authority to what is already an overbearing government. Here in the US we have the Declaration of Independence, self-evident truths and the "unalienable Rights . . . [of] Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." In Brussels they can't even come up with democracy. With the Lisbon Treaty, it should be apparent to anyone with both the IQ and common sense God gave a turnip that all they care about in Brussels is the usurptation and consolidation of power into a supranational mega-state, and to hell with anyone who stands in their way. The government in Dublin has gotten the message, loud-and-clear and five-by-five. I thank God that the Irish have not.
Meanwhile, Back in the USSR . . .

One the one hand, I like seeing somebody make a bold power grab through semi-naked aggression, as opposed to the weasel-way of legal chicanery. On the other, more important, hand, this is a bald-faced attempt to force Tbilisi to march to the beat of the Kremlin's drum. There's no way in hell the Georgian Army could have stood up against Russia's, and everybody knows it. And while it's not apparent that Moscow's goal is a full invasion, try telling that to Czechoslovakia. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin -- the man behind the throne, so-to-speak -- has accused the Georgians of "complete genocide" and has said that they have "lost the right to rule." Nevermind the fact that Moscow never gave a damn about the Chechyns' right to self-rule, or the Kosovars'; now they're the champions of the horribly oppressed Ossetians. "Defending" their "citizens" also apparently entailed bombing the airport in Tbilisi which, incidentally, isn't located in South Ossetia, and taking a shot at knocking out the Baku-Supsa oil pipeline terminal, also not located in South Ossetia. I'll be waiting for the loud and indignant condemnations against Russia for launching a war for oil: if they manage to shut down that terminal, a full one percent of the world's oil supply will be blocked and prices will rise, benefitting Russia's now-nationalized oil industry. What happens in Georiga also affects the world at large. Georgia has been a stalwart ally of the US, and if we fail to support her we run the risk of alienating all our other allies. And if Georgia falls, the Ukraine and the Batlic states know all too well that they're next on Moscow's hit list. Long live freedom!
1 comment:
Great blog about the drama playing out between Russia and Georgia. The similarities between Russia and pre-WWII Germany haven't been lost on me, and I'm glad to see someone express it so eloquently.
Enjoying your blog!
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