DISQUS

This is one of the main reasons why Liberals are in favor of abortion and euthanatic homicide: it allows the government to ruin the economy for families by giving people the option to ditch their families. Legal abortion is a safety valve for government economic oppression. If it were illegal, the pressure to resist the government would be felt a lot sooner.

Wasn't the Shah overthrown by the popular Iranian Revolution of 1979, which ushered in the current theocracy?

As far as the US is concerned, its surest foundation is in Christian morality rather than secular democracy.

Come to think of it, perhaps a better, or at least more recent, example would be Castro, who made a popular visit to the US in 1959. Even Chavez was democratically elected.

Is there a specifc goal, though, or is this anarchy? I mean, when the Czar was toppled, what replaced him was, by most accounts I imagine, worse.

I don't doubt your bona fides with regard to the Iranian people, but what is the goal of "supporting Iran"? Is it to put Mousavi in power? Would that be a good thing? The election of Hamas has shown that universal suffrage is no guarantee of political stability.

The establishment of parliamentary elections in Iraq was a sensible response to the power vacuum created by the removal of Saddam, based on the model of Germany and Japan post-World War II. But there is a key difference between then and now: post-World War II the Nazi Party and Emperor-worship were abolished. Had these latter two forces remained in place, universal suffrage could have provided moral support to the very regimes we had fought for years to defeat.

It appears from some sources that Moussavi is more deeply involved with the Iranian Revolution than Ahmadinejad. Also, Kosovo showed how difficult it is to know what is really going on in a civil struggle. The poll tax riots in Margaret Thatcher's Britain bore all the hallmarks of a non-spontaneous uprising. Bush was falsely accused of tearing up the Constitution.

However much I oppose President Obortion, I think his reference to not meddling is sound. Much though one would like to avoid any such action, the bombing of Osirak was a much more proportionate solution to the problem faced.

Great videos. Thanks.

BILL MAHER: "What do we do about North Korea? Talking to them doesn't work".

Did you try giving them a cookie?

Your not following my logic at all, your following your own, even to the point of falsely suggesting that I mentioned the death penalty.

What is shocking is that you have completely avoided admitting that Terri Schiavo was murdered by being starved to death, even though you would like readers to believe that you are appalled by Japanese treatment of POWs in WWII.

The only action that can be taken to ward off this threat is to remove Obama immediately by seriously challenging his status as a native American, and to replace him with a president in the mold of W. Bush.

This is OT, unless you count any reference to dictatorship as a reference also to Socialism:

1) Obama said Bush failed to change our enemies' policies towards the US because he didn't talk nice to them; Obama told Notre Dame that he won't change his policies on abortion even if you talk nice to him.

2) Japan did something called waterboarding to US POWs, therefore, according to Libs, Bush's waterboarding was evil; Japan starved US POWs to death, but, according to Libs, starving Terri Schiavo to death was not evil.

Oh, for the days when Nazis and Communists lived in other countries.

Did you see The View gal's second interview of Ann Coulter on "Larry King" (it's on Newsbusters)? She was actually a gracious host this time. I might even say she was charming. Let's hope she gives a few lessons to Keith Dunderhead. Lesson No.1: Don't canvass the opinion of the Village Voice's resident toilet wall graffitist.

So, Mr. President, it is acceptable to shoot three Somalis who are believed to present an imminent threat to the life of one man, but it is unacceptable to intimidate a man who is believed to be the mastermind behind 9/11 when he is also believed to be part of an imminent threat to another 3,000 lives?

Or, to put it another way:
Do you think the current administration sanctioned murder when it authorized the shooting of the three Somalis?

This is a good piece. I am very impressed with Beck here. At the end he seems to recognize that, while progressivism initially employed coercive means to implement eugenics, in the modern era it has switched to propagandizing birth control and abortion to such an extent that eugenics is now implemented "voluntarily". Much the same way the Manchurian Candidate was to be a "voluntary" assassin. This "volition" is what Hillary Clinton means by "individual rights".

Incidentally, this whole attitude to the "unfit" is what made me angry about Rick Santelli's "loser" home owners rant. He stomped all over the presumption of innocence there.

You should take a look at the "home" video that Debbie Schlussel has posted - it really conveys what a knuckleheaded stunt this was.

Maybe the President will borrow this line from (the still-employed) British Prime Minister Gordon Brown:
"I take full responsibility for what happens, and that's why the person who was responsible [lost his job] immediately."

Good point.

That was a good posting on Gary Sinise on "The View", by the way. He was much too gentlemanly for those "ladies".

"Give me the liberty to keep my slaves and continue conquering Indian territory."

Sorry, I know you're a heroine and a patriot, but I don't think government can be reduced to a simple dichotomy. That was tried during World War II, and all that happened was America did not know how to deal with Liberalism in the 1960s. Better to have declared all forms of Socialism godless.

Once you've let the freedom genie out of the bottle, how do you stop the declaration of a "right to privacy".

Do you understand that approximately 50% of American voters support a party that fights like dogs to keep abortion legal? That that party does not give a hoot about the unborn and does indeed regard them as potential obstacles to happiness and their removal as a "cure" for international poverty? Do you understand that I can say that without believing it myself?

My point is that this idea that the government "should not compel charity" is incompatible with the purpose of law. Conservatives who want abortion outlawed with all other forms of unlawful killing wish to compel those Americans who do not care about "blobs of jelly" etc. to obey the Fifth Commandment. Under Christ's own analysis, that commandment is a precept of charity. We may take it for granted that murder has always been outlawed, but we need to remember why. Without charity, it is just killing, like killing a rabbit. (Now don't take that remark to mean that I think humans are not worth more than rabbits!)

The law goes further than this. For example, the three branches of government collectively require all of us to expend labour and money on making our homes secure for our neighbors to visit. This is called occupier's liability, and as I mentioned before, it derives in no small measure from the parable of the Good Samaritan.

From this I do not see why it is beyond the law to provide assistance to "loser home owners" who would like to pay their bills but can't sell their homes because the market has come to a standstill, and are now threatened by falling wages and rising unemployment. Unless we should not have provided assistance to tsunami victims because they should have taken out insurance? Or perhaps the "losers" had to take the risk of violent weather when they sought the reward of a sun-kissed location? (By the way, until you have an national Church in America then privately donating to your favorite denomination will not cover these things.)

In summary, I do not believe that Glen Beck's principle 7 as currently stated stands up to scrutiny. It is not consistent with the current state of the law or with the overall conservative political platform.

And come to think of it, if "God is the center of my life", why is He second on Glen's list of principles?

"I'll keep you in my prayers."

Thank you for that thought.

The person struggling to pay his mortgage may have lost his job. A person who gives professional advice is normally obliged to pay compensation for bad advice - which could threaten his mortgage payments.

That is a very sound answer on the subject of the handicapped child (see my addendum below) - although it obviously is a challenge to raise a handicapped child, as opposed to being a "piece of cake".

My concern is that conservative values as they are publicly presented, for example by Rush Limbaugh at CPAC, appear to extol material worth over everything else. The impression given is that, if you have any extra financial burdens, from whatever source, you will fall behind in the race to become the next Gates, Woods or Limbaugh. The reality, however, is that a handicapped child may be born to a man who works in a furniture store and his wife who is a cleaner in a hotel. They must find happiness in being good people, not in accumulating astronomical amounts of money, which the vast majority of good Americans will die never having achieved.

Other than that, it would help if you didn't just defend my right to speak, but that we discussed substantive points. For example, was I wrong to suggest that compulsory national insurance could be a good idea? If so, why? If not, why are we not hearing Republicans talk about this in public? Is it media censorship?

According to Gina, only "losers" - there's that word again - do not donate to charity or pay tithes. Doesn't that violate Glen Beck's principle 7:
"I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to."

Is it that the Government cannot compel me to be charitable, but my neighbors can, through stigmatization and ostracism? It seems a subtle distinction. How about tithes? Are these voluntary or compulsory? Just to be clear again - I am anti-abortion and I am not anti-tithe. I am not, however, averse to presenting counter-arguments, as this is vital to sound debate of one's principles.

Does prohibiting the Government from compelling charity extend to repealing consumer protection laws? How about the duty of care under the law of tort? In Britain, this concept began in 1932 with a case that used the moral example of the Good Samaritan as one foundation for it. Does that violate principle 7? Why not?

I thought the first rule of conservative debate was never to engage in an ad hominem attack.

Just to be 100% clear, abortion is and should be a crime.

"Government cannot force me to be charitable."

That sounds like a pro-choice slogan. Hey, Obama, stay out of my wallet!

Here is the problem. The fifth-to-tenth commandments are all phrased in the negative - thou shalt not - but when Christ came to fulfil the law he encapsulated them in the single commandment that we should love our neighbors as ourselves. This is an expression of charity, which I can see is one of Glen Beck's values. The difference, in conservative philosophy, is that whereas the Mosaic commandments are enforced by law, the virtue of charity is binding only in conscience.

This creates a situation where a couple could be expecting a severely handicapped child, and be forbidden by law to remove this "threat to their pursuit of happiness", while at the same time having no guarantee of social support for this difficult challenge that has been randomly assigned to them. Were there an established religion in the US, this might not be so great a dilemma, but, under a strict reading of the Constitution, the possibility exists that you could be punished for aborting a handicapped child, but left on your own when it comes to raising it.

Nor is this just a question of charity. In an advanced capitalist economy, everybody plays along by engaging in increasingly specialised work that leaves them extremely vulnerable to losing their market value overnight. One can practise thrift up to a point, but this depends on how long you have been fortunate in not losing your market worth. The sword of Damocles could drop at any moment.

Yet if we didn't take that risk, the economy could not advance. Conservatives are wrong to relate "rewards" to "risk". Effort should be rewarded, risk should be insured against. I cannot see anything inherently wrong in the idea that such insurance should be national and compulsory, since we all benefit from diversification, just as much as we benefit from national defence and law enforcement.

Did you see Jon Stewart on Santelli the other night? He nailed it. Santelli called struggling home owners "losers", yet if one is to be truly accountable for one's work, CNBC has given repeatedly bad financial advice. Where is the blowback for them?

Working for the government does not give one a halo, but neither does working in the private sector. The astonishing failure of the financial sector has ripped the rest of us to shreds, yet there are many in that sector who will have all those things that the "Tea Party" posses are joking about: plasma TVs, fancy cars, houses with pools. Conservative philosophy will not confiscate those possessions from the capitalists, yet it will kick people who have committed no crime but who want to keep a roof over their heads. Perhaps this is because it is easier to understand the inability to pay one's bills than it is to track down a complex fraud?

I saw the first 25 minutes of El Rushbo's overly long speech at CPAC. I had to turn off because all I could hear was materialism apparently predicated on the idea that everyone in America has the capacity to be Bill Gates - "if you want to". I don't know why people have different capabilities, but it is clear - and fortunate - that we do. Until conservatism can articulate a complete picture of how these differences should be supported within society, I suspect that conservatives will continue to be threatened by their own adherence to free elections in which voters can choose a different philosophy.

In this video, Robert Gibbs wins the argument. Yes, the same Robert Gibbs who steamrollered over a question about the "Fairness Doctrine". Where is the presumption of innocence here? How dare Santelli call people "losers". What does he mean by 8% versus 92%?

If anyone has committed fraud, let the law deal with that. Otherwise, let's respect the fact that this is an economic nightmare that the law failed to protect us from. The chaos is so widespread that even if anyone does manage to sell their house to cover their bills, they risk being evicted from rented accommodation when their landlord gets repossessed.

I don't know what Blanche's talent is supposed to be, but consistency ain't it.

She moans that "Nobody had any foresight [about the economic crisis]", but when Ann foresees that the stimulus bill will compound the problem she scoffs, "How do you know?". Which is it, Blanche, is foresight possible or not?

She thinks unmarried mothers shouldn't be criticized, but she's offended by the suggestion that Liberals have extra-marital sex.

She scoffs that if Republicans have better sex it's only because they're rich. She then impiles Liberals wouldn't be caught dead in cheap cars, and that makes them eminently datable (like Clooney).

She wants Ann to say something nice about Obama, then she kind of implies that he's responsible for torture. "You would like him to continue torturing people?", she says. Do you mean "continue", Blanche, or do you mean "resume"? 'Cos if he's a torturer, why would you want anyone to say something nice about him?