The level of hostility is striking. He grew up fearing the Ku Klux Klan, he says, but “my worst fears had come to pass not in Georgia, but in Washington, D.C., where I was being pursued not by bigots in white robes but by left-wing zealots draped in flowing sanctimony.”
The central philosophical theme of Atlas Shrugged is Ayn Rand's demolition of the intellectuals' dichotomy between the high-minded pursuits of the intellect and the allegedly grubby, un-intellectual world of business and industry. Ayn Rand's answer to this is provided early in the novel by Francisco D'Anconia. A flashback shows us Francisco and Dagny Taggart as teenagers combing through the machinery of a junk yard, to the disapproval of a friend of the family:
Once, an elderly professor of literature, Mrs. Taggart's friend, saw them on top of a pile in a junk yard, dismantling the carcass of an automobile. He stopped, shook his head and said to Francisco, "A young man of your position ought to spend his time in libraries, absorbing the culture of the world." "What do you think I'm doing?" asked Francisco.
"There are definitely some inaccuracies," Marciano added. "The biggest thing I have a problem with is this implication that Katrina was caused by global warming."
Like many academics, I was happy to blissfully ignore the Second Amendment. It did not fit neatly into my socially liberal agenda. Yet, two related cases could now force liberals into a crisis of conscience. The Supreme Court is expected to accept review of District of Columbia v. Heller and Parker v. District of Columbia, involving constitutional challenges to the gun-control laws in Washington.
Principle is a terrible thing, because it demands not what is convenient but what is right. It is hard to read the Second Amendment and not honestly conclude that the Framers intended gun ownership to be an individual right......
The Democratic Party is violating the Constitution and federal law by stripping 4 million Floridians of their right to vote in the presidential primary, says a lawsuit Democratic lawmakers plan to file Thursday.
What the heck is this picture? You mean to tell me that students are actually spending time in line for UC football tickets.The great question in deciding whether to keep fighting in Iraq is not about the morality and self-interest of supporting a struggling democracy that is also one of the most important countries in the world. The question is whether the war is winnable and whether we can help the winning of it. The answer is made much easier by the fact that three and a half years after the start of the insurgency, most of the big questions in Iraq have been resolved. Moreover, they have been resolved in ways that are mostly towards the positive end of the range of outcomes imagined at the start of the project. The country is whole. It has embraced the ballot box. It has created a fair and popular constitution. It has avoided all-out civil war. It has not been taken over by Iran. It has put an end to Kurdish and marsh Arab genocide, and anti-Shia apartheid. It has rejected mass revenge against the Sunnis. As shown in the great national votes of 2005 and the noisy celebrations of the Iraq football team’s success in July, Iraq survived the Saddam Hussein era with a sense of national unity; even the Kurds—whose reluctant commitment to autonomy rather than full independence is in no danger of changing—celebrated. Iraq’s condition has not caused a sectarian apocalypse across the region. The country has ceased to be a threat to the world or its region. The only neighbours threatened by its status today are the leaders in Damascus, Riyadh and Tehran.
Liberals often like to say that "violence is senseless."
That’s wrong.
Violence isn't senseless. Senseless violence is senseless. And I should know. Before being awarded the Navy Cross and having the privilege of becoming a Marine, I was a gang member. Sometimes it takes having used violence for both evil as well as good to know that there's a profound moral difference between the two.
People often ask me whether I still support the war. I never hesitate when answering: "Absolutely I support completing the mission," I tell them, "Now more than ever."
I was honored to have been given the opportunity to fight in Iraq on our country’s behalf. And it was that experience—and five things I saw firsthand—that illustrate the foolishness of those who would equate American military power to that used by thugs and tyrants.
More..........
I have said before that Media Matters was started with help from Hillary Clinton and took George Soros' money. Media Matters has written to me and all my bosses saying my charge is a lie, that it is an independent organization which plays no political favorites and has never received slime machine cash from Soros-funded Democracy Alliance.
Here are the facts: Media Matters was started in offices provided by the Center for American Progress, a Soros-funded operation. It has since received Soros money. Facts, not lies.
It has also now come to light that not only did Hillary Clinton help start Media Matters with former conservative David Brock in charge, she bragged about it to a convention of the far left. At the Daily Kos convention — a gathering of the far, far left — Hillary Clinton said the following:
The war is increasingly perceived as a low-level annoyance, barely even making the news. Amazingly, it now appears possible that the Republicans will suffer no long-term political damage for having started and for continuing to support what is arguably the most disastrous war in U.S. history.
Yet the strangest and most ironic aspect of our national culture is that we have an aversion to talking about a national culture. Samuel Huntington, one of the country's premier social scientists, has become something of a pariah for constantly reminding people (in books such as "The Clash of Civilizations" and "Who Are We?") that the United States is a nation, not just a government and a bunch of interest groups.
Many liberals hear talk of national culture and shout, "Nativist!" first and ask questions later, if at all. They believe it is a sign of their patriotism that they hold fast to the idea that we are a "nation of immigrants" -- forgetting that we are also a nation of immigrants who became Americans.
For a devotee of the First Amendment, it's a sobering history lesson. We tend to think of free speech in lofty terms, to regard it as a means of liberating the human intellect, spirit and body. And why shouldn't we? We are the nation of Thomas Paine and John Steinbeck, of Betty Friedan and Cesar Chavez, of Bob Dylan and Stevie Wonder. What further proof do you need that when people are allowed to say whatever they want, sometimes they will say great things?
"These people who claim to be progressive … have been far more vicious to me than any southerner," Thomas says, "and it is purely ideological."Thomas talks about the virulent racism he encountered growing up in the segregated South, when blacks were considered second-class citizens and kept separate from whites by law, and he equates those attitudes with the stereotypes he believes people hold today.
"People get bent out of shape about the fact that when I was a kid, you could not drink out of certain water fountains. Well, the water was the same. My grandfather always said that, 'The water's exactly the same.' But those same people are extremely comfortable saying I can't drink from this fountain of knowledge," Thomas says. "They certainly don't see themselves as being like the bigots in the South. Well, I've lived both experiences. And I really don't see that they're any different from them."
The man hits it out of the park. Somehow, I expect a Katie Couric interview with Anita Hill to be forthcoming.
