China Condemns U.S. Gun Ownership As Human Rights Violation (Obama And Democrat Party Agree With COMMUNIST DICTATORS)

Let’s see, I’m a totalitarian communist thug dictator and I don’t want any “issues” affecting my ability to make the people abject slaves.  What is it I need to do?

Let me put on my Democrat Party thinking cap.  Hmmmm.  Oh, that’s right – TAKE AWAY THEIR RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS!!!

May 29, 2012
China condemns U.S. gun ownership as human rights violation
David Codrea
Gun Rights Examiner

A report issued by the State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China has included U.S. gun ownership among a list of human rights violations, Law Enforcement Examiner Jim Kouri reported yesterday. “The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2011” was published last Friday on the PRC’s Consulate General in New York website.

“The United States prioritizes the right to keep and bear arms over the protection of citizens’ lives and personal security and exercises lax firearm possession control, causing rampant gun ownership,” the report claims. “The U.S. people hold between 35 percent and 50 percent of the world’ s civilian-owned guns, with every 100 people having 90 guns [and] 47 percent of American adults reported that they had a gun.”

The conclusion that gun bans will result in enhanced protection of lives and personal security flies in the face of both the American and Chinese experience. Predictably, the report presents many of the same cherry-picked arguments used by “leading” U.S. and international “gun control” organizations that totally ignore the protective benefits of arms in private hands. And, as typical with advocates of a centralized monopoly of violence, Chinese-style genocide, which resulted in government-caused deaths of unknown tens of millions of defenseless human beings in the 20th Century, and the current brutal occupation and tyrannical suppression of Tibetan sovereignty, is left unacknowledged. Left unsaid is the inconvenient truth that rendering captive populations unable to resist makes such monstrous crimes against humanity not only possible, but inevitable.

Also left unquestioned: What is the motivation and agenda of any American who advocates Chicom-style citizen disarmament, knowing full-well its blood-drenched historic record?

The reason the founding fathers made gun ownership a primary part of their vision of government was because they hated tyranny and wanted to prevent government from becoming our lords and masters.

Democrats have spent the last fifty years doing precisely the opposite.

U.N. Seeks To Give Human Rights To ‘Mother Earth’

Just to make sure we understand, human babies in the womb do NOT deserve human rights.  But that tree over there, those bugs under that rock, do.

This is raw paganism (which also was quite characteristic of the Nazis, for what it’s worth).

And it’s nothing new at the United Nations, either.  Just recall the recent conference in which the U.N. officially affirmed that their “global warming” agenda was really all about socialist wealth redistribution (which was good) and invoked pagan Mayan goddesses to bring that agenda to fruition.

U.N. Prepares to Debate Whether ‘Mother Earth’ Deserves Human Rights Status
By Jonathan Wachtel
Published April 18, 2011 | FoxNews.com

United Nations diplomats on Wednesday will set aside pressing issues of international peace and security to devote an entire day debating the rights of “Mother Earth.”

A bloc of mostly socialist governments lead by Bolivia have put the issue on the General Assembly agenda to discuss the creation of a U.N. treaty that would grant the same rights found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to Mother Nature.

Treaty supporters want the establishment of legal systems to maintain balance between human rights and what they perceive as the inalienable rights of other members of the Earth community — plants, animals, and terrain.

Communities and environmental activists would be given more legal power to monitor and control industries and development to ensure harmony between humans and nature. Though the United States and other Western governments are supportive of sustainable development, some see the upcoming event, “Harmony with Nature,” as political grandstanding — an attempt to blame environmental degradation and climate change on capitalism.

“The concept ‘Mother Earth’ is not universally accepted,” said a spokesman from the British Mission to the U.N. about Bolivia’s proposal. “In general, our view is that we should focus on tackling important sustainable development issues through existing channels and processes.”

The General Assembly two years ago passed a Bolivia-led resolution proclaiming April 22 as “International Mother Earth Day.” The measure was endorsed by all 192 member states. But Bolivian President Evo Morales envisioned much more, vowing in a speech to U.N. delegates that a global movement had begun to lay “out a Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth.”

Morales, who repeatedly says “the central enemy of Mother Earth is capitalism,” called for creating a charter that defends the right to life for all living things. Morales, who was named World Hero of Mother Earth by the General Assembly, has since made great strides in his campaign.

In January, Bolivia became the world’s first nation to grant the natural environment equal rights to humans. Bolivia’s Law of Mother Earth is heavily influenced by the spiritual indigenous Andean world outlook that revolves around the earth deity Pachamama, roughly translated to Mother Earth.

The Bolivian law establishes 11 rights for nature that include: the right to life and to exist; the right to pure water and clean air; the right to not have cellular structure modified or genetically altered; the right to have nature’s processes free from human alteration. The law also establishes a Ministry of Mother Earth to act as an ombudsman, which will ensure nature is “not being affected my mega-infrastructure and development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities.”

Emboldened by this triumph, Morales’ goal is to emulate his domestic achievement as a U.N. treaty. In a 2008 address to a U.N. forum on indigenous people, he said the first step in saving the Earth is to “eradicate capitalism” and to force wealthy industrialized countries to “pay their environmental debt.” Morales presented 10 points, or Evo’s Ten Commandments, as they are affectionately called by devotees, to save the planet.

Among them is a call to end the capitalist system, and a world without imperialism or colonialism. Respect for Mother Earth is Commandment 6. U.N. critics slammed the decision to devote an entire day debating Mother Earth legislation as not only a waste of time and resources, but a major blunder.

“The UN is a one-act show,” said U.N. watchdog Anne Bayefsky, of Eye on the U.N., in which “Western democracies are responsible for the world’s ills and developing countries are perpetual victims.”

Bayefsky said the General Assembly’s focus on Mother Earth distracts from more pressing issues and problems at the U.N.

“The rights of inanimate objects violated by developed countries are considered a useful focal point this month,” she said, adding that, “Syria is scheduled to be elected next month to the U.N.’s top “human” rights body, and Iran is on the U.N.’s top women’s rights body.” Syria is one of the sponsors of the “Mother Earth” treaty.

Bolivia’s ambassador to the U.N., Pablo Solon, who will represent Morales at the debate and ‘expert’ panel discussions at U.N. headquarters, said, “Presently many environmentally harmful human activities are completely legal,” including those that cause climate change.

“If legal systems recognized the rights of other-than-human beings,” he says, such as mountains, rivers, forests and animals, “courts and tribunals could deal with the fundamental issues of environmental contamination.”

It is not clear if Bolivia’s new tough environmental laws will actually go as far as to protect life forms like insects, but the legislation does include all living creatures.

This is the “wisdom” of men.  But professing themselves to be wise, they became fools (Romans 1:22).

We are living in the last days, that should be readily evident to anyone who has ever read the book of Revelation with an attitude of belief.  2,000 years ago John saw the entire earth shaking its collectivist fist at God and exchanging the truth of God for a lie.

Most of the people pushing this socialist, virently anti-capitalist movement really couldn’t give a fig about “Mother Earth.”  Do you think Evo Morales is going to find another place to sleep if he finds a bug on his bed?  How many of them are like Al Gore, urging world leaders to impose fascistic totalitarian policies in the name of saving the planet while they personally spew out hundreds of thousands of tons of carbon in their own personal lives as they jetset from here to there?  For them, it is all about power and the ability to control the lives of billions of people.  They want to be able to decide (“dictate” really being a better word) who lives and who dies, who wins and who loses, who pays and who receives.  All based on who supports them and who opposes them.  Or as fellow socialist traveller Barack Obama put it:

“We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us.”

And the ultimate goal is to have far-leftist socialist environmentalist whackos “chanelling” Mother Earth and telling the courts that she wants all the capitalists to die and be used for fertilizer and a good firewood substitute.

And the United States under Obama and Democrat leadership is very much a part of this.  As Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi shrilly declared, “I’m trying to save the planet; I’m trying to save the planet!”  And Barack Obama was waxing megalomaniac, saying, “This is the moment, as Nancy [Pelosi] noted, that the world is waiting for… I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions.”  Because Obama ALWAYS claims to want to return to our “best traditions” when they never WERE our traditions and never SHOULD BE.

Maybe the U.N. can make Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid the “channeler” for Mother Earth.  And he crouch down and put his ear to the ground and then solemnly tell us that:

“coal makes us sick, oil makes us sick; it’s global warming. It’s ruining our country, it’s ruining our world. We’ve got to stop using fossil fuel.”

And if your family starves because you can’t drive to work anymore, well, too bad so sad.  Mother Earth has rights.  And both she and the socialists who are interpreting her cries are both far bigger than you little human beings.  Why, you’re practically as small as babies in the womb compared to them.

And, of course, it becomes readily apparent why socialists don’t dare give those precious little human beings in the womb human rights.  Because someone could channel their cries and complain that America (as just one particularly reckless example) must stop borrowing $188 million dollars every hour that they will be forced to repay when they grow up.

One of the major themes that erupts from this article is “Don’t compromise with these depraved fools.  Don’t give them anything.  Because it will only embolden them to keep pushing for more and more and more.”

Oops.  Just like those Nazis, again.

Obama Demagoguery Outraging The Citizen Class

A good article on Townhall underscores the building anger that is going to overtake Obama and the Democrat regime in November.

Sunday, May 23, 2010
by Austin Hill: Townhall.com Columnist
Obama Has Enraged the “Citizen Class”

The “citizen class” is horrified.

We’re speaking here of those Americans who, while they may disagree on a variety of social and public policy issues, nonetheless agree on a few, crucial matters.

Those of us among the citizen class generally agree that the United States is a good country. While far from perfect, we see our nation as being a place of tremendous opportunity, and a force for goodness around the world.

We also agree that being a U.S. citizen is a significant and distinct thing. While we respect the notion that all human beings are worthy of their “basic human rights,” we see the rights imparted to citizens of the United States as being something different, something “over and above” the category of “basic human rights.”

This is not to say that we are superior people, because we are U.S. citizens. This is, however, the greatest blessing of being a U.S. citizen. It is why so many of us in the citizen class think of our status as a “naturally born citizen” as being a God-given gift, and we celebrate those who legally earn American citizenship as well.

But along with the distinctiveness of being an American citizen, those of us among the citizen class also regard our nation’s sovereignty as something that must be safeguarded as well. Political philosophies, governmental structures, and economic systems are not morally neutral – some work far better than others. And the structures and institutions and governing philosophies of the United States have produced a far higher level of human flourishing and freedom than any others. For this reason, if for no other, our nation must always be regarded as separate and distinct.

Our nation is good, U.S. citizenship is distinct, and national sovereignty is non-negotiable. In a nutshell, this is the mindset, the worldview, of the citizen class. It has nothing to do with one’s ethnicity, or socioeconomic background, or sexual orientation, or gender. It has everything to do with one’s most deeply held beliefs.

Not every U.S. citizen possesses the “citizen class” view (clearly some Americans don’t understand the blessing of their status), yet a majority of us still do. And no matter how much we may disagree on other matters, those of us in the citizen class won’t budge on these three items.

And this why President Obama has enraged the citizen class. He has planted the seeds of doubt regarding our nation’s goodness, and has implied that U.S. citizenship, and national sovereignty, are irrelevant.

While an overwhelming majority of the citizen class supports Arizona’s effort to uphold the significance of citizenship and sovereignty, President Barack Hussein Obama has sided with the United Nations, Venezuelan Dictator Hugo Chavez, China, and the President of Mexico in opposing the state of Arizona. One would hope that the President of the United States – any President of the United States – would seek to protect all fifty of the states that he governs from international criticism, even if he didn’t happen to like the behavior of one of his states. But our current President stands united with some of the most thuggish regimes in the world, in opposing his fellow Americans of Arizona.

Worse yet, our President not only allowed, but enabled Mexican President Felipe Calderon to publicly humiliate our fellow Americans of Arizona, while standing on the sacred grounds of the White House. And President Obama’s party – the ruling party in Congress – couldn’t rise to their feet quickly enough and offer thunderous applause, when Mr. Calderon publicly humiliated Arizona during an address to both the Senate and House last week.

It’s nothing short of disgraceful to see the President of the United States undermine us, while the entire world is watching. His behavior has, in no small part, called in to question just how “united” the United States of America is right now.

Yet in the midst of the disgrace, there are hopeful signs. The citizen class has whole-heartedly rejected the agenda (such that it is) of Barack Obama. It began last November with statewide elections in New Jersey and Virginia, where gubernatorial candidates endorsed by Barack Obama both lost. It moved on to Massachusetts where Obama’s choice for U.S. Senate lost to Republican Scott Brown.

And now, evidence of the rejection of Obama’s agenda has radiated from Utah, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky. And we haven’t even seen yet how the President’s trashing of Arizona will impact elections yet to occur.

The louder President Obama and his party cheer, the greater the rage of the citizen class. And the citizen class won’t be ignored much longer.

Democrats are claiming that the victory of Democrat Mark Critz over his Republican challenger in a heavily Democrat district, proves that the Democrats are as popular as ever.  Let’s forget the fact that Pennsylvania’s 12 district has been gerrymandered to give Democrats a 2-1 registration advantage over Republicans.  Let’s forget the fact that the special election occurred on the same day as the Democrat primary – whereas Republicans had already voted, and essentially had to vote twice.

Republicans could point out that they just won the election in Barack Obama’s hometown in Hawaii – another state that is heavily Democrat as proof of the fact they they are going to destroy Democrats in November.  But the Republicans only won that because two Democrats were in the race, splitting the Democrat vote.  Sometimes those little details matter.

The fact is that the Democrat victory in Pennsylvania and the Republican victory in Hawaii are for the most part anomalous. Both races will be fought all over again in six months – and the results of both may very likely change.

But the fact is also that the American people have largely turned against Barack Obama.  As of today, he has an approval rating of minus seventeen (- 17), with only 45% of Americans approving of his performance versus 54% who disapprove.  And the fact that a pissed off and frightened people are going to vote in huge majorities against Barack Obama in states and districts across the country in November.

What is particularly interesting is that Mark Critz – and many Democrats – are actively running against Barack Obama and the Obama agenda.  Crizt ran against ObamaCare, and against Obama’s cap-and-trade plan, among other things.  Democrats are literally saying that the American people should elect Democrats in order to oppose the Democrat agenda.  Does that really sound like a narrative that’s going to work in November?

Add to that the fact that unemployment and a host of other measurements of the U.S. economy are bad, with not a whole lot of evidence that they are going to improve.

The Democrats demagogued and demonized Republicans about the Republican record as they assured the American people that they would make everything better.  And now the same anger and outrage that Democrats rode last year will fittingly come back to wash them away over their failures.

I see a reckoning coming.

Update May 24: Oops.  Did I say 45% of Americans approved of Obama, versus 54% who disapproved?  That was yesterday.  Today only 44% of Americans approve of Obama, against 55% who disapprove.  And the President Approval Rating is at a negative eighteen.

Update May 25: Oops again.  Did I say 44% of Americans approve of Obama?  That’s no longer correct.  I’m sorry, but Obama is tanking so fast that it’s just hard to keep up with it.  Today, only 42% of Americans approve of this turd which is stinking up the White House.

From Rasmussen, May 25:

Overall, 42% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president’s performance. That is the lowest level of approval yet measured for this president. Fifty-six percent (56%) now disapprove of his performance.

And oh my, a whopping 20% more voters utterly despise Obama now than like him.

And that overwhelming majority of voters is going to want to come out and hurt somebody in November.

Progressivism Revealed In Words Of Hollywood Liberals Like Tom Hanks And Sean Penn

If you want to know what an idea looks like, it is a good idea to look for some examples of that thing in action.

Take “progressivism” or “liberalism,” for instance (please! as the old comic’s joke goes).

What do these people think?  What are they about?  What is their vision for the future, and for this country?  What do they want to do?

Well, why not ask Tom Hanks and Sean Penn, both famed Oscar-winning Hollywood liberals in good standing.

Let’s start with Sean Penn.  That way we can get rid of him faster.

Sean Penn, speaking about Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, said:

“Every day, this elected leader is called a dictator here, and we just accept it, and accept it. And this is mainstream media. There should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies.”

Well, what SHOULD we think about Hugo Chavez?  Let’s find out.

From May 2007:

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan troops have seized an anti-government television channel’s broadcast equipment, the station said on Sunday, ahead of a controversial midnight EDT/0400 GMT takeover by President Hugo Chavez that will take the broadcaster off the air.

Chavez sparked international criticism with his decision to not renew RCTV’s license and to replace Venezuela’s most-watched channel with a state-backed network that will promote the values of his self-styled socialist revolution.

From November 2008 in the New York Review of Books:

Hugo Chávez Versus Human Rights

On September 18, we released a report in Caracas that shows how President Hugo Chávez has undermined human rights guarantees in Venezuela. That night, we returned to our hotel and found around twenty Venezuelan security agents, some armed and in military uniform, awaiting us outside our rooms. They were accompanied by a man who announced—with no apparent sense of irony—that he was a government “human rights” official and that we were being expelled from the country.

From July 2009 from the Human Rights Watch (which also includes numerous Venezuelan human rights violations):

Venezuela: Repeal Measures Aimed at Critics

Jul 31, 2009

The Venezuelan government has adopted and proposed measures that reduce the ability of government critics to voice their opinions and will seriously limit freedom of expression in Venezuela.

From August 2009 via the UK Telegraph:

Thirteen channels ordered to be closed by the Venezuelan government went off the air on Saturday and more than 200 are expected to close in coming weeks.

The government broadcasting watchdog, Conatel, said that 34 radio outlets would be closed because they failed to comply with regulations.

However, critics claimed the crackdown infringed on freedom of speech and hundreds of protesters demonstrated in Caracas against the closures.

And, of course, that is simply scratching the surface of Hugo Chavez’s abuses of freedom:

According to the U.S. State Department and other official government sources, the Venezuelan government has been guilty of numerous human rights violations under Chavez’s rule.

“Politicization of the judiciary and official harassment of the political opposition and the media characterized the human rights situation during the year,” said the State Department’s Country Report on Human Rights in Venezuela for 2008 that was released last month.

The report credits the Chavez regime with unlawful killings, arbitrary arrests and detention, discrimination based on political grounds, widespread corruption at all levels of government, official intimidation and attacks on the independent media.

“According to HRW [Human Rights Watch], ‘Government officials have removed scores of detractors from the career civil service, purged dissidents employees from the national oil company, denied citizens access to social programs based on their political opinions, and denounced critics as subversives deserving of discriminatory treatment,” says the State Department report.

A recent report by the Congressional Research Service also outlined human rights concerns in Chavez’s Venezuela.

“Under the populist rule of President Hugo Chavez … Venezuela has undergone enormous political changes, with a new constitution and unicameral legislature, and a new name for the country, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela,” states a Feb. 5, 2009 CRS report.

“U.S. officials and human rights organizations have expressed concerns about the deterioration of democratic institutions,” the report adds, “and threats to freedom of expression under President Chavez, who has survived several attempts to remove him from power.”

How about Hugo Chavez in his very own words:

CHAVEZ: “Yes, we are indoctrinating the children from the first grade through college, every grade, private schools. The ideology of the revolution! The ideology of socialism! Our ideology.”

So Hugo Chavez is a dictator and a thug who is without any doubt suppressing freedom of speech and other human rights in his country.  And if I may now refresh your memory about Sean Penn’s view of the man:

Sean Penn has defended Hugo Chávez as a model democrat and said those who call him a dictator should be jailed.

The Oscar-winning actor and political activist accused the US media of smearing Venezuela’s socialist president and called for journalists to be punished.

“Every day, this elected leader is called a dictator here, and we just accept it, and accept it. And this is mainstream media. There should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies.”

This one’s pretty easy.  Sean Penn demonizes the press for smearing a dictator by calling him a “dictator.”  And proceeds to argue that journalists who report the truth about Chavez be jailed.

Which is, of course, precisely what a dictator would do, isn’t it???

You see, Hugo Chavez is a dictator and thug; but he is a LEFTWING dictator and thug (just as most dictatorial thugs almost always are).

So, to put a thousand words into a picture:

Mind you, Sean Penn is not the only Hollywood liberal who has embraced this dictatorial thug. There’s Danny Glover, Oliver Stone, Benicio del Toro, and others.

And earlier progressives eagerly flocked around the communist revolution under Vladimir Lenin and the fascist revolutions under first Benito Mussolini and then Adolf Hitler, too.  Which is to say that this behavior from progressives – as bizarre and as morally insane as it is – is part of a century-old tradition.

Let’s go back to Woodrow Wilson, the father of the progressive movement.  In his unintentionally chilling essay, “Leaders of Men,” Wilson wrote:

The competent leader of men cares little for the interior niceties of other people’s characters: he cares much – everything – for the external uses to which they may be put. His will seeks the lines of least resistance; but the whole question with him is a question as to the application of force. There are men to be moved: how shall he move them? He supplies the power; others supply only the materials upon which that power operates… It is the power which dictates, dominates; the materials yield. Men are as clay in the hands of the consummate leader.

On Wilson’s elitist view, American citizens truly ARE as clay.  They are incapable of understanding anything remotely complex.  And therefore the half-truths (which very often amount to whole lies) of the skillful demagogue become justified:

only a very gross substance of concrete conception can make any impression on the minds of the masses; they must get their ideas very absolutely put, and are much readier to receive a half-truth which they can understand than a whole truth which has too many sides to be seen all at once.

And how did the father of the progressive movement – who viewed men as uncomprehending clay waiting to be shaped by the half-truths of the skillful demagogue – view the Constitution?  Wilson wrote:

Justly revered as our great Constitution is, it could be stripped off and thrown aside like a garment, and the nation would still stand forth in the living vestment of flesh and sinew, warm with the heart-blood of one people, ready to recreate constitutions and laws

And uncomprehending clay men do not particularly deserve the inalienable rights bestowed upon them by a Constitution which itself is of little actual value.  Thus the father of the progressive movement wrote:

No doubt a lot of nonsense has been talked about the inalienable rights of the individual, and a great deal that was mere sentiment and pleasing speculation has been put forward as fundamental principle.

And what should be the limitations of power on the government Leviathan – which could easily be stripped of its limiting Constitution – over uncomprehending and infinitely malleable men of clay?  In The State, Wilson said that:

“Government does now whatever experience permits or the times demand.”

In his “Congressional Government,” Wilson wrote that:

“I cannot imagine power as a thing negative and not positive.”

In other words, Progressivism sees no limitations against the power of raw government power.

But I can certainly imagine such power being a negative thing.  As a student of history, I am vividly aware of the fact that in just one such form of government – communism – more than 100 million people were systematically and brutally murdered by their own government during peacetime.

Conservatives favor limited government with limited and well-defined powers.  Which is the exact OPPOSITE of fascistic totalitarian governments.  When you start demanding bigger and bigger and more activistic and socialist government, you begin meandering over to fascist land.

Thus you should understand why it  shouldn’t be surprising that Sean Penn and Danny Glover should think this way about Hugo Chavez.  Chavez is the Great Leader who shapes stupid clay men with his skillful demagoguery; and thus woe be unto any who seek to get in his way.

And, good news for progressives, the magnificent Hugo Chavez’s socialist revolution is coming to America in the form of Barack Hussein Obama:

(CNSNews.com) – Inspired by his meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama at the Americas Summit, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez declared on Sunday that Venezuelan socialism has begun to reach the United States under the Obama administration.

And it’s completely reasonable that Chavez would think this way about Obama.  After all, the American president who did nothing while the Venezuelan dictator nationalized U.S. businesses has done plenty of nationalizing himself.  Which prompted Hugo Chavez to point out:

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez said on Tuesday that he and Cuban ally Fidel Castro risk being more conservative than U.S. President Barack Obama as Washington prepares to take control of General Motors Corp.

Does the Obama administration share the totalitarian views of Hugo Chavez, and even admire them?  It certainly does, according to the words of Obama’s Diversity czar, Mark Lloyd:

“It should be clear by now that my focus here is not freedom of speech or the press.  This freedom is all too often an exaggeration. At the very least, blind references to freedom of speech or the press serve as a distraction from the critical examination of other communications policies.

[T]he purpose of free speech is warped to protect global corporations and block rules that would promote democratic governance.”

[…]

“In Venezuela, with Chavez, is really an incredible revolution – a democratic revolution.  To begin to put in place things that are going to have an impact on the people of Venezuela.

“The property owners and the folks who then controlled the media in Venezuela rebelled – worked, frankly, with folks here in the U.S. government – worked to oust him.  But he came back with another revolution, and then Chavez began to take very seriously the media in his country.

And we’ve had complaints about this ever since.”

“Complaints,” of course, which bother genuine progressives such as Sean Penn and Obama’s diversity czar Mark Lloyd.  Which is why they think that “complainers” should be thrown in jail.

The left loves – and even worships as a surrogate for God – big government, and seemingly the bigger the better.  And of course, the very biggest governments, the ones that can control the populations and guide their nations to the next socialist Utopia, invariably are or descend into totalitarian regimes.

It’s not that Sean Penn is stupid for his views.  Sean Penn is accurately explaining his progressive philosophy.  He is not a politician who needs your vote, so he can be honest.  And as a multi-millionaire celebrity, he epitomizes the mindset of progressivism: that the peon clay masses are ignorant and need to be ruled over, and that they should surrender their wills and allow the government of their superiors to do whatever they think is best.  And who better than an elitist Hollywood celebrity to explain why the more than 300 million Americans constituting the lower classes are like maggots crawling across the landscape, and that they should be compelled to shut up and do as their betters tell them?

So let us be rid of Sean Penn and introduce ourselves to the “wisdom” of Tom Hanks.  Recently – in acquainting America with the 10 part HBO series on World War II he took part in – had this to say:

“Back in World War II,” he told Brinkley, “we viewed the Japanese as ‘yellow, slant-eyed dogs’ that believed in different gods. They were out to kill us because our way of living was different. We, in turn, wanted to annihilate them because they were different. Does that sound familiar, by any chance, to what’s going on today?” In a separate interview, Hanks referred to the war in the Pacific as one of “racism and terror.”

Damn racist American bastards.  They were called “the greatest generation”; the generation that rose up from the ashes of the Great Depression to defeat the greatest evil the world has ever seen.  But you and Tom Hanks know the truth, don’t you: they were just a bunch of racists.  The vicious cheap-shot sneak attack at Pearl Harbor didn’t have anything to do with our going to war against Japan.  Heck, in the spirit of the modern “truthers” who claim that Bush bombed the World Trade Center, FDR probably sent in American planes painted to look like Japanese Zeroes.

Stupid unAmerican fool.  We didn’t want to annihilate the Japanese “because they were different.”  We were forced to annihilate them because they were utterly fanatic and refused to surrender.  We were forced to annihilate them because they started a war of annihilation and wouldn’t stop.  Tom Hanks is too ignorant and too much an ideologue to consider the Rape of Nanking, or the Bataan Death March, or the Banzai charges, or the first suicide bombers known as the Kamikaze.  I’d like to see Tom Hanks take part in a movie about the monstrous and utterly despicable Unit 731.

If Tom Hanks wasn’t a complete moral idiot, he would simply realize that Japan attacked us without provocation with a vengeance, and the United States of America responded with a vengeance.  Just as they would have done had their attackers had white skin and round eyes.

And when Tom Hanks asks, “Does that sound familiar, by any chance, to what’s going on today?”  he is not content to label the greatest generation as a bunch of racist warmongers; no, he seeks to do the same thing to our great warriors who are protecting us today.

Why are we fighting against Islamic jihadism?  Because they’re “different,” as Tom Hanks maintains?  How about because they attacked us in vicious act of war that left 3,000 innocent civilians murdered?  Maybe THAT had something to do with it?

Contrary to being “racists,” our soldiers today are operating with a level of restraint against an utterly despicable terrorist enemy – who hide among and prey upon their own civilian people – that is simply amazing to behold.  Our soldiers as a matter of routine are the most enthusiastic back-patting cheerleaders of the courage and toughness they are beginning to see in their Afghani and Iraqi counterparts.

Tom Hanks, like Sean Penn, see only ugliness in America and Americans, and only beauty in the totalitarian regimes of brutal dictators.

And that is, and always has been, the progressive way.

Obama Wishes U.S. Could Be Like China

Hot Air jumped all over this stunningly revealing statement from Barack Obama. I figured I might as well pile on:

Everybody’s watching what’s going on in Beijing right now with the Olympics. Think about the amount of money that China has spent on infrastructure. Their ports, their train systems, their airports are vastly the superior to us now, which means if you are a corporation deciding where to do business you’re starting to think, “Beijing looks like a pretty good option.”

Ed Morrissey had this to say by way of comment:

Well, as long as you forget about the oppressive Communist government and the lack of freedom and the Internet filtering and the re-education camps … China sounds really groovy.

Does Barack Obama understand the nature of the Beijing regime? The reason that the government can afford all of this spending is that they control the means of production and the wealth of the nation. They can confiscate what they want at will and spend it where they like. And in Beijing, they spent it where the cameras would be pointed.

Unfortunately, most of what the cameras see is just a facade, as Dale Franks points out at Q&O:The Chinese infrastructure that so enthralls Obama remains decades behind that of the US.  What infrastructure China manages to build, however, gets its energy from oil and coal, not from wind and solar.  China has become the highest emissions nation in the world and shows no sign of slowing itself down over concerns about anthropogenic climate change.  In fact, the air in Beijing is so bad that outdoor Olympics events almost had to be moved.

Meanwhile, the regime where Obama thinks the world would love to do business maintains itself through brutal oppression.  China blocked access to the Internet for international journalists despite promising to allow full access to reporters for the Games.  They arrested reporters covering peaceful protests.  And these are the actions they took while trying to make themselves look good.

If Obama wants us to build up American infrastructure, he can start by ending the flow of American wealth overseas for energy.  Create hundreds of thousands of jobs by building the American energy infrastructure through drilling in the OCS, ANWR, and interior shale formations.  Lower capital-gains tax rates to encourage more investment and generate more revenues (and jobs).

America needs a President who can see past the facades.  Obama has given every indication of gullibility, first with his pledge to conduct presidential-level diplomacy without preconditions with regimes like Iran, Cuba, and North Korea, and now in declaring China the place to do business.  Obama isn’t at all ready to lead this nation; he’s not even ready to run a business, with thinking like this.

Barack Obama’s statement on China betrays a fundamentally stupid as well as fundamentally amoral understanding of both the economy and the world.

What’s Wrong With Barack Obama’s Abortion Position?

Barack Obama answered two questions about abortion last night at the Civil Forum at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church: “At what point does a baby get human rights in your view?” and “Have you ever voted to limit or reduce abortions?”

Let me begin with his answer to the second question: “Have you ever voted to limit or reduce abortions?”

I AM IN FAVOR, FOR EXAMPLE, OF LIMITS ON LATE TERM ABORTIONS IF THERE IS AN EXCEPTION FOR THE MOTHER’S HEALTH. NOW FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THOSE WHO, YOU KNOW, ARE PRO LIFE, I THINK THEY WOULD CONSIDER THAT INADEQUATE. AND I RESPECT THEIR VIEWS. I MEAN ONE OF THE THINGS THAT I’VE ALWAYS SAID IS THAT ON THIS PARTICULAR ISSUE, IF YOU BELIEVE THAT LIFE BEGINS AT CONCEPTION, THEN — AND YOU ARE CONSISTENT IN THAT BELIEF, THEN I CAN’T ARGUE WITH YOU ON THAT BECAUSE THAT IS A CORE ISSUE OF FAITH FOR YOU. WHAT I CAN DO IS SAY ARE THERE WAYS THAT WE CAN WORK TOGETHER TO REDUCE THE NUMBER OF UNWANTED PREGNANCIES SO THAT WE ACTUALLY ARE REDUCING THE SENSE THAT WOMEN ARE SEEKING OUT ABORTIONS, AND AS AN EXAMPLE OF THAT, ONE OF THE THINGS THAT I’VE TALKED ABOUT IS HOW DO WE PROVIDE THE RESOURCES THAT ALLOW WOMEN TO MAKE THE CHOICE TO KEEP A CHILD. YOU KNOW, HAVE WE GIVEN THEM THE HEALTH CARE THAT THEY NEED. HAVE WE GIVEN THEM THE SUPPORT SERVICES THAT THEY NEED. HAVE WE GIVEN THEM THE OPTIONS OF ADOPTION THAT ARE NECESSARY. THAT I THINK CAN MAKE A GENUINE DIFFERENCE.

Barack Obama has good reason for understanding that anyone who cares about life would find his position on abortion inadequate.

First of all, Barack Obama displays a shocking degree of deviousness, disingenuousness, and deceitfulness in his answer. To begin with, he actually opposed legislation that would have mandated that babies who had been born alive following induced labor for an abortion be provided with medical treatment. This not only sinks below the depravity of late term abortion, it sinks below even partial birth abortion to the realm of actual infanticide. Even the ultra-abortion rights group NARAL wasn’t willing to endorse such a radical extremist (and frankly vile) position.

Barack Obama has been rated as supporting abortion “100%” by NARAL (perhaps they should have increased his rating to 150% given his Illinois Senate career). In 2006, he voted against parental notification for minor girls having abortions. And in 2007 he voted in support of partial birth abortion. When he says he is in favor of any limits on abortion whatsoever, his own record says he is lying.

Secondly, Obama is deceitful in the broad sense as well as in the specific sense. Obama says that he is in favor “of limits on late term abortions if there is an exception for the mother’s health.” What he lacks the honesty and integrity to reveal is that his “criteria” for “the mother’s health” is so broad that virtually ANY exception would qualify (a headache, for example). And therefore in actual practice he is FOR late term abortions.

But Obama then says that whether one is pro-life or pro-abortion, both sides can work together to “reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies so that we actually are reducing the sense that women are seeking out abortions.” This amounts to the argument that abortion is a fundamental right, but we should work to make it as rare as possible.

But why should we do so, given the logic that it is a fundamental right? Name another fundamental right that should be made as rare as possible. Should free speech be “safe, legal, and rare?” Should we do everything possible to reach across the party divides so that the right to peaceably assemble occur as rarely as possible? How about freedom of religion? Maybe that should be actively discouraged? Or the right of a free press? Maybe there should be as little free reporting as we can possibly have?

Do you see the fundamental irrationality here? If abortion really is a good thing, then we should be pursuing more of it. And the abortion rights organizations believe exactly that, continually working to increase the right to and access of abortion in as many circumstances as they can have. But at the same time this war for total abortion freedom is going on, disengenuous politicians are out there taking an ostensibly common sense position of making rare what abortion proponents are actually trying to make more common.

Abortions should only be reduced if it is wrong.

Given the history of how deceitful Barack Obama has been in his own personal legislative career, and how disingenuous he is about presenting his views, let us turn to the other question: “At what point does a baby get human rights in your view?”

WELL, I THINK THAT WHETHER YOU ARE LOOKING AT IT FROM A THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OR A SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE, ANSWERING THAT QUESTION WITH SPECIFICITY, YOU KNOW, IS ABOVE MY PAY GRADE. BUT LET ME JUST SPEAK MORE GENERALLY ABOUT THE ISSUE OF ABORTION BECAUSE THIS IS SOMETHING OBVIOUSLY THE COUNTRY WRESTLES WITH. ONE THING THAT I’M ABSOLUTELY CONVINCED OF IS THERE IS A MORAL AND ETHICAL CONTENT TO THIS ISSUE. SO I THINK THAT ANYBODY WHO TRIES TO DENY THE MORAL DIFFICULTIES AND GRAVITY OF THE ABORTION ISSUE I THINK IS NOT PAYING ATTENTION. SO THAT WOULD BE POINT NUMBER ONE. BUT POINT NUMBER TWO, I AM PRO-CHOICE. I BELIEVE IN ROE V. WADE AND COME TO THAT CONCLUSION NOT BECAUSE I’M PRO ABORTION, BUT BECAUSE ULTIMATELY I DON’T THINK WOMEN MAKE THESE DECISIONS CASUALLY. THEY WRESTLE WITH THESE THINGS IN PROFOUND WAYS. IN CONSULTATION WITH THEIR PASTORS OR SPOUSES OR THEIR DOCTORS AND THEIR FAMILY MEMBERS. AND SO FOR ME, THE GOAL RIGHT NOW SHOULD BE — AND THIS IS WHERE I THINK WE CAN FIND COMMON GROUND AND BY THE WAY I HAVE NOW INSERTED THIS INTO THE DEMOCRAT PARTY PLATFORM IS HOW DO WE REDUCE THE NUMBER OF ABORTIONS BECAUSE THE FACT IS THAT ALTHOUGH WE’VE HAD A PRESIDENT WHO IS OPPOSED TO ABORTIONS OVER THE LAST EIGHT YEARS, ABORTIONS HAVE
NOT GONE DOWN.

Obama’s answer essentially is, “We don’t know for sure when life begins, so we should opt for death.”

Let me give an example: Suppose you are in the shower, with shampoo in your eyes, when your five year old says, “Momma, can I kill this?” What do you say? Do you seriously reason, “Well, I don’t know what the ontological status of the thing my little Johnny is talking about is, so I should allow him to make his own decision.” Johnny might be talking about his two-year old brother!

By Obama’s own reasoning, he just may be supporting and even advocating the murder of innocent human beings. The bottom line is, if there is any doubt at all about the status of the unborn, why not opt for the side of life?

The view that the government should be or even can be morally neutral in such a circumstance is simply false. African-Americans ought to be particularly sensitive about this line of reasoning. Allow me to cite an answer by Abraham Lincoln in refuting the view expressed by Stephen Douglas. It is historically fitting that Democrat Stephen Douglas ran for president as the U.S. Senator from Illinois. Douglas said that, although he was personally against the institution of slavery, “popular sovereignty” ought to determine whether slavery was legal or not. In their Sixth Debate at Quincy on October 13, 1858, Lincoln’s famous response to Douglas was:

“So I say again, that in regard to the arguments that are made, when Judge Douglas says he “don’t care whether slavery is voted up or voted down,” whether he means that as an individual expression of sentiment, or only as a sort of statement of his views on national policy, it is alike true to say that he can thus argue logically if he don’t see anything wrong in it; but he cannot say so logically if he admits that slavery is wrong. He cannot say that he would as soon see a wrong voted up as voted down. When Judge Douglas says that whoever or whatever community wants slaves, they have a right to have them, he is perfectly logical, if there is nothing wrong in the institution; but if you admit that it is wrong, he cannot logically say that anybody has a right to do wrong.”

The fact of the matter is that if government permitted blacks to be owned as slaves, it was not taking a neutral position. It was implicitly accepting the view that blacks were less than fully human, and therefore could be owned as property. And if the presuppositions justifying slavery were wrong, then as Lincoln said, one simply could not have “the right to do wrong” – even by popular vote. In the same way, by permitting unborn babies to be aborted, the government is not taking a neutral position. Rather, it is likewise implicitly accepting the view that the unborn are not fully human, and therefore can be regarded essentially as property rather than as persons (property that may be destroyed at will).

There is something else that should be realized: that the right of a woman to choose abortion logically and morally entails the position that fathers do not and should not matter. Abortion trivializes the role of the father.

If the “thing” that is created by intercourse is not in fact a human being and a human person, then why should he be held accountable for what develops 9 months later? It is out of his control by the implicit reasoning of abortion: the woman alone decides. Only if he fathered a child with all the recognition and human dignity of a human being should he be held accountable for fathering a child! If the “right to choose” is up to a woman and a woman alone, then what does the man have to do with it?

Fathers are put in a despicable position by abortion logic: if a woman decides to abort her baby, then the father – by abortion morality – must stand idly by while his own child is put to death, and even approve of the killing. If, on the other hand, the woman decides to keep her baby, then a father is held to the duty of supporting that child until that child reaches legal adulthood whether he wants to have a child or not. Where is his “right to choose”? Where is his “reproductive freedom”? The father is completely left out of the decision as an insignificant component. Is there any wonder that fathers have essentially abandoned their role of fatherhood?

My final point is this: When Obama – responding to the question of what has been America’s greatest moral failure – answered:

I THINK AMERICA’S GREATEST MORAL FAILURE IN MY LIFETIME HAS BEEN THAT WE STILL DON’T ABIDE BY THAT BASIC PRECEPT IN MATTHEW THAT WHATEVER YOU DO FOR THE LEAST OF MY BROTHERS, YOU DO FOR ME. AND NOTION OF — THAT BASIC PRINCIPLE APPLIES TO POVERTY. IT APPLIES TO RACISM AND SEXISM. IT APPLIES TO, YOU KNOW, NOT HAVING — NOT THINKING ABOUT PROVIDING LADDERS OF OPPORTUNITY FOR PEOPLE TO GET INTO THE MIDDLE CLASS. I MEAN, THERE IS A PERVASIVE SENSE I THINK THAT THIS COUNTRY IS WEALTHY AND POWERFUL AS WE STILL DON’T SPEND ENOUGH TIME THINKING ABOUT THE LEAST OF THESE —

I could not help but shout, “UNBORN BABIES! UNBORN BABIES” after Obama said, “the least of my brothers.” And as he unpacked this sacred principle taught by Jesus as applying to racism and sexism and providing ladders I kept shouting, “ABORTION! ABORTION!”

The fact is that it is the denial of human dignity to our precious babies in the womb is our greatest moral failure. It is a moral failure that has resulted in the abortions of 40 million human beings since the passage of Roe v. Wade.

John McCain, when asked the same question – “At what point does a baby get human rights in your view?” – had the simple answer: “At the moment of conception.”

Beijing Games: Why I’m Tuning Out This Olympics

There are people who will disagree with me. And this is the kind of issue that reasonable and decent people can see in different ways.

I love the Olympics. As a lover of sports, and a fan of the catharsis that watching sports provides, I have spent untold hours in my life cheering my American athletes.

But not this year.

This year, I would feel dirty if I were to tune in.

China is one of the worst offenders of human rights on the planet. It has grown powerful wealthy by exploiting its poor underclass with low pay and subhuman work conditions. This country that tramples upon the human spirit is therefore the worst possible place to celebrate the human spirit.

Beyond its forced annexation of Tibet, and beyond the smog that is literally five times worst than the worst polluted cities in the West, China has proven how unfit it is for the Olympic Games just in obtaining and then preparing for the games.

China made a number of promises to secure the Games – and broke every single one. They were supposed to improve their human rights conditions, but their megalomaniacal determination to control everyone and everything pertaining to the games, they have actually become even worse human rights abusers than they were before.

Journalists are finding that thousands of web sites have been disabled. They would have to look to find the wiretaps that have been planted in Chinese hotel rooms.

In my view, having the Games in Beijing is tantamount to celebrating totalitarian tyranny. It is tantamount to selling out our most noble human values in order to either be “politically correct” or to simply appease evil in the name of “inclusion.”

My parents are planning to watch the Games. On their view, they are supporting the athletes. No way would I call the people who instilled my values “bad people.” Like I said, this is an issue over which decent people can disagree.

On my view, watching the Beijing Olympic Games rewards the Olympic Committee and China. Money and the ratings points that produce more money is all these people care about, and the only way to hurt them and force them to not deprecate the human spirit in the future is to hit them in their wallets. Hence, my decision.

What do you think?