Author: Mark Noonan

The Limits of Tolerance

Mark Noonan12 Comments

Back during the whole Charlie Hebdo event, a lot of people were defending Charlie on the grounds of free speech – I took a bit of an exception to that. Even though there was no justification for the murders, I still felt that it wasn’t appropriate for anyone to insult the deepest held beliefs of others. To be sure, Free Speech – but I’m not quite sure that our ancestors at Lexington and Concord were thinking, “if I die here today, at least people will be free to be vulgar and rude like no tomorrow”.

To make myself clear, I do believe in a very broad definition of free speech – but back in the days when men were a bit more like men, if you offered an insult to another man who had an ounce of manly virtues, you’d be called out to the dueling field. In other words, if you did decide that insult was your way of working, then you were required to put your life up as security…and if you didn’t, then you’d be known not just as vulgar, but as a vulgar coward. The historian Will Durant noted that men in 18th century England commonly carried swords – and this he identified as the place where England’s reputation for good manners developed. Knowing that the other guy had a sword and could run you through enjoined a cautious courtesy of speech. Eventually, it became ingrained into society – you just didn’t say certain things unless you were willing to fight about it.

For someone to sit safely behind soldiers and police and hurl insults right and left is not an act of liberty – it is not an act of bravery; quite the contrary…it is the act of a coward. It is to demand that other, rougher men protect you while you throw vile insults around. Man up – or manner up. Pick one.

I bring this up because the television show House of Cards has decided to get very insulting:

We’re barely into Lent, and Hollywood is already spitting on Jesus Christ on the crucifix. Netflix released the entire third season of the incredibly sleazy D.C. drama House of Cards on February 28, and in its fourth episode, as Kevin Spacey’s loathsome Frank Underwood character has schemed his way into the presidency, he wanders into a Catholic church.

The local bishop preaches to him as a friend that he’s supposed to love God and love his neighbor. Underwood proclaims that he understands the vengeful God he sees in the Old Testament, but doesn’t understand why Jesus would let someone kill him. Underwood asks for a moment alone to pray. Then he sidles up to the crucifix – just a few feet above his head – and mutters most cynically to God the Son.

“Love….that’s what you’re selling? Well, I don’t buy it!” Then he spits in the face of Christ…

This is free speech? This is an act of bravery? This is why men and women will sell their blood on a battlefield? I don’t think so. Now, the character spits in the face of a statue of Our Lord for one reason, only: spitting in the face of a depiction of Mohammed would get him killed. This is quite a lot of cowardice – cowardice in that the creators of the show are hiding behind the rougher men; cowardice in that the creators of the show only insult where it is safe to do so; cowardice in that if we Christians complain, the popular culture will condemn us for daring to be offended.

How much more of this are we Christians supposed to tolerate? Are there absolutely no limits? At least as far as we are concerned – because we know where the limit is: can’t do this with Muslims. I agree they shouldn’t do it with Muslims – but that is because I am trying, in my own weak way, to be a Christian gentleman; and such don’t offer insult. How much of a citizen of this Republic am I when my most deeply held beliefs can be held up to scorn? Do I not pay my taxes? Did I not serve for four years in our Navy? Did not my father and grandfather serve in war? Am I that much of a social nothing that you can do with me as you wish?

There are at least 100 million people in the United States who actually, sincerely believe as I do – that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. We are the backbone of this nation – we are the descendents of those who built this nation up from nothing. We have poured out our blood and treasure for this nation for more than 200 years – and I think we’re worthy of at least this much respect: don’t insult us. Dislike us all you want. Disagree with us till the cows come home. Be whatever you want to be – but don’t go out of your way to insult that which we hold dear. This is the common courtesy all human beings owe to each other.

Out and About on a Friday

Mark Noonan3 Comments

Yet another Obama foreign policy success:

Iran’s state-owned Press TV is reporting that Tehran is demanding that all sanctions be lifted to proceed with a nuclear agreement.

“Our principle position is that all sanctions are lifted at once,” Iran’s senior nuclear negotiator and deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi, reportedly told the network…

To be sure, for Obama this is success – because his whole plan, as far as I can tell, is to empower Iran to stand up vigorously to the United States. In the real world, things are a bit different: this is Iran seeing how far they can push Obama around. The answer: quite a lot. Obama will never, ever wake up to the fact that Iran hates us not because of Israel or the coup back in the 50’s, but because we’re not Islamist fruitcakes like the Iranian leadership.

Hillary is officially in trouble over her use of a private e mail account during her tenure as Secretary of State. But the reality is that this scandal – which is horrible and is disqualifying as far as the Presidency goes – won’t amount to much because Narrative. She’s a woman and its her turn to be President. Period. The only way the Hillary Express gets derailed is if a credible, female candidate jumps into the Democrat primary…so, if it ain’t Hillary, it will be Warren. Warren would be better for us as she’s more easily beatable (I think Hillary is, as well; but the betting line is that she’s unstoppable). No matter how bad the scandals get, the MSM will come round to be her palace guard – they have to; they can’t do other. To actually tell the full truth about Hillary is to destroy her political viability and no MSMer out there is going to risk social disapproval in DC, NYC and LA by doing that – and this includes allegedly conservative MSMers. If Hillary is to be beaten, she’ll have to beaten at the polls by a good GOP candidate. Nothing else will do it.

ISIS has bulldozed an ancient, Assyrian city but what about the Crusades? I’ve been reading up a bit on the Assyrians – a Christian people which has been relentlessly persecuted by Islam for a thousand years because they refuse to knuckle under. Even the Kurds – otherwise decent folk in the area – have it in for the Assyrians. My dream: we re-create Assyria…make it a Christian nation right smack dab in the middle of the Muslim world. Hey, if Palestinians get the West Bank, then the Assyrians get northern Iraq.

Jeb will visit Iowa but no one really cares.

The betting is that Roberts will rescue ObamaCare, again. I’m pretty sure he will – because the Ruling Class gotta Ruling Class. Remember, the GOP leadership doesn’t want to do away with ObamaCare, either. No one does – except the majority of the American people, and we don’t count. Until we get a President and a Congress with real back bone for revolution, we won’t get anywhere. So, to work with a will in 2016 and beyond.

The Lee-Rubio tax plan is mostly good stuff – but it isn’t revolutionary enough for my taste. I dig the whole idea of essentially putting large amounts of American middle class income into a gigantic tax haven as that will starve the government beast…but I want some punitive taxes on those elements of the rich who use their money to punish the rest of us with things like Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama. A tax reform proposal which is marketed at ending “loopholes for the rich” but which in reality takes away the tax exempt status of all those liberal political hit groups masquerading as non-partisan social services organizations is a great place to start.

With that in mind, the “two” in a “one, two” punch against liberalism is going after the mis-named and misbegotten “higher education” industry:

Understand that the purpose of modern American “education” is not to educate students. It is primarily to provide cushy, subsidized sinecures for liberal administrators and faculty while, secondarily, providing a forum to indoctrinate soft young minds in the liberal fetishes du jour. Actually educating students is hard, and a meaningful education is anathema to liberalism. In the liberals’ ideal world, the universities would simply fester with leftist nonsense and not even bother with trying to teach their charges anything at all. And today, it’s pretty close to being the liberals’ ideal world…

Take away the government subsidies for this monstrosity and we’ll deal a death-blow to the left – it cannot be calculated just how much money and political influence the left obtains from their control of “higher” education. Safe behind college walls, liberals sally forth to destroy the society which subsidizes their attacks. If we were at least getting educated citizens out of it, that would be something – but a college degree, outside the scientific disciplines (and increasingly even there) is a sick joke. A mere credential which allows a numbskull to enter the Ruling Class and start screwing everyone who works for a living.

Thank goodness Obama vetoed Keystone – if he hadn’t done that, Buffet wouldn’t be set to collect some insurance money on one of his oil trains blowing up.

And from David Burge (@iowahawkblog):

We don’t have a government, we have a sh***y third-rate cow college student council with nuclear weapons.

America’s Ruling Class Unites on Amnesty

Mark Noonan2 Comments

The House voted today to approve the filthy and disgusting DHS funding bill – it is called “clean” by the Ruling Class because it cleanly drops a hammer on the American people. Seventy five Republicans joined almost all the Democrats in the House to approve the monstrosity; 167 Republicans voted against – and that, my friends is roughly the actual number of people on our side there are in the House. In terms of actual political power, we are the distinct minority in DC. Get used to it and get ready to fight to change it.

Here we are, March 3rd, 2015, and the leadership of the Republican Party has decided that it wants to ratify Obama’s illegal and odious amnesty policy. Fine. Glad to know it. Lets us all know where we stand – and where they stand. The leadership of the GOP is entirely beholden to the Ruling Class of this nation and will do its bidding, come what may. They are expecting rank-and-file GOPers to stay with them – after all, what are we going to do? Vote Democrat? Well, why the heck not? What do we get by voting for Republicans?

Ace is in a fine and entirely justified fury – now advocating for a $15 an hour minimum wage…because if we’re going to have a two-party Ruling Class screwing over the American people, let’s at least get a bit of pay back. The GOP leadership signed off on this because the GOP part of the Ruling Class wants to import millions of unskilled workers…so that they can employ them at low wages, thus increasing their profit margins…and screw the American worker. Yeah, well, I see Ace’s point – jack that wage up to $15 and hour and see how the Chamber of Commerce likes it.

Still, it isn’t quite time for us to put Hillary in the White House – there’s hard ball politics and then there’s suicide…but we really should seek ways to punish the Congressional GOP for their transgressions. Primary the heck out of every GOPer who voted for this dog of a bill…and if they survive the primary, then vote for their Democrat opponent in the general. Get them out; let them know that we don’t elect Republicans in order to do the bidding of liberals and the Chamber of Commerce…we elect them to represent us and preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. I’d rather have us back in Congressional minority status come 2017 than continue with leadership that doesn’t do one darned thing for our side.

Out and About on a Sunday

Mark Noonan9 Comments

The Baltic Dry Index has reached a 29 year low: here’s the “we’re all gonna die” take on it and the “no worries” view. I lean towards the former – it just can’t be good when an index like this crashes through the floor. On the other hand, the central bankers have been astoundingly successful in keeping up appearances since 2009 and I have no idea how much longer they’ll be able to do it. I expect a Dow above 20k before it crashes…on the other other hand (all conservatives being three-handed mutant lizard people, after all), I have started to hear radio ads urging people to take out home equity loans and to start getting into house flipping…which is just what I heard in 2008. So, make of it what you will.

News story says Obama threatened to shoot down Israeli air force jets if Israel tried to strike Iran’s nuclear program. I don’t know if its true – don’t know if its completely mythical or absolutely true or if its just someone who heard an Obama official getting really mad and saying something along these lines. However: if it turns out to be true, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least. In geo-strategic terms, the American left has hated the state of the world since 1991 – since the USSR fell, that is, and left the United States as the world’s sole super power. It just isn’t fair that there’s no power on earth which can restrain the United States, ya dig? A nuclear-armed Iran will re-balance power in the Middle East…just as a rebuilt Russian Empire will re-balance it in Europe and a powerful China re-balances it in east Asia. All else being equal, our liberals prefer a world where the United States is forced to be circumspect in world affairs…the enemy (who is only an enemy because of our crimes/errors, per the left) must be able to stand up to us. A nuclear-armed Iran is a feature, not a bug, in liberal strategy. Once it exists, they’ll be able to say, “well, there’s nothing we can do so we’ll need to go the route of peaceful co-existence and detente with Iran (Russia/China)…”. Anyone who wants to oppose Iran will be accused of wanting 24-hour-round-the-clock nuclear holocaust and dismissed from the debate. Look for ISALT (Iran Strategic Arms Limitations Talks) to start in 2018 or so…

Rep. Peter King (RINO-NY) has had it with the “delusional wing” of the GOP. Hey, Pete, guess what? We’ve rather had it with you. Why don’t you become a Democrat or Independent and leave us alone? If we’re doomed to defeat without the likes of you in the party, then we’ll sing proudly of our defeat.

More and more Walker to Reagan comparisons are being made, and I’m seeing the point. Liberals called Reagan the “teflon President” because nothing stuck to him. Now, in the fevered mind of the left, this meant that Reagan was horrible and corrupt but they could never get the American people to see that. The reality is that Reagan was incorruptible and thus liberal slanders just rolled off him…when you are innocent, you genuinely can laugh off nonsense. Liberals are doing everything they can to slander Walker – they are already deep into just making stuff up and seeing if it flies – but it isn’t sticking. One thing I’ve always enjoyed is liberals who come across a conservative they just can’t beat no matter how hard they try.

Venezuela’s crazy commie dictatorship does some crazy, commie stuff…

Gas prices have been spiking – worst in California but whenever non-Californians hear bad economic news from California, we just laugh: its your own darned fault, California – you really thought that Jerry Brown was going to make things better? Geesh! But, it is also bad news in general…a lot of the not-quite-dead-glow on the U.S. economy for the past couple months has been from lower gas prices…

I guess the Germans felt the need to brush up on their anti-Semitism. Can’t get too far behind the French, huh? Hitler’s mindless tome is to be re-released in Germany for the first time since World War Two.

In a bit of entirely unrelated news, the religion of peace does a little bit of literary criticism.

Jeb wants to be our 2nd choice for 2016 – meaning we conservatives. Sorry, Jeb; at best you’d be my 8th or 9th choice…and if its between you and Hillary, what is my reason for voting?

Worst President, Revised

Mark Noonan4 Comments

Matt and I have been busy and we rather blame Obama for this – keeping up with the ongoing disaster has been a trial, but we’ve been willing to do the work:

As Barack Obama’s presidential failures keep adding up, remembering them all can be a challenge. Matt Margolis and Mark Noonan are compiling everything you need to know about the presidency of Barack Obama (so far) into one book. Soon, you can easily find all the information that was ignored by the media and that Barack Obama doesn’t want you to know about.

Did Barack Obama really save this country from another Great Depression? Did he really improve our country’s image around the world, or unite America? What about the new era of post-partisanship and government transparency? Did he really expand health coverage while lowering costs and cutting taxes?

The answer to all these questions—and the facts to back them up—are coming in a new book later this year.

Please go to our book website and sign up for e-mail updates. This will allow you to know precisely when the new edition is released to the public. If you purchased the original, rest assured that this is expanded with a great deal of new information. As bad as you think Obama has been, you don’t know the whole story until you’ve read The Worst President in History: the Legacy of Barack Obama.

Jeb’s Immigration Problem

Mark Noonan6 Comments

We all know that Jeb is in favor of amnesty – as am I – but there’s a problem I detect in Jeb’s view:

Here’s Bush: “We need to find a way, a path to legalized status for those that have come here and have languished in the shadows. There’s no way that they’re going to be deported — no one’s suggesting an organized effort to do that. The cost of that would be extraordinary.”

And here’s Bush: “The 40 percent of the people that have come illegally came with a legal visa and overstayed their bounds. We ought to be able to find where they are and politely ask them to leave.”

As it turns out, those who over-stay their visas tend to be better educated, have a command of English and would be eligible for some pretty good jobs if their legal status was changed. Meanwhile, people who cross our southern border tend to be less educated, non-English-speakers and cluster in low-pay, low-skill jobs. It would seem to me that if we wanted to do amnesty, we’d actually want to favor those with the most skills – ie, those who can do the most good for the United States – than those with the least skills. But here’s pro-amnesty Bush saying let’s get rid of the high-educated and keep the low-educated. Why?

I can’t peer into Jeb’s heart and see what precisely is motivating him but I suspect that raw, political calculation might be at play. Who would feel most threatened by the sudden legalization of a large number of college-educated, high-skilled immigrants? Americans who are college-educated and high-skilled – you’d be allowing massive competition for their jobs to suddenly erupt…and people like that can command political power by simple fact of their ability to donate buckets of money to political campaigns. But letting in lots of low-skilled workers? No problem – they just compete with low-skill American workers…who cares about them? And, at any rate, a large increase in low-skill workers just drives down labor costs for some of our largest multinational corporations, and that is pleasing to the Chamber of Commerce types. In total, Jeb’s views on immigration are picture perfect if you are planning on running for President on an anti-GOP Base platform…it allows you to appeal to the big money corporate donors while also keeping upscale, suburban voters on your side (who are, also, all in favor of amnesty…as long as it doesn’t hurt them…and if it provides cheap nannies and gardeners, so much the better).

I’ve long grown rather irritated with our Ruling Class, including the GOP part of it. It appears to me that they want to keep masses of Americans on welfare so they can be fat, dumb and happy voters while importing a bunch of foreigners to do the grunt work of the nation while the people at the top get to live swell lives…meanwhile, those Americans who want to work hard and play by the rules are to be squeezed by cheap labor and high taxes. Methinks this might not be the best way for the nation to go. I’m not going to blame Jeb for all this – or even think him bad for what he advocates…but the whole system is rotten and it will screw us all over (even the immigrants – remember, cheap, easily exploitable labor is not exactly what America is supposed to stand for)…and Jeb is just part of it. We definitely cannot entrust ourselves to him, or anyone like him.

I retain a general support for amnesty – but until we get a government I can trust is actually on the side of the people, I want no part of it. I want liberty and justice for all – not special deals designed to merely perpetuate a Ruling Class in power.

By the Way: You Can’t Win With Nothing

Mark Noonan2 Comments

In the end, you have to believe in something – those who believe in nothing are easy prey:

Michael Nikolai Skråmo, who also calls himself Abo Ibrahim Al Swedi, appears in the propaganda video wearing desert camouflage and clutching an assault rifle, and proceeds to give practical and motivational encouragement to would-be jihadis.

“My brothers, ‘hijra’ (migration) and ‘jihad’ are so simple. It only costs a few thousand ‘lapp’ [Swedish kronor],” he says in Swedish. “Do you not wish in in your heart to fight and show God what you have to offer him? The door to jihad is standing there waiting for you. It’s the fastest way to Jannah [Paradise].”

Skråmo, who has two Norwegian parents but was born and grew up near Gothenburg in Sweden is understood to have moved to Raqqah, the capital of the fledgling Islamic State in Syria, back in September with his wife and two children, hoping to fight alongside Islamic State soldiers…

The man is a Swede of Norwegian extraction. He was born and raised in Sweden. He had every opportunity a rich, western, socialist nation can provide with a lavish welfare State. He converted to Islam and is now willing to sell his life – and the lives of his family – in order to advance his faith. Why? Well, why not? What does life in Sweden offer? A chance for more welfare? More degraded pop culture? Multicultural mish-mash bull by the truck load? Who in Sweden ever offered him the chance to rise above narrow self-interest and subordinate himself to a cause? No one. ISIS did – and they got him now. This sort of thing shocks a lot of people – it doesn’t shock me. I know that if you don’t believe in something, you’ll fall for anything.

I believe in the Christian God and the Roman Catholic Church. I believe in the Declaration of Independence. There’s not a chance in heck you’ll ever find me fighting for the crazed barbarians of ISIS…but the endless number of westerners who believe in nothing? They might very well – because something always beats nothing. As I noted before, only believers will beat ISIS…in other words, only people who offer something rock-solid in opposition to ISIS can prevail…

HAT TIP: The Gateway Pundit

It’s The Lies, Stupid

Mark Noonan4 Comments

A quote from Theodore Dalrymple via Mark Steyn via Ace of Spades:

In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control…

At the end of the day, it isn’t my business if someone wants to believe or speak lies. I am not the world’s truth enforcer. Lies, for the most part, are pretty easily discerned once a person takes a little time to think about them. If someone is so intellectually lazy that they won’t take the time to figure out if something is true or false, it isn’t up to me to do anything specific about it. My duty starts and ends with merely trying to tell the truth as best I can determine. The problem comes in with what Dalrymple is talking about: the social enforcement of lies. Anyone trying to compel me – or anyone else – to lie is very much my business.

Our people on the left, of course, live on lies – their who worldview is based upon a set of falsehoods and only via falsehoods can they advance their cause. The problem we all have is that our leftists don’t just leave it at that – they insist we all join in their lies and affirm them positively in the public square. If I won’t say that affirmative action is continually needed in the United States to correct the inherently racist nature of American society, then I am a racist – I’m evil and have to be shut up and shut out of the debate. I can only enter the debate if I subscribe in advance to a falsehood – that America is an inherently racist society. It is a long list of lies that the left insists upon, as well: everything from “only white people can be racists” to “there’s a wage gap between men and women due to sexism” and a thousand things in between must be agreed to, or I’m out. If you ever wonder why our leftists are so strident against us it is because of this refusal to join in their lies…our refusal marks us out, in their minds, as evil…and you don’t sit down and chat with evil, now do you? Additionally, of course, if the lies are exposed for what they are, then the left as a political force is finished for good.

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Out and About on a Saturday

Mark Noonan8 Comments

I had written an article on the 21 Martyrs in Libya – but I couldn’t get it right. Then I tried dipping my toes into the “Does Obama Love America” debate, and that didn’t come out right, either (spoiler: I don’t think he really does). I’m kind of at a loss – but I also feel we are in a great change in America…and it has to do with the combination of the 21 Martyrs and Obama being someone who isn’t over fond of America. I don’t think that America in 2017 will be quite what Obama hopes it will be.

That said, just a few things:

Want a name for your residential high-rise? Stay away from “Torch“.

The State Department, fresh off of hash-tagging our enemies into submission (I mean, Boko Haram brought back the girls, right?), has now put out a snappy website designed to get on top of “violent extremism”. Violent Extremism is bad – but only really, really bad – and politically useful – when it can be assigned to straight, white, Christian, American males who live in fly-over country. A lot of people are upset about this, but really it’s been the liberal MO for a while now – to soft-peddle the really bad actors while massively exaggerating the involvement of their particular, political opponents with the tiny, tiny number of home-grown bad actors in the United States. But, I’m sure that State Department presentation will get the whole problem licked in no time…

Greece and the EU come to a sort-of agreement on continued bail outs. Why? Because for all their white-hot rhetoric, the new, leftwing government of Greece is peas as a pod to the rest of the European Ruling Class. Some day a genuinely populist movement might gain power in an European country and tell the Eurocrats to pound sand, but that day isn’t today.

ObamaCare continues to be the complete nightmare of a worthless program we all said it would be.

Condi Rice leads a crowded field to replace out-going Senator (and numbskull) Barbara Boxer. Rice might be a very good fit for California – a bit socially liberal, fiscally conservative…smarter than all the Democrats in California combined. We’ll see if this comes to be.

Shocking News! Brazil’s experiment in socialism isn’t ushering in peace and prosperity.

Plurality of Democrats think Obama should just ignore the law – a very solid majority of Obama thinks he should, too.

Very widespread global warming activity going on. We here in Vegas are sitting at about 72 degrees and we’re just laughing and laughing and laughing…