Dakota Beacon

There actually was a time when an “e” ended a political career.  Or, at least, the misuse of an “e.”  I refer to that fateful day in 1992 when Vice President Dan Quayle told a 12-year-old schoolboy that “potato” was spelled with an “e” at its end.  While the reality is that a flash card Quayle had been given bore the misspelling, the mistake was seized upon by the media and used to cement the eye-candy-and-air image of the boyishly good-looking vice president.  It was a silly way to measure a man, but image is everything in politics. 

So now it’s time for the gander’s sauce.  If it was justifiable to write off Quayle as a dolt for stumbling over the spud, how should we react to frequent misspellings in press releases issued by the White House?  Michael O’Brien at The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room reports on this story, writing, “Misspellings continued to plague the Obama administration on Thursday [9/9], after two more releases containing errors were sent to reporters in the last 24 hours.”

First the White House staff misspelled Obama’s first name, writing it as “Barak.”  Then, O’Brien reports, there were two more examples.  They are, “Recvoery.gov Version 2.0 $18 Million Contract Awarded” and, referring to U.K. leader Gordon Brown, “The Prime Minister wlecomed the President’s plans for a nuclear security conference in 2010.”

Now, while sweating the small stuff can get you branded as punctilious today, a person’s failure to attend to detail tells you much about him.  And this is not at all like the Quayle potato blunder.  Not only had the former vice president been given that flash card bearing the misspelling, it’s also understandable that he wouldn’t have spotted the error, since the plural form of the word does end in “oes.”  Second, unless you’re an Idaho farmer, you probably haven’t written the word “potato” in a very long time.  Lastly, it’s simply impossible for an individual to make continual public appearances without making some mistakes.  Hey, just ask Al Gore about how “a leopard can’t change his stripes.”

But what the Obama administration exhibits is quite different: Institutional sloppiness.  It’s one thing for an individual to sometimes make mistakes; it’s quite another when a large organization repeatedly churns them out.  And let’s place this in perspective.

Some may note that Internet news and commentary websites are rife with mistakes as well, and this is true.  However, this is often a function of manpower.  Most e-zines simply do not have the staff necessary to achieve near perfect presentation, as they usually operate on a shoestring budget.  In contrast, if you write for even a small magazine, their superior finances allow for tremendous oversight.  A piece will be filtered through a number of different editors.  It then may be returned to the writer for review, allowing him to assess the editorial changes and make a few more alterations before the work ever makes it into print.  The result of this collaborative process is that you really can cross all your t’s and dot all your i’s.

Now, the fact that the Obama administration isn’t achieving quality even approaching that of a small magazine is striking.  This is the White House, remember, with the endless resources government provides.  Hasn’t the person or people writing Obama’s press releases ever heard of a spell-check program?  Wouldn’t it be reasonable to have at least two different individuals proofread the material before disseminating it to the whole world?  Such institutional sloppiness is inexcusable.

Some may say I’m being picayune, that this is much ado about nothing.  But if you think this sloppiness somehow magically limits itself to the issuance of press releases, then you’d probably believe that Michelle Obama buys her sneakers at Wal-Mart.  In point of fact, it tells us something about those at the helm of our listing nation.

It’s not that they’re stupid.  A genius, even a responsible one, can transpose letters while typing just as he can fail to spot the misspelling of a type of starchy tuber.  But when such errors are consistently made by large groups of people working together — that institutional sloppiness — it bespeaks of a lack of conscientiousness and attention to detail, to an absence of the desire to uphold standards.

This is characteristic of liberals; it is part of their world view.  These are the people who don’t trouble over standards in morality because, their relativism informs, Truth doesn’t exist anyway.  They don’t worry about the standards prescribed by the Constitution or, for that matter, any inconvenient law of man because, without Truth, laws can be based on nothing transcendent.  And, of course, if these greater matters can be ignored, why worry about language?  (I’d bet that the too-cool-to-care leftists in the White House are the type of people who, in personal emails, replace “you” with “u” and don’t capitalize the first letter in a sentence.  I bet they can spell “socialism” and “social decay” just fine, though.) 

This is the modus operandi of the situational values set, of those who have contempt for standards.  After all, if standards are ever and always negotiable, why worry much about them?  Without Truth to use as a yardstick for determining them and making moral decisions, you might as well just use the only guide you have left: emotion.  This is why liberals are so feelings-oriented.

So, in the case of the press releases, spelling errors are minor problems but a major indicator.  With such institutional sloppiness, why should we think that the Obama administration is meticulous about anything?  Why would we think that they’d pay attention to the details of where stimulus money is going?  How could we expect them to iron out all the details of managing national health care?  Why should anyone trust that these liberals could, as they purport to be able to, regulate an economy involving millions of minor details?  We have a bull in the china shop of policy.

Yet, what is worse is liberals’ failure to attend to detail in their own minds.  I often quote G.K. Chesterton, and one reason I like him so much is that he was a “complete thinker.”  That is, he would analyze a matter from every angle, thereby peeling away the layers of illusion and uncovering Truth.  But this is uncommon among normal people — and unheard of among the left.  This is one reason why they can embrace nonsensical, illogical ideas. 

Some of them may entertain communism, completely ignoring the simple fact that if people were good enough to make a communist government work, we wouldn’t need government.  They embrace multiculturalism, oblivious to the plain fact that nations without a unifying culture descend into disunity.  They will say that man is just a highly evolved animal, but then insist that, in the violent animal kingdom, this animal’s children must be “taught” to be violent (when arguing against spanking).  They will aver that homosexuality is inborn while just as passionately averring that sex roles must be taught.  They will insist that relative are right and wrong while also insisting that the right is absolutely wrong.  And just recently, Obama cited California as an example of a state that is energy efficient yet economically healthy.  He ignored two minor details, however: bankruptcy and rolling blackouts.

Barack Obama is an urban rube.  And he surrounds himself with likeminded — or, I should say, like-impassioned — urban rubes.  Some fancy these people sophisticated, but while they give the illusion of sophistication, they possess none of its substance.  They were simply raised wrong and rendered bereft of logic, as they never learned to subordinate emotion to reason so that the former wouldn’t cloud the latter.  They are people who don’t cross their t’s and dot their i’s in anything, be it philosophy, personal life or policy.  They are ruined souls.  And they are bringing us to ruin. 

As for Dan Quayle’s potato problem, if an onus belonged anywhere, it was on the institution that printed an incorrect flash card.  And we should note that this institution was a school, one of those great bastions of liberal unthought.

U.S. News and Hot, Sexy Chicks

By Selwyn Duke

If you’ve ever seen the movie Idiocracy, the title of this piece may seem familiar.  The film is a dystopian comedy about a futuristic America in which complete ignorance is the norm.  People are inarticulate to the point where even those of status — politicians, doctors, etc. — mangle the language and use profanity to fill in gaps when expressing themselves.  The president is a porn star and ex-professional wrestler who wears a muscle shirt, the society’s number-one rated show features nothing but an endless array of groin shots, and the farmers water their plants with a sports electrolyte drink called “Brawndo: The Thirst Mutilator” and yet can’t figure out why the crops fail to grow.  And, to illustrate how people have become consumed with frivolity and sex — and frivolous sex at that — the title of a certain famous news magazine that just recently curtailed its print publication (in reality) has been changed to “Hot Naked Chicks & World Report.”

It’s a silly movie rife with profanity, so I cannot give it a thumbs up, but I’ll tell you what brings it to mind.  A couple of weeks ago I was watching Hannity on Fox News, and one segment concerned media attacks on Sarah Palin — in particular, a Vanity Fair hatchet job written by Todd Purdum.  Hannity had columnist S.E. Cupp and one of Fox’ anchors, Kimberly Guilfoyle, as guests, and he was making much of what he characterized as Purdum’s sexism in devoting copious ink to Palin’s comely appearance.  Guilfoyle chimed in, complaining that Purdum’s implication that Palin only succeeded because of her looks was “insulting and degrading to women.” 

Now, while I’m no fan of Purdum, I find Guilfoyle’s commentary insulting and degrading to my intelligence.  Let’s face it, to deny that Palin’s looks played a part in her rise to prominence is to ignore the pink elephant with the frilly dress and lipstick in the middle of the room.  However, I will add a little perspective.  First, I’m not sure Palin’s looks are quite the factor some people think.  Second, despite the “Oh, the patriarchy strikes again!” narrative, appearance is a factor with men as well.  Remember how Richard Nixon’s five-o’clock shadow sealed his fate in his 1960 debate with John F. Kennedy, the first televised presidential debate in history?  Titillating John just trumped Tricky Dick.  And could you imagine a short, fat, ugly, bald man capturing the Oval Office?  Why, its current occupant is all image, with his decent, youthful looks, resonant voice and rock-star persona.  So attractive is he, in fact, that his teleprompter just can’t stand to be apart from him.

Moreover, something about the Hannity segment struck me.  I’d like you to take a gander at Guilfoyle and Cupp and tell me if you notice anything.  While they seem to be of the mind that any suggestion about how a woman made it on her looks is sexist, it’s obvious that they made it on their looks.

Okay, I exaggerate a bit for effect.  So I’ll be precise: Were it not for their looks, they wouldn’t have made it.

In fact, they are part of a pattern.  Just take a look at Fox News analysts and regular guests and you’ll see an inordinate number of women — many of them blonde — who make you wonder if you’re watching a news station or the Miss America Pageant.  There is Miss Fox News Megyn Kelly, for instance, who can be seen here (and the picture doesn’t do her justice) and is even prettier when she’s angry.  Carrie Prejean should look so good.  There is small “r” Republican Margaret Hoover, who specializes in painted-on Barbie smiles and defenses of faux marriage.  Then there is “Marina,” a Russian who has been on the O’Reilly Factor a few times to “teach” us about English words.  Her main talents seem to be sultry glances, delivery with an accent you could cut with a knife and the ability to use a dictionary.  Clearly, Fox’ claim of being the “fairest” news channel can have more than one meaning.  Hey, they report, you ogle. 

Now, don’t get me wrong, all these women have some gifts beyond pulchritude.  They speak relatively well.  Many are somewhat knowledgeable.  And some even possess ample intelligence — just don’t insult mine.  Only a very small percentage of the population comprises beautiful blonde women, and it seems like a heck of a lot of these foxes work for Fox.  And I’d have to experience a blonde moment myself to fancy this coincidence.

Now we get to another irony.  In the Hannity segment on Palin I mentioned, Hannity asked the following politically-correct questions (I’m paraphrasing), “Isn’t this sexist?  How come people don’t focus on the looks of male politicians in the same way?”  Well, boohoo, cry me a river — as long as your mascara doesn’t run.  Let me ask you, Sean, how come you had eye candy sitting in front of you and not a couple a’ goblins? 

My point is that I get sick and tired of the double standard about the double standard.  Yes, people view men and women differently because, well, shocker of shockers, they actually are different.  Men will always focus on women’s looks more than women will focus on men’s (although the gals ain’t blind); it’s hard-wired.  But yet we play pretend, which is why people can complain about this superficiality while reflexively trading on it themselves.

Now, if I sound too cavalier about this and not quite like the choir boy I’m reputed to be, I’ll point out that I’ve unflatteringly characterized our society using Idiocracy and U.S. News and Hot, Sexy Chicks.  So I certainly do take issue with our increasing superficiality, but I also take issue with sloppy feminism-inspired analyses.  The problem isn’t a double standard that redounds negatively and solely upon women, as many times there is a good reason to have two standards: There are two sexes.  The problem is that as people become more superficial, they view others more superficially.  That is to say, they see only what is on the surface and fail to look at a person’s soul.

This leads to the objectification of all people, women and men.  The difference is that, generally speaking, while women are viewed all the more as sex objects, men are increasingly viewed as success objects.  Sure, wealthy men very often marry beautiful women, but perhaps we should note a correlative: Beautiful women very often marry wealthy men. 

But getting back to Foxy News, I don’t mean to beat up on the station too much.  Its stable of commentators and guests is just a reflection of the wider culture.  More than ever before in America, proficiency in the skill central to a position is not the deciding factor in whether or not a person attains that position.  The odious Al Franken just captured (stole?) a Senate seat largely because he was once a second-rate comedian.  California elected a man governor mainly because he was once the Terminator, without ever suspecting that he might do to the state’s economy what he wanted to do to Sarah Connor.  When Barack Obama got affirmatively elected, Illinois Governor Blago the Terrible felt compelled to appoint a black guy, Roland Burris, to Obama’s vacated Senate seat.  I supposed finding a half black guy was too much to ask.  Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor is, by her own admission, an “affirmative-action baby.”  And in newsrooms around the nation, we see cultural-affirmative-action babes.

So, once again, as people become more superficial, they judge others more superficially.  This applies to opinion-makers and movers and shakers as well as to the market; it at least partially explains affirmative action, quotas and our obsession with diversity just as it does U.S. News and Hot, Sexy Chicks.  The more shallow people are, the more they will elevate style over substance, the more they will confuse image with ability.  Idiocracy, here we come. 

But, hey, I’m not so much of an idiot that I can’t see the writing on the wall.  So, if old Rupert is looking to add some male eye candy to his lineup, I’m available.

Many opponents of hate-crime laws have long pointed out that they will never be applied equitably. The laws exist solely to punish members of politically-incorrect groups who commit politically-incorrect crimes. That is to say, they’re not about eliminating hate — they’re about targeting those the left hates.

If ever there was a case that vindicated this thesis, it’s a recent unprovoked attack on a white Ohio family by a mob of black teens. Phil Trexler at Ohio.com reports:

It [the attack] came after a family night of celebrating America and freedom with a fireworks show at Firestone Stadium. [Marty] Marshall, his family and two friends were gathered outside a friend’s home in South Akron.

Out of nowhere, the six were attacked by dozens of teenage boys, who shouted ‘‘This is our world’’ and ‘‘This is a black world’’ as they confronted Marshall and his family.

Despite this, Trexler tells us, “Akron police say they aren’t ready to call it a hate crime or a gang initiation. But to Marty Marshall, his wife and two kids, it seems pretty clear.”

Yes, it seems pretty clear to anyone with two brain cells to rub together.

Now, I don’t believe in hate crime legislation and have devoted copious ink to demonstrating its Orwellian nature.  But if this isn’t a “hate crime,” what is?  What has to happen for politically-correct, thoroughly corrupt authorities to label a bias crime against whites just exactly what it is?  Do the perpetrators have to sign a notarized affidavit prior to the act stating, “We hereby acknowledge that we hate white people and are committing this act of violence on that basis”?

I understand that the police are generally circumspect in what they say.  But, in the least, their statement should have been something to the effect of, “We’re not officially calling it a hate crime yet, but it certainly appears as if the perpetrators were motivated by bias.”

Of course, chances are good, I suppose, that Akron authorities will ultimately bring hate-crime charges (assuming the thugs are caught).  If they do not, however, the city’s citizens ought to demand that the whole leadership of its police force be fired and replaced.

And while we’re at it, let’s get rid of hate-crime laws — otherwise known as “get-whitey laws” — too.

There is probably nothing that pleases our libertine left more than a social conservative’s fall from grace.  Just witness the predictable feeding frenzy that ensued when South Carolina governor Mark Sanford confessed to marital infidelity.  Why, so voracious are his critics that a Google search for Sanford’s name in parentheses and the word “hypocrite” yields 20,600 of their pages. 

For many reasons, not the least of which was the governor’s condemnation of Bill Clinton’s serial adultery in the 1990s, the left has put him in a glass house the size of the Crystal Cathedral.  And, in all fairness, Sanford should be taken to task.  We all have a duty to hold our leaders to the highest standards, and I’ll be the first to say that if a politician — regardless of party or passions — cannot uphold sterling moral and ethical standards, he needs to go.  Yet would the left join me in this?  Would they say, “You know what, you’re right; we can’t subordinate virtue to political expediency”?  Not going to happen, not with this childish bunch.

On the contrary, whether it’s Clinton, Barney Frank, Mel Reynolds, John Edwards, Gerry Studds or someone else, liberals tend to circle the wagons around transgressing brothers regardless of the offense.  Reynolds, convicted of 12 counts of sexual assault on a 16-year-old, was pardoned by Clinton; Studds, who had an affair with a teenage boy, was re-elected six times by Massachusetts voters.  Hey, people in glass houses protect other people in glass houses.

Of course, it’s no secret that leftists couldn’t care a whit about sexual impropriety.  How could they?  Once you’ve rubber-stamped homosexual behavior, it follows that everything below it in the hierarchy of sin —which is most things — is also just a “lifestyle choice.”
In fairness again, however, not too many leftists try very hard to feign outrage at the violation of marriage vows, which, if they had their way, would be an event in the 2012 Olympics.  Rather, the stones they hurl with shot-put gusto pertain to hypocrisy, although it’s never explained how such a thing is reckoned wrong in the universe of moral relativism.  But how could we expect such philosophical depth, anyway, when leftists can’t even understand far simpler things, such as the meaning of hypocrisy?

Sanford could well be a hypocrite, but I doubt it.  As I wrote in my piece, “Sanford’s and Ensign’s Fall from Grace Fuels the Immorality Police”:
I’ve observed that a great many people who fail to uphold their own ideals, wholeheartedly believe in them at the moment they espouse them; it is that perilous transition between talking and walking where problems occur. To paraphrase Confucius, “It is not that I do not know what to do; it is that I do not do what I know.” Was the ancient sage a hypocrite? No, a mortal is more like it.

Hypocrisy isn’t saying one thing while doing another; it’s saying one thing while intending to do another. To think otherwise is intellectually sloppy at best, as we are then lumping mortals’ weakness and their self-serving deception into the same category. For example, two men tell their children not to drink to excess but then get drunk. However, while one of them planned to hit the bottle all along, the other’s counsel was sincere. The problem is that he went to a gathering, had drinks waved under his nose and was seduced by the bottle. Now, call him pathetic if you must. Call him weak. Call him a sorry excuse for a father. But a hypocrite he is not.

Now, I have no stake in Sanford’s political fortunes.  But I do care about ideas, and I see no evidence of hypocrisy.  In fact, I’m not even so sure how much of a hypocrite Clinton is — at least regarding his extra-marital dalliances.  I’m content to call him a cad.

Yet there are profound differences between the two men.  Note that Sanford offered an unequivocal and apparently heartfelt apology at his teary-eyed press conference.  There was no legalistic sleight-of-tongue about what the definition of “is” is, no feigned ingenuousness about what constitutes sex.  And these differences are reflected in the behavior of their wives, too.

Sanford’s wife, Jenny, asked him to leave their home and wasn’t by his side during the news conference.  In contrast, that Hillary . . . well, she just takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’.  But why?

My analysis of the difference is this: While it probably was far from perfect, the Sanfords actually had (and let’s hope will have) a real marriage.  Jenny Sanford reacted normally, the way many hurt wives would.  And it’s entirely possible, as M. Sanford has said, that his Argentine escapade was his first full-blown affair.  It’s even more likely that it was the first time his wife had learned he had “crossed lines.”
As for the Clintons, they don’t have a marriage.

They have a business arrangement.

In the 1990s, Hillary didn’t stand by her man — she stood by her plan.  She had hitched her wagon to Bill’s star and endured the bumps, jolts and rollovers.  Did you really think she was going to cash out after giving Bill her best years and suffering the worst humiliations right when Clinton, Inc. was hitting paydirt?  No, sir, not Nicola Machiavelli.

But, since I’m starting to feel like a gossip columnist, I’ll move on to deeper issues.  That is where the truly childish leftist commentary can be found, anyway. 

A good example of such a bad example is a CNN.com writer named Robert Zimmerman.  Billed as a “political analyst,” he recently wrote the piece, “Let’s leave Mark Sanford’s family alone … as long as he leaves our families alone,” and its content is as snide as the title suggests.  After opening with an obligatory sentence about how everyone “had to feel extraordinary sympathy for the Governor’s wife and family,” he immediately transitioned into the irrational, talking about how “family values” politicians’ sexual impropriety is dwarfed only by an even greater moral defect.  This, supposedly, is traditionalists’ divisiveness, fear-mongering, prejudice and, vice of vices, their imposition of values.  He writes:
Throughout their political careers, they have tried to dictate the definition of a moral American and a proper family. They have tried to create laws that restrict a woman’s decision about her health and body and have denied personal rights and human dignity to gay and lesbian Americans. These are reflections of the immorality of their movement.

. . . Now I know that many will bring up the scandals regarding the personal behavior of former President Bill Clinton, former Governor Eliot Spitzer, former Governor Jim McGreevey and former Senator John Edwards. As wrong and destructive as their behaviors were, these men did not try to dictate to us how we should live our lives . . . .

I’m not precisely sure how to rate this commentary, but it hovers somewhere between idiocy and imbecility.  First, Zimmerman contradicts himself within the space of two sentences.  He scores traditionalists for trying to “dictate the definition of a moral American” but then labels their movement immoral.  But how can you make that judgment without deciding upon a definition for a “moral American”?  Some may say the difference is that he won’t try to “dictate” that definition, but what does this mean?  If he insists his conception of morality is correct, how is he different from the absolutists he bemoans?  And if he is unsure, that throws his assessment of the traditionalist movement into question, doesn’t it?

OK, I get it.  The fellow travelers in government he mentions (Edwards, McGreevey, etc.) don’t try to legislate their values.  Except, if this is true, it’s only because those particular gentlemen are no longer in government.  Correct me if I’m wrong, but being in government involves the act of governing; this involves controlling, and this is synonymous with telling us “how we should live our lives.”  Let’s define this more precisely.

There is no such thing as a lawmaker who doesn’t try to legislate a conception of morality; this is because a law by definition is the imposition of a value.  After all, a law states there is something you must or mustn’t do, ostensibly because it is, respectively, a moral imperative or morally wrong — or a corollary thereof.  If this isn’t the case, why prescribe or proscribe it?  What would be the point?

Of course, from the relativistic left’s perspective, morality doesn’t exist and “values” are merely an expression of consensus opinion, which, of course, is synonymous with how most people happen to feel about something at a given time.  Thus, implicit in the left’s philosophy is the idea that they make laws in order to enforce their preferences.  This robs them of all legitimacy. 

After all, if I can make the case that I’m legislating elements of Truth, I at least have a claim to moral authority.  For then the claim is not that I’m imposing my values but, rather, morals originating outside myself — outside man, in fact — and authored by something superior to him.  Yet leftists’ implicit claim is that they are merely imposing feelings gussied up as “values”; thus, what they impose certainly is theirs.  On what basis, then, should we take their pronouncements seriously?  They may scoff at those who would point to God’s law when shaping man’s, but what alternative do they offer?  Should we instead defer to their egos, their base instincts, their illusions?  “If it feels good, legislate it” isn’t much of a rationale.

Some may say the Zimmermans of the world are being Machiavellian, that their accusations amount to a ploy designed to discredit their opponents’ conception of morality.  But while this may be true in a few cases, the bulk of them can’t be accused of possessing that kind of sophistication.  In most cases it’s simply that they notice, as anyone would, the imposition of morals alien to them.  On the other hand, they swim in their own values as a frog raised in a polluted pond swims in its dirty water: The values are simply the stuff of their natural environment, so leftists feel that nothing is amiss.  As C.S. Lewis said about such people, “their scepticism about values is on the surface: it is for use on other people’s values; about the values current in their own set they are not nearly sceptical enough.” 

But whether they peddle this fallacy driven by phoniness or foolishness, the result is identical: it serves to stifle substantive debate.  And traditionalists could do this, too.  We could cite legislation we despise and complain of how the left dictates, controls, and imposes values.  We could mention how the left won’t let us run our own businesses as we see fit, with their anti-discrimination and anti-smoking laws and other limitations on freedom; or how they won’t let us raise children as we desire, with anti-spanking laws and intrusive CPS agencies.  “Ah,” retorts the left, “But those things are necessary; they stop people from hurting others; they are right!”  But that’s the rub, isn’t it?  Traditionalists don’t agree, and just as you leftists are sure of your dogmas, they are sure of theirs.  If we weren’t sure of them, they wouldn’t be called dogmas. 

So let’s now discuss the difference between a child’s literary tantrums and an adult’s incisive commentary.  The child falls down and pounds the earth, disgorging visceral nonsense about how the other side is a meany who wants to control people’s lives.  The child then wants to take his ball and go home — or take his opponents’ ball away (e.g., Fairness Doctrine).  But an adult understands that governing involves imposing, dictating and controlling; it involves legislating a conception of morality.  It’s simply a matter of what we will impose, dictate and control, of what that conception of morality will be. 

This won’t be discovered if we entertain childish avoidance maneuvers that stifle the only debate that can determine this, the most important debate there ever could be: What is good?  What is Truth?  Unless a person is willing to discuss this — maturely, as an adult, without relativistic dodges — he has no more business rendering commentary or writing laws than the boys in Lord of the Flies.         

It has been interesting watching the response to the Honduran military’s recent ousting of its nation’s president, Manuel Zelaya.  Barack Obama called the action “not legal” and Hillary Clinton said that the arrest of Zelaya should be condemned.  Most interesting, perhaps, is that taking this position places them shoulder to shoulder with Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega and Venezuelan’s roaring mouse, Hugo Chavez, who is threatening military action against Honduras.  Now, some would say this is an eclectic group — others would say, not so much — regardless, what has gotten them so upset? 

Let’s start with what they say.  They are calling the ouster a “coup” and claim that Zelaya is still Honduras’ rightful president.  Some of them say we must support democracy.  But they have said little, if anything, about the rule of law.  And most of what they have said is wrong. 

First, it doesn’t appear that Sunday’s ouster was a military coup but a law enforcement action.  It is not a military strongman who sought extra-legal control, but Zelaya himself.  Here is the story.     

Zelaya is a leftist, a less precocious version of Chavez, sort of like the Venezuelan’s Mini-me.  And, like Chavez, it’s seems that Zelaya was bent on perpetuating his rule and increasing his power in defiance of the rule of law.  That is to say, the Honduran Constitution limits presidents to one four-year term, and this wasn’t quite enough to satisfy Zelaya’s ambitions.  So he sought to amend the constitution, which may sound okay, except for one minor detail.  Mary Anastasia O’Grady in the Wall Street Journal explains:

While Honduran law allows for a constitutional rewrite, the power to open that door does not lie with the president. A constituent assembly can only be called through a national referendum approved by its Congress.

But Mr. Zelaya declared the vote on his own and had Mr. Chávez ship him the necessary ballots from Venezuela. The Supreme Court ruled his referendum unconstitutional, and it instructed the military not to carry out the logistics of the vote as it normally would do. 

The top military commander, Gen. Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, told the president that he would have to comply. Mr. Zelaya promptly fired him. The Supreme Court ordered him reinstated. Mr. Zelaya refused.
. . .  the president decided he would run the referendum himself. So on Thursday he led a mob that broke into the military installation where the ballots from Venezuela were being stored and then had his supporters distribute them in defiance of the Supreme Court’s order.

However, like so many apparent megalomaniacs, Zelaya greatly overestimated his popularity.  The groundswell of citizen support he had counted on didn’t materialize; thus, his law breaking could not be sanitized by consensus making.  The military then arrested him, acting under orders from legitimate civilian authorities and in defense of the rule of law.  The good guys won . . . at least for now.
Also note that the military confined itself to its prescribed police action and is not running the country.  The new president is 63-year-old Roberto Micheletti, a member of Zelaya’s own Liberal Party.  Moreover, elections are still planned for this November.

And Micheletti enjoys wide support, ranging from the rank-and-file to the those breathing rarified air in elite institutions.  As for Zelaya, while you may not be able to please all of the people all of the time, he certainly seems to have been able to displease them.  He not only alienated the Congress, Supreme Court, the people and the attorney general — who also declared the referendum illegal and vowed to prosecute anyone facilitating it — he is opposed by the Catholic Church and many evangelicals as well.  Really, no one seems to like him.

No one, that is, but Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro and Daniel Ortega.

Oh, and let’s not forget Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are, anyone?

In fact, Obama’s position is striking.  More than almost anything else — almost anything — this dance with the Devil reveals his true colors.  Sure, he was criticized over his handling of Iran, but even I will say there are two sides to that story.  After all, you could make the case that overt support for the protesters would provide the clerics and President Ahmadinejad with invaluable propaganda material.  And Obama looked foolish when he paraded about the world issuing mea culpas on behalf of big bad America, but, hey, that’s a reflection of the standard liberal America-as-villain narrative.  I don’t think it surprised too many people.  But, as bad as Obama has been, his position on Honduras occupies a different realm all together.  And I think most fail to appreciate the gravity of what I will not even call a policy, but an offense.

Obama has sided with a thug, a man who — for completely self-serving reasons — sought to subvert his nation’s constitution.  Obama has sided with a man who — like Pancho Villa on a cross-border raid — lead a mob in an effort to execute this illegal scheme.  And Obama does this while paying lip service to democracy, even as he imperils it; he claims to stand for freedom, even while supporting those who would extinguish it.  It is un-American.  It is ugly.  It is, in a word, evil.

Yet it doesn’t surprise me.  Some may think the issue is simply that, although Obama despises Zelaya’s tactics, he is driven to support a fellow traveler.  Others may think that Obama wants to support a fellow traveler and is indifferent about the tactics.  Neither analysis is entirely correct.  Rather, Zelaya has certain tactics.  Obama has certain tactics.

And they are largely the same.

In fact, they are shared by virtually all leftists. Ignoring the rule of law, manipulating the Constitution, acting as if the end justifies the means . . . .  Sound familiar?  This is standard liberal doctrine.  Examining this further, let’s look at two comments Obama and H. Clinton made about Honduras.  Obama said that the U.S. would “stand on the side of democracy” and Clinton said, “we have a lot of work to do to try to help the Hondurans get back on the democratic path . . . .”  These comments reflect a common theme.  There is gratuitous emphasis on democracy, but what of the rule of law?  What of recognition that, technically, Honduras and the U.S. are not democracies but constitutional republics?  We don’t hear much talk about these things from liberals, and I have a theory as to why.

Of course, such comments are often simply rhetoric, but they can reflect something deeper as well.  Democracy, in the strict sense of the word, refers to direct rule by the people.  Another way to put it is that it’s rule based on the people’s whims.  Now, liberals are relativists, which means they don’t believe in Truth, in natural law, in anything beyond man that determines morality.  Instead, relativism involves the idea that what people once called morals are merely values, which, in turn, are just a function of a people’s consensus opinion.  It then follows that the impositions of values known as civil laws cannot be based on anything outside of man, either; they also are simply a function of opinion, be it the consensus variety or that of those with clout.  In other words, liberals believe as the ancient Greek philosopher Protagoras did, that “Man is the measure of all things.”

Now let’s say you accept this.  When constitutional mandates, or laws, then contradict that “measure of all things,” that democratic body, with which will you likely side?  This explains why liberals find it unfathomable that anyone would let “a piece of paper” stand in the way of a popular — or politically correct — social change.  “Why, you have to be a simpleton to let a law forestall progress!” is the idea.  And from their simplistic, shallow perspective it makes sense.  If laws originate with opinion, anyway, why would you let them stand in the way of the dominant opinion when the latter changes?

Yet, in reality, liberals aren’t any more beholden to popular will than to laws, as they scoff at it when it contradicts politically-correct will.  And there is a good reason for this.  Liberals don’t view democracy as an absolute because there is no such thing in a relativistic world, but they do at least view it.  That is to say, they know popular will is real but believe God’s will (Truth) is imaginary.  And what exists takes precedence over what does not.

But in a world without absolutes, what takes precedence over all?  Well, without any unchanging yardstick for making moral decisions — without Truth to provide answers — liberals have only one thing to refer to: Their mercurial master, feelings.  But whose feelings shall hold sway?  They may sometimes be those of the majority of people (expressed as “values”), especially insofar as their feelings influence liberals’ feelings.  But, then again, the dominant feelings might also be those of most liberals’ favorite people — and the ones they fancy the smartest — themselves.  This is what engenders the elitism that justifies trumping popular will; after all, liberals’ own feelings always feel more “right” to them than other people’s feelings.

Put simply, it’s a question of whose will shall prevail, the popular, politically correct or personal?  When man is the measure of all things, the man in the mirror usually trumps your fellow man. Speaking of feelings, one that could be instrumental here is fear.  What I mean is, we all understand the power of precedent.  And along with Chavez, Obama seems to dislike the idea of a military upholding its nation’s constitution and ousting a would-be tyrant.  I wonder why?

Is the right responsible for inspiring murder, such as that of late-term abortionist George Tiller by Kansas native Scott Roeder?  Some certainly seem to think so.  For instance, the Friday before last Bill O’Reilly had as a guest on his show Joan Walsh, the editor of leftist news site Salon.com.  She appeared because she had criticized O’Reilly for engaging in what she called a “jihad” against Tiller.  Her thesis is that O’Reilly and, presumably, the rest of us who are passionately pro-life are culpable Tiller’s death.

Of course, this isn’t a novel idea among the left.  If there is any kind of violent incident perpetrated by someone ostensibly a rightist, they blame their political opponents for stoking the fires of hatred.  You can just count on it every time, be it an attack on an abortion center, a Timothy McVeigh, or . . . or . . . well, actually, there aren’t really all that many, are there?  But don’t bother ideologues with the facts.

Now, Walsh, a woman of mediocre intellect and lacking moral fiber — she has lauded Tiller “the baby killer” as a hero — has been beating this drum hard.  In fact, on June 10 she published a piece titled “Can right-wing hate talk lead to murder?” In it, she seems to draw a connection between James von Brunn, the 88-year-old white supremacist who murdered security guard Stephen Tyrone Johns at the Holocaust Museum, and fairly benign commentary about the effects of political correctness.  She wrote:

In a debate with Buchanan [Pat Buchanan] a couple of weeks ago, he told me that what was happening to white men was exactly what happened to black men — he didn’t give me any examples of lynching — and that it was open season on white men. Wealthy Sen. Lindsay Graham suggested an average white guy like himself wouldn’t get a fair shake from Sotomayor, and now even the new face of the GOP, Michael Steele, has said the same thing. If I were a marginal, unemployed, angry, racist white man right now, I’d be hearing a lot of mainstream conservative support for my point of view. Can that help create a climate for more violence? I don’t know. I hope not, but I don’t know.

No, Walsh doesn’t know much.  First, von Brunn isn’t a rightist — he is a “whitist.”  In fact, he is quite the opposite of a rightist many ways, as Bob Unruh reports at WorldNetDaily:     

The Moonbattery blog revealed von Brunn advocated the socialist policies espoused by Adolf Hitler and used Darwinian theory to support his anti-Semitism.
And in statements that later were stripped from an anti-religion website, he wrote, “The Big Lie technique, employed by Paul to create the CHRISTIAN RELIGION, also was used to create the HOLOCAUST RELIGION … CHRISTIANITY AND THE HOLOCAUST are HOAXES.”

This probably would come as such a shock to someone as ill-informed as Walsh that she’d scarcely believe it; it’s just too contrary to her dogma.  Yet I could have guessed it.  Those who have actually studied the history of Nazism and the white supremacist movement know that, from Adolf Hitler in the 1930s to his fellow travelers today, its ranks have always harbored hostility toward Christianity.  The reasons are simple: Whether you view Christianity as merely an outgrowth of Judaism or the fulfillment of it, it is the second part of Judeo-Christian.  Second, like the ancient Romans, the Nazis viewed the faith of “turn the other cheek” (counsel which, mind you, is misunderstood) as an influence that militates against manly virtue.  Lastly, a lie doesn’t find much acquaintance with the Truth.

Instead, white supremacists much prefer ancient Germanic pagan religions and even Islam.  Just consider Hitler, for instance, and his dislike for the heroic Frankish (Germanic) warrior Charles Martel.  What was Martel’s sin?  He halted the Moslem advance into Europe at the Battle of Tours in 732 A.D.  Paul Belien addressed this misguided passion of Hitler’s in the Brussels Journal, writing,

“‘Had Charles Martel not been victorious,’ Hitler told his inner crowd in August 1942, ‘then we should in all probability have been converted to Mohammedanism, that cult which glorifies the heroism and which opens up the seventh Heaven to the bold warrior alone. Then the Germanic races would have conquered the world.’”

The Nazis’ dislike for Christianity was so great that, not surprisingly, they sought to destroy it.  Leftists may scoff at a notion so contrary to their prejudices, but the evidence of this fact is now overwhelming.  And of this evidence, perhaps the most compelling was uncovered by a Jewish attorney named Julie Seltzer Mandel, a woman whose grandmother was a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp.  I addressed her discovery in my piece “Hitler and Christianity,” writing:

While a law student and editor of the Nuremberg Project for the Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion, Mandel gained access to 148 bound volumes of rare documents — some marked “Top Secret” — compiled by the Office of Strategic Services (or O.S.S., the WWII forerunner to the CIA).

After scouring the papers, she published the first installment of them in 2002, a 120-page O.S.S. report entitled “The Nazi Master Plan: The Persecution of the Christian Churches.” Reporting on these O.S.S. findings in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Edward Colimore wrote: “The fragile, typewritten documents from the 1940s lay out the Nazi plan in grim detail: Take over the churches from within, using party sympathizers. Discredit, jail or kill Christian leaders. And re-indoctrinate the congregants. Give them a new faith — in Germany’s Third Reich.” He then quotes Mandel: “A lot of people will say, ‘I didn’t realize that they were trying to convert Christians to a Nazi philosophy.’... They wanted to eliminate the Jews altogether, but they were also looking to eliminate Christianity.”

To this day nothing has changed.  If you examine the writings of contemporary white supremacists, you will find much hatred for Christianity, affection for paganism and sympathy for Islam.
 
Now, I ask you: Which is better characterized by this description, the right or left?  When answering, remember that those euphemistically-named censorship bureaucracies of the left, “human rights commissions,” consistently silence those who dare criticize Islam, most notably Christians. 
Getting back to von Brunn, we can ask a similar question: Given that he hated not only Jews but also George Bush and neocons in general, of whom is he more reminiscent, Newt Gingrich or, maybe, um, Barack Obama’s buddy Reverend Wright?  Bear in mind that Wright’s serpentine tongue won him the spotlight again with that recent explanation we’ve all heard for why he is persona non grata in the White House. To wit: “Them Jews ain’t going to let him [Obama] talk to me.”

Now let’s return to the matter of the impact of words. The Walshes of the world say that many of us rightists are responsible for inciting violence.  In response, many on our side will say that there is only one person responsible for an act of violence, the perpetrator, be he Scott Roeder, von Dunn, Timothy McVeigh or someone else.  As to these theses, the Walsh position is childish and contradictory; the rightist defense is incorrect and contradictory.  Let’s discuss the Truth.

In reality, virtually all of us understand that words can seduce, be they a lover’s syrupy overtures or a hater’s cynical appeals.  This is why Edward Bulwer-Lytton said that “The pen is mightier than the sword.”  We treasure freedom of speech not because words are meaningless, but precisely because they’re powerful.  And we allow it despite and because of words’ potential to inspire, for the pen of virtue remains eternally sharp, while the sword of vice’s edge is always dulled by time.
So while we’re right to deny responsibility for Roeder, it’s not because, as many imply, that such a thing is impossible in principle; it’s just that, in this case, we aren’t responsible in the particular (I’ll address the reason for this in a moment).  And Walsh is right to imply that such things are possible in principle; her childishness lies in her silly implication that only the right is responsible for them in the particular.

Of course, it’s quite reflexive for a person — even a good one — being tarnished by guilt by association to deny the reality of indirect culpability, but the reflexive is seldom beholden to reason It’s also reflexive for dishonorable people such as Walsh to very cynically seize upon a violent event and use it to tarnish opponents, and, more ominously, to provide a specious justification for Fairness Doctrine-like legislation in the near future and hate-speech laws a bit further down the road.  But whether or not the Walsh set actually believes their rhetoric depends upon the completeness of their detachment from reality.

To understand more deeply the fallacies here, consider the innumerable instances of leftist violence we’ve seen over the years.  Would Moslem convert Carlos Bledsoe have murdered the army recruiter in Arkansas had he not been exposed to the anti-white, anti-Western and anti-Christian rhetoric that prevails in modern America?  Would Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, have perpetrated his acts had he not been weaned on the environmentalist radicalism so prevalent today?
Would all the domestic terrorists who firebombed fur stores and vandalized SUVs and research facilities have done so were it not for this ideological force?  Would Colin Ferguson have targeted whites in the 1993 Long Island Railroad massacre had he not been assailed with anti-white rhetoric from the Reverend Wrights, Jacksons and Sharptons of the world? 

Now, you can take issue with my examples; you can quibble about the particulars.  But many other incidents could be cited, and the details aren’t really the issue.  The point is, would we really deny that the indoctrination people are subjected to influences their thinking?  Are Palestinians born hating Jews?  Do madrassah schoolboys have a gene dictating hatred for the West?  As for Walsh, she may turn a blind eye to the violence authored by her ilk, but an affinity for relativism doesn’t change reality.

Now we come to the crux of the matter: If rightist rhetoric can inspire others to violence just like the leftist variety, what determines culpability?  Well, we must ask the only relevant question about that rhetoric:
Is it the Truth?

Sure, you may warn that a new resident in the neighborhood did time in prison for child molestation, and an angry mob may kill him.  But did you do wrong?  On the other hand, it’s a different matter entirely if harm befalls someone after you wrongly and maliciously label him a child molester. 

Thus, anytime you sound an alarm — whether it contains the ring of Truth or that of lies — it can serve as a call to violent action for some.  But what should we do?  Create a Fahrenheit 451 situation in which ideas are roundly suppressed and people are kept comfortably numb?  No one wants that, and it wouldn’t work anyway.
At the end of the day, one who speaks the Truth may inspire violence against livers of lies just as one who speaks lies may inspire violence against the tellers of Truth.  But this isn’t the fault of the Truth; it simply means that society needs more of it.

So the moral of this story is that we all can inspire violence with words, but not all of us speak inspired words.  Evil may be done in the name of good or evil, but it is only those who speak the latter who have blood on their hands.

Paging Joan Walsh.