Jul 12 2010

The UN as tragicomedy, minus deus ex machina, while Iran continues to enrich uranium

Category: Iran,Islam,UNharmonicminer @ 9:15 am

The UN continues its utter vapidity and cupidity (not to mention stupidity) with this bit of insane theater.  It’s like putting Adolph Hitler on the board of the local anti-semitism society.  I’m sure the women of Iran are comforted now that Iran is going to have a voice at the UN for women’s rights around the world.

In the meantime, Iran continues its nuclear program apace, a fact which even the densest of the international left is finally beginning to realize, and fear.  And Iran is still the single largest player in fomenting international terrorism, unless, of couse, you count the Saudi’s, who fund the madrassas that create converts to radical Islamism, and also appear to fund terrorists directly via cutouts and misdirection.  This isn’t exactly Saudi national policy, since terrorism threatens the Saudi leadership as well as the USA and Israel.  But it’s a measure of how out-of-control the Saudi government is of how its family princes spend their money outside the nation.

Oh, yeah, we really want these guys working for women’s rights.


Jul 11 2010

New Spanish abortion “liberalization” law is less radical than current USA law

Category: abortion,Europe,leftharmonicminer @ 8:51 am

Spanish Abortion Law Galvanizes Pro-Lifers and Prompts Opposition

A new abortion law went into effect in Spain this Monday, July 5, which raises abortion to the status of a civil right. Abortion was first legalized in Spain in 1985, but was permissible only under three circumstances:

1) To save the life of the mother.
2) In the case of rape and incest.
3) In the case of fetal abnormalities (http://www.clinicasabortos.com/aborto-legal.asp).

In February of this year, the PSOE: Partido Socialista Obrero Español (Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party), Spain’s ruling party, succeeded in getting its new abortion law approved by Parliament. It was subsequently signed by both José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (Spanish Prime Minister and member of the PSOE) and Juan Carlos I (King of Spain). The new law codifies that women have the “right” to obtain abortions up to the 14th week of gestation, no questions asked.

Check the yellow pages of your USA phone book, and you’ll probably find abortion “clinics” offering abortions up to 24 or 26 weeks… no questions asked.

The debate surrounding the law had already struck a nerve with the Spanish people and spurred them into action even before anything had been approved. Grassroots pro-life organizations such as Hazte Oír (http://www.hazteoir.org/) and Derecho a Vivir (http://derechoavivir.org/) took Zapatero and the PSOE to task immediately, and organized a series of very successful demonstrations and ad campaigns to show the strength of the opposition to the liberalization of Spain’s abortion laws. The most famous of these was the demonstration on October 17, 2009 in Madrid, which brought approximately 1.5 million pro-life activists to the Spanish capital (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/oct/09101908.html).

Despite the massive show of public disapproval, the bill narrowly passed through Parliament, was signed and officially became law on Monday.

Spain, of course, is in the middle of demographic meltdown, because it simply isn’t replacing its population. So a commitment to higher rates of abortion, a sure outcome of the new law, is a commitment to acceleration of the death spiral, as well as encouraging murder of the most innocent.

Just to compare: in the USA, virtually any fetus can be killed anytime during the first two trimesters, in virtually any jurisdiction.  Some states have managed to limit “late-term” abortion to one degree or another, but the fact is that any woman who wants an abortion at almost any time in the pregnancy can get one, if she wants it badly enough to find a provider of such “services,” even if she has to go to another state to do it.

This is not a way in which the American Left wants to imitate European law, however…  since many European nations have laws more restrictive on abortion than the USA.


Jul 10 2010

Obama gives up on one of the best things America does… but it isn’t reported much, or at all

Category: Uncategorizedharmonicminer @ 8:59 am

Power Line – Why the silent treatment?

As Scott points out in the post immediately below, the news that President Obama tasked NASA head Bolden, as perhaps his foremost mission, with raising Muslim self-esteem is entirely absent from the New York Times and the Washington Post, as well as the nightly newscasts of ABC, NBC, and CBS. Why? Bill Otis argues, persuasively I think, that it’s because this news is potentially devastating to Obama:

The reason the MSM has the lid on NASA’s new “mission” to snuggle up to Islam (in between decapitations and floggings) is that it would be devastating to Obama if it became known. On the surface, the new NASA “mission” seems merely screwball, and thus a small story. But I think it’s a good deal more than that. It shows that Obama’s thinking is unrecognizable to the average person. It also shows that he’s unserious — frivolous, really — about something that made a generation of Baby Boomers take pride in their country. How many millions of people sat in their junior high auditoriums and watched the Alan Shepherd and John Glenn launches? How many millions more were up at midnight on July 20, 1969 to watch the first human being, an American, put his foot on the moon?

When the domestic roots of skepticism about America (and sometimes flat-out anti-Americanism) were being laid — in the 60’s assassinations, the Vietnam War, and the exposure of the country’s treatment of blacks — the one thing in which we all took pride was the space program. So for Obama, it’s now one thing that needs to be perverted. Making it a dumbed-down PR front for Islam is, in its way, a genius move for this purpose. But as the MSM recognizes by its silence, it’s a bridge too far.

A lot of people out there haven’t heard of “American exceptionalism,” or, if they have, aren’t too sure of what it means. But they have a good intuition for it: It is, among other things, but quite importantly, the excitement and pride they felt when America did something the human race had wanted to do since it looked up at the night sky. Space exploration took on added luster for our generation because it was so in keeping with the natural optimism, bravado and energy of our youth.

Under Obama, NASA has ended plans to go back to the moon, or go to Mars (something also underreported). Budgets are tight, you know. Time to hunker down and lower our sights. But we can do Muslim outreach.

This is a window on the kind of thinking Obama does. Were it widely known, it would be devastating: We will put away what has made the country a beacon, and act like the small, repentant ex-bully Obama takes us to be. Thus the rockets get mothballed as The Great Satan starts to make amends by printing comic books celebrating Arab contributions to trigonomety 4000 years ago, or whatever it was.

“You’ll be able to keep your own insurance” was the most important political lie of the last year. But NASA’s new mission is the most revealing truth. The MSM understands this, which is why it’s been so resolute in keeping it out of sight.


Jul 09 2010

Beyond Understanding

Category: Israel,Palestineamuzikman @ 8:55 am

Ha’aretz reports on a soon-to-be-released documentary by an Israeli reporter, Shlomi Eldar, about a Palestinian Arab baby with a rare disease being treated in Israel.

In Sheba’s pediatric hemato-oncology department was Mohammed Abu Mustafa, a four-and-a-half-month-old Palestinian infant. Protruding from his tiny body were pipes attached to big machines. His breathing was labored.

“His days may be numbered. He is suffering from a genetic defect that is causing the failure of his immune system,” said the baby’s mother, Raida, from the Gaza Strip, when she emerged from the isolation room. “I had two daughters in Gaza,” she continued, her black eyes shimmering. “Both died because of immune deficiency. In Gaza I was told all the time that there is no treatment for this and that he is doomed to die. The problem now is how to pay for the [bone marrow] transplant. There is no funding.”

“I got to her after all the attempts to find a donation for the transplant had failed,” [Eldar] relates. “I understood that I was the baby’s last hope, but I didn’t give it much of a chance. At the time, Qassam rockets falling on Sderot opened every newscast. In that situation, I didn’t believe that anyone would be willing to give a shekel for a Palestinian infant.”

He was wrong. Hours after the news item about Mohammed was broadcast, the hospital switchboard was jammed with callers. An Israeli Jew whose son died during his military service donated $55,000, and for the first time the Abu Mustafa family began to feel hopeful. Only then did Eldar grasp the full dramatic potential of the story. He told his editor, Tali Ben Ovadia, that he wanted to continue accompanying the family.

…Nevertheless, this idyllic situation developed into a deep crisis that led to the severance of the relations and what appeared to be the end of the filming. From an innocent conversation about religious holidays, Raida Abu Mustafa launched into a painful monologue about the culture of the shahids – the martyrs – and admitted, during the complex transplant process, that she would like to see her son perpetrate a suicide bombing attack in Jerusalem.

“Jerusalem is ours,” she declared. “We are all for Jerusalem, the whole nation, not just a million, all of us. Do you understand what that means – all of us?”

She also explained to Eldar exactly what she had in mind. “For us, death is a natural thing. We are not frightened of death. From the smallest infant, even smaller than Mohammed, to the oldest person, we will all sacrifice ourselves for the sake of Jerusalem. We feel we have the right to it. You’re free to be angry, so be angry.”

And Eldar was angry. “Then why are you fighting to save your son’s life, if you say that death is a usual thing for your people?” he lashes out in one of the most dramatic moments in the film.

“It is a regular thing,” she smiles at him. “Life is not precious. Life is precious, but not for us. For us, life is nothing, not worth a thing. That is why we have so many suicide bombers. They are not afraid of death. None of us, not even the children, are afraid of death. It is natural for us. After Mohammed gets well, I will certainly want him to be a shahid. If it’s for Jerusalem, then there’s no problem. For you it is hard, I know; with us, there are cries of rejoicing and happiness when someone falls as a shahid. For us a shahid is a tremendous thing.”

That was enough to drain Eldar’s motivation and dissolve all the compassion he had felt for Raida and Mohammed.

“It was an absolutely terrible rift,” he recalls. “After I saw how intensely she fought for her son’s life, I could not accept what she said. I had seen her standing for hours, caressing him, warming him up, kissing him. At the time I also had an infant of Mohammed’s age at home. I couldn’t understand where it came from in her. I was devastated. It was all so paradoxical, too, because just as she was talking about the shahids, two Jewish women entered the room and brought her toys and a stroller as presents.”

Raida’s confession was totally at odds with Eldar’s perception of her until then: “The whole time I accompanied her, I saw a caring mother who was at her baby’s bedside night and day. She didn’t eat, she lost weight and she cried. I myself saw to it that she ate. I saw her faint when she was informed there was a small chance her son would get well. I saw her when she was told there was no longer a chance, and she stood there and caressed Mohammed, with tears, as though parting from him.

“So I was unable to explain how on the one hand, she fought for her child’s life, but at the same time told me that his life is not precious. I never believed I would hear that from her. That’s why I decided to stop shooting. I had come to tell a lovely story, not a story about a mother who destines her son to be a shahid.”

What did you feel when she said that to you?

“That I had been betrayed, that it was a knife in the back. I didn’t want to see Raida any more. It also drove me to greater despair. I asked myself, ‘Well, is that the conclusion that comes from this story?’ But in the end I started filming again. Why? I don’t have a good answer; I think it was from curiosity. I wanted to solve the mystery for myself.”

Golda Meir once said, “We will have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.”  She was right.  But will that day ever come?


Jul 08 2010

Just in case they didn’t notice our candles, let’s turn on the searchlight? Or maybe not

Category: humor,illegal alien,Intelligent Design,science,spaceharmonicminer @ 4:43 pm

A scientist who makes his living in SETI, searching for alien societies who might be communicating with us, says that It’s too late to worry that the aliens will find us

STEPHEN HAWKING is worried about aliens. The famous physicist recently suggested that we should be wary of contact with extraterrestrials, citing what happened to Native Americans when Europeans landed on their shores. Since any species that could visit us would be far beyond our own technological level, meeting them could be bad news.

Hawking was extrapolating the possible consequences of my day job: a small but durable exercise known as SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

Although we have yet to detect an alien ping, improvements in technology have encouraged us to think that, if transmitting extraterrestrials are out there, we might soon find them. That would be revolutionary. But some people, Hawking included, sense a catastrophe.

Consider what happens if we succeed. Should we respond? Any broadcast could blow Earth’s cover, inviting the possibility of attack by a society advanced enough to pick up our signals.

On the face of it, that sounds like a scenario straight out of cheap science fiction. But even if the odds of calamity are small, why gamble?

For three years, this issue has been exercising a group of SETI scientists in the International Academy of Astronautics. The crux of the dispute was an initiative by a few members to proscribe any broadcasts to aliens, whether or not we receive a signal first.

In truth, banning broadcasts would be impractical – and manifestly too late. We have been inadvertently betraying our presence for 60 years with our television, radio and radar transmissions. The earliest episodes of I Love Lucy have washed over 6000 or so star systems, and are reaching new audiences at the rate of one solar system a day. If there are sentient beings out there, the signals will reach them.

Detecting this leakage radiation won’t be that difficult. Its intensity decreases with the square of the distance, but even if the nearest aliens were 1000 light years away, they would still be able to detect it as long as their antenna technology was a century or two ahead of ours.

This makes it specious to suggest that we should ban deliberate messages on the grounds that they would be more powerful than our leaked signals. Only a society close to our level of development would be able to pick up an intentional broadcast while failing to notice TV and radar. And a society at our level is no threat.

The flip side is that for any alien society that could be dangerous, a deliberate message makes no difference. Such a society could use its own star as a gravitational lens, and even see the glow from our street lamps. Hawking’s warning is irrelevant.

Such considerations motivated the SETI group at the International Academy of Astronautics to reject a proscription of transmissions to the sky. It was the right decision. The extraterrestrials may be out there, and we might learn much by discovering them, but it is paranoia of a rare sort that would shutter the Earth out of fear that they might discover us.

Not everyone agrees.

Then there’s this, from a scientist who has written science fiction about nice aliens who “uplift” less than sentient species into full sophont status.  Maybe one of them would try to “uplift” humanity…

I’m not deeply worried that ET wants to come to Earth and eat us or something.  But if ET is out there, and can get here, and wants to get here, I really doubt that it would be out of a sense of altruism.  What if ET is at the same moral level as the Aztecs?  Maybe they believe in sacrificing low-level cultures (that would be us) to appease the Dark Energy God.

I mean, they could always just send a nice note, if all they want is to be pen pals.  And everyone knows it isn’t a good idea to meet in person with people you just met on Facebook….  let alone give them your home address.


Jul 07 2010

The invasion

Category: freedom,Group-think,Islam,liberty,sharia,terrorism,USAharmonicminer @ 8:29 am

Here is the opening part of an article titled “Tower of Terrorism at Ground Zero” at the Muslims Against Sharia Blog

America is defined by the last phrase of its national anthem: The land of the free and the home of the brave. Freedom, in all its forms, is its greatest legacy, which the nation has bravely fought many wars on many fronts to preserve against the unceasing assaults of totalitarianism of all stripes. Time and again, the heroes of the nation bravely sacrificed their lives to protect freedom and liberty.

Currently, America is faced with the insidious, multifaceted, and most deadly threat of Islamism. Since Islam has been around for centuries, there is a tendency to ignore or even deny the threat it poses to humanity. Various concessions are made, some of them as good faith offerings and some in the hope of placating the Islamists. Yet, concessions to threats are appeasements. And appeasements have never solved any problems. They only whet the appetite of the aggressor, give it more power, and make it even more dangerous.

Very unfortunately, in today’s world, Islamists [including political Islam] are set as Islam’s locomotive that takes the Islamic train on its demolition course. Instead of promoting peace, many of the so-called leaders of the ‘Muslim Ummah’ are engaged in fuelling Jihad and killing innocent people in the name of religion. And sadly, such elements are gradually growing influence everywhere in the world as well brainwashing some of the naïve global leaders like Barack Hussain Obama, who continues to appease Islamists without sensing the degree of threat it poses to his very own country.

Islam and democracy are incompatible. As democracies practice their magnificent accommodating belief, they knowingly or unknowingly lay the track for the advancing train wrecking that is Islam. Radical Islamism threatens to set a new record for brutality, contrary to the contention that there is no reason to worry about it. Jihadist Wahabism’s tentacles are reaching out from its cradle in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf Arab Emirates. The Petrodollar flush Sunni-Shia zealots are liberally financing mosques, Madrassas [Islamic indoctrination schools], Islamic centers at universities, front organizations and lobbyists to promote the Wahhabi or Shiite virulent Islamism in every part of America. That makes America the Vulnerable.

Activities of Tablighi Jamaat is gradually increasing in United States, and according to recent statistics disclosed during last year’s largest Tablighi congregations in Bangladesh, more than four hundred Tablighi groups are actively working in various so-called community mosques or in disguise mostly targeting young Americans with the goal of converting them initially to Islam and later giving them Jihadist provocations.

So begins a rather lengthy and detailed article on the various ways that radical Islamists are pursuing their agendas in the USA.

Ask yourself this simple question: is the mosque at Ground Zero being paid for with money from America’s Muslims?

Not likely.

Do you think “moderate Muslims” are paying for it?  (Here is one who probably is not.)  Is it being paid for with money from the same people and nations who fund worldwide radical Islamism?

What do you think?  And do you think they would spend their money if they didn’t expect it to produce a result in the USA?  What do you think is the result they intend?


Jul 06 2010

Trying to get the credit without doing the work

Category: higher educationharmonicminer @ 12:29 pm

I wish the experience reported in this article was unique, but it is not.  I seem to have it, as a professor, about once per year.  Sometimes twice.


Jul 04 2010

The Americans Who Risked Everything

Category: character,freedom,liberty,USAamuzikman @ 10:06 pm

With thanks to Rush Limbaugh for sharing these great words penned by his father.    May we never forget.  It is worth taking the time to read this as we celebrate our independence and remember the price that was paid by so many.

My father, Rush H. Limbaugh, Jr., delivered this oft-requested address locally a number of times, but it had never before appeared in print until it appeared in The Limbaugh Letter. My dad was renowned for his oratory skills and for his original mind; this speech is, I think, a superb demonstration of both. I will always be grateful to him for instilling in me a passion for the ideas and lives of America’s Founders, as well as a deep appreciation for the inspirational power of words which you will see evidenced here:

Our Lives, Our Fortunes, Our Sacred Honor

It was a glorious morning. The sun was shining and the wind was from the southeast. Up especially early, a tall bony, redheaded young Virginian found time to buy a new thermometer, for which he paid three pounds, fifteen shillings. He also bought gloves for Martha, his wife, who was ill at home.

Thomas Jefferson arrived early at the statehouse. The temperature was 72.5 degrees and the horseflies weren’t nearly so bad at that hour. It was a lovely room, very large, with gleaming white walls. The chairs were comfortable. Facing the single door were two brass fireplaces, but they would not be used today.

The moment the door was shut, and it was always kept locked, the room became an oven. The tall windows were shut, so that loud quarreling voices could not be heard by passersby. Small openings atop the windows allowed a slight stir of air, and also a large number of horseflies. Jefferson records that “the horseflies were dexterous in finding necks, and the silk of stockings was nothing to them.” All discussing was punctuated by the slap of hands on necks.

On the wall at the back, facing the president’s desk, was a panoply — consisting of a drum, swords, and banners seized from Fort Ticonderoga the previous year. Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold had captured the place, shouting that they were taking it “in the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!”

Now Congress got to work, promptly taking up an emergency measure about which there was discussion but no dissension. “Resolved: That an application be made to the Committee of Safety of Pennsylvania for a supply of flints for the troops at New York.”

Then Congress transformed itself into a committee of the whole. The Declaration of Independence was read aloud once more, and debate resumed. Though Jefferson was the best writer of all of them, he had been somewhat verbose. Congress hacked the excess away. They did a good job, as a side-by-side comparison of the rough draft and the final text shows. They cut the phrase “by a self-assumed power.” “Climb” was replaced by “must read,” then “must” was eliminated, then the whole sentence, and soon the whole paragraph was cut. Jefferson groaned as they continued what he later called “their depredations.” “Inherent and inalienable rights” came out “certain unalienable rights,” and to this day no one knows who suggested the elegant change.

A total of 86 alterations were made. Almost 500 words were eliminated, leaving 1,337. At last, after three days of wrangling, the document was put to a vote.

Here in this hall Patrick Henry had once thundered: “I am no longer a Virginian, sir, but an American.” But today the loud, sometimes bitter argument stilled, and without fanfare the vote was taken from north to south by colonies, as was the custom. On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was adopted.

There were no trumpets blown. No one stood on his chair and cheered. The afternoon was waning and Congress had no thought of delaying the full calendar of routine business on its hands. For several hours they worked on many other problems before adjourning for the day.

What kind of men were the 56 signers who adopted the Declaration of Independence and who, by their signing, committed an act of treason against the crown? To each of you, the names Franklin, Adams, Hancock and Jefferson are almost as familiar as household words. Most of us, however, know nothing of the other signers. Who were they? What happened to them?

I imagine that many of you are somewhat surprised at the names not there: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Patrick Henry. All were elsewhere.

Ben Franklin was the only really old man. Eighteen were under 40; three were in their 20s. Of the 56 almost half – 24 – were judges and lawyers. Eleven were merchants, nine were landowners and farmers, and the remaining 12 were doctors, ministers, and politicians.

With only a few exceptions, such as Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, these were men of substantial property. All but two had families. The vast majority were men of education and standing in their communities. They had economic security as few men had in the 18th Century.

Each had more to lose from revolution than he had to gain by it. John Hancock, one of the richest men in America, already had a price of 500 pounds on his head. He signed in enormous letters so that his Majesty could now read his name without glasses and could now double the reward. Ben Franklin wryly noted: “Indeed we must all hang together, otherwise we shall most assuredly hang separately.”

Fat Benjamin Harrison of Virginia told tiny Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts: “With me it will all be over in a minute, but you, you will be dancing on air an hour after I am gone.”

These men knew what they risked. The penalty for treason was death by hanging. And remember, a great British fleet was already at anchor in New York Harbor.

They were sober men. There were no dreamy-eyed intellectuals or draft card burners here. They were far from hot-eyed fanatics yammering for an explosion. They simply asked for the status quo. It was change they resisted. It was equality with the mother country they desired. It was taxation with representation they sought. They were all conservatives, yet they rebelled.

It was principle, not property, that had brought these men to Philadelphia. Two of them became presidents of the United States. Seven of them became state governors. One died in office as vice president of the United States. Several would go on to be U.S. Senators. One, the richest man in America, in 1828 founded the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. One, a delegate from Philadelphia, was the only real poet, musician and philosopher of the signers. (It was he, Francis Hopkinson not Betsy Ross who designed the United States flag.)

Richard Henry Lee, a delegate from Virginia, had introduced the resolution to adopt the Declaration of Independence in June of 1776. He was prophetic in his concluding remarks: “Why then sir, why do we longer delay? Why still deliberate? Let this happy day give birth to an American Republic. Let her arise not to devastate and to conquer but to reestablish the reign of peace and law.

“The eyes of Europe are fixed upon us. She demands of us a living example of freedom that may exhibit a contrast in the felicity of the citizen to the ever-increasing tyranny which desolates her polluted shores. She invites us to prepare an asylum where the unhappy may find solace, and the persecuted repost.

“If we are not this day wanting in our duty, the names of the American Legislatures of 1776 will be placed by posterity at the side of all of those whose memory has been and ever will be dear to virtuous men and good citizens.”

Though the resolution was formally adopted July 4, it was not until July 8 that two of the states authorized their delegates to sign, and it was not until August 2 that the signers met at Philadelphia to actually put their names to the Declaration.

William Ellery, delegate from Rhode Island, was curious to see the signers’ faces as they committed this supreme act of personal courage. He saw some men sign quickly, “but in no face was he able to discern real fear.” Stephan Hopkins, Ellery’s colleague from Rhode Island, was a man past 60. As he signed with a shaking pen, he declared: “My hand trembles, but my heart does not.”

Even before the list was published, the British marked down every member of Congress suspected of having put his name to treason. All of them became the objects of vicious manhunts. Some were taken. Some, like Jefferson, had narrow escapes. All who had property or families near British strongholds suffered.

Francis Lewis, New York delegate saw his home plundered — and his estates in what is now Harlem — completely destroyed by British Soldiers. Mrs. Lewis was captured and treated with great brutality. Though she was later exchanged for two British prisoners through the efforts of Congress, she died from the effects of her abuse.

William Floyd, another New York delegate, was able to escape with his wife and children across Long Island Sound to Connecticut, where they lived as refugees without income for seven years. When they came home they found a devastated ruin.

Philips Livingstone had all his great holdings in New York confiscated and his family driven out of their home. Livingstone died in 1778 still working in Congress for the cause.

Louis Morris, the fourth New York delegate, saw all his timber, crops, and livestock taken. For seven years he was barred from his home and family.

John Hart of Trenton, New Jersey, risked his life to return home to see his dying wife. Hessian soldiers rode after him, and he escaped in the woods. While his wife lay on her deathbed, the soldiers ruined his farm and wrecked his homestead. Hart, 65, slept in caves and woods as he was hunted across the countryside. When at long last, emaciated by hardship, he was able to sneak home, he found his wife had already been buried, and his 13 children taken away. He never saw them again. He died a broken man in 1779, without ever finding his family.

Dr. John Witherspoon, signer, was president of the College of New Jersey, later called Princeton. The British occupied the town of Princeton, and billeted troops in the college. They trampled and burned the finest college library in the country.

Judge Richard Stockton, another New Jersey delegate signer, had rushed back to his estate in an effort to evacuate his wife and children. The family found refuge with friends, but a Tory sympathizer betrayed them. Judge Stockton was pulled from bed in the night and brutally beaten by the arresting soldiers. Thrown into a common jail, he was deliberately starved. Congress finally arranged for Stockton’s parole, but his health was ruined. The judge was released as an invalid, when he could no longer harm the British cause. He returned home to find his estate looted and did not live to see the triumph of the Revolution. His family was forced to live off charity.

Robert Morris, merchant prince of Philadelphia, delegate and signer, met Washington’s appeals and pleas for money year after year. He made and raised arms and provisions which made it possible for Washington to cross the Delaware at Trenton. In the process he lost 150 ships at sea, bleeding his own fortune and credit almost dry.

George Clymer, Pennsylvania signer, escaped with his family from their home, but their property was completely destroyed by the British in the Germantown and Brandywine campaigns.

Dr. Benjamin Rush, also from Pennsylvania, was forced to flee to Maryland. As a heroic surgeon with the army, Rush had several narrow escapes.

John Martin, a Tory in his views previous to the debate, lived in a strongly loyalist area of Pennsylvania. When he came out for independence, most of his neighbors and even some of his relatives ostracized him. He was a sensitive and troubled man, and many believed this action killed him. When he died in 1777, his last words to his tormentors were: “Tell them that they will live to see the hour when they shall acknowledge it [the signing] to have been the most glorious service that I have ever rendered to my country.”

William Ellery, Rhode Island delegate, saw his property and home burned to the ground.

Thomas Lynch, Jr., South Carolina delegate, had his health broken from privation and exposures while serving as a company commander in the military. His doctors ordered him to seek a cure in the West Indies and on the voyage, he and his young bride were drowned at sea.

Edward Rutledge, Arthur Middleton, and Thomas Heyward, Jr., the other three South Carolina signers, were taken by the British in the siege of Charleston. They were carried as prisoners of war to St. Augustine, Florida, where they were singled out for indignities. They were exchanged at the end of the war, the British in the meantime having completely devastated their large landholdings and estates.

Thomas Nelson, signer of Virginia, was at the front in command of the Virginia military forces. With British General Charles Cornwallis in Yorktown, fire from 70 heavy American guns began to destroy Yorktown piece by piece. Lord Cornwallis and his staff moved their headquarters into Nelson’s palatial home. While American cannonballs were making a shambles of the town, the house of Governor Nelson remained untouched. Nelson turned in rage to the American gunners and asked, “Why do you spare my home?” They replied, “Sir, out of respect to you.” Nelson cried, “Give me the cannon!” and fired on his magnificent home himself, smashing it to bits. But Nelson’s sacrifice was not quite over. He had raised $2 million for the Revolutionary cause by pledging his own estates. When the loans came due, a newer peacetime Congress refused to honor them, and Nelson’s property was forfeited. He was never reimbursed. He died, impoverished, a few years later at the age of 50.

Of those 56 who signed the Declaration of Independence, nine died of wounds or hardships during the war. Five were captured and imprisoned, in each case with brutal treatment. Several lost wives, sons or entire families. One lost his 13 children. Two wives were brutally treated. All were at one time or another the victims of manhunts and driven from their homes. Twelve signers had their homes completely burned. Seventeen lost everything they owned. Yet not one defected or went back on his pledged word. Their honor, and the nation they sacrificed so much to create is still intact.

And, finally, there is the New Jersey signer, Abraham Clark.

He gave two sons to the officer corps in the Revolutionary Army. They were captured and sent to that infamous British prison hulk afloat in New York Harbor known as the hell ship Jersey, where 11,000 American captives were to die. The younger Clarks were treated with a special brutality because of their father. One was put in solitary and given no food. With the end almost in sight, with the war almost won, no one could have blamed Abraham Clark for acceding to the British request when they offered him his sons’ lives if he would recant and come out for the King and Parliament. The utter despair in this man’s heart, the anguish in his very soul, must reach out to each one of us down through 200 years with his answer: “No.”

The 56 signers of the Declaration Of Independence proved by their every deed that they made no idle boast when they composed the most magnificent curtain line in history. “And for the support of this Declaration with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”

My friends, I know you have a copy of the Declaration of Independence somewhere around the house – in an old history book (newer ones may well omit it), an encyclopedia, or one of those artificially aged “parchments” we all got in school years ago. I suggest that each of you take the time this month to read through the text of the Declaration, one of the most noble and beautiful political documents in human history.

There is no more profound sentence than this: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness…”

These are far more than mere poetic words. The underlying ideas that infuse every sentence of this treatise have sustained this nation for more than two centuries. They were forged in the crucible of great sacrifice. They are living words that spring from and satisfy the deepest cries for liberty in the human spirit.

“Sacred honor” isn’t a phrase we use much these days, but every American life is touched by the bounty of this, the Founders’ legacy. It is freedom, tested by blood, and watered with tears.

Rush Limbaugh III


Jul 03 2010

The Poland missile shield is back

Category: Uncategorizedharmonicminer @ 10:58 pm

On Visit To Poland, Clinton Says Missile Shield ‘Not Directed At Russia’

The United States
and Poland have signed a revised agreement to deploy elements of a missile-defense system in Central Europe, overriding Russia’s objections.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton witnessed the signing of the deal today in the Polish city of Krakow, the second leg of her four-day trip to Ukraine, Poland, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia.

The revamped agreement takes into account changes brought in by U.S. President Barack Obama, who announced in September that Washington would drop the plans of his predecessor, George W. Bush, for a long-range system.

Instead, Obama’s plan envisages a short- and medium-range system to counter Iran’s ballistic missile program, as well as a small U.S. base in Poland.

Speaking at a joint news conference with Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, Clinton said Washington remains deeply committed to Poland’s security and sovereignty.

“Today, by signing an amendment to the ballistic missile-defense agreement, we are reinforcing this commitment. The amendment will allow us to move forward with Polish participation in hosting elements of the phased adaptive approach to missile defense in Europe,” Clinton said. “It will help protect the Polish people and all of Europe — our allies and others — from evolving threats like that posed by Iran.”

Despite the initial dismay sparked in Poland by Obama’s decision to scrap the Bush-era missile plans, Sikorski insisted that his nation actually favors the new approach.

“When President Obama announced the new configuration of this sytem, we did say that we liked the new configuration better, but I think you didn’t believe us,” he said. “Now that we have signed the annex, I hope you do believe us.”

Of course, the Polish government would say nearly anything to get some kind of missile shield in place, and have little choice but to accept whatever Obama will offer. The Polish government knows that the rest of the world knows this. So, in a way, I think the comments just quoted should be read to mean, “Obama reneged, and has now come back half-way, and since this is far as he’s going to go, we’re going to make the best of it and not rock the boat.”

As usual, Obama is more interested in placating opponents (which, realistically, Russia has become) than supporting friends.  One wonders what Obama knows about the actual state of the Iran nuclear weapons program and missile delivery systems that he didn’t know when he canceled the missile defense program planned by Bush.  It’s hard to imagine what else would move him to make this half-concession, given that the American press has given him a complete pass on withdrawing from the Bush/Poland agreements to base missile defense there.


Jul 02 2010

Europe’s problem is not merely economic

Category: Uncategorizedharmonicminer @ 12:07 pm

Guy Sorman predicts the End of the European Siesta?

The tragedy of Europe goes far beyond the case of Greece and only appears to be financial. The problem lies deeper: it extends to all member countries, or will eventually. It won’t be enough to put government budgets somewhat in order, to avoid a Greek bankruptcy, or to reassure the creditors of Spain and Portugal. Patching things up financially will not stop a contagion common to all of the European Union’s member countries, since all suffer from the same illness, though many would like to minimize its seriousness. The IMF, the Central European Bank, and the ministries all tell us: this is a financial and technical problem. We know how to proceed; this trouble will pass. We’ll provide a few loans and persuade the Germans to bring down government spending a bit. And then everything will be as before.

What a denial of reality. The truth is that the foundations of the European Union are incompatible with the way European states govern themselves. Let’s be clear: the European Union is based on a free market. It was so conceived in political philosophy and in economics, and the only possible way to govern it is in accordance with such economic freedom. Yet all the national governments, even those of the right, have in fact created gigantic welfare states inspired by socialist ideology.

The fact is that, at the origins of Europe, Jean Monnet, a Cognac entrepreneur with strong American connections, concluded that European governments had never succeeded and would never succeed in making Europe a zone of peace and prosperity. He thus replaced the diplomatic engine with an economic engine: free trade and the spirit of enterprise, he envisioned, would generate “concrete areas of solidarity” that would eliminate war and poverty. Three EU founders, all Christian democrats—Konrad Adenauer, Alcide De Gasperi, and Robert Schuman—ratified Monnet’s free-market intuition. These men shared a common moral and political understanding and a common economic analysis. All were suspicious of the statism then identified, for good historical reasons, with totalitarianism. The Commission of Brussels, and later the Central European Bank, were determined to keep faith with this original spirit of freedom in opposition to constant pressure from national governments to “socialize” Europe. The principle of free trade, which the Commission of Brussels constantly reinforced, roused Europe’s spirit of enterprise against various attempts at protectionism and national monopoly. (Often perceived in the U.S. as just another European super-bureaucracy, the Commission has been a consistent force for deregulation and competition.) The euro, moreover, was created to force states to balance their budgets, just as free-market monetary theory prescribed.

Unfortunately, the national governments thought it possible to reap the economic benefits of a free Europe and the electoral delights of socialism. By “socialism,” I mean the unlimited growth of the welfare state—the accumulation of entitlements and jobs protected by the state. This de facto socialism, this sedimentation of electoral promises and acquired rights, grew in Europe at a much faster rate than did the economy or the population. It could thus only be financed by loans, which seemed risk-free, since the euro appeared “strong.” The euro’s strength drove its holders into a frenzy: suddenly, anything could be bought on credit. The result was a remarkably homogeneous indebtedness in all the countries of Europe, on the order of 100 percent of national wealth—ranging between Germany’s 91 percent and the Greeks’ 133 percent (a relatively modest difference), all reflecting a common socialist drift. Germany, Greece, Spain, and France differ less in their levels of debt or modes of administration, which are in fact quite similar, than in their debtors’ capacities to repay. All European states are run socialist-style, in contradiction with the European Union’s free-market principles. Some will be more able than others to deal with defaults, but all have drifted off course.

How shall we explain this fatal drift? The true cause lies in ideology. Socialism dominates minds across Europe, whereas liberalism—which has retained its original free-market meaning in Europe—is under attack in the academy, in the media, and among intellectuals generally. In Europe, to support the market against the state, to recommend modesty on the part of the state, is taken for an “American” perversion. And socialist ideology is sufficiently engrained that it’s almost impossible for a non-suicidal politician to win election without promising still more public “solidarity” and still less individual risk. These welfare states, through their financial cost and the erosion of ethical responsibility that they foster, have smothered economic growth in Europe. We are the continent of decline, albeit decline with solidarity.

And now Greece’s bill has come due. It won’t be the last of its kind. What is to be done? We might perfectly well refuse to pay it—after all, why should French or German taxpayers of modest means pay taxes evaded by rich Greeks to finance Greek unions and the Greek military? But European finances are deeply interwoven: in reality, the euro owed by a Greek sits in a German or French bank. Whether or not non-Greeks rush to Greece’s aid would therefore change nothing; Europe’s failure will be collective. We thought we were citizens of independent nations, but we are instead a continent’s debtors. If Europeans don’t settle the Greek bill, then those of Portugal, Spain, and Italy will come due in quick succession, since a Greek bankruptcy would impact the euro’s value across the continent.

How can we escape such a tragedy? By buying time, by denying reality, by committing suicide—or by telling the truth. At this historic threshold, it’s hard to tell which of these scenarios will prevail. At the origins of Europe, Jean Monnet told the truth, and statesmen explained it to the various peoples of Europe. Today, it is not the Greek crisis that needs explaining, but the path that led to it. The long-term imperative is not the absorption of Greek or Spanish debt, but putting an end to the European strategy of decline. All things considered, we should thank the Greeks for waking us, however inadvertently, from our European siesta.

Mr. Sorman’s analysis is true as far as it goes, in pointing out the disconnect between the underlying assumptions of national politics (socialism) and the Common Market EURO system (a “free” market).  What he does not address is how the situation came about.

After WWII, Europeans had just suffered through two horrendous wars, of such unprecedented destructiveness as to be without parallel in human history.  The Europeans were shell-shocked, traumatized, terrified, numb and reeling, all at once.  Many had lost their faith in God, and all simply wanted the suffering and uncertainty to be over.  It’s understandable that they simply wanted to be taken care of by their national governments, and candidates who promised more from the government were the ones more likely to be elected.  Movement in the socialist direction was probably inevitable.

Europeans were like children traumatized by evil relatives, who snuck in by stealth and then brutally suppressed the parent’s ability to protect the children.  When the evil relatives had been neutralized, the children clung to the parents (who understandably made promises of future care) instead of soberly assessing the causes of the parent’s inability or unwillingness to protect the children in the first place.  The problem, of course, is that children aren’t really responsible for themselves, and are not particularly wise observers of their own situations.  They are easily fooled by promises, especially if the promises appear to be kept for a time.  They want to believe the best of their parents. 

They are likely to vote for the parent who promises a trip to Disneyland every week.

Make no mistake.  The socialist impulse is to see government as a parent, a benevolent overseer and protector, giver of good things to children. 

In the end, children must grow up.  And parents who overspend, and then perpetrate fraud in order to cover it up, are eventually caught, and may go to jail.  Either way, they won’t be able to keep the promises they made to the children forever.

Europe lost its faith, and Europeans simultaneously seem to have become children demanding limitless and permanent care from their (parental) governments.  Like nihilistic, cynical post-teen-agers who refuse to grow up and take care of themselves, who insist they can do what they want (including limitless sexual freedom divorced from childbearing and personal responsibility, since, after all, there is no God, and no real ground for morality or purpose), and require an “intervention” by those who actually care about them, Europeans are about to be subject to the tough love of the laws of economics and demographics. 

It’s going to be a hard lesson.

In the meantime, we have some pre-adolescents running the show in Washington D.C., who have admired their older cousins in Europe for some time, with their cool attitudes, worldly-wise airs, great parties, and big talk.  They are 12 yr old girls admiring Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan.

It’s not a good influence. 


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