Raheel Raza was born in Pakistan and is a Muslim Canadian journalist,
Raza is the author of Their Jihad, Not My Jihad: A Muslim Canadian Woman Speaks Out.
Raza opposes Islamic terrorism and the oppression of Muslim women by Islamists. As a result, she has received numerous death threats.
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A great many African-Americans of the civil rights era supported strong punishments against the criminals wreaking havoc in their neighborhoods, as ‘The Black Silent Majority’ shows.
At a 1973 bill-signing session, the pistol-packing Reverend Oberia Dempsey of Upper Park Avenue Church in Harlem praised Republican Gov. Nelson Rockefeller for heeding the calls of his community to get rid of drugs. The “Rockefeller drug laws” mandated life imprisonment for drug dealers.
Acknowledging that addicts needed treatment, Dempsey asserted, “We are not going to stand any longer and see decent citizens brutalized or subjected to punishment because someone is out there sick.” He added sarcastically, “And I’m sorry for the bleeding hearts, I’m sorry for all of the people who are over-sympathetic with criminals and under-sympathetic with decent citizens.”
Only one African-American legislator, Sen. Vander Beatty, voted for the legislation, although it fell short of his aim: capital punishment for drug dealers. But Dempsey was joined by the “black silent majority,” working- and middle-class citizens who saw their once-vibrant cultural center terrorized by drug pushers. Two hundred Harlemites took up firearms with Dempsey and patrolled their streets, tracking and reporting drug pushers to the police in “Operation Confiscation” and “Operation Interruption.” They also escorted women to church and to the market.
Such extraordinary stories are told in City University of New York sociologist Michael Javen Fortner’s “Black Silent Majority: The Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Politics of Punishment” (Harvard University Press, 2015). Fortner uses newspaper archives, meeting minutes, polls, surveys, oral histories, interviews, legislative hearing records, and even fiction and drama to piece together a compelling narrative about a community fighting for its life. Except for the occasional lapse into academic jargon (“the ebb of Fordism,” for example), this is fascinating reading. It is changing the conversation about mandatory minimum drug laws.
The book began receiving attention in advance of its release in September, with the Chronicle of Higher Education devoting a long feature article to it in August, which led to an interview later in the month on radio station WIND, in Chicago, then one on WNYC in September.
A first book, it garnered immediate attention from quarters that would make any author envious, including The New York Times, New Yorker, New York Magazine, Daily Beast, and Salon. A couple weeks after its release, Fortner wrote an op-ed for the The New York Times, addressing police shootings of black men that had spurred protests and sometimes riots. In January, he spoke at the Manhattan Institute. The New York Academy of History gave him the award for the best book of 2015.
The pace is continuing, with invited appearances coming up at places as varied as the Miller Center at the University of Virginia and the African American Studies Department at Columbia University. In a recent interview, Fortner told me happily, “My dance card is full.”
Reasons behind the attention include the fact that the book features subject matter that has been univocally promoted in the academy. It pushes against the narrative about the “new Jim Crow,” drug laws that have led to the disproportionate rate of African-American incarceration (six times that of whites). The theory holds that a white backlash against civil rights gains led to such discriminatory laws.
To the contrary, Fortner shows that the “black silent majority” pushed back against “the criminologies of the welfare state espoused by the white middle-class reformers who had monopolized the debate over drug addiction and crime during the 1950s and early 1960s.” The 1973 Rockefeller drug laws repudiated the liberal 1962 Metcalf-Volker Act.
The beleaguered residents of Harlem received little help from the new class of black politicians and activists, overwhelmingly Democrats. A. Philip Randol Manhattan Institute’s Emergency Committee for Unity and Social and Economic Problems featured stars like Percy Sutton, Malcolm X, and Bayard Rustin; they considered drug users casualties of racism and decried police brutality and racial attitudes. The committee formed in 1961 but was short-lived, as members switched their attention to the national civil rights movement, specifically the 1963 March on Washington.
Representatives like Sutton expressed ideas in “white-dominated public spaces” that contradicted pleas they heard from constituents, those who felt that the “‘wounds of centuries’ had been partially treated and partially healed by their industry and probity.” The black community suffered from the loss of labor-intensive work and continued residential segregation and unscrupulous landlords as the 1960s approached; but the silent majority took advantage of the expanded opportunities in entrepreneurship, public sector jobs, white-collar jobs, and political office that came about between 1940 and 1960.
Fortner tells their stories with empathy, if not approval, claiming they were “motivated by fear and advised by indigenous values.” He leaves the reader to agree or disagree with their blaming “the community’s downfall on individual behavior, the self-indulgent, irresponsible actions of the disadvantaged, rather than racial or economic inequality.” He offers no solutions but evidence to peel away layers of ideology. Dispelling the dominant belief that the majority of blacks approved of urban riots, militancy, and black nationalism, he cites poll after poll showing disapproval of such figures as Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael, and approval of the NAACP’s moderate tactics.
He also presents surveys that contradict assumptions about a racist white silent majority. One in 1970 showed that among the 63 percent of respondents who described themselves as the “silent majority” 22 percent thought “Negroes” were treated unfairly, as opposed to only 12 percent who thought it was “working men” or “the lower middle class.” Blacks were twice as likely as whites to be worried about drug use. White Catholics and police officers were more concerned about student protests than black crime. Police found it harder to take the “scions of the upper middle class in the best universities” hurling bricks and bags of feces and denunciations as “pigs” than ghetto inhabitants’ usual crimes.
All this happened before Fortner was born in 1980, but he suffered the consequences. When he was only two years old, one of Fortner’s older brothers was stabbed with an ice pick at a party. Their father, a machinist, cradled his dying son in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. The brother’s name, Dexter, was never spoken again, and when young Michael tried to surprise his mother by taking photographs of Dexter out of the closet and putting them on the walls, they were quietly taken down. (Another of his three brothers is imprisoned.)
Mark Parry visited Fortner’s old Brownsville neighborhood, where Fortner grew up with the “’constant and subtle terror’” of drug dealers loitering in front of his housing project, addicts knocking on the apartment door peddling stolen goods, and gunshots.
Fortner escaped. He received scholarship money to attend boarding school, then earned a PhD from Harvard University. As he explained to me, he set aside the typical project of revising his dissertation (a comparison of racial and class politics in New York and London) into his first book. He turned to the topic that was “calling” him.
He had read Michelle Alexander’s influential “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” (The New Press, 2010) and was vexed by the discounting of “black agency.” Alexander blamed a white backlash, but Fortner wondered, “’Where are the black folks in this story?’”
Parry notes that Fortner’s early research published as articles had already “met resistance from critics who felt he was trying to justify mass incarceration, which he loathes.” Parry’s article, however, featured some of Fortner’s critics. Yale law professor James Forman Jr. praised the book for giving agency to the black community, but said Fortner overstated his claims. University of Michigan history professor Heather Ann Thompson didn’t dispute Fortner’s research, but insisted that he did not adequately capture the nuances.
Rutgers history professor Donna Murch maintained that blacks had little power; she curiously pointed out that the Voting Rights Act did not pass until 1965 (eight years before the passage of the Rockefeller laws). Murch expanded her criticisms of what she called Fortner’s “revisionist project” in the October 16 Boston Review. Fortner replied in an article of nearly equal length, offering his definitive response.
Fortner told me Chronicle and New York Times reporters sought out professors who “hold and protect racial arguments most fiercely” and are most devoted to a “radical vision of mass incarceration.” As a result, they are closed to “alternative interpretations and unintended consequences, unexpected things.” Some feared what they believed to be his politics—as a “right-wing black conservative.”
This made it difficult for them to see the nuances in the book, including points about what Fortner calls “white liberal privilege.” Such privilege allows liberals “to evade all the problems of street crime, of heroin addiction. . . .” He told me, “I don’t necessarily applaud what the people in the book do but I try to tell their story. For me their story is about dealing with one of the most difficult challenges one could face and not having options. It’s important to understand where the politics are coming from, to understand the anger and the pain.”
Fortner says the positive response has far outweighed the negative. Jason Riley, writing in City Journal, called the book “urgent and extraordinary.” Kudos also comes from liberal quarters. As Fortner notes, Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson praised it in print and in talks. Johns Hopkins political scientist Lester Spence listed Fortner’s book in his top five shortlist of 2015 books, alongside Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “Between the World and Me,” Marlon James’ “A Brief History of Seven Killings,” a collection of “science fiction stories from social justice movements” titled “Octavia’s Brood,” and Jabari Asim’s “Only the Strong.” Columbia University professor John McWhorter called it “the most important black book of 2015” on bloggingheads tv’s “Glenn Show.” It made the editor’s choice in the New York Times Book Review.
Such bipartisan appreciation is a positive sign. Let’s hope that this points to a turnaround in scholarship, an openness to the “unexpected consequences” that evidence brings. I am looking forward to reading Fortner’s next book, about the crack epidemic of the 1980s.
EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in The Federalist. The featured photo is from the Library of Congress.
It appears that Democrats in general and Hillary Clinton in particular are suffering from Post Traumatic Trump Syndrome or PTTS (pronounced Pitts). The featured image is a composite of photos taken of Hillary’s face every-time the name Trump is mentioned.
After Donald Trump’s landslide victory in Indiana the Democratic National Committee sent out an email to its members. The email warned of the consequences of a Trump presidency. The DNC noted:
Donald Trump — and all of the backwards, offensive, outrageous ideas that come with him — is the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee. We need to make sure he is not elected the next President of the United States this November.
Should Donald Trump be elected America will be fundamentally transformed back to being great again. This undermines all the work President Obama has done these past eight years.
Illegal aliens will no longer be allowed to vote the Democratic ticket. Members of the Islamic State will no longer be able to migrate to San Bernardino, California.
Poor Americans will have to go to work to earn a living. Insurance, cell phones, food, liquor, drugs and sex will no longer be subsidized.
We can’t allow this to happen. President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Senator Harry Reid and Congressperson Nancy Pelosi have asked that you contribute $3 to help us #StopTrump.
Several notable figures have vowed to migrate to Canada should Trump become president. Among the notables are Whoopi Goldberg, Al Sharpton, Rosie O’Donnell, Cher Bono, Miley Cyrus and John Stewart. Refinery29’s Jess Kwong reports:
It seems the real victor in the 2016 primaries thus far is neither Donald nor Hillary, Ted nor Bernie—it’s Canada. Google reported that on Super Tuesday, searches for “how can I move to Canada” spiked by over 350%, increasing dramatically later that night and marking the biggest surge in interest since George W. Bush’s re-election in 2004. Visitors to Canada’s immigration website were even greeted with a banner warning about site delays, prompting officials to assure one New York Times reporter that the delays were not due to Super Tuesday traffic.
Canada may be the perfect place for those who wish to migrate from the U.S. Canada has a socialist Prime Minister, importing guns is restricted, Canada has universal healthcare and Canada is known as “Hollywood North.” Great news for these Trumpigrants.
Rosie O’Donnell in a Tweet to @RealDonaldTrump wrote, “At least in Canada they respect women who are fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals. Canada is a mosaic of those like me.”
Whoopi Goldberg added, “Trump is what’s wrong with America. He’s white, rich, has a trophy wife and loves America. Anyone of these would disqualify him from running for office in Canada. I’m headed North where my blacka_s matters.”
The Reverend Al Sharpton in a short press release stated, “Canada is the place for me. I cannot live in a country that would elect Donald Trump for president. Trump, if elected would be the first white billionaire to displace a black family occupying public housing. I hope Michelle and Barack join me in migrating to Canada. They need our help to fundamentally transform it into Chicago.”
Members of Canada’s Defense League noted that, “We have enough problems of our own without these Hollywood deadbeats coming here. We already have our hands full with the Muslims trying to fundamentally transform our country. We certainly don’t need more help from Trumpigrants.”
The Donald Trump campaign lamented that some are thinking of going to Canada stating, “If Rosie O’Donnell leaves the U.S. who are we going to pick? Wait, we have Hillary, never mind.”
After Donald Trump’s victory in Indiana the media, Democrats and some Republicans are crying in their beer.
Now is the time for the GOP to play its Trump card.
Trump Indiana victory speech:
If the goal of the GOP is to take back the White House and keep a majority in both houses of Congress, the game is in their hands. The goal is to win! Trump has energized the American voters. His campaign is now an insurgency. The GOP cannot fear the insurgents, rather they must embrace them.
The insurgents are the American people.
Politicians no longer control the bully pulpit. The American people do. That is how the Republican Party has been fundamentally transformed over the past nine months. It is a new Republican Party, one with a broad base of support. One that is energized. One that is ready for change to bring back the hope of making America great again.
Trump won with his simple message – Americans first!
The GOP will be facing Hillary Clinton, a candidate that is flawed, the consummate politician and beholding to special interests. Trump is the exact opposite. He has never run for public office until now and for the highest seat in the land. He is not a politician and because he is self-funding, is beholding to none other than the American people.
This has been described as the “election of the century.” In reality it is a “battle royal between the individualist and the collectivist.”
Ayn Rand wrote a short nineteen page paper asking: What is the basic issue facing the world today? Rand, in her paper makes the case that, “The basic issue in the world today is between two principles: Individualism and Collectivism.” Rand defines these two principles as follows:
It appears the ideal of collectivism is alive and well. Collectivism is what drives the followers of Marx, Mao and Mohammed. The new Collectivists are now in power. Obama has fundamentally transformed the Democratic Party. But this malaise can and must be reversed.
Ayn Rand wrote:
“The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other – until one day when they are suddenly declared to be the country’s official ideology.”
Donald Trump is contesting the absurdities that Americans have had to deal with for over one-hundred years. Trump is not politically correct, and the people love him for it. Trump hates the absurd. The greatest absurdity being that government is smarter than the individual.
That is the battle, that is the war, that is the conflict.
This war must be won at all cost. To do otherwise is to doom our children and grandchildren to a life of slavery under a tyrannical government.
I had planned to do a piece on why I (and countless other staunch Conservatives) support Donald Trump, but then I heard Heidi Cruz talk about her husband, saying, “Ted is an immigrant. He is Hispanic.” and I had to weigh in. Hearing her tout this immediately brought to mind Michelle Obama’s betrayal of her own husband’s apparent birth place when she proudly offered, while speaking to the LGBT Delegate, The World as it Should Be, “Barack has led by example. When we took our trip to Africa, and visited his ‘home country’ in Kenya, we took a public HIV test.”
The latter, of course, was confirmed by Obama’s publicist, Dystel & Goderich, in official brochures in both 2003 and 2007, which noted that “He was born in Kenya to an American anthropologist and a Kenyan finance minister, and was raised in Indonesia, Hawaii and Chicago.”
This was only further corroboration of the fact that virtually the entire African continent claimed the then-new U.S. President as its own native son…but I digress!
Referring once more to Heidi Cruz’s offering, spokeswoman Catherine Frazier later explained: “As she has in numerous speeches over and over, Heidi was referring to Ted as being the son of an immigrant.” Fair enough. “Jane, Joan, whatever!” – for those who remember the 1995 Bud Light commercial (well worth watching again!).
Some years back I heard Ayn Rand Institute President, Yaron Brook, speak at the Tea Party Annual Conference, held in Phoenix, AZ. He said something that should resonate with ever Constitutional Conservative, when he pointed out that, “Before Congress ever considers taking up any law, the members should ask themselves one question: Do we, under the Constitution, have the authority to consider this?”
While that is a paraphrase from memory, the rationale for asking such a question is undeniable. With respect to a Presidential Candidate, I’d suggest that we ask a similar question, before asking anything else: Is he or she eligible, under the Constitution, to hold this high office? I suggest that the rationale for asking this question is also undeniable.
The Left (and now, apparently, many on the Right) prove the overriding significance of the stiffer requirements for becoming Commander in Chief, by referring to Article II, Section 1, Paragraph 5, as the “stupidest,” or “worst” provision in the Constitution,” etc., etc.
In his 1995 article, found in the University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy, Professor Robert Post, Dean of the Yale Law School (not Harvard, but close) transparently reveals the following: “Without doubt Joseph Story correctly identified the purpose of this prohibition as cutting ‘off all chances for ambitious foreigners, who might otherwise be intriguing for the office.’ ” (That is taken from Joseph Story’s celebrated, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, page 541.)
So, while Dean/Professor Post seeks to dismiss this as the “Constitution’s Worst Provision,” he helpfully, at least, points out its precise and, frankly, self-evident purpose; something only mentioned by the clause’s current detractors (mostly on the “Right” these days) in a derogatory fashion, as does the good professor here. In other words, these constitutional “scholars” never mention the clause’s obvious and critical purpose – to prevent a person with potentially-divided (“foreign”) loyalties from becoming “the Command in chief of the american army” (in the words of John Jay) – except to deride it.
As a particularly relevant aside, I will note that the current occupant of the Oval Office – who has, for the most part succeeded in “fundamentally transforming” the once-greatest nation on earth, mocking and destroying its spiritual foundations, wrecking its economy, trampling on its Constitution/laws, and decimating its military – would have been the very poster child for the type of man the framers were seeking to preclude from ever becoming our Commander in Chief…in spite of his great “love” for America. As a further aside, if Mitt (short for Mittens?) Romney had ever had the courage to lash out at Michelle’s Barack in that manner, he may well have been the nation’s 45th President, rather than the man he has recently excoriated…a little too much, but also too late!
So let’s end this by answering the question: Is Heidi’s Ted eligible to hold the highest office in the land? While it seems that a preponderance of courageous “Conservatives” have taken up the pen to pronounce Mr. Cruz’s eligibility “settled science,” we can dismiss this assertion by answering a single question: If the higher constitutional bar of “natural born citizen,” set exclusively for the President and Commander in Chief [Senators and Congressmen need only be “citizens”], can be met by one born of not two, but only one U.S. citizen parent, in a foreign land, outside of our national boundaries, then what could possibly be the lower citizenship bar included in the Constitution?
Well, that is simple. The only possible lower bar would be for one to be born outside of the United States to no U.S. citizen parent. That, of course, can be done, via the process of naturalization…but there were yet no “naturalized” citizens at the time of the writing or the adoption of the Constitution, and yet the Constitution itself recognizes two other distinct types of citizens in its language (including that of Article II, Section 1, Paragraph 5): normal, if you will, “citizens,” and “natural born citizens.”
Clearly one born abroad of only a single U.S. citizen parent would not qualify as the clearly more exclusive class of “natural-born citizens.” So that is essentially all a reasonable person needs to know about the “settled science” of this critical issue…and if the constitutional eligibility of the Commander in Chief of the United States military is not an important issue, or matter of grave concern, I can’t honestly imagine what would be!
RELATED VIDEO: Michelle Obama states that her husband Barack’s home country is Kenya – full statement:
EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in Western Journalism. The featured image is of Heidi Cruz and Michelle Obama.
To learn more about this critical issue, please read the author’s most recent book, Trump vs. The Political/Media Establishment: The Establishment vs. The Rule of Law. Author T. M. Ballantyne Jr. has written a half-dozen previous books, including Oh Really, O’Reilly! and Uncommon Sense…Apparently! – also available on Amazon.
“If you wish to know how civilized a culture is, look at how they treat its women.” Bacha Khan
Treatment of Women Under Islamic Sharia Law
If feminism means: “The advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men, and is the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities”, why have national feminist organizations in Canada not condemned oppression and atrocities against women living under Islamic Sharia Law?
There has been intensive research and many articles and interviews containing testimonial evidence that women in societies and countries governed by Islamic Sharia Law — a medieval and barbaric legal framework incompatible with modern values and basic human rights – have limited rights and freedoms compared to women in the West.
In countries and societies ruled by Islamic Sharia Law, women essentially have no rights and no equality. Under Sharia Law women have fewer inheritance rights compared to men and lesser status as witnesses. Women in Islamic countries ruled under Sharia Law are subject to harsh penalties for violation of modesty laws and have no choice but follow the modesty laws such as ‘dress modesty’. In Iran modesty law and activities of country’s modesty police has been handed over to Iran’s current president, Hassan Rouhani’s Ministry of the Interior. Failure to comply with modesty laws has been subject to extreme violence from modesty police in countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Sudan.
These violations frequently result in state-sponsored violence against women (even death) in Islamic countries. As well, female foreigners travelling to Islamic countries governed by Sharia Law are advised to dress modestly (wearing the hijab, head cover and Islamic garment) and not travel unaccompanied by a man.
A prime example of such embedded inequality is exemplified in marital relations: a man is entitled to have up to four wives. A husband, in divorcing one of his wives, need only make a declaration in front of an Islamic judge without the woman’s consent or even the requirement of her presence. However, if a woman wishes to divorce her husband, his consent is required. Men are allowed to have “temporary” marriages, a form of legal Islamic prostitution where it can even last less than half an hour – a situation allowed by some religious scholars. Temporary marriage is also known as a “pleasure marriage,” called Mutah which was established within Islam by the Muslim prophet Mohammed himself as a way to reward his jihadists for services rendered to Allah. A report by the Gatestone Institute. reveals such occurrences even in the United Kingdom. A minimum marriage age for girls set as young as 12 or 13 is not uncommon in Muslim-majority countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Yemen, to name a few. In Yemen and Afghanistan there are cases where eight-year-old girls died of internal injuries suffered on their wedding night. According to a report by Al Jazeera, “Nearly 14 percent of Yemeni girls married before the age of 15 and 52 percent before the age of 18.”
In Iran, under Sharia Law women are denigrated as second class citizens. Sex outside of the marriage is at times punished by the brutal practice of stoning to death. From the inception of the Islamic republic of Iran in 1979, the women of Iran resisted the Islamic Regime’s introduction of Sharia Law. Iranian women have been demanding changes to the laws that set the legal age of maturity for girls at 13 years old and 15 years old for boys. This means that 13-year-old girls can be married to men decades their senior, with merely the consent of her male guardian, as provided by Article 1041 of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Civil Code.
The Islamic Republic of Iran’s laws limit a girl to receiving only half the inheritance a boy receives. The inheritance that a wife receives from her husband is even less than half. Such laws cannot be condoned by women who, by official counts, occupy 70% of the university seats in Iran.
One case I would like to highlight in order to emphasize the travesty of inequality for women under Sharia is that of Reyhaneh Jabbari. The University student and interior designer, was found guilty of murder in 2009 for killing her rapist in self-defence, and sentenced to death by hanging. She was executed at age 27 after eight years of imprisonment and torture to obtain a confession.
After meeting Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi, a member of the Iranian Intelligence Service, while having coffee one day, her whole life changed forever. Overhearing her phone conversation about her work, he convinced her to meet with him for advice on renovating his office. When he picked her up for their scheduled appointment he instead took her to a rundown house, brought her inside and locked the door telling her she could not escape, then attempted to give her a drink with sedatives so he could rape her. After a struggle she stabbed his shoulder and managed to escape. Regardless of an international outcry and a petition of over 200,000 signatures, proper testimony, evidence, and confession by authorities privately to Reyhaneh that Morteza’s murder was actually set up by them for political reasons, Reyhaneh became their scapegoat, was convicted of the murder by stabbing, and received her sentence.
I was one of four campaigners to stop Reyhaneh’s execution which had been brought to our attention by her family. Our group launched a petition and collected more than 200,000 signatures. We gave media interviews, organized worldwide events and through our campaign, the international community had supported our campaign and tried to pressure the Iranian officials to stop her execution. Unfortunately, the barbaric and undemocratic practices of Sharia Law under the Islamic constitution in Iran allowed this unjust action by the Iran regime. Reyhaneh Jabbari was executed October 25, 2014.
Aside from the notorious executions of Iranian political dissidents, sexual violence is also routinely committed by the Islamic regime in Iran: Rape and gang rape by prison guards and interrogators is a common practice in the Islamic regime’s prisons. In Iranian prisons, it is common for young girls and virgins to be raped, even, as a final indignity, right before being executed. A disturbing finding of a U.N. Report of the Economic and Social Council was that virgin women condemned to death were forcibly and temporary married to officials on the eve of their execution. This continues to be a horrible reality that many women live with every single day in the prisons of Iran.
Officials would rape these women so that they would not be virgins when they die. There is a sinister and malign religious dogma behind this practice: According to the Iranian regime’s Islamic belief system, a Muslim woman who dies a virgin goes to heaven and therefore, they do not permit female political dissidents to be killed without first getting raped and losing their virginity to Iranian officials prior to their execution, to prevent their receiving a heavenly reward.
Iranian Ayatollah Mesbah has declared that if a woman is sentenced to be executed, “raping her would be as rewarding as going to Mecca on the Hajj-Islamic Pilgrimage.” However, he noted that even if she was not given a death penalty, “raping her will be as rewarding as going on a Karbala pilgrimage.” No doubt this Ayatollah is a theocratic savage.
Iranian women have suffered much due to Sharia Law: A 16-year-old girl was hanged for having had sexual relations with a 50-year-old married taxi driver. Under Islamic law in Iran, the cheating husband would be executed by the reprehensible act of stoning; however, he was not punished. Yet, 16-year-old Atefeh Sahaaleh was executed.
Closer to home, according to American gynaecologists Kavita Shah Arora and Allan Jacob, female genital mutilation should be legal in its mildest forms. They say “procedures that slightly changed the look of a girl’s genitalia without damaging them were comparable to male circumcision or cosmetic procedures in Western countries like labiaplasty.” The two American gynaecologists have stated that countries which have banned female genital mutilation (FGM) should allow less invasive practices such as small surgical nicks to girls’ genitalia as a compromise. CBC Canada This proposal was strongly criticized by activists against FGM where they stated that it would undermine global efforts to eradicate the internationally condemned barbaric practice.
According to a report published by CIJ News, “Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips, a Canadian and Toronto-based Muslim scholar clarifies the Islamic Law regarding the popular practice in Muslim countries of circumcising the girls. Bilal Philips asserts that Islam prohibits female genital mutilation, but permits female circumcision, which is a “slight” cut that does not affect the ability of women to achieve sexual satisfaction.”
At least 200 million girls and women have been subjected to FGM in over 30 countries, according to U.N. estimates. (For reference, please see the slide show and the Petition concerning FGM in Somalia.)
In Iran, women have resisted for 37 years these very Sharia Laws that are now being incorporated in the West in the name of ‘multiculturalism.’
Activism Against Sharia Law
A few Muslim Feminists have different opinions about the interpretations of Sharia law oppressing women and argue that it has no basis in Islam and basically consists of man-made interpretations of the Qur’anic texts. “I argue that Muslim family laws are the products of sociocultural assumptions and juristic reasoning about the nature of relations between men and women. In other words, they are ‘man-made’ juristic constructs, shaped by the social, cultural and political conditions within which Islam’s sacred texts are understood and turned into law.”
One Muslim imam who is defending violence against women in the name of Islamic law states that laws protecting women from violence are un-Islamic.
Maryam Namazie, an outstanding Iranian Feminist from the UK who is an outspoken activist against Sharia law said in a recent speech: “For me, ‘Islamic feminism’ is an oxymoron like ‘Islamic human rights;’ they are antithetical to each other. If there are better laws for women in some countries where Islam plays a role, it is not because of Islam but because of secular movements calling for the separation of religion from the state and its laws. Why must Maryam Namazie take on the left in her critiques of Islamic extremism?” In an interview podcasted by Feminist Current, “Namaze who is an atheist, a leftist, a feminist, a critic of Islamic extremism, and co-founder of the British Council of Ex-Muslims is routinely attacked and disallowed a platform — not only by Islamic groups, but by feminists and leftists, who call her Islamophobic.” Is there an explanation for why feminists and leftists take this stance?
‘Women on The Front Line’ is a documentary film written and produced by Sheema Kalbasi, an award-winning eminent Iranian-American filmmaker and poet. This documentary, about life under Sharia Law, unveils injustice and focuses on women fighting for equality and freedom in Iran.
Iranian Canadian Homa Arjmand has experienced life under Law in Iran where she was arrested and many of her friends either arrested or executed under Islamic law in Iran. “In 1989 Homa, her husband and their two small children escaped by a grueling trip on horseback through the mountains. Today, she lives in a suburb northeast of Toronto. Her job is helping immigrant Muslim women in distress. And now she is battling the arrival of Sharia Law in Canada.”
In an interview given to Jerusalem Online, Iranian-Canadians Dr. Sima Goel, author of Fleeing the Hijab, Dr. Avideh Motmaen-Far and I explained the plight of Iranian women after Rouhani’s presidency under Islamic law and Iran’s discriminatory laws against women under Islamic Penal Code where woman’s testimony in court is half that of a man’s and a woman’s life is half that of a man’s. I was imprisoned as a teenager in Iran’s most notorious Evin prison and paid the price for not accepting the Sharia Law which enforced by the Khomeinist regime.
I was in my early teens when Khomeini came into power. Overnight, all women, including elementary school girls, were forced to cover their bodies from head to toe and were ordered to only wear dark colors.
We were no longer allowed to attend school with the opposite sex. Our once- praised school curriculum was now replaced by Arabic and Islamic studies, including the Quran, which most of us simply loathed. It was at this time that I had an awakening and started my activism. I was robbed of my teen years by a radical regime that sought to force its values on the masses by devastating force. My childhood memories were replaced by a reality created by a regime where women were now treated as second class citizens, and even the most mundane detail of our lives was strictly controlled by the regime’s Revolutionary Guards Forces and morality police.
Like most teenagers in high school, I spoke my mind about the changes that were happening in my country. In a modern society, teenagers attend school, openly spend time with friends, listen to their favorite music and do all the things that teenagers do. I was arrested by five very large, heavy-set guards. I remember distinctly four vehicles that came to our house to take me away, a 16 year-old girl who barely weighed 90 pounds. The terror I experienced may be unfathomable to the Western imagination, but this was to be my reality for the next 18 months.
In my young mind full of trust, I did not think that a simple conversation — having an opinion and simply expressing it — would put my life in danger. As a teenager, I never considered the possibility of being tortured and that I would be reminded of this torture every time I would look in the mirror and see the scar on my face, a result of being beaten with a very heavy piece of iron while being interrogated. As a teenager, I did not consider that my life would be forever changed.
The United Nations supports equal rights for women and in November 2011 adopted a new campaign aimed at ending violence against women. The UN Declaration of Human Rights includes equal rights for women and calls on Islamic countries to follow these regulations. But the Muslim Brotherhood issued a statement in March 2013 condemning this UN declaration for violating Islamic Sharia Law principles.
In The Name Of ‘Multiculturalism’
The West, instead of fighting against Shariah Law, standing in solidarity with the victims of Islamist oppression and enabling the integration of Muslims into the West, is actually defending misogyny in the name of standing up for the perceived underdog: Even the possibility that Sharia Law could supplant or become part of a two-tiered legal system is a strong indicator that multiculturalism is a huge failure.
It is very important to remember that the entire foundation of multiculturalism was based on the theory that, if we allowed immigrants to keep their culture, (multiculturalism) would end after their generation: their children would obviously want to be Western and would neatly adopt our societal norms. We didn’t count on radical or fundamentalist Islam and closed or isolated Islamic communities that intentionally separate themselves from the rest of society in order to preserve and grow their culture.
Eliminating this type of injustice will only happen if we exert inescapable pressure on local, national, and international governments and organizations. Rights and freedoms are never given, they are taken. Although these rights are inherent, they are not freely honoured, and so strife and relentless effort is the only way to emerge victorious from the ashes of defeat. With the love, dedication and help of people—not men, not women, but human beings—gender equality will be the prevalent principle by which all humanity will abide.
Over the years the mandates of women’s organizations have changed. They started in the 1920s fighting for basic rights in a male-dominated society and in the 1970s fighting for equal rights in the workplace. More recently, with the change of focus from the advancement of women – to networking and supportive fellowship – there seems to have arisen a false sense of security that our right to equality is now static and no longer fragile.
Mass immigration from countries with political and social regimes that increasingly subjugate women creates a highly-visible minority community of women whose understanding of their role is very different than our own North American and western standard. With little to no feminist activity for nearly two generations, our women’s organizations are ill-equipped to stand up for our own culture, to insist on integration and egalitarianism, and speak out against Sharia Law. Instead, they have been groomed to support and nurture the perceived underdog, not realizing that the underdog is now actually us.
Most women’s organizations do not support Sharia Law, and are placing their faith in our government to ensure that it doesn’t pass into fruition by political action or by political stealth. Without a strong feminist backbone or experience strategizing unified messages of assertion, they are extremely uncomfortable speaking out against the political culture of this wave of women, and instead default to being “nice”, “accommodating”, and aligning themselves with the perceived “misunderstood” newcomers. As the newcomers praise them for their understanding and kindness, the women’s organizations feel that they are being “diverse”, “open minded” and “helpful”. They don’t have the capacity to see the big picture, so they focus on the one being shown to them instead.
To defenders of human rights, such as myself, it never occurred that radical or fundamental Islam whose ethics are anathema to ours, would be welcomed by a Canadian government. We have been brainwashed by the concept of “diversity’ and “political correctness” to the point that we can’t find a women’s organization to stand up and take a hard line of Sharia. They’re not used to it. Rather they are used to bending over backwards to accommodate minority groups.
According to a petition written by the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action (FAFIA), Canada was reviewed by the United Nations Human Rights Committee in July 2015. The Committee was assessing Canada’s compliance with its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. “The Human Rights Committee has highlighted violations of Women’s Covenant- protected human rights that may result from state-imposed regulations on the clothing women wear in public. It specifically includes among the rights endangered by such regulations, a woman’s rights to freedom of religion, to manifest in public her religious beliefs, and to be considered equal before courts and tribunals.” In their petition FAFIA protests attacks on the rights of Muslim women and states: “Feminists understand well that patriarchy demands or encourages women, depending on differing religions or cultures, to either cover or uncover our bodies, or parts of our bodies. We do not all agree about the implications for equality of covering or uncovering. But we women need to control our own bodies, including what we wear, rather than being dictated to by political leaders, and being punished by losing access to our human rights.”
National Canadian front feminist organizations do little to prevent violence caused by Shari’a Law. Take the Ottawa Hijab Day, World Hijab Day, where such “Feminist” organizations encourage non-Muslims to try on the Islamic covering, almost promoting it. Then there is the attempt to make the hijab a fashion statement by designers and having hijab-wearing dolls for young girls.
Muslim Canadian author, Suhail Kapoor in his book, Balancing Life and Beyond, advocates that within the tenets of Islam, it is permissible to “lightly” strike your spouse if she exhibits serious moral misconduct. In a chapter entitled “Does Islam Allow Wife Beating?” Kapoor outlines the circumstances under which it is appropriate for a man to punish his wife using “light” slaps on the wrist with a small wooden stick.” In a statement to QMI Agency (March 12, 2013) Suhail Kapoor said the permission to reprint his book was granted by the Ottawa-Centre MPP, Yasir Naqvi’s office. (MPP Naqvi is a Pakistani born Canadian and the Ontario Liberal Government House Leader. Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services.)
The UN, the world’s most powerful human rights defender NGO, is affiliated with the dictatorships and human rights basket cases in its leadership roles and positions that entail responsibilities diametrically opposed to their qualifications. The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is also an adviser or affiliated with many of these commissions. Their view of Human Rights is based on Sharia Law and of course it’s not the same as our understanding of Human Rights and Gender Equality. 28
As a defender and advocate for human rights, I strongly condemn Islamic Sharia Law which is opposed to democracy, having the ultimate purpose to destroy liberty and dominate the world.
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References
Once again, two nights ago, liberal hypocrisy was on full display at the White House Correspondents’ Association’s (WHCA) annual dinner. The dinner was begun in the early 1920s and usually the incumbent president and vice president of the United States attend. It is supposed to be a time of merriment and humor; but over time, it has become more and more of a liberal lovefest for the journalistic community in Washington, D.C.
Members of this group brag about their supposed storied history, but as is habit with liberal journalists, they only tell you what they want you to know. The first thing one should do is take special note of is the first word in its name. I rest my case.
What’s not included in their own historical narrative is the fact that they didn’t allow women to join until 1962. WHCA leaders were forced to change that policy figuratively at gunpoint.
In 1962, iconic journalist, Helen Thomas urged President Kennedy not to attend the dinner unless the WHCA changed their policy on female membership in the organization. They agreed and Kennedy attended the event.
The other thing the WHCA won’t tell you is that in their more than one century of existence, they have never had a Black journalist to head the group and have only had one Black on their board (April Ryan, White House correspondent and Washington bureau chief for American Urban Radio Networks).
In recent years, WHCA has begun to hire noted comedians to provide the entertainment for their dinner. They have hired comedians like Sinbad, Jay Leno, Jon Stewart, and Al Franken, to name a few.
For this year’s dinner, they hired comedian Larry Wilmore (who is Black), the host of “The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore” on Comedy Central.
Wilmore was an unmitigated disaster. But what was even more disastrous than Wilmore’s performance was the deafening silence from liberals to his act.
You can view his unedited performance on C-SPAN’s website. His ending was what got everyone’s attention and not in a good way.
Speaking directly to President Barack Obama, Wilmore said,
“But behind that joke is the humble appreciation for the historical implications for what your presidency means. When I was a kid, I lived in a country where people couldn’t accept a Black quarterback. Now think about that. A Black man was thought by his mere color not good enough to lead a football team. And now to live in your time, Mr. President, when a Black man can lead the entire free world. Words alone do me no justice. So, Mr. President, if I’m going to keep it 100, Yo, Barry, you did it, my nigga!”
Obama grinned from ear to ear and gave Wilmore a bear hug.
If a White comedian, especially a conservative one, had called the first Black president “my nigga” he would have been immediately excoriated and rightfully so.
When Trump questioned Obama’s birth certificate, the media gave the issue wall to wall coverage. The Democratic National Committee (DNC), the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), the National Association of Colored People (NAACP), the Urban League, Al Sharpton, Joy Reed, Melissa Perry, etc. all demanded every Republican official to immediately “repudiate” Trump; and if they didn’t, these liberal groups and individuals implied that these Republicans somehow agreed with Trump’s position.
I find it totally hypocritical now that these same liberal groups and individuals have all come down with a severe case of laryngitis.
As of this printing, the WHCA has not issued so much as an apology to the president or the American people for the total and incomprehensible disrespect Wilmore showed towards our first elected Black president.
What have we, in the Black community done, to create an environment where a person, let alone a Black person, feels comfortable calling the president of the United States “my nigga?”
If we can’t condemn a Black for using this insidious word, how can we justify criticizing others for doing the same thing?
How can we criticize Jennifer Lopez or the Quentin Tarantino, the director of the cult classic “Pulp Fiction” and “Django Unchained” for using it? How can we criticize former West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd for using it on the senate floor or during an interview with “60 Minutes?”
Instead of Obama nervously laughing at Wilmore’s description of him, he should have immediately taken to the microphone and denounced Wilmore on the spot.
So, to all my liberal media friends, especially the Black ones, the next time Trump makes a statement you disagree with, I don’t want to hear your moralizing lectures about racism and civility.
The next time a Republican official makes a stupid, racially-charged comment about Obama (and they will), I hope those same liberal members of the media will also get a sudden case of laryngitis like you did over the Wilmore foolishness.
I know why Republicans are silent on this issue—they have absolutely no credibility within the Black community. But liberals “claim” to love Black folks, but yet they can’t muster enough courage to take a principled stand and denounce Wilmore’s performance.
What a shame this moment has found them totally unprepared for the moment that could have been their finest hour (Jackson out, **drops mic**).
The following is an excerpt from a speech given by Ze’ev Jabotinsky in Warsaw, Poland on Tisha B’Av in 1937. [Two years before the Nazis invaded Poland.]
“… it is already three years that I am calling upon you, Polish Jewry, who are the crown of world Jewry. I continue to warn you incessantly that a catastrophe is coming closer. I became gray and old in these years, my heart bleeds, that you, dear brothers and sisters, do not see the volcano which will soon begin to spit it’s all consuming lava. I know that you are not seeing this because you are immersed in your daily worries. Today, however, I demand your trust. You were convinced already that my prognoses have already proven to be right. If you think differently then drive me out from your midst.
“However, if you do believe me, then listen to me in this 11th hour: In the name of G-d, Let anyone of you save himself as long as there is still time. And time there is very little.
“… and what else I would like to say to you in this day on Tisha B’Av: whoever of you will escape from the catastrophe, he or she will live to see the exalted moment of a great Jewish wedding: the rebirth and the rise of a Jewish state. I don’t know if I will be privileged to see it; my son will. I believe in this as I am sure that tomorrow morning the sun will rise.”
It was Jabotinsky’s last Tisha B’Av Message to his largest and most loyal constituency. In a short time both he and they would be gone. Two years later World War Two started in which Six Million European Jewish men, women and children were murdered in Hitler’s Final Solution. The world said ‘never again’.
This weekend we viewed at a local art theater Son of Saul a powerful and impactful film. It is a Hungarian production that won an Academy Award for the Best Foreign Film this year. The film is set against the background of the October 7, 1944 Sonderkommando revolt about the heart rending search by a Sonderkommano to find a Rabbi to say Kaddish over a teen age boy who briefly survived the gassing at Crematoria IV in Auschwitz Birkenau. Seated next to me were fellow B’nai Israel synagogue members, two local doctors, their daughter and the grandmother, a Polish Jewish survivor. After the viewing of Son of Saul, we held a brief conversation about the grandmother’s experience. She was all of 11 when her town in Poland was overwhelmed and set ablaze by the invading German Army in September 1939. She and her family fled to a small community where they ended up in a Ghetto. She was liberated by the Russians in 1945 and later evacuated with her sister to a DP camp in Germany where she met her late husband. During the Shoah, her husband, a Polish Jew, as a teenager, fled to the woods to fight with the partisans until his capture by the Germans who incarcerated him in one of the camps. Her late husband said that holocaust film treatments like Schindler’s List barely scratched the surface of what really happened to Jews during the Shoah.
Fast forward to Shoah Commemorations in 2016.
Jews in Paris, Toulouse, Brussels and Copenhagen have been murdered by Muslim émigrés, Al Qaeda and Islamic State returning veterans. Israeli and European Jews were among those targeted and injured in the March 2016 Brussels Airport attack. Jewish synagogues throughout Europe have been the subject of fire bombings, anti-Semitic graffiti defacing synagogues and members attacked by rioters. Today it is common for synagogues throughout Europe to be protected by machine gun toting security police or military. Observant Jewish men and youths are fearful of wearing kippots in public. Young girls cover their Mogen David star necklaces. The insurgent far right Alternative for Germany political party has proposed banning Jewish humane ritual slaughter of animals and circumcision for male babies.
Many of 2.5 million European Jews see no future there for themselves and their children.
Surveys of Jewish Communities in France, Britain and Germany attest to the fear of Islamic terrorism and uncertainty of continued protection by national governments of their homes, synagogues and communities:
40 percent of respondents in a poll of European Jewish leaders published in March 2016 by the International Center for Community Development of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee said that anti-Semitism poses a serious threat to the future of Jewish life in their countries.
Estimates drawn from several EU Surveys indicate that 150 million of the 400 million EU population harbor anti-Israel and anti-Semitic views.
Most troubling EU and Belgian Surveys indicate that Muslims are 8 times more likely than non-Muslims to espouse Anti-Semitism.
Europe’s 44 million Muslim population in 2010 is estimated to grow to more than 58 million by 2030. Perhaps more given the influx of over a million Muslim refugees in 2014 and 2015, alone.
The Muslim population in European countries with major Jewish communities is already significant:
Muslim population in major European cities far exceeds national representation.
Here’s what European Jewish Congress President, Dr. Moshe Kantor said:
If hundreds of thousands of Jews leave the European Union, which is becoming a very strong possibility, then it will be judged a failure.
Over the past few years, tens of thousands of Jews have left Europe to seek a safer home elsewhere, and today, one-third of Europe’s nearly 2.5 million Jews are considering emigration. Whole areas of Europe are being emptied of Jews.
Franz Timmermans, EU vice president said:
In the last couple of years we have seen this age-old monster come up again in Europe, which is anti-Semitism. We Europeans, whenever we are in trouble, when there is a crisis, we look for people to blame and throughout the ages Jews have been on the receiving end.
What does this mean for American Jews?
EDITORS NOTE: Readers may listen to Mr. Gordon’s speech at the March of Remembrance in Pensacola, May 1, 2016 by clicking here.
For those who fought and served honorably during the Vietnam War there is a still a struggle going on for the hearts and minds of the American people.
The Vietnam War continues against those in American politics, on university campuses, in business and serving in think tanks who are self-identified Communist sympathizers. The media has given them many names such as Statists, Socialists and Progressives.
Ayn Rand wrote a short nineteen page paper asking: What is the basic issue facing the world today? Rand, in her paper makes the case that, “The basic issue in the world today is between two principles: Individualism and Collectivism.” Rand defines these two principles as follows:
Ayn Rand wrote:
“The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other – until one day when they are suddenly declared to be the country’s official ideology.”
John Kerry
To demonstrate how powerful these Communist sympathizers have become is best shown in a column by Tom Pauken, the founder of the National Student Committee for the Defense of Vietnam who served as a Military Intelligence officer in South Vietnam. In a column titled The Vietnam War: Still opposing the New Left at Home Pauken writes:
The LBJ Presidential Library is hosting a Vietnam War “Summit” from April 26-28. I put the word Summit in quotes because normally one would expect a true summit to reflect the major viewpoints associated with the event. That is not the case with this program about to unfold at the University of Texas.
The keynote speaker for the “Summit” is John Kerry who trashed his fellow American soldiers on national TV once he came home from Vietnam as a spokesman for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Also prominently featured is Tom Hayden, a leader of the New Left who supported the North Vietnamese in that war and served as a useful tool for the Communists by making a trip to North Vietnam with his then wife actress Jane Fonda where propaganda film footage featuring Hayden and Fonda was made by the Communists. Hayden is featured in the session entitled the “War at Home.” There is no one represented on that panel from our Vietnam generation who opposed the New Left at home – even though our opposition to the student radicals from many of us as college students and our fellow soldiers was very strong at the time. I would have been open to discussing the other side of the war at home, but neither I nor others capable of representing our point of view were invited.
The Communist Ambassador from Vietnam to the U.S. is a speaker, but there appears to be no representation on the program from South Vietnamese refugees who are critics of the regime.
For “balance,” the Vietnam “Summit” features former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger who was the architect of what became known as the Kissinger Accords, which paved the way for the North Vietnamese takeover of South Vietnam. Richard Armitage, former Deputy Secretary of State and a Naval Academy graduate who served three tours in Vietnam, resigned his military commission over Kissinger’s deal making. Armitage was not invited to be a speaker at the LBJ Library “Summit.” Nor was John O’Neill, another Naval Academy graduate and swift boat veteran of Vietnam (who graduated first in his class from the University of Texas Law School). O’Neill debated John Kerry on the war on the Dick Cavett TV show after both men returned from Vietnam. There are many other knowledgeable Vietnam Veterans, historians, and journalists who would have made themselves available to speak at a true summit, but who were not invited.
The guest list for LBJ Presidential Library Vietnam War Summit says it all. As Pauken concludes, “It is sad to see a prestigious institution like the LBJ Library miss an opportunity to have a real exchange of views about what went wrong in Vietnam and what lessons of history are to be learned from that war.”
It appears the ideal of collectivism is alive and well. Collectivism is what drives the followers of Marx, Mao and Mohammed. The new left is now in power. The war goes on.
UPDATE: Here are videos of the Vietnam War Summit hosted at the LBJ Library.
The Vietnam War Summit: An Evening with Henry Kissinger [Day 1]
The Vietnam War Summit: The War at Home [Day 2]
The Vietnam War Summit: Country Joe McDonald Performs “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag” [Day 3]
The Republican and Democratic National Committees both issued statements today to reassure primary voters and caucus goers that their votes, donations, and efforts are just super.
While the RNC release focused on rumors of a brokered convention, and the DNC addressed the influence of superdelegates, both committees expressed that rank-and-file voters are really, really terrific.
For the DNC, superdelegate and former President Bill Clinton wrote, “I know, all too well, that most of the buxom young squirrels in our party have been supporting [Senator] Bernie [Sanders]. Just because party officials like myself are unanimously backing Hillary, and our votes are worth about ten states of your votes, that doesn’t mean that we don’t appreciate Bernie’s young supporters. Our party really needs those comely millennial lasses, 175 to 225 pounds, rallying and jumping up and down for the first woman president.”
Writing for the RNC, chairman Reince Priebus stated, “our rules provide that a nominee needs to get a majority of support in the primaries and caucuses. With 17 candidates this year, that probably won’t happen, but we’re confident that our wonderful supporters will be pleased with the non-Trump, non-Cruz nominee that the party selects for them. Our guy is really going to need all of the enthusiasm that has been on display throughout the nominating process, so please, keep it up. You all are just fantastic in my book, and you’re the reason that we’ll take back the White House.”
For unknown reasons, candidates Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have achieved unusual success by criticizing the major parties this election cycle.
EDITORS NOTE: This political satire originally appeared on The Peoples Cube.
It’s here! It’s girly pink! And best of all, it’s free! it will make us feel good about ourselves!
Finally, we women have something we can whip out whenever we feel like it!
It’s none other than the Official Hillary for America WOMAN CARD!™
Play it anytime you feel like a victim. Anytime you feel entitled.
Anytime you feel that an awareness ribbon, a wristband, a picture of yourself holding up a sign with a hashtag on it, or even just baring your boobs in public and shouting expletives isn’t enough to let the whole world know you have rights that only the government can provide!
The right to be a victim. The right to be entitled. The right to free stuff. The right to be treated exactly like men, except when we want to be treated like women.
Behold those big letters—W and C—right next to the universal symbol for a women’s restroom. Take it to any restroom you want, and never wait in line again!* Check out the black band that makes it look as if you can slide it anywhere, even the New York subway, and feel empowered!
How do you get the Woman Card? It’s easy! Go to Hillary’s campaign site and if you want her to deal you in, just tell her what you’re willing to stake and sha-zam! She’ll deal you a card and you’ll get to play it!
But that’s not all. When you apply for The Official Hillary for America Woman Card™, you’ll also receive a lifetime subscription to daily FREE e-mails from Hillary’s campaign! Each and every e-mail will be chock full of valuable, helpful information on how you can continue to help Hillary play the Woman Card. Additionally, every e-mail will be personalized with your name, so you can feel smugly secure knowing you’re not just another nameless, faceless voter with a seemingly endless supply of money to donate, or if you happen to be dead, an endless supply of ballots to cast.
Get your Woman Card today and start playing it—and feel good about yourself!
NOTE: *Valid only if you don’t intend to actually use the toilet. Restrictions and blackouts may apply. See back of card for details.
It is an old, old story.
A politician or wannabe politician announces he is a staunch supporter of term limits in general, as he knows the lion’s share of voters are. But he will quibble about some detail that allows him to be a opponent of any specific term limit proposal.
Thus, the politician can nod to his pro-term limits constituents and simultaneously wink at the anti-term limits lobbyists.
The latest exhibit in this dusty pantheon is former federal prosecutor Ken Sukhia who is running in the Republican primary for Florida’s 2nd Congressional district.
Here is Sukhia, captured on YouTube, dissembling before a would-be constituent.
Kudos to the voter who asked him the question about term limits. Let’s keep popping the question to candidates at public meetings — and posting the results. We need to hold these candidates accountable.
“Inequality is the root of all evil” said left-wing senator Barbara Boxer recently, while lecturing a Catholic priest about Catholicism. Boxer claimed to be quoting Pope Francis, referencing a tweet he sent in April 2014. Yet despite the fact she was reading prepared notes, she misquoted the pope, who actually said “Inequality is the root of social evil.” Defenders such as Ramesh Ponnuru have said that Francis’ words must be placed in perspective, that they allude to the evil of prenatal infanticide, along with many other things. Whatever the case, Boxer’s formulation is certainly an authentic Marxist idea — and this is not hyperbole.
In fact, Boxer’s spun quotation is a central tenet of Marxism. Marx (who was mentally ill) taught that if economic inequality could be eliminated, people would live so harmoniously in a state of economic bliss that the government could just melt away, at which point civilization would have reached the culmination of the socialist revolution — communism (yes, under Marxist doctrine, communism is when there is no longer any government). This gives us a window into Marx’s psyche: he likely was a very greedy, envious, covetous man. For just as only a person who is hung-up on race could believe that eliminating racial differences would yield a blissful world, only a man who cannot tolerate others’ being wealthier than he — and who is thoroughly hung-up on the idea — could believe that eliminating such differences would create Heaven on Earth. As Pope Benedict XVI put it, Marx made the mistake of viewing man as merely an “economic being.”
Speaking of mistakes, Boxer’s notion is the poorest of theology. Sin is the root of all evil, and inequality is not a sin. It’s simply a state of being and fact of life. Note that there is no mention of “equality” in the Bible, except in reference to weights and measures. Equality is a hang-up born of the “Enlightenment” and minted as a modernist faux virtue by socialists.
Moreover, equality simply is not a thing of this world. Do we see it in nature? There are alpha wolves and lesser wolves, silverback gorillas that run the show and lions that rule their prides. And there is great genetically-induced variation even within species, with some members being far better fit to survive than others. This, mind you, is another irony of the evolutionist Left: they view man as just another animal, but then suppose that somehow, some way he is the one species that should be the exception to the universal norm of inequality.
And does inequality tell us any more about the economic health of a people than it does about the athletic-skill “health” of a group? Consider: there are two tennis centers training children. In the first all the kids end up being low intermediates; but there is greater inequality in the second, with some being low intermediates, some advanced and some tournament caliber. Which center is better off skill-wise? Which is doing a better job teaching the game?
So it is in economics. Inequality tells us nothing about quality — or overall quality of life. Nothing. Pope Francis and others have bemoaned the supposed “growing inequality” in the world, but perhaps they should listen to left-wing site Think Progress. It pointed out in 2013 that the standard of living worldwide is now the highest it has ever been in all of man’s history.
What this indicates is that the truth is precisely the opposite of what Boxer implies. Growing inequality doesn’t cause misery, but can be attended by improving quality of life. How could this be? It isn’t a causal relationship but is a correlation, in that what creates billionaires — free enterprise — also creates a robust middle class. To provide just one example, economic freedom gave us Bill Gates, but it also gave us the thousands of nicely compensated people Microsoft employs as well as the countless millions who use its software to facilitate other economic endeavors.
If anyone wants economic equality, he would have loved the caveman days. With no monetary system, agriculture or industry and everyone being a hunter-gatherer, man’s state was as close to economic equality as you may find. Would Boxer, Pope Francis or anyone else like to travel back in time?
This also raises a question: how did the world transform from Stone Age poverty to Industrial Age abundance? Where did all the wealth come from?
It obviously was created. This occurs when people grow crops, raise livestock, and obtain raw materials, which are then combined in unique ways to create a multitude of things that further improve our quality of life. Just think about the value of refrigeration, canned foods, plumbing, life-saving medicines and all the labor-saving machines wealth creation has given us. And wealth breeds more wealth: tractors and other agricultural equipment have increased crop yields so profoundly as to make Malthusian starvation predictions seem silly.
Now here’s the question: why did people create this wealth? Were they mainly driven by charitable instincts? While charity is wonderful and generous people exist, do a little exercise: see how many goods and services you can think of, that you need or want, that were created via charitable endeavor. Does McDonald’s produce hamburgers and fries, Ford produce cars, Apple produce computers, Boeing produce airplanes and Pfizer produce drugs out of the goodness of their hearts? We can enter a supermarket and access thousands of food products from the world over at reasonable prices. How many of them exist due to charity?
Most everything we need and want exists because of financial incentive — people can make money by creating it. This may not sound good to some starry-eyed (and sometimes stoned) idealists, but it’s not just that research has shown that those who protest money-hungry mindsets the most are themselves the most money-hungry (indicating that it’s envy, not charity, motivating them). It’s that we deny reality at our own peril: like it or not, most people will operate based on self-interest. Just ask yourself: would I still work at my job were there no money to be had? Most people wouldn’t. And, yes, greed exists, too — everywhere. Greed is a sin, and you don’t eliminate sin by changing systems, but by changing hearts.
What you can do is devise a system that takes into account the realities, and frailties, of man’s nature. Enter economic freedom. As economist Dr. Walter Williams has put it, economic freedom and its financial incentive ensure that my fellow man will serve me even if he doesn’t give a darn about me. So I get the supermarket stocked with thousands of goods, all provided by people who otherwise wouldn’t give a thought to whether my belly was full.
I didn’t describe the above system as “capitalism,” mind you, because that term was originated by
socialists for the purposes of demonizing economic freedom. And it has worked. Tragically, college-aged millennials have a positive view of “socialism” and favor “capitalism” by a smaller margin than other groups. They also, however, generally have a very benign view of what socialism is.
Note that The Communist Manifesto would likely have been titled The Socialist Manifesto, but there was a problem: the term “socialist” not only had a very broad definition, but had already been tarnished by fools, frauds and failures. But as indicated earlier, under Marxist doctrine, socialism is the transitional phase between economic freedom and communism in which government owns the means of production. Thus did the U.S.S.R. stand for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
One reason socialism had already been discredited was because it had been tried. For example, Welsh industrialist and social reformer Robert Owen bought the town of Harmony, Indiana in 1825, renamed it New Harmony, and established a socialist commune.
It failed miserably after only about two years.
The problem? Unlike early Christian communes (Shakers, Oneida Community, etc.), some of which endured for a century or more and whose members often believed they were earning a place in Heaven, Owen’s godless “utopia” had neither financial nor spiritual incentive. And without incentive to act there is inaction, and inaction equals no wealth creation.
And that’s the result of emphasis on “equality.” It’s why Russia transitioned from being one of the world’s largest exporters of food under Tsar Nicholas II to one of its largest importers of food under the Soviets, why North Korea suffers similar woes today, and why oil-rich Venezuela can’t provide basic necessities for its people. As famed economist Milton Friedman put it, “The society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither. The society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both.”
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When it comes to offending, only certain people matter.
The list of offended people is seemingly approaching a mile in length. Whether it is feminists, black lives matter grumps, homosexuals, trans-genderites, animal lovers, lesbians, socialists, bisexuals, communists, Muslims, atheists, pro-abortion advocates, pro agenda 21 zealots, open border and illegal immigrant supporters, etc., etc. of course there are numerous other special interest and dangerous groups and individuals who are overly sensitive. Yet they are the first ones to verbally and sometime physically rip into those who do not agree with their destructive motives and missions.
Recently, president Obama stated “Congress will still be gridlocked. State houses will continue to roll back voting rights and write discrimination into the law.” The sensitive president also said, “we see it right here in Mississippi, just two weeks ago, how swiftly progress can hurdle backward, how easily it is to single out a small group and marginalize them because of who they are, or who they love.” The president has made a career out of promoting his warped view of offending certain people or progressive oriented groups.
I have also noticed a consistent theme among the variety of easily offended people promoters. They go out of their hypocritical way to offend Christians, American Patriots, Black Americans who don’t want to be hyphenated or African Americans, pro-lifers, those who appreciate the successful traditional family, capitalism, or even men or women who just want to use a plain old fashion rest room. Those same offenders are of course themselves offended by everything that is good for America, the traditional family, the free market economy and free speech for all sovereign citizens are the biggest hypocrites throughout humanity. To be perfectly honest, progressive hypocrisy is one of the most dangerous of all aspects of American society today.
Not only to certain groups like Christians, or people who simply want bathrooms for either women or men, but to our beloved republic as a whole. Hypocritical progressive hypocrisy is one of the most destructive aspects of today’s American society. The progressives have for decades bemoaned the racist history of America. Yet they ignore and are not offended by the current ongoing racist traditions of Muslims who actually believe that black people do not have souls. To add insult to their evil societal injury, the progressives (including president Obama) seek to flood America with Muslims who make KKK members look like Boy Scouts. Oops! Remember how the hypocritical easily offended progressives were offended by the Boy Scouts because of their one-time practice of traditional Biblically based values?
When good education is replaced with immoral, politicized, progressive indoctrination that includes an exaggeration of the problem of racism in America. The end result is the multi-generational decline in the quality of life, for the very sovereign citizens the progressives like to say they are trying to help. An even bigger insult is the fact that the progressives actually know that their so-called solutions will not work. For me, that is very offensive.
Progressives are often offended by what is good because, their goal is to fundamentally change America into the total evil opposite of the great republic she was meant to be. When president Obama assumed office, he openly told the American people that he would “unite the country.” However, behind closed doors he plotted the opposite and through numerous deeds of his, our republic is more divided now than during almost any time since the civil war.
But at least during the civil war era, the lines of division were clearly defined. Both sides were ready and willing to fight for their position. The major issues were states rights, slavery and a little economics thrown in for good measure. People were offended by clearly defined issues or practices. Not stupid stuff like bathroom use identification, the denial of Christian prayers in school while allowing or teaching Muslim prayers. Or even, whether students can sing the national anthem in public. Just recently, aa group of middle school students from North Carolina visiting the 911 memorial in New York City. They were inspired to honor those who paid the ultimate sacrifice serving others dealing with the aftermath of the Muslim attacks. As a result, the students began singing the national anthem. But because of political correctness and certain people being easily offended, they were ordered to stop. Of course, after being embarrassed on FOX News, the students were allowed to return to the 911 memorial and sing.
I am willing to bet that those hypocrites who didn’t want to hear the national anthem performance would not lift a finger or a decibel of verbal protest if a mob of black lives matter grumps were to show up and block roads while shouting their hateful garbage. It is sad we have society where people are more offended by a patriotic song by students than many foul occurrences in our nations streets. Such as thousands of Muslims blocking streets in Brooklyn, NY on a recent Friday morning, as they tried to intimidate Americans while they bumped their heads on the pavement while calling out to their little god. Yes, my fellow American, our republic is divided like never before.
But despite the hypocrisy of our easily offended sensibilities today, I remain optimistic that through it all “We the People” will band together and through the wisdom of God, wrestle America away from those who are hell bent on destroying her through offenses and hypocrisy.
Since the announcement by Target that it will allow men to use women’s bathrooms there have been arrests of men secretly filming women. This is the cheap way to make pornographic films, all at the expense of Target customers. Customers violated include women and underage children.
Ashley Lahue from KMOV TV in St. Louis on April 27th reported, “An O’Fallon, Missouri man was arrested on April 23, 2015 after allegedly secretly filming women in a Target dressing room. Matthew Foerstel, 26, faces felony charges for invasion of privacy in the second degree and unlawful possession of a firearm.”
The same is happening on college and university campuses.
Project Veritas did a video expose of a University of North Carolina, Ashville official allowing a man, who self identifies as a sexual predator, to use the women’s bathroom:
Several states, including North Carolina, have restricted access to public bathrooms based upon a person’s birth gender. Most recently a Florida School District has done the same. The Liberty Council reports:
Effective this morning, the Marion County School Board affirmed the constitutional expectation of its student’s privacy by requiring students to use the bathrooms and other facilities based on biological sex, as requested by Liberty Counsel. This 4-1 vote happened late last night. It will allow students of only one gender, that of their birth, into a bathroom or locker room.
Liberty Counsel represented Harrell “Hal” Phillips before the Marion County School Board in support of this commonsense bathroom policy. Phillips and his son are devout Christians who believe strongly in both biblical modesty and constitutional privacy. Last week, Phillips’ son was extremely upset when he encountered a female student in the boy’s bathroom at his high school, Vanguard High School in Ocala, FL. This was a place where he has a reasonable expectation that he will not encounter the opposite sex. Liberty Counsel also offered to defend the school board for free if the board is sued for adopting this policy.
The U.S. Constitution establishes a protection of the privacy of Americans, and our public school students do not give that up when they enter a public school bathroom. This policy protects the privacy rights and safety of all Marion County students. The four board members who voted to approve the policy should be commended for their common sense and courage in the face of threats and intimidation by the ACLU and its allies.
It also appears that Florida is considering a bill similar to that passed by the North Carolina legislature. Pedro Gonzales from The American Thinker reports, “Florida is considering a law which would require men to use men’s bathrooms and women to use women’s bathrooms, and not let them pick and choose.
Employees of pro-LGBTQ companies are revolting against the open bathroom policy. In the column Employee Revolt Coming in Sin-Supporting Companies Linda Harvey reports:
It seems the majority of U.S companies have suddenly gone berserk, hotly defending the “right” of men to use female restrooms.
But are we to believe all their employees have obediently embraced homosexuality and gender-bending, and are also eager to deny the religious liberties of those who don’t?
Are so-called “LGBT” behaviors being welcomed with open arms by Joe and Jane American Worker at Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Coca-Cola, Target, PayPal, Apple, Delta Airlines, American Airlines, Time-Warner, Marriott, Hilton, Kellogg, First Data, Amazon and SalesForce? How about the NFL, NCAA and ESPN?
Hardly.
In fact, within these companies there may be revolution brewing. People are fed up with management’s blatant support of harmful, depraved lifestyles that apparently compel people to spitefully and deliberately discriminate against faithful Christians.
Last week, I heard from a woman who contacted me after reading my articles. She has quite a story to tell about being fired from her counseling position by a lesbian supervisor. Her termination wasn’t even related to a dispute about homosexuality, but simply because she was known to be a Christian with a desire to sometimes pray with counseling clients, with their consent.
The details of her story are here.
It appears that Target has become the target. Customers, employees and a growing number of states are saying no to gender neutral bathrooms.
What do you think?
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EDITORS NOTE: The featured image of Rolling Stones men’s urinals is courtesy of the Huffington Post