MORAL VACUUM STARTS TO HURT

Excerpt from Dennis Prager

"Jordanians are shocked that Islamic terrorists would blow up families, including families celebrating a wedding. They are so shocked that for the first time in history, Muslims have taken to publicly demonstrating against Islamic terror. And why are they shocked? Because the terrorists blew up Jordanians. As long as Islamic terrorists blew up men, women and children who are Jewish, Christian, Hindu, American, Australian and black Sudanese, the Arab and larger Muslim worlds were not particularly disturbed. In fact, Palestinians, who comprise the majority of Jordan's population, celebrated when Jews were blown up at Passover seders and at weddings. And they took to the streets and cheered in the Palestinian fashion, handing out candy, when Americans were incinerated in office buildings.

For some reason, Palestinians, most other Arabs and many Muslims around the world thought that the credulity-straining evil of targeting the most innocent for death, paralysis, blindness and brain damage would be confined to non-Arabs and non-Muslims.... Now there is widespread condemnation of Zarqawi's terror in Jordan. There is even a fear that the name of Islam will suffer. Unfortunately, however, it is only because Zarqawi was foolish enough to massacre Jordanian civilians, and not confine his massacres to Iraqis and non-Arabs. What has aroused Arab voices against Zarqawi has nothing to do with the immorality of blowing up people celebrating at a wedding -- it has to do with the immorality of blowing up Muslims celebrating at a wedding.

Nevertheless, it is possible that a moral awakening of sorts may be taking place in parts of the Arab world. The London Telegraph reports that "Munder Moomeni, a 38-year-old former soldier who lives next to Zarqawi's house, 13 Ramzi Street, described his former neighbour as 'a bastard.' 'By killing Jordanians here in Jordan, civilian Jordanians going to a wedding, they did something that not even a Jew would do,' he said." That a neighbor and former supporter of Zarqawi publicly acknowledged that Jews would not engage in such terror may be a first step toward the moral awakening that the Arab world needs even more than oil revenues.

It may even come to realize the greatest truth regarding terror and evil: People who blow up Israeli weddings and cut Americans' throats are very bad people. And if you don't fight them, they will eventually blow you up, too."

*****************************

ELSEWHERE

There is a truly saddening report here of the sheer insensate hate that Leftists feel towards GWB and Israel. Just a couple of excerpts: "Craig J. Murray, formerly British ambassador to Uzbekistan, asserted that the crimes committed by that country's rulers are "subsidized by the government of George W. Bush." Bush has done this, he said, for the benefit of Enron. The goal of Americans, he instructed the students, is to "get at the oil and gas so they can guzzle it." .... Yasser Arafat, he said, had been correct to reject the offer of Palestinian statehood made at Camp David in 2000 because it was "a pro-Zionist type of approach." It would have allowed the Jewish state to survive. He found that a distasteful prospect".

Sad that this bill was necessary: "Fears that overweight Americans will develop an appetite for litigation drove the House to pass a bill that would bar lawsuits by restaurant customers claiming burgers and French fries made them fat. "Trial lawyers have said they'd target restaurants the way they've targeted the tobacco industry," National Restaurant Assn. President Steven C. Anderson said".

Good Taiwan speech: "Taiwan has welcomed comments by US President George W. Bush praising the island's democracy and said it shares the same core values as its allies. "Democracy, freedom, and human rights have been the core values shared between Taiwan and its allies," the Presidential Office said in a statement.... The office said the remarks were especially significant since they were made in Kyodo, Japan, on the first stop of Bush's Asia visit. Mr Bush's unusually strong comments came during a tour in which he will visit Beijing for a brief summit with Chinese President Hu Jintao. "We encourage China to continue down the road of reform and openness because the freer China is at home, the greater the welcome it will receive abroad," Mr Bush said in what was billed as a keynote speech. "Modern Taiwan is free and democratic and prosperous. By embracing freedom at all levels, Taiwan has delivered prosperity to its people and created a free and democratic Chinese society.""

Some progress towards border control? "Concerned that the nation's borders are not properly protected against terrorists, illegal aliens and drug smugglers, a Senate committee warned Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that if he fails to correct the situation promptly, they will. Sen. Susan Collins [R-ME], chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Sen. Joe Lieberman [D-CT] want to know whether U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) should be merged to `enable them to operate more effectively.' In a report made public last week, the Homeland Security Department's Office of Inspector General recommended that the two agencies-with overlapping jurisdiction for border security and immigration enforcement-be merged, questioning whether they had the ability as separate organizations to carry out their homeland security missions. The report, requested by Collins and Lieberman, said a lack of effective coordination between the agencies had affected apprehension, detention and removal efforts."

The fallout from California's recent Special Election in which ballot initiatives for reforms of the inflexiblity of the state budget, compulsory union dues, and redistricting were all lost are now starting to emerge: Nissan Corporation is moving its headquarters out of California to Tennessee and A massive $50 billion bond is being contemplated by the Governor.

There is an article here that identifies the French welfare State as a key ingredient in causing the recent riots there.

Bill Cosby was right : Blacks do spend a lot more of their income on shoes!

I am having a lot of fun with my new Australian Politics blog. I have just put up what I think is a heap of interesting stuff there. The servers hosting the blog are sometimes a bit slow in responding so I have in my usual way done a mirror site for it that may be more convenient on occasions.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here).

**************************

Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

********************************