BIG UNIONS FUND BIG GOVERNMENT

STATES OF THE UNIONS

Mark Steyn on America

http://www.steynonline.com/content/view/3767/26/ Saturday, 26 February 2011

The Democrat palace guard of America's dying monodailies are doing a grand job in reporting the current stand-off in Wisconsin. A headline in The New York Times sums up the media's bizarre enthusiasm for sacrificing what remains of their reputations in order to protect the cause: Billionaire Brothers' Money Plays Role in Wisconsin Dispute The dogged John Hinderaker of Powerline is endeavoring to get some answers from the shy and retiring Eric Lipton as to the basis for certain aspects of his story. [UPDATE: New York Times "fact"-checking in action.] But I find the headline alone so perverse you wonder how, even at the Times, it could have wafted up through six layers of editors without someone saying, "Oh, come on..." What's happening in Wisconsin is all about money: budgets, shortfalls, obligations, perks, pensions, privileges - and the burdens of the beleaguered productive class that pays for it. In a story awash with money, the Koch brothers are the least of it. They're certainly billionaires, and that's a lot of dough. Of it, what they inject into the political process is little more than a rounding error. As David Harsanyi puts it: The libertarian Kochs are super rich and gave less than $2 million to Republicans in the last election cycle, which mathematically speaking amounts to nothing. In fact, Timothy Carney of the Washington Examiner dispatched Krugman's claim that unions were a "counterweight to the political power of big money" by pointing out that "every one of the top ten industries contributing to the 2010 elections gave more money to Democrats." If some public union rollbacks are a harbinger of rebirth of the robber barons, why is it that the Service Employees International Union boss — who represents a sliver of the American workforce — has been the most frequent guest at the White House after he handed Barack Obama $28 million and used tens of million more to campaign for him and his policies? So Big Business and Big Unions both favor Big Government - and for the same reason: it drives out their competition. Why isn't SEIU honcho Mary Kay Henry (born in that monument to union muscle, Detroit) as famous as the sinister Koch siblings? Ms Henry is a fascinating figure: A lesbian advisor to the Conference of Catholic Bishops whose partner is a bigshot with the Teamsters, she is an advocate for "health care" for "working families" and for same-sex marriage, and on both those issues the President's views seem to be swinging ever more into happy alignment with her money. [EMPHASIS ADDED] Wouldn't that be worth an in-depth analysis from the Eric Liptons of the world? Instead the Koch brothers, waging their lonely battle for small government, are being lined up as this decade's Halliburton. I doubt it will work. The media's perverse priorities might be just about tenable if they weren't also making themselves look ever more ridiculous by their willingness to airbrush the truth about the ugly union bruisers out on the streets of Madison. The Kochs' money is irrelevant to the future of Wisconsin. The unions' money, on the other hand, is an existential crisis for the state. Last year, The Times of London reported: The President of Greece warned last night that his country stood on the brink of the abyss after three people were killed when an anti-government mob set fire to the Athens bank where they worked. The Times managed to get the salient feature of the story entirely wrong. They were not an “anti-government” mob, but a government mob, a mob of "public servants" objecting to austerity measures that would end, for example, the tradition of 14 monthly paychecks per annum. You read that right: the Greek public sector cannot be bound by anything so humdrum as temporal reality. So, when it was mooted that the “workers” might henceforth receive a mere 12 monthly paychecks per annum, they rioted. Their hapless victims - a man and two women - were a trio of clerks trapped in a bank when the mob set it alight and then obstructed emergency crews attempting to rescue them. You don’t have to go to Athens to find "public servants" happy to take it out on the public. In Madison, politicized doctors provide fake sick notes for politicized teachers to skip class. In New York's Christmas snowstorm, Sanitation Department plough drivers are unable to clear the streets, with fatal consequences for some residents. On the other hand, they did manage to clear the snow from outside the Staten Island home of Sanitation Dept head honcho John Doherty, while leaving all surrounding streets pristinely clogged. Three hundred Sanitation Department workers have salaries of over $100,000 per year. In retirement, you get a pension of 66 grand per annum plus excellent health benefits, all inflation proofed. That's what "collective bargaining" is about: It enables unions rather than citizens to set the price of government. It is, thus, a direct assault on republican democracy, and it needs to be destroyed. Unlovely as they are, the Greek rioters and the snarling thugs of Madison are the logical end point of the advanced social democratic state: not an oppressed underclass, but a spoiled overclass, rioting in defense of its privileges and insisting on more subsidy, more benefits, more featherbedding, more government. Big Unions fund Big Government. The union slices off two per cent of the workers’ pay and sluices it to the Democratic Party, which uses it to grow government, which also grows unions, which thereby grows the number of two-per-cent contributions, which thereby grows the Democratic Party, which thereby grows government… Repeat until bankruptcy. Or bailout. In his pithiest maxim, John Maynard Keynes, the most influential economist of the 20th century social-democratic state and the patron saint of “stimulus”, offered a characteristically offhand dismissal of any obligation to the future: “In the long run we are all dead.” The Greek and Wisconsin bullies are Keynesians to a man: The mob is demanding the right to carry on suspending reality until they’re all dead. After that, who cares? If the new class war is between “public servants” and the rest of us, some countries no longer have enough of “the rest of us” even to put up a fight. That's why you can't wait to fight in the last ditch. The longer you wait to stand up against the "public service" unions, the less your chance of winning.

THE WISCONSIN DISPUTE IS ALL ABOUT POWER

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The Means of Coercion

The privileged are revolting in Wisconsin.

By JAMES TARANTO

To make sense of what's going on in Wisconsin, it helps to understand that the left in America lives in an ideological fantasy world. The dispute between the state government and the unions representing its employees is "about power," Paul Krugman of the New York Times observes accurately, before going off the rails:

What [Gov. Scott] Walker and his backers are trying to do is to make Wisconsin--and eventually, America--less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy. And that's why anyone who believes that we need some counterweight to the political power of big money should be on the demonstrators' side.

Kevin Drum of Mother Jones elaborates:

Unions are . . . the only large-scale movement left in America that persistently acts as a countervailing power against corporate power. They're the only large-scale movement left that persistently acts in the economic interests of the middle class. . . .

The decline of unions over the past few decades has left corporations and the rich with essentially no powerful opposition. No matter what doubts you might have about unions and their role in the economy, never forget that destroying them destroys the only real organized check on the power of the business community in America. If the last 30 years haven't made that clear, I don't know what will.

There are several problems with this line of thinking. First, to talk of America in terms of "class" is to speak a foreign language. Outside of university faculties and Marxist fringe groups (but we repeat our self), Americans do not divide ourselves up by class; rather, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal . . ."

When Americans describe themselves as "middle class," the term is a synonym for "ordinary" or "respectable," not part of a taxonomy of division. Actual middle-class Americans don't feel put upon by "corporate power" or "the business community," because by and large, they own the means of production: They run businesses; they hold shares in corporations through their investment and retirement accounts. Some belong to unions, but the vast majority do not: "In 2010, the union membership rate--the percent of wage and salary workers who were members of a union--was 11.9 percent, down from 12.3 percent a year earlier," according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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Associated Press

Take that, taxpayers!

In any case, it seems to have escaped Krugman's and Drum's notice that the Wisconsin dispute has nothing to do with corporations. The unions' antagonist is the state government. "Industrial unions are organized against the might and greed of ownership," writes Time's Joe Klein, a liberal who understands the crucial distinction. "Public employees unions are organized against the might and greed . . . of the public?"

The "labor movement" in America has increasingly come to consist of people who work for government, not private companies. As the BLS notes, the union-participation rate for public-sector workers in 2010 was 36.2%, vs. just 6.9% for private-sector workers.

There is a fundamental difference between private- and public-sector workers. A private-sector labor dispute is a clear clash of competing interests, with management representing shareholders and unions representing workers. In the public sector, as George Will notes, taxpayers--whose position is analogous to that of shareholders--are usually denied a seat at the table:

Such unions are government organized as an interest group to lobby itself to do what it always wants to do anyway - grow. These unions use dues extracted from members to elect their members' employers. And governments, not disciplined by the need to make a profit, extract government employees' salaries from taxpayers. Government sits on both sides of the table in cozy "negotiations" with unions.

Collective bargaining in the public sector thus is less a negotiation than a conspiracy to steal money from taxpayers. The notion that this is "in the economic interests of the middle class" for government employees in Wisconsin and elsewhere to get above-market wages and extremely lavish benefits is just laughable. Sure, government employees are "middle class," but so are the vast majority of taxpayers who don't enjoy the special privileges that come from owning the means of coercion.

Commentary's Jennifer Dyer argues that the Wisconsin dispute--likely the first of many, as states and localities face up to the unsustainable costs they have imposed on taxpayers via such collusion with unions--reflects a "crisis of progressivism":

The term "progressive" has been batted around in various incarnations over the last decade, but in its original sense in U.S. politics--the sense popularized by the Wisconsin Progressives and the spinoffs from their movement--progressivism was about enlarging the government's supervisory role over society and entrusting the administration of that role to experts employed in public agencies. . . .

The agencies were sold to the public as a means of taking the corrupt politics out of issues that ought to be decided straightforwardly by disinterested experts. The progressive idea has always been that this stable of public experts should be insulated from the demands of interest groups--even if the interest group in question is a majority of registered voters.

The Wisconsin Republicans are challenging that idea directly. The vociferous political left isn't wrong about that: the crisis in Wisconsin is a power struggle for the future of government, not just a clash of this year's fiscal priorities. If the voting public can, in fact, deny professional autonomy--in this case, the option to organize for collective bargaining--to public employees, the essential premise of progressivism is badly undercut. Public employees, in their professional capacity, would not then have a "right" to anything the voters don't choose to accede to. That would include the scope of their agencies' portfolios as well as the terms of employment for government workers.

It's an intriguing argument, but it doesn't seem quite right to us. Unionized government employees are not, by and large, professional "experts." If any government workers are undercompensated relative to their private-sector counterparts, it is those with special expertise--lawyers, scientists, economists, top administrators. Public-sector union members mostly have commoner abilities, for which they are overpaid.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) on the budget battles in Washington and back home.

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Here is the contradiction of progressivism. Progressives tell us they want the government to do more. But they can't win elections without public-sector unions. Because they are beholden to those unions, their main priority when in power is to increase the cost, not the scope, of government. Because resources are finite, the result is the worst of both worlds: a government that taxes more without doing more. This is unsustainable economically. Fortunately, as Wisconsin voters showed last November, it's unsustainable politically as well.

'Push Back Hard'--Again
"The unions should make their voices heard and push back hard," editorializes the New York Times, one of the few newspapers to support the Wisconsin antitaxpayer revolt unreservedly. "Push back hard" must be a macro on the computers over at the Times editorial page, which demanded back in August that supporters of the Ground Zero Mosque "push back hard" against ordinary Americans. In the meantime, of course, the Times has delivered many a pious lecture on the evil of "incivility" in politics.

It's quite striking the way almost every lie the left ever told about the Tea Party has turned out to be true of the government unionists in Wisconsin and their supporters:

• Extreme rhetoric. The Wisconsin Republican Party has produced what Mediaite.org calls an "incredibly effective" video juxtaposing liberal complaints about allegedly extremist Tea Party rhetoric with unionist signs likening Gov. Walker to Hitler and other dictators. Left-wing journalists are making similar invidious comparisons: "Workers Toppled a Dictator in Egypt, but Might Be Silenced in Wisconsin" read the headline of a Washington Post column by Harold Meyerson last week. The other day on CNN we saw scenes of a Madison crowd chanting, "Kill the bill"--which was said to be violent and invidious a year ago, when "the bill" was ObamaCare.

• Violence. Blogress Ann Althouse, a state employee based in Madison, posted a video of municipal salt trucks blowing their horns in support of the unionists. A YouTube commenter responded (quoting verbatim), "whoever video taped this has no life and should be shot in the head." Unlike Frances Fox Piven, Althouse has never advocated violence, but don't expect the Times to give this the kind of coverage it gave Piven's claims that she had received threatening emails.

• Partisan AstroTurf. That's the Beltway term referring to a fake grassroots movement. Politico reported last week that "the Democratic National Committee's Organizing for America arm--the remnant of the 2008 Obama campaign--is playing an active role in organizing protests." A blogger at the OFA website, BarackObama.com, writes: "To our allies in the labor movement, to our brothers and sisters in public work, we stand with you, and we stand strong." We've also received emails from MoveOn.org, which says it's holding a pro-unionist rally outside our offices later this afternoon. Sorry, MOO, we're working at home today.

• Refusal to accept election results. Although Republicans have a majority in the Wisconsin Senate, Democrats have fled the state, taking advantage of the body's rules to deny the majority a quorum. The Indianapolis Star reports that Democrats from the Indiana House are employing the same tactic. Even Barack Obama, when he was an Illinois senator, usually voted "present."

• Stupidity. Remember "Teabonics," a photo album of misspelled Tea Party signs? The unionists can't spell any better--and some of them are teachers! Althouse got one photo of what we think is a woman holding a sign that reads " 'Open for business' = Closed for Negotiatins [sic]." Also, some of the teachers' tactics--in particular, fraudulently calling in sick and exploiting other people's children by enlisting them as protesters--seem not only unethical but calculated to repel the public. One blessing of low standards for public school teachers is that it ensures many of them are not bright enough to stage an effective protest.

The one exception: So far we haven't seen any evidence of racism by the Wisconsin unionists. But we're watching for it.

OBAMA CONTINUES TO FLOOD AMERICA WITH MUSLIM IMMIGRANTS

OBAMA AUTHORIZES 80,000 “REFUGEES” TO ENTER COUNTRY

GET READY FOR NEW MUSLIM INVASION

“JUSTIFIED BY HUMANITARIAN CONCERNS”

By

Paul L. Williams, Ph.D.

President Barack Hussein Obama, in a determination letter to Congress, has announced that he will allow an additional 80,000 immigrants – - mostly from Islamic countries – - to resettle in the United States during fiscal year 2011.

Mr. Obama says that the increase in Muslim immigrants “is justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest.”

The following “goals” for new immigrants has been set as follows:

Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15,000
East Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19,000
Europe and Central Asia . . . . . . . . . . 2,000
Latin America/Caribbean. . . . . . . . . . . 5,500
Near East/South Asia. . . . . . . . . . . 35,500
Unallocated Reserve . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,000

Refugee Resettlement Watch and other organizations have expressed grave concern that Mr. Obama is allowing so many immigrants into the country while so many Americans remain out of work and living in poverty.

According to the US Department of Labor, 14.8 million Americans remain unemployed. 6.1 million have been out of work for 27 weeks or over.

This figure has been challenged by the Union of the Unemployed who provide statistics that the actual number of unemployed Americans is 31 million.

The U. S. Census Bureau shows that the median household income for Americans has fallen to $49,777 – - a decline of 0.7% in the past year.

One in seven Americans no longer can feed themselves.

According to The Wall Street Journal, 14.3% of the American people live in abject poverty.

A refugee is defined by The US Department of Immigration and Naturalization as someone who has left one’s country due to persecution or a fear of persecution.

This accounts for the sharp rise of Somali communities throughout the country.

However, the definition of refugee is ‘fudged’ in several cases. “Refugees” who have not left their country due to persecution, according to Mr. Obama’s determination letter, can still be called “refugees” if they are from Iraq, one of the Islamic countries of the former Soviet Union, or Cuba.

According to Section 413 (a) of the Immigration and Nationalities Act, the Office of Refugee Resettlement is required to submit an annual report to Congress on the activities of the refugees.

The report is supposed to include the number who are on public welfare programs.

But no report has forthcoming from the Office of Refugee Resettlement since 2007.

ALSO

Swift agrees to Muslims demands for prayer times

Sep 18, 2008 … Look at the Somali cab drivers, alcohol, pets. … Surely they’re not handling PORK at that meat packing plant!?

Tags: Barack Hussein Obama, Creeping Sharia, Immigration, Immigration Jihad, Islamic Conquest, Post-America, Sanctuary Nation, Stealth Jihad

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2. Raymond says:

   October 23, 2010 at 9:50 am

   Muslims, wherever they are, can cry victim and the world listens. They persecute and murder Christians, Hindus, and all non-Muslims, homosexuals, women, children, etc., and they’re still able to convince the world of their victimhood. That is one for the history books if we ever get chance to write the history of this age.

3. Reply

   Unwilling Witness says:

   October 23, 2010 at 11:11 am

   Barack (pronounced “Bear-ick”) has a never-ending love for outsourcing citizenship. I suggest someone at the Pentagon figure out why Barack aka Barry came into the United States mainland in 1971 and told people he wasn’t born here, but wanted to be president someday, anyway. Frank Marshall Davis, renowned Communist and recreational pedophile had been “homeschooling” Barry for a year then, if my calculations are correct; Stanley Ann Dunham exiled Barry to HI with her mother and father and FMD as role models.
   Our Treasury Secretary won’t admit that he had quite a bit of knowledge about Barry even in 1970 when they came into the United States from Jakarta with their mother to escape Indonesia for the summer. Timothy Geithner and his sister were quite aware of who Barry was and Tim knew about SAD’s plans to send Barry to HI to live with her “parents.” Perhaps, Peter Geithner, Stanley Ann’s boss at the Ford Foundation in Jakarta, Indonesia talked about the boy and his mother in front of the Geithner children. Audie Geithner attended Fransiscus Besuki School with Barry where she saw Barry dress in Muslim attire and attend Koranic studies where he learned his flawless Arabic pronunciation and the tenets of the (cult) religion. There is no better substitute for cultural and religious indoctrination into Islam (and indoctrination into Marxism) than seizing upon an impressionable, fatherless boy and making his identity and self-esteem hinge on his religious (and political) identification.

   We are the victims of the Dunham’s love affair with Communism, Marxism, Islam and all things anti-American. Barry was exposed early on to Davis’ brand of anarchy, drugs and anger towards mainstream America. What kind of people exploit a child for their own political gain? Radical Muslims, Communists and Marxists.

   How curious that one of Barack’s first acts as President was to appoint Timothy Geithner as his wingman in the Treasury. Geithner’s advantage as a financial insider was secured by Geithner, Sr. who migrated to the IMF from the Ford Foundation. Former President George Bush nominated Timothy Geithner to the head of the New York (un-)Federal Reserve Bank in 2007 in preparation for his graduation to Secretary of the Treasury. Geithner’s role in re-setting our financial system and the world’s economies has been pivotal in paving the way for a future global government. He is an insider’s insider, having received the designation of Knight of the Order of the Garter from the Kuh-ween of England (another placeholder who serves at the pleasure of the Temple Bar Court Bankers).

   The only thing more disastrous than an Obama Presidency is the promotion of Obama to the helm of the United Nations as Secretary General, but then, Obama is well-versed in the ins and outs of corrupt organizations, the exploitation of slumbering mainstream Americans who ignore the abridgement fo the Constitution and Bill of Rights for the benefit of the disenfranchised third world.

   If Obama was not biologically sired by Sukarno, he was ideologically sired by Bung Sukarno, who declared independence from the Dutch to govern his people under the chosen guiding principles of Marxism and Islam. Bung Sukarno was sympathetic to Communists, too, and assisted Emperor Hirohito in WWII by allowing Japanese planes to re-fuel on one of Indonesia’s islands.

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   Kathy says:

   October 23, 2010 at 12:03 pm

   Just received this in my E-mail from a Dear Friend. Having spent three weeks in a hospital in Naples, Florida with my wife I couldn’t help noticing what was going on in the hospital and I had a lot of time to talk to the doctors and nurses about what I had observed. Below is a commentary from an ER Doctor. Do you think this might be a big reason our health care system and our social security system are so screwed up? Do you think this might be a big reason our taxes keep going up? Who do you think these people are going to vote for?
   From a Florida ER doctor:
   “I live and work in a state overrun with illegals. They make more money having kids than we earn working full-time. Today I had a 25-year old with 8 kids – that’s right 8; all illegal anchor babies and she had the nicest nails, cell phone, hand bag, clothing, etc. She makes about $1,500 monthly for each; you do the math. I used to say, “We are the dumbest nation on earth.” Now I must say and sadly admit: WE are the dumbest people on earth (that includes ME) for we elected the idiot idealogues who have passed the bills that allow this. Sorry, but we need a revolution. Vote them all out in 2010. ”

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   — REMEMBER —
   IN NOVEMBER 2010, WE HAVE A GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY TO CLEAN OUT THE ENTIRE HOUSE AND ONE-THIRD OF THE SENATE!

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   This is an insult and a kick in the butt to all of us…

   Get mad and pass it on – I don’t know how, but maybe some good will come of this travesty.
   If the immigrant is over 65, they can apply for SSI and Medicaid and get more than a woman on Social Security, who worked from 1944 until 2004.
   She is only getting $791 per month because she was born in 1924 and there’s a ‘catch 22.’
   It is interesting that the federal government provides a single refugee with a monthly allowance of $1,890. Each can also obtain an additional $580 in social assistance, for a total of $2,470 a month.
   This compares to a single pensioner, who after contributing to the growth and development of America for 40 to 50 years, can only receive a monthly maximum of $1,012 in old age pension and Guaranteed Income Supplement.
   Maybe our pensioners should apply as refugees!
   Consider sending this to all your American friends, so we can all be ticked off and maybe get the refugees cut back to $1,012 and the pensioners up to $2,470. Then we can enjoy some of the money we were forced to submit to the Government over the last 40 or 50 or 60 years. And not to receive a increase for 2010 Vote them all out of office…….
   Please forward this to every American to expose what our elected politicians have been doing for the past 11 years to over-taxed Americans.

   SEND THIS TO EVERY AMERICAN TAXPAYER YOU KNOW

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   Always On Watch says:

   October 23, 2010 at 12:25 pm

   The report is supposed to include the number who are on public welfare programs.

   But no report has forthcoming from the Office of Refugee Resettlement since 2007.

   Well, isn’t that just peachy keen?

   Meanwhile, American citizens who really need assistance aren’t getting that assistance. Maybe those American citizens should emigrate and re-enter?

6. Reply

   GRMA213 says:

   October 23, 2010 at 5:46 pm

   Why don’t Muslim countries take the Muslim refugees? Isn’t charity one of the 5 Pillars of Islam? this continuous importation of incompatible
   refugees” will turn the USA into the DBS…Disjointed Balkinized States.

7. 
   
   • ad rem says:

     October 23, 2010 at 7:00 pm

     Salvage is the same little troll that craps over at Riehlworldview.com. Just one of Soro’s minions…..

   Reply
8. Reply

   Lewis says:

   October 23, 2010 at 6:53 pm

   You truly are a Muslim Obama, you are not fooling anyone. It’s time for your impeachment or the military needs to step in and take over your dictatorship. We the American people are also fed up with your BS. You’re going to cause another revolution. Lots of vet’s out there who know guerrilla warfare.

9. Reply

   Cathey says:

   October 23, 2010 at 10:53 pm

   The so-called POTUS, Traitor Has given millions to our enemies
   BY EXECUTIVE ORDER OBUMMA GIVES MONEY TO HAMMAS (Feb 2009)
   http://www.thefederalregister.com/d.p/2009-02-04-E9-2488

   DIRECT ACCESS STIMULUS GRANTS FOR THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD August 31:2010 http://bigpeace.com/cbrim/2010/08/29/coming-august-31-direct-access-stimulus-grants-for-the-muslim-brotherhood/

   WHITEHOUSE PROVIDING FUNDING GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE AND RESOURCES TO THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/2010/08/30/white-house-providing-%E2%80%9Cfunding-government-assistance-and-resources%E2%80%9D-to-muslim-brotherhood/

   A MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD COLLECTION OF INFORMATION http://www.facebook.com/note.php?saved&&note_id=144219428954350#!/note.php?note_id=131684856879667&id=100001218377837&ref=mf

10. 
    
11. • Reply

      Scoros says:

      December 3, 2010 at 7:11 am

      
      
12. Reply

    JEFFREY HARDIN says:

    October 25, 2010 at 8:38 am

    It absolutely blows my mind that Obama received so many votes to began with..
    Not one thing about him during his run gave 1 clue to who he was,he hid himself within the media.He attacked those who would dare question him and yet you voted for him.
    100s of thousands of homeless bussed into states that require no IDs to vote and no registration either?
    This man The Mulatto Prince of Thieves is committing treachery against our Nation and you voted and still supported him,WHY? What has he done yet that can be validated as Legal?
    You who have supported this man betrayed God and this Country.Plain is Plain was…

13. Reply

    JEFFREY HARDIN says:

    October 25, 2010 at 8:49 am

    @ Hinda: No the Republicans are not different than Democrats.But Conservatives are different than both.
    We Conservatives fire our crooks,the Liberals keep theirs intact.When and how often do you see Republicans rotated compared to the Liberals?
    Have faith Hinda many dem’s and repubs both are getting fired,maybe we can have some with backbones to speak for us…

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16. Reply

    Unwilling Witness says:

    October 25, 2010 at 6:01 pm

    In reply to Jen, I don’t care what GW did. I was against it then and I’m against it now. The story states that the 80,000 are in addition to the normal quota. Let Putin solve his own Muslim problem. He can, but he’d prefer to send his dissidents to America so that they can work to transplant their culture and religion on our shores. I wouldn’t ask one soldier to fall on a grenade to give a Russian Muslim birth to America.

    Don’t you understand why the academics have been preaching birth control and abortion to the middle class? To make room for the importation or outsourcing of citizenship to the world’s citizens. Mexican immigrants can afford to come here illegally and have many children because our government is subsidizing their reproduction.
    As for Obama’s assertion that he is his brother’s keeper, why are the taxpayers of MA footing the bill for her housing, food, medical care, etc? Not enough proceeds from two fictional autobiographies to provide a modest home for Aunt Zeituni? According to Aunt Z, its our Christian duty to put her up. If you find yourself in disadvantaged circumstances, don’t expect what Aunt Z receives; Aunt Z is a political refugee and non-citizen. She expects you to support her and far from being grateful, she is not thankful, she expects you to sacrifice to provide for her. This is shameful, and our President used his political connections to provide sanctuary for his aunt despite the fact that she had been ordered to be deported to Kenya. She evaded immigration authorities in violation of our laws and was not punished for ignoring a court order; she was held up as some sort of victim of the system.
    Meanwhile, the Obama administration sits idly by as the Army destroys an Army physician and officer’s career because he had the audacity to question why this President avoids the investigation of his bona fides. A military officer deserves less mercy, less justice than an illegal immigrant, Aunt Zeituni, the pardoned FALN terrorists, etc.

17. Reply

    Jamie Shannon says:

    October 25, 2010 at 6:44 pm

    This is by far the best explanation of the Muslim terrorist situation I have ever read. His references to past history are accurate and clear. Not long, easy to understand, and well worth the read. The author of this email is said to be Dr………. Emanuel Tanay, a well-known and well-respected psychiatrist.

    A German’s View on Islam

    A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism. ‘Very few people were true Nazis,’ he said, ‘but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.’

    We are told again and again by ‘experts’ and ‘talking heads’ that Islam is the religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the spectre of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.

    The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honour-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers.

    The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the ‘silent majority,’ is cowed and extraneous.

    Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China ‘s huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.

    The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet.

    And who can forget Rwanda , which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were ‘peace loving’?

    History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:

    Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.

    Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don’t speak up, because like my friend from Germany , they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.

    Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late. As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts–the fanatics who threaten our way of life.

    Lastly, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just deletes this email without sending it on, is contributing to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand. So, extend yourself a bit and send this on and on and on! Let us hope that thousands, world-wide, read this and think about it, and send it on – before it’s too late . I have posted this letter before, and it is truly, something to think about? This is certainly ‘food-for-thought’.

    This is very interesting and we all need to read it from start to finish, and send it on to everyone. Maybe this is why our A……merican Muslims are so quiet and not speaking out about any atrocities.

    Can a good Muslim be a good American?

    This question was forwarded to a friend who worked in Saudi Arabia for 20 years. The following is his reply:
    Theologically – NO, Because his allegiance is to Allah, The moon god of Arabia .
    Religiously – NO, Because no other religion is accepted by His Allah except Islam. (Quran, 2:256-Koran)
    Scripturally – NO, Because his allegiance is to the five Pillars of Islam and the Quran.
    Geographically – NO, Because his allegiance is to Mecca , to which he turns in prayer five times a day.
    Socially – NO, Because his allegiance to Islam forbids him to make friends with Christians or Jews.
    Politically – NO, Because he must submit to the mullahs (spiritual leaders), who teach annihilation of Israel and destruction of America , the great Satan.
    Domestically – NO, Because he is instructed to marry four Women and beat and scourge his wife when she disobeys him (Quran 4:34-Koran)
    Intellectually – NO, Because he cannot accept the American Constitution since it is based on Biblical principles and he believes the Bible to be corrupt.
    Philosophically – NO, Because Islam, Muhammad, and the Quran does not allow freedom of religion and expression. Democracy and Islam cannot co-exist. Every Muslim government is either dictatorial or autocratic.
    Spiritually – NO, Because when we declare ‘one nation under God,’ the Christian’s God is loving and kind, while Allah is NEVER referred to as Heavenly father, nor is he ever called love in the Quran’s 99 excellent names.
    Therefore, after much study and deliberation, perhaps we should be very suspicious of ALL MUSLIMS in this country. They obviously cannot be both ‘good’ Muslims and good Americans. Call it what you wish, it’s still the truth. You had better believe it. The more who understand this, the better it will be for our country and our future.
    The religious war is bigger than we know or understand.
    Footnote: The Muslims have said they will destroy us from within. SO FREEDOM IS NOT FREE!

    THE MARINES WANT THIS………. TO ROLL ALL OVER THE U.S.

    They are truly our enemy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!They want you dead!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Ask a Soldier!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Please pass these two letters on,America We are at a Crossroads of loosing our Country and Freedom! This is not a joke or some Politically Correct Ploy! We are repeating History, the wrong way! Wake up, be informed, But The writtings on the wall..Please don’t keep a blind eye! Cause if you do, they will Take us and Imprison us, whether it is Socially, Emotionally, economically, or even Physically! But it is real and it is here!!! If you are really honest with your self & no one else, Look at all the signs… ..The world is against us and half of America! All I can say is Stand Up..Speak Up.. and Pray Up..its going to be a wild ride as it has been for the last yr and a half! But stand for Truth no matter what, even upon Pain of Death! God Bless America! and Have mercy on all of US….of A!!!….

18. Reply

    Jamie Shannon says:

    October 25, 2010 at 6:45 pm

    I only want to say to all Americans I have posted this before,But be aware of the progressives agenda,leading us towards Islam and Socialism, I have posted this letter alot and hope to keep doing it till all people know what Muhammad,& Isla……m is, and all about! Please don’t let children watch this..Muhammad.. http://…www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyyKhao47qU The perfect man’ & Three things you (probably) don’t know about Islam http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgsrnmzxEUY After you watch these, read the letter in next post…Warning on the Video’s “DON’T LET CHILDREN WATCH” But it is the Truth! One man wrote the Quran, and there is 2 sides to the Quran,The first part of Peace & the second, Is very evil, Remember One man wrote the Quran.”IN ONE LIFETIME” .and created Islam and the Muslims, they are all Arab descent! over 40 men wrote the Bible over, 3500yrs! Be Aware and understand this post and the next! God Bless all who take heed, and God’ Bless America!

19. Don Smith says:

    October 26, 2010 at 8:37 am

    This is crazy, Obama is allowing people into this country that are not true Americans, they will suck our social security system dry, and destroy our healt care system with excessive overloads, they will get our benefits, while we got nothing in return. They will come first, we will be last. They need to Impeach this guy before He destroys our once great nation, He’s a Nut !!
    Don

20. Reply

    Billsocal says:

    October 27, 2010 at 2:48 pm

    Just another piece in the jigsaw puzzle showing him as a Muslim. All you have to is put the pieces together and you get a real clear picture.

21. 
    
22. Reply

    Mauna says:

    October 28, 2010 at 12:21 pm

    When the Jews came to America, they did not ask everyone in America to become a Jew. They went about building schools, libraries, museums, hospitals, clinics, etc. and joined with Americans to build a better America. When Muslims enter America, they go about building mosques, and from their mosques, they preach hatred for America (the very land where they can live and enjoy life), they build schools for Muslims children, schools that teach the same dislike for America and Americans, and all the schools teach from the Koran. Muslim children are brainwashed from birth, to hate Infidels and to kill jews. Their goal is total world domination by Muslims. They use our “politically correctness” to gain more power, and NEVER, NEVER have they actually turned in a terrorist when the terrorist is one of their own, instead, they protect them and cover up. Why would America want more people like that here? Americans do not want more Muslims here, but our President does not understand that. They are ruining our country.

WHAT DO INTELLIGENCE EXPERTS AND MANY PSYCHOLOGISTS HAVE IN COMMON? THEY ARE OUT OF TOUCH WITH REALITY!

Walk Like an Egyptian

Mubarak finds his way out, and America's top intelligence officials find they're way off.

By JAMES TARANTO

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE
BEST OF THE WEB TODAY
11 FEBRUARY 11

It seems he's really gone. "President Hosni Mubarak succumbed to the demands of hundreds of thousands of his countrymen Friday and resigned from office, bringing to an end three decades of autocratic rule," The Wall Street Journal reports.

For the moment, at least, autocratic rule is giving way to military rule: "Because of the current circumstances in the country the president . . . has decided to step down, and the higher command of the army is taking control of the country," Vice President Omar Suleiman announced.

The announcement was supposed to have been delivered yesterday by Mubarak himself--or at least so everyone thought, including Leon Panetta, the U.S. director of central intelligence, who testified yesterday before the House Intelligence Committee. "Panetta helped touch off an avalanche of erroneous expectations Thursday when he testified that there was a 'strong likelihood' that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak would step down by the end of the day," the Washington Post reports.

How did that happen? According to the New York Times, "American officials said Mr. Panetta was basing his statement not on secret intelligence but on media broadcasts."

Associated Press

Hold your applause for Clapper.

This reminded us of the incident we wrote about Dec. 22 in which James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, gave an interview in which he revealed his ignorance about a major terror-plot bust in England earlier that week. As we noted Dec. 23, John Brennan, the White House's top counterterrorism adviser, defended the DNI by saying: "I'm glad that Jim Clapper is not sitting in front of the TV 24 hours a day and monitoring what's coming out of the media." Panetta's misstep makes Brennan's defense of Clapper seem more plausible than it did at the time.

One wonders, though, what Brennan might make of Clapper's latest foul-up. As Politico.com reports, Clapper testified on the same panel with Panetta yesterday and, as Politico notes, he said this:

"The term 'Muslim Brotherhood' . . . is an umbrella term for a variety of movements, in the case of Egypt, a very heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence and has decried Al Qaeda as a perversion of Islam," Clapper said. "They have pursued social ends, a betterment of the political order in Egypt, et cetera. . . . In other countries, there are also chapters or franchises of the Muslim Brotherhood, but there is no overarching agenda, particularly in pursuit of violence, at least internationally."

Now, this columnist does not claim to understand the Muslim Brotherhood. Much of what we heard and read from its critics on the right has a paranoid tone to it, which arouses our suspicions.

Even so, Clapper's statement that "there is no overarching agenda, particularly in pursuit of violence, at least internationally" is so heavily hedged that it is hard to imagine it could be anything other than an attempt to conceal an unpleasant truth. And his claim that a group called the Muslim Brotherhood is "largely secular" is preposterous on its face. (One imagines an Egyptian liberal with a bumper sticker on his Volvo: "The Muslim Brotherhood is neither.")

Politico reports that Clapper is "backing away" from the "largely secular" statement:

"To clarify Director Clapper's point--in Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood makes efforts to work through a political system that has been, under Mubarak's rule, one that is largely secular in its orientation," a spokesman for Clapper, Jamie Smith, said Thursday afternoon. "He is well aware that the Muslim Brotherhood is not a secular organization."

This column has largely stayed away from the subject of the Egyptian revolution. It's a complicated story, and we weren't sure we had anything to say that would be strong and original without a significant risk of being wildly wrong.

Not that we're looking for a job, but it sounds as though we're well qualified to serve as a top intelligence official. Or rather, we would be if only we could become more confident in our ignorance.

Newspaper as Echo Chamber
John Tierney, who writes about science for the New York Times, is unusual--a Times writer of libertarian bent, one who challenges his colleagues' prevailing political assumptions. The other day he had a column about a Tierney-like academic, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt of the University of Virginia, who spoke at a recent conference:

He polled his audience at the San Antonio Convention Center, starting by asking how many considered themselves politically liberal. A sea of hands appeared, and Dr. Haidt estimated that liberals made up 80 percent of the 1,000 psychologists in the ballroom. When he asked for centrists and libertarians, he spotted fewer than three dozen hands. And then, when he asked for conservatives, he counted a grand total of three.

"This is a statistically impossible lack of diversity," Dr. Haidt concluded, noting polls showing that 40 percent of Americans are conservative and 20 percent are liberal. In his speech and in an interview, Dr. Haidt argued that social psychologists are a "tribal-moral community" united by "sacred values" that hinder research and damage their credibility--and blind them to the hostile climate they've created for non-liberals.

One Adam Bevelacqua of Brooklyn, N.Y., took issue with this in the comments section of the Times's website:

I find it difficult to take Dr. Haidt's argument seriously, given the climate of today's American society. While I agree that no academic field based on the scientific process should push an ideology, the lack of conservatives in the Social Sciences (and a few graduate students' shy emails) do not imply a general hostility toward conservative ideas. Instead, their absence highlights how far to the right the contemporary conservative movement has traveled and how out of sync it is with evidence-based reality. Since most conservative social policy revolves around religious belief or long-disproven ideas--the most obvious to point out would be the anti-gay rhetoric about curability, recruitment, etc--it makes perfect sense that conservatives gravitate away from the social sciences and Academia in general, especially when those fields contradict their core social beliefs. . . .

Social science has existed as an important way to analyze often misunderstood minority communities, such as blacks and gays, and the idea that the field needs more conservatives to keep up the perception of diversity makes no sense. The social sciences have helped change many people's biases about certain populations by communicating truth based on factual evidence. These academic pursuits have aided the advancement of social progress by dispelling misinformation (such as stereotypes). If academic facts contradict today's conservative status quo regarding social issues, we need not correct that. Instead, it might be time for people to re-evaluate what it means to be a conservative.

The obvious point here is that Bevelacqua is engaging in exactly the sort of stereotyping of which he accuses conservatives. His example, "anti-gay rhetoric about curability, recruitment, etc," is not exactly central to American conservatism in the second decade of the 21st century.

But the interesting point arises from one further fact: Bevelacqua's comment is the most "recommended" by readers on the Times site. The second-place comment asserts that "closed-minded conservatives don't make very good scientists." No. 4: "Most thinking people are not very likely to be what you call 'conservative.' "

As we write, the top five comments are all hostile to conservatives, and the top six are unsympathetic to Haidt's argument. It seems Haidt's description of the world of academic psychology as a liberal political monoculture also fits the New York Times's readership.

That may explain why the Times's staff is a monoculture, though we'd say it's more likely that the internal biases of the Times attract readers who share its ideological bent and repel those who don't. This may make sense as a marketing strategy, but it explains why the paper's authority as a neutral source of news has been gradually diminishing.

BACK ALLEY ABORTIONS ARE NOW SANCTIONED BY BIG GOVERNMENT

BIG GOVERNMENT’S BACK ALLEY

Mark Steyn on Culture

Thursday, 10 February 2011

As I was leaving Fox News last night, I glanced up at the monitor and caught Juan Williams expressing mystification to Sean Hannity as to why Republicans in Congress were wasting the country’s time on a “little thing” like abortion. Gee, I dunno. Maybe it’s something to do with a mass murderer in Pennsylvania, or Planned Parenthood clinics facilitating the sex trafficking of minors. From the Office of the District Attorney in Philadelphia: Viable babies were born*. Gosnell killed them by plunging scissors into their spinal cords. He taught his staff to do the same. This is a remarkable moment in American life: A man is killing actual living, gurgling, bouncing babies on an industrial scale – and it barely makes the papers. Had he plunged his scissors into the spinal cord of a Democrat politician in Arizona, then The New York Times, ABC, CBS, NBC and everyone else would be linking it to Sarah Palin’s uncivil call for dramatic cuts in government spending. But “Doctor” Kermit Gosnell’s mound of corpses is apparently entirely unconnected to the broader culture. Why? Well, because it’s all about a woman’s “right to choose”. What women? Well, how about the misses Robyn Reid and Davida Johnson: FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD Robyn Reid didn’t want an abortion. But when her grandmother forcibly took her to an abortion clinic one wintry day in 1998, Reid figured she’d just tell the doctor her wishes and then sneak away. Instead, Kermit Gosnell barked: “I don’t have time for this!” He then ripped off her clothes, spanked her, wrestled her onto a dirty surgical stretcher, tied her flailing arms and legs down and pumped sedatives into her until she quit screaming and lost consciousness, she told the Daily News yesterday… In 2001, Davida Johnson changed her mind about aborting her 6-month fetus after seeing Gosnell’s dazed, bloodied patients in his recovery room, she said. But in the treatment room, Gosnell’s staffers ignored her protests, smacked her, tied her arms down and sedated her into unconsciousness, she said. She awoke no longer pregnant. Oh. Well, “Dr” Gosnell’s just one rogue abortionist. How about the “right to choose” over at Planned Parenthood? There are a whole range of choices – not so much for the illegally smuggled underage foreign sex slave, but at least for her pimp. If you’re a middle-aged guy running a child-sex business, you have the “right to choose” what’s best for that 13-year old Venezuelan hottie you brought over a couple weeks back. As the Falls Church clinic assures him: We don’t necessarily look at the legal status, like I said. That’s good to know. With Planned Parenthood aiding and abetting child prostitution, my friend Rich Lowry argued that the back alley is back: Legal abortion was supposed to end “back-alley abortions,” both their dangers and their entanglements with shady characters. But the practice and the mores of the back alley are with us still, tolerated by people for whom the ready provision of abortion trumps all else. Rich (the editor of National Review) is right. Ever since Roe v Wade, proponents of a woman’s “right to choose” have warned us against going back to the bad old days of rusty coat hangers and unsterilized instruments from money-grubbing butchers on the wrong side of town. Now, happily, the back alley is on the main drag, and with a state permit framed on the wall. In Philadelphia: Furniture and blankets were stained with blood. Instruments were not properly sterilized. Disposable medical supplies were not disposed of; they were reused, over and over again. Medical equipment – such as the defibrillator, the EKG, the pulse oximeter, the blood pressure cuff – was generally broken; even when it worked, it wasn’t used. The emergency exit was padlocked shut. And scattered throughout, in cabinets, in the basement, in a freezer, in jars and bags and plastic jugs, were fetal remains. It was a baby charnel house. In New Jersey: The Department of Health and Senior Services investigated the abortion facility and found dirty forceps, rusty crochet hooks used to remove IUDs, and a quarter-inch of dirt and debris under an examining table. For years, the supposed regulators averted their gaze – as a matter of policy. For abortion’s ideological enforcers, the official euphemisms trump reality. For those on the receiving end of infection, mutilation, sterilization and death, reality has a way of intruding. Ask Nicole Gaither: Nicole Gaither got an abortion from Gosnell in 2001. After four days, she said, the pain was so bad she could barely walk. She returned to the clinic, where, she said Gosnell blithely told her he’d left fetal remains in her. “Stand up! It don’t hurt that bad!” he yelled at her, she said, before suctioning – without any medication – her insides. Ask Patient SB: After inadequately dilating Patient S.B.’s cervix for a D&E abortion, Pendergraft ruptured her uterus and shoved the pre-born baby’s body into the abdominal cavity. She was rushed to the hospital where she received an emergency hysterectomy along with the removal of the dead fetus, which was missing an arm. The arm was later found at Pendergraft’s EPOC abortion clinic. His not reporting that he had removed the arm caused a delay in her care at the hospital as surgeons futilely attempted to locate the missing appendage. Ask Rasheedah Dinkins: Dinkins, who was 22 at the time of the settlement, became severely ill following the abortion and was transferred to Newark Beth Israel Medical Center where she needed blood transfusions and had her uterus removed. She also suffered a stroke due to the serious blood loss and had one of her lungs collapse. The back alley is back, and supersized: The above New Jersey clinic performs 10,000 abortions a year. When the pro-choice rally ends and Cameron Diaz, Ashley Judd and other celebrities d’un certain age return to Hollywood, and the upper-middle-class women with the one designer baby go back to their suburbs, a woman’s ”right to choose” means that, day in, day out, the blessings of this “right” fall disproportionately on all the identity groups the upscale liberals profess to care about – poor women, black women, Hispanic women, undocumented women, and other denizens of Big Government’s back alley. A government back alley, licensed and supposedly regulated, is worse than the old kind, because it implies the approval of the state, and of society. That’s what Gosnell thought he had, when he murdered those babies and mutilated those teenage girls. That’s what Planned Parenthood think they have, when they facilitate the sexual exploitation of Third World children. And, given the silence of the PC media, maybe they’re right. Aside from the intrinsic evil of not only Gosnell but a state that knowingly colludes with him, these “little” abortion stories reveal an almost totalitarian mindset in the “pro-choice” movement’s determination to brook no intrusion of reality upon the official myths. You may be one of those wealthy suburban “feminists” or “new men” indifferent to the fate of eight-pound “blobs of tissue” or 14-year old “women”, but the gulf between propaganda and truth, between the fatuous feelgood bumper stickers and the rusty crochet hooks, is profound – and, in a world where statists and social engineers serve as ruthless enforcers for the prevailing ideology, its deep moral corruption will eventually swallow you, too. America should be at the very minimum deeply disquieted by these revelations. That it is not – that it is dismissed as a “little thing” – is even more disquieting. [*James Fulford argues that "Dr" Gosnell delivered live babies and killed them because he was too incompetent to perform a "partial-birth abortion" - because, in a ever more credential-obsessed America, ever more credentials have been corrupted by ethnocultural political considerations.]

TOTALITARIANISM COMES IN MANY DIFFERENT DISGUISES

No room at the table for the Muslim Brothers

by Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
February 9, 2011

http://www.jeffjacoby.com/8740/no-room-at-the-table-for-the-muslim-brothers

:

An Egyptian anti-government demonstrator and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood prays near Egyptian soldiers in Cairo. (Getty Images)

FREE AND DEMOCRATIC SOCIETIES take chances. They guarantee freedom of speech and of the press, despite the risk that harmful, foolish, or depraved ideas may be promoted. They require due process of law before an offender can be punished, even though some who are guilty may go free as a result. They give citizens the power to elect their rulers, notwithstanding the strife election campaigns generate -- and the possibility that voters will choose officials who are corrupt or incompetent.

But there are limits. "Liberty and justice for all" does not require empowering even those who seek to do away with liberty and justice. In his famous dissent in the 1949 Supreme Court case of Terminiello v. Chicago, Justice Robert Jackson warned against interpreting the First Amendment so categorically as to fortify "right and left totalitarian groups, who want nothing so much as to paralyze and discredit . . . democratic authority." A commitment to liberal democracy is not an obligation to open the democratic process to parties that reject liberal democracy itself. Jackson cautioned the court's majority to "temper its doctrinaire logic with a little practical wisdom," lest it "convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact."

If even in America, where democratic institutions are old and firmly rooted, it is important to guard against antidemocratic cancers that latch on to political freedoms in order to destroy them, how much more important must it be in Egypt, where a democratic republic is still struggling to be born?

This is why the question of the Muslim Brotherhood -- officially banned in Egypt, but nevertheless the country's largest opposition group -- is so crucial.

The Brotherhood is the world's most influential Islamist organization, and Islamism -- the radical ideology that seeks the submission of all people to Islamic law -- is perhaps the most virulent antidemocratic force in the world today. In Daniel Pipes's phrase, "it is an Islamic-flavored version of totalitarianism." Like other totalitarian cadres, Islamists despise democratic pluralism and liberty in principle. But they are quite ready to make use of elections and campaigns as tactical stepping-stones to power.

As with Adolf Hitler in 1933 or the Czechsolovak communists in 1946, Islamists may run for office and hold themselves out as democrats; but once power is in their grasp, they do not voluntarily relinquish it. Just months after Hamas, a self-described "wing of the Muslim Brotherhood," won a majority of seats in the Palestinian elections in 2006, it violently seized control of the Gaza Strip. More than 30 years after Ayatollah Khomeini took power in Iran promising representative democracy, the Islamist dictatorship he built instead remains entrenched.

In Turkey, where secular democratic norms were long enforced by the military, the Islamist Justice and Development Party, or AKP, won the 2002 elections on a platform of moderate democratic conservatism. Since then, however, the AKP has shed its moderate coloration. "The party has turned authoritarian toward the opposition," writes Soner Cagaptay, who heads the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "Anti-government protestors are beaten up by security forces, opposition figures are wiretapped, and independent papers get slapped with punitive tax fines. . . . The AKP has effectively neutered the military. Not just high-ranking officers, but also the government's critics among academics have come under assault, ending up in prison."

As the crossed swords and Koran on its logo suggest, the Muslim Brotherhood is fundamentally antidemocratic.

If Egypt is to have any hope of a transition to a genuine constitutional democracy, the Muslim Brotherhood must not be treated as a legitimate democratic partner. For more than 80 years, it has been a fervent exponent of Islamic, not secular, rule; of clerical, not popular, sovereignty. Its credo could hardly be more explicit, or more antidemocratic: "Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Koran is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope."

In 2008, the Muslim Brotherhood's supreme leader publicly called for raising young "mujaheddin" -- holy warriors -- "who love to die as much as others love to live and who can perform their duty towards their God, themselves and homeland." This week, senior Brotherhood figure Kamal al-Halbavi said his wish for Egypt is "a good government like the Iranian government, and a good president like Mr. Ahmadinejad, who is very brave."

Democracy is flexible, but even in the best of circumstances it is incompatible with religious totalitarianism. What the Muslim Brotherhood seeks is the very antithesis of democratic pluralism and a free civil society. Egypt's friends must not hesitate to say so, clearly and emphatically.

(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe).