Westboro Loons and Loons of the Left

There were so many perceptive articles published today that I decided to present excerpts from three of them, one regarding the absurd decision last week by SCOTUS that the Westboro loons have a right to hurl invective during private, military funerals of dead servicepeople, and two that discuss the delusion of the left that terrorism and Islam have no connection. In its delusion, the left then hurls scorn on anyone who differs from their madness. Click on the links to read the entire articles:

Justice Alito Was Right

By William Murchison on 3.9.11 American Spectator

“It fell to Justice Samuel Alito the other day to remind Americans how far their culture of liberation has veered from common sense and appreciation of the small decencies that undergird civilization.

On a question of "free speech" -- at its center a claimed right to begrime with taunts and insults the funeral of a U.S. Marine -- the four members of the U.S. Supreme Court's liberal-permissivist bloc weren't likely to find against the jeer leaders. It was the conservative bloc whose behavior startled. Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Antonin Scalia, and Justice Clarence Thomas went along with the permissivists, in the name of "robust, uninhibited, and wide-open" debate. As if the honored word "debate" applied to placards exhorting onlookers to "Thank God for Dead Soldiers."

Against his eight colleagues, Sam Alito stood in lonely, honorable dissent. "Our profound national commitment to free and open debate," he wrote, "is not a license for the vicious verbal assault that occurred in this case." Alito saw no free speech deprivation in the judgment a district court had levied against the traveling freak show known as Westboro Baptist Church, in Kansas: a gang keener on disrupting military funerals than on preaching the redemptive love of Jesus.

The picketers could have picketed almost anywhere in America, said Alito. Why at the church where the funeral of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder was being held? From the claim of free speech rights there was no logical pathway to the intentional infliction of "severe emotional injury on private persons at a time of intense emotional sensitivity.'"” American Spectator

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Delusions of the Politically Correct

By Ruth Marcus March 9, 2011 RealClearPolitics

WASHINGTON -- "One of the odder exchanges I've ever seen during a congressional hearing involved Attorney General Eric Holder, Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith, and the phrase "radical Islam."

Smith, at a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee last May, cited three recent terrorist incidents: the Fort Hood shooting rampage, the underwear bomber and the Times Square bomber. "Do you feel that these individuals might have been incited to take the actions that they did because of radical Islam?" he asked Holder.

The attorney general did his best not to go there. "There are a variety of reasons why I think people have taken these actions," he said. "I think you have to look at each individual case." RealClearPolitics

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What Do They Fear From Peter King?

By Richard L. Benkin March 9, 2011 American Thinker

"I was educated as a social scientist; and as a social scientist, learned that if I wanted to understand a phenomenon and recognized a variable common to many examples of it, I would be remiss if I did not investigate it. It would be foolhardy to claim that a supposed defense of Islam has not been common to many terrorist events or to claim that there is no such thing as radical Islam. Now, if the political correctness crew wants to rename it something like "radicals-who-claim-they-represent-Islam-but-really-don't-and-certainly-cannot-be-used-to-call-all-Muslims-terrorists," they are welcome to do so; but for the sake of brevity, I will call it radical Islam, and they can consider it short for their mountain of PC qualifiers.

To hear a bevy of usual suspects tell it -- from the White House and Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN) to hip hop mogul Russell Simmons -- Congressman Peter King (R-NY) should be outfitted with a white sheet and hood for daring to hold hearings on the threat of radical Muslims in the United States. Ellison criticized King for singling out a religious minority. Okay, well let's see. When was the last time a Christian "terrorist" flew an airplane into a skyscraper, killing thousands? Or how about an Irish one (since Ellison specifically warned us not to single out the Irish)? When was the last time those big, bad Jews strapped on a suicide bomb vest and blew themselves up in a Pakistani shopping mall?" American Thinker