Political Correctness and Ebola

 I don't think I have ever been so angry as I was when the Director of the CDC admitted publicly that the real reason for no travel ban was to protect "the fledgling economies" of the ebola-affected, West African states - angry at him, angry at Obama, and especially angry at liberal friends who helped put this incompetent, dangerous fool, racist and liar into the White House.  Mexico can refuse the docking of a cruise ship that MIGHT contain an infected passenger, but citizens of the United States are denied the protection of a travel ban because of liberal commitment to "political correctness".

      

Incompetence Meets Mendacity in Obama Administration’s Ebola Response

Americans are shaken by government’s inability to function.

By Andrew C. McCarthy October 18, 2014 National Review

Ebola is causing such anxiety that even alarm over an outbreak of enterovirus D-68 — far more prevalent and linked to the deaths of at least four children — has been crowded out. Ditto news of the Islamic State’s rampage, a stock-price rollercoaster, and the impending midterm elections. Understandably, two concerns dominate the public discussion.

One is incompetence. Lulled into ever more dependence on government by the metastasis of regulation in what used to be the realm of private action, Americans are shaken by Washington’s inability to function. It is bungling elementary tasks. There is a sense of unraveling, a sense that officials are not merely out of their depth in addressing problems but incapable of spotting the problems in the first place — or, even worse, responsible for creating the very problems that then explode into crises.

Intimately related is the other concern: dishonesty. People expect politicians to spin and, at times, to out-and-out lie. I’ve been contending for a while now that our politics are no longer rational but tribal. Being right is secondary to being on the “right” side, as that side is perceived by the popular culture. That culture has largely tuned out the news and is swayed more by character assassination than by linear, fact-based argument. Official dishonesty is the natural result. When it is more important that “our side” wins than that the sensible thing be done, it is to be expected that the partisans, especially those in power, will say whatever they need to say to get through the news cycle. After all, fewer people than ever care about the news part of the news cycle; they care about the drama and their sympathies will be with their heroes — the fibs told to escape the latest jam are more admired for craftiness than condemned as breaches of trust.

Still, as we’ve previously observed, there is a breaking point. You can only abide politics as soap opera for so long because politics is actually about real life and real stakes. Reality cannot be scripted. Therefore, politics cannot forever be stage-managed as a “narrative” with “optics,” a daily show focused on how the lead character is affected by the latest crisis.

At a certain point, the reality of the crises hits us, and hits close to home. Am I threatened? Am I going to get sick? If I do get sick, am I going to have health coverage and the doctor I trust? Is the government doing its best to make sure I am not infected? Or shot? Or bombed? Or beheaded?

Where do we get the answers to these questions? From the government we’ve grown to depend on. And now the answers are so purposely, patently, and pervasively false, it suddenly seems as if nothing can be trusted — as if, even as our perils intensify, our government erects another house in its Potemkin village.

Of course you can keep your health coverage, and your doctor. And we’ll cover everyone while your premiums plummet. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda is “decimated” and these Islamic State guys are just the jayvee team. In fact (fact?), they’re not even Islamic — although they may not be quite as “secular” as the Muslim Brotherhood. Just extremists. (Extreme about what? Don’t ask.) Jihad is just a “purification of the self” . . . or, at most, “workplace violence.” Benghazi? A spontaneous “protest” incited by a video. The president was not told it was a terrorist attack . . . except by the secretary of defense right after it started — long before he responded by . . . going to Vegas, where he promptly announced al-Qaeda was “on the path to defeat.” Still, rest assured that the State Department’s top priority is the safety of American personnel . . . although we did reduce security in Benghazi after our facility was bombed. And rest assured that the Justice Department would never ever let guns walk . . . except for the thousands its Fast and Furious program transferred to violent gangs — who’ve used them in who knows how many crimes, including the murder of a Border Patrol agent. Still, at least there’s “not a smidgen of corruption” at the IRS, where citizens are harassed, evidence keeps disappearing, and the official at the center of it all takes the Fifth to avoid giving incriminating testimony. No matter. Just take heart that Ebola is not coming to the United States . . . um, well, if it does come there will be no outbreak . . . but, er, if there is an outbreak, we have careful protocols and health-care professionals fully trained to deal with it . . . and even if the protocols don’t work and the professionals don’t have adequate training, we’ll have a rigorous monitoring program for anyone who is exposed . . . or maybe a self-monitoring program for people who will isolate themselves . . . unless, of course, we tell them to go ahead and hop on a plane. Well, look, at least we can promise there won’t be a “serious” outbreak.

If you say so.

The shocking competence gap and the cavernous honesty gap — brought to you by the “most transparent administration in history” — make our heads spin as we careen from debacle to government-induced debacle. In the tumult, we can miss the main point: Why do we have a federal government?

Its purpose is to safeguard the American people and pursue our interests in the world, not to solve the world’s problems on our dime and, occasionally, by using us as laboratory mice. As free people, we can try to save the planet. The federal government, however, was not created to do it for us, much less to coerce us into implausible “humanitarian” schemes that always manage to line some crony’s pocket. National interest is our government’s only reliable compass, yet it has been discarded.

It is a short step to incompetence when you lose sight of what you are expected to be competent at accomplishing. It is an even shorter step to mendacity for a ruling class that is schooled to believe the country is fatally flawed and, thus, that the pursuit of our national interests is evil. It turns out that when real crises rivet their attention, the rubes still expect the government to protect and defend them. At that point, the government must either attend to those basic duties, or lie.
This government has made its choice.

 

The End of Columbus Day

Long ago I solved the mystery of why liberals supported such foolishness like open borders, political correctness, multiculturalism and the end of Columbus Day. I learned that their world view was that we citizens of the USA had such a wonderful country because we had stolen resources from all the rest of the world. It was up to liberals to right these wrongs by sharing our wealth, celebrating other cultures while destroying our own – and, in general, cutting us down to size. To be sure, there is a fair amount of self-hatred in their thinking, but they have some outdated facts on their side.

Like most developed countries, like Great Britain, France, Germany, Holland, Portugal and Spain, there was a time when might made right, colonialism was God's work, and slavery (which still exists in some countries) was an accepted practice. We were more successful than most, but the problem is: those days are gone forever, and this is still a very dangerous world.

As I ponder the strange reactions by the Obama Administration to the dual crises of an ebola epidemic possibly developing in our country and the rise of ISIS, a powerful force dedicated to destroying America and all things smacking of enlightened western culture, I ask myself, “Is this liberal world view and self-hatred at work here also?”.

Are we supposed to share the sufferings of the third world because of our past sins? What other explanation is there for the nonsense being put forth as to why travel from the ebola-stricken countries has not been shut down? Why has the response to the threat from ISIS been so lame and so late? Is it from a view that they should be left to work things out – even at the expense of a future confrontation with an enemy of barbarian death-cultists armed with nuclear weapons?

Obama ISIS Plan Is Nonsense

 Washington’s Ruling Class Is Fooling Itself About The Islamic State

Angelo M. Codevilla The Federalist Sept 19, 2014

Washington's foolish approaches to the Islamic State will not destroy
 them or discourage others from following in their footsteps.

The American people’s reaction to Muslim thugs of the “Islamic State” ritually knifing off the heads of people who look like you and me boils down to “let’s destroy these bastards”—which is common sense. But our ruling class, from President Obama on the Left to The Wall Street Journal on the Right, take the public’s pressure to do this as another occasion for further indulging their longtime preferences, prejudices, and proclivities for half-measures in foreign affairs—the very things that have invited people from all over the planet to join hunting season on Americans.

This indulgence so overwhelms our ruling class’s perception of reality that the recipes put forth by its several wings, little different from one another, are identical in the one essential respect: none of them involve any plans which, if carried out, would destroy the Islamic State, kill large numbers of the cut-throats, and discourage others from following in their footsteps. Hence, like the George W. Bush’s “war on terror” and for the same reasons, this exercise of our ruling class’s wisdom in foreign affairs will decrease respect for us while invigorating our enemies.

The WSJ’s recommendations, like the Obama administration’s projected activities, are all about discrete measures—some air strikes, some arming of local forces, etc. But they abstract from the fundamental reality of any and all activities: He who wills any end must will the means to achieve it. As in Bush’s war, as is the custom in Washington nowadays, our ruling class’s several sectors decide what actions they feel comfortable undertaking about any given problem, while avoiding reasonable judgment about whether these actions will actually fix the problem. This is the very definition of irresponsibility. But they call it “strategy.”

Irresponsibly Avoiding Debate

Our Constitution prescribes that war happens subsequent to votes by elected representatives. By debate and vote, presumably they reconcile the war’s ends with the means to be employed. But to reconcile ends and means is to banish illusions and pretenses. Yet because these are what our ruling class lives by, leaders of both parties have joined to preclude such debates and votes. They granted congressional funding for the one part of Obama’s venture with regard to the IS that required it—arming some of the Sunni rebels against Syria’s Assad regime—while avoiding votes on what precisely that or any other part of the venture means. This is textbook irresponsibility.

To reconcile ends and means is to banish illusions and pretenses.

Representative Duncan Hunter (R-CA), a Marine veteran, objected: “We need to crush ISIS and not work on arming more Islamic radicals. Just what would arming these people accomplish?” To prevent massive numbers of Republican congressmen from joining this common-sense question, the House Armed Services Committee’s bill requires the administration to  answer it in a report to Congress some time in the future, but not now. The fact that the administration and the leaders of both parties—the ruling class—did not make reasoned answers to the key questions the primary premise of their request suggests not so much that they are hiding these answers from others as much as that they themselves have not addressed the questions.

In the Senate, the ruling class avoided any vote at all by placing the money for arming the Sunni rebels into the Continuing Resolution for keeping the government open. This device, which reduces the senators’ choice to funding everything the the ruling class wants or “shutting down the government,” has become the principal way by which the ruling class dispenses with the Constitution.

Experience Says We’re Crazy

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV)’s common-sense objection to arming the Sunni rebels might as well have been voiced by any ordinary citizen for all the effect it had: “Our past experience, after 13 years, everything that we have tried to do has not proven to be beneficial, not proven at all. So what makes you think it’s going to be different this time? What makes you think we can ask a group of Islamists to agree with Americans to fight another group of Islamists, as barbaric as they may be?”

The WSJ notwithstanding, while the ‘moderates’ will take U.S. money and arms, no amount of ‘vetting’ will or can cause them to fight the IS for us.

The answer is that our ruling class does not think, as much as it indulges its imagination and believes its own spin. A prime example of which is the Wall Street Journal’s lead editorial of September 17. Never mind that the Islamic State’s Sunni subjects welcome the ritual beheaders who rule over them because these are Sunni as well. “The brutality,” writes the WSJ, “has created conditions similar to those that preceded the Sunni Awakening in Iraq in 2007—the revolt by ordinary Sunnis and their tribal leaders in Anbar province against al Qaeda.” This follows the Bush administration’s spin concerning the so-called “surge.” In fact however, Iraq’s Sunnis sought America’s protection in 2007 not against any other Sunnis but against the Shia death squads that had begun massacring them in large numbers.

According to the same fantasy, conducting air strikes today against the IS in former Iraq and Syria would encourage its Sunni-Wahabi fighters to defect to the ranks of U.S.-supported “moderate” Sunnis. This neglects not only that the flow of fighters in the region has always gone only in one direction—away from the less pure and less brutal to the purer and most brutal Islamists. It also neglects the incommensurability of the two sets of fighters’ objectives. The “moderates” are mostly Syrians interested in governing Syria, while the Islamic State’s fighters are led by Saddam’s Iraqi cadre, have fighters from all over the world, and have pan-Islamic objectives. Joe Manchin is right. The WSJ notwithstanding, while the “moderates” will take U.S. money and arms, no amount of “vetting” will or can cause them to fight the IS for us.

While Obama limits himself to unexplained confidence that Sunni Arab states will join in fighting the IS, the Journal supposes to know why they have not done so yet, and why instead they have been helping the jihadis: because our aid to the right Sunnis in 2012 and 2013 was “microscopic and half hearted.” This was the aid being brokered by the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and cut off by mortar shells expertly aimed by we know not whom. But the WSJ knows who’s to blame for the Sunni Arabs’ failure to meet the ruling class’s expectations: “Some Conservatives.”

Get Your Heads Out of The Sand

Like the Bush administration, Obama and the Journal are grasping at what they imagine to be a vast reservoir of inherently moderate Sunni peoples and governments. Just show them how pro-Sunni America really is, and this vast moderate wave will submerge the terrorist threat to America. Thus the Journal writes that we dare not just make war on the IS that makes war on us. No. “Sunnis will not support the campaign against Islamic State if they think our air strikes are intended to help the regime in Damascus and its Shiite allies in Beirut and Tehran.” You see, the real game lies in making nice to Sunnis.

Believing in the saving power of a ‘moderate Sunni’ wave is as politically correct though patently silly as believing in global warming after years of record cold.

Obama has made clear that he envisages a very limited, tightly targeted air campaign against the IS. It goes without saying that this cannot possibly hurt it severely. But, were the U.S. government somehow to mount a serious air campaign, nevertheless the inescapable fact remains that the IS can be finished off only on the ground. But how? By whom? Obama stays away from the question. The Journal, however answers: “the Kurds, the parts of the Iraqi military that aren’t dominated by Iran’s militias, and the moderate Sunnis in Syria and Iraq.”

This is beyond dumb. Believing in the saving power of a “moderate Sunni” wave is as politically correct though patently silly as believing in global warming after years of record cold. All know that the Kurds will fight only for Kurdistan. The Iraqi army has proved beyond doubt that, as a fighting force, it exists only insofar as it is composed of Shiite militias. But our inward-looking, bipartisan ruling class refuses to deal with reality. War consists of massive killing that dispirits the survivors. Yet our ruling class refuses to consider how many of what categories of people will have to be killed in order to end this war with the peace we want. War does not tolerate solipsism.

Yet again, consensus within the ruling class is setting America on course to demonstrate impotence.  Its preferences, prejudices, and proclivities guarantee that the Islamic State and those among us whom it inspires will be a growing problem as months and years pass. Harsh consequences will follow until a political vehicle for the expression of the American people’s common sense comes into being.

Angelo M. Codevilla is a fellow of the Claremont Institute, professor emeritus of international relations at Boston University and the author of To Make And Keep Peace, Hoover Institution Press, 2014.

Two Obvious Liars

Lie Number 1

President Obama refused to take responsibility for the lack of U.S. troops in Iraq, saying that American soldiers had to pull out due to political pressure from Iraqi leaders.

“This issue keeps on coming up as if this was my decision,” Obama retorted when asked if he had any second thoughts, in light of the terrorist force taking over regions of Iraq, about having pulled all American troops out of the country. “The reason that we did not have a follow-on force in Iraq was because a majority of Iraqis did not want U.S. troops there and politically they could not pass the kind of laws that would be required to protect our troops in Iraq,” he said.

Lie Number 2

On Sunday, The Atlantic came out with an interview of Hillary Clinton which was conducted by Jeffrey Goldberg.

The highlights of the interview was Hillary's criticism of the Obama Administration's failure to back the Syrian rebels early on and its failure to prevent the rise of ISIS in Iraq and also gave a staunch defense of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Operation Protective Edge in Gaza.

While Hillary's critique of the Obama Administration is spot on it does lack a certain credibility. It's not as if she is a detached observer. As President Obama's Secretary of State for four years, she was instrumental in the development of very policies she now sees fit to criticize. Let us not forget that it was Hillary who once called Bashar Assad a reformer and ripped Netanyahu every way possible. She also once stated that Israel lacked "empathy" and "generosity" towards the Palestinians.

Muslims in America and Everywhere

This is a reprint of an article I posted in 2008.  Thanks to Ivan for e-mailing me the statistics shown in the book excerpted below, and reminding me of this article.  Nothing has changed.  Muslim jihadists are still butchering innocents; Palestinians are still teaching their children that Jews drink Arab blood and are still trying to kill all Jews; Muslims come to America to escape their culture - then promptly try to impose their culture on the rest of us.

Although most of the world’s Muslims are peaceful people who want the same things for their children as do we, nevertheless, Muslim history cannot be ignored or denied (as American liberals seem to do), and it is clear that 1. Islam is a political movement as much as it is a religion – and must be dealt with as such, and 2. We must be vigilant in not allowing the Muslim population to grow, nor allow mosques and schools spreading hate to exist in America.

The following excerpt from Dr. Hammond's book shows the extent of the problem, and that it must be dealt with if we are to keep the freedoms so many Americans died to win for us and to keep for us.

"Slavery, Terrorism and Islam: The Historical Roots and Contemporary Threat"
by Dr. Peter Hammond

“Islam is not a religion, nor is it a cult. In it's fullest form, it is a complete, total, 100% system of life.

Islam has religious, legal, political, economic, social, and military components. The religious component is a beard for all of the other components.

Islamization begins when there are sufficient Muslims in a country to agitate for their religious rights.

When politically correct, tolerant, and culturally diverse societies agree to Muslim demands for their religious rights, some of the other components tend to creep in as well. Here's how it works.

As long as the Muslim population remains around or under 2% in any given country, they will be for the most part be regarded as a peace-loving minority, and not as a threat to other citizens. This is the case in:

United States -- Muslim 0.6%
Australia -- Muslim 1.5%
Canada -- Muslim 1.9%
China -- Muslim 1.8%
Italy -- Muslim 1.5%
Norway -- Muslim 1.8%

At 2% to 5%, they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups, often with major recruiting from the jails and among street gangs. This is happening in:

Denmark -- Muslim 2%
Germany -- Muslim 3.7%
United Kingdom -- Muslim 2.7%
Spain -- Muslim 4%
Thailand -- Muslim 4.6%

From 5% on, they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population. For example, they will push for the introduction of halal (clean by Islamic standards) food, thereby securing food preparation jobs for Muslims. They will increase pressure on supermarket chains to feature halal on their shelves -- along with threats for failure to comply. This is occurring in:

France -- Muslim 8%
Philippines -- Muslim 5%
Sweden -- Muslim 5%
Switzerland -- Muslim 4.3%
The Netherlands -- Muslim 5.5%
Trinidad & Tobago -- Muslim 5.8%

At this point, they will work to get the ruling government to allow them to rule themselves (within their ghettos) under Sharia, the Islamic Law. The ultimate goal of Islamists is to establish Sharia law over the entire world.

When Muslims approach 10% of the population, they tend to increase lawlessness as a means of complaint about their conditions. In Paris, we are already seeing car-burnings. Any non-Muslim action offends Islam, and results in uprisings and threats, such as in Amsterdam, with opposition to Mohammed cartoons and films about Islam. Such tensions are seen daily, particularly in Muslim sections, in:

Guyana -- Muslim 10%
India -- Muslim 13.4%
Israel -- Muslim 16%
Kenya -- Muslim 10%
Russia -- Muslim 15%

After reaching 20%, nations can expect hair-trigger rioting, jihad militia formations, sporadic killings, and the burnings of Christian churches and Jewish synagogues, such as in:

Ethiopia -- Muslim 32.8%

At 40%, nations experience widespread massacres, chronic terror attacks, and ongoing militia warfare, such as in:

Bosnia -- Muslim 40%
Chad -- Muslim 53.1%
Lebanon -- Muslim 59.7%

From 60%, nations experience unfettered persecution of non-believers of all other religions (including non-conforming Muslims), sporadic ethnic cleansing (genocide), use of Sharia Law as a weapon, and Jizya, the tax placed on infidels, such as in:

Albania -- Muslim 70%
Malaysia -- Muslim 60.4%
Qatar -- Muslim 77.5%
Sudan -- Muslim 70%

After 80%, expect daily intimidation and violent jihad, some State-run ethnic cleansing, and even some genocide, as these nations drive out the infidels, and move toward 100% Muslim, such as has been experienced and in some ways is on-going in:

Bangladesh -- Muslim 83%
Egypt -- Muslim 90%
Gaza -- Muslim 98.7%
Indonesia -- Muslim 86.1%
Iran -- Muslim 98%
Iraq -- Muslim 97%
Jordan -- Muslim 92%
Morocco -- Muslim 98.7%
Pakistan -- Muslim 97%
Palestine -- Muslim 99%
Syria -- Muslim 90%
Tajikistan -- Muslim 90%
Turkey -- Muslim 99.8%
United Arab Emirates -- Muslim 96%

100% will usher in the peace of 'Dar-es-Salaam' -- the Islamic House of Peace. Here there's supposed to be peace, because everybody is a Muslim, the Madrasses are the only schools, and the Koran is the only word, such as in:

Afghanistan -- Muslim 100%
Saudi Arabia -- Muslim 100%
Somalia -- Muslim 100%
Yemen -- Muslim 100%

Unfortunately, peace in never achieved, as in these 100% states the most radical Muslims intimidate and spew hatred, and satisfy their blood lust by killing less radical Muslims, for a variety of reasons.

'Before I was nine I had learned the basic canon of Arab life. It was me against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; the tribe against the world, and all of us against the infidel. -- Leon Uris, 'The Haj'

It is important to understand that in some countries, with well under 100% Muslim populations, such as France, the minority Muslim populations live in ghettos, within which they are 100% Muslim, and within which they live by Sharia Law. The national police do not even enter these ghettos. There are no national courts nor schools nor non-Muslim religious facilities. In such situations, Muslims do not integrate into the community at large. The children attend madrasses. They learn only the Koran. To even associate with an infidel is a crime punishable with death. Therefore, in some areas of certain nations, Muslim Imams and extremists exercise more power than the national average would indicate.

Today's 1.5 billion Muslims make up 22% of the world's population. But their birth rates dwarf the birth rates of Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, and Jews, and all other believers. Muslims will exceed 50% of the world's population by the end of this century.”

Adapted from Dr. Peter Hammond's book: Slavery, Terrorism and Islam: The Historical Roots and Contemporary Threat

Obama's Hatred of Israel

The look on both their faces says it all.

 

President Obama meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2011.

 By Jay Bergman
Providence Journal August 1, 2014



Obama's Israel Actions Merit Impeachment

NEW BRITAIN, Conn.

President Obama’s demand for an unconditional and immediate cease-fire in the fighting between Israel and Hamas, which would leave the latter with the wherewithal to murder Israeli civilians in the future, is just the most recent example of what can only be considered a conscious and deliberate policy to weaken and to undermine the security of the only Jewish state in the world.

From denying Israel the “bunker-buster” bombs it needs to destroy the Iranian nuclear facilities, to infantile snubs of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the president of the United States has shown an unswerving, consistent and relentless hostility to Israel that is not only harmful to Israel but to America as well.

Theological fanatics like Hamas will not be kindly disposed to the United States, much less deterred from continuing their genocidal war against Israel, by Obama’s ongoing appeasement, which has been justified and explained away by the president’s ridiculous claim, first made in his speech in Cairo in 2009, to understand Islam because he lived as a youth in a Muslim country, Indonesia.

Every public and semi-public admonishment of Israel, whether by President Obama or by his loquacious secretary of state, John Kerry, only encourages those who seek Israel’s destruction to persist in their evil design: Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Fatah and, by seeking to flood Israel with “refugees” too young to have been alive when Israel was created in 1948, the Palestinian Authority.

One may disagree about the reason for the president’s attitude. The most plausible is not that he is secretly Muslim, but rather that he loathes Israel because he loathes America, that for Obama the former is an integral appendage of the latter, no less racist and discriminatory at home and just as imperialist and expansionist abroad. Ironically, the Iranians show they also believe in this connection by building intercontinental missiles to fire at “The Big Satan” (the United States) once “The Little Satan” (Israel) is destroyed.

In light of the multiple dangers Israel faces, even as it is currently dealing, at great cost in human life, with an enemy that seeks the destruction not only of Israel but, as its founding charter makes clear, of all Jews, it is time for American Jews to recognize that the current occupant of the White House means real and lasting harm to the state of the Jewish people and thus to the Jewish people themselves.

If American Jews who support Obama’s positions on domestic issues such as abortion and immigration consider these issues more important than Israel’s survival, then they should continue to support his presidency. But for American Jews who both as Jews and as Americans consider Israel’s survival the foremost moral imperative of our time, and who believe that without Israel Judaism itself will suffer demographic extinction and that America would be even more tempting a target for Muslim terrorists than it was before 9/11, their obligation is clear and inescapable: to do everything they can to pressure President Obama to cease his relentless hostility to Israel and, if that does not work, to seek his removal from office. Impeachment and conviction do not require the commission of crimes. Dereliction of duty is sufficient.

The foreign policy Obama has pursued, of punishing America’s allies, not just Israel but other pro-Western democracies such as Poland and the Czech Republic, and of appeasing America’s enemies, not just Muslim theocracies but also thuggish dictatorships such as Putin’s Russia, is clear evidence of presidential negligence, of failing to do everything necessary to protect the American people. If this is not an impeachable offense, one is hard pressed to say what is.

Jay Bergman is a professor of history at Central Connecticut State University, in New Britain, Conn.

The New Fascism Rolls On

HGTV, the TV channel that mainly shows you how to fix toilets and flip houses, shows its intolerance, cowardice and willingness to help destroy the traditions and legal concepts that made this country special:

Charles C. W. Cooke May 9, 2014 National Review

 

The New Fascism Rolls On

 

Now it’s twin brothers with a home-decorating show who can’t hold heterodox political views.

Another day, another witch hunt — this time in duplicate. “Twin brothers David and Jason Benham,” CNN reports, “have lost their opportunity to host their own HGTV show.” On Tuesday, the pair was gearing up for their new role; by sundown the next day, the network had announced tersely that it had “decided not to move forward with the Benham Brothers’ series.” And that, as they say, was that.

HGTV’s mind was allegedly changed by a post on the blog Right Wing Watch, where the duo was described as being “anti-gay” and “anti-choice.” That post, David Benham told Erin Burnett yesterday, “was too much for them to bear — they had to make a business decision.” How sad. Certainly, the Benhams hold some heterodox views. They are not merely opposed to abortion and gay marriage, but critical of divorce,
adultery, Islam, pornography, “perversion,” the “demonic ideologies” that have crept into the nation’s “universities and . . . public school systems,” and the general culture of “activist” homosexuality, which, David contends, is inextricably tied up with a wider “agenda that is attacking the nation.” But so bloody what? They were tapped to host a home-improvement show, not rewrite the Constitution.

Per Right Wing Watch’s rather hysterical indictment, the brothers’ main crimes against humanity are to have “led a prayer rally,” talked a few times on the radio, written a few articles, and — shock! — been involved in “protests outside of abortion clinics” and “at a 2009 LGBT event.” In other words, to have taken to the public square and to have spoken — an activity free societies have traditionally tended to cherish. Did they bring their views into their work environment, impose them upon their employees and their clients, or physically threaten anybody who disagrees with them? Of course not.

“We’ve been running a successful real estate company for the last eleven years, and we help all people,” Jason Benham told CNN. “There is no discrimination.”
Jason’s brother, David, concurred, explaining that,

we love all people. I love homosexuals. I love Islam, Muslims, and my brother and I would never discriminate. Never have we — never would we.

Fair enough. But, as the likes of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Alec Baldwin, Paula Deen, Dick Metcalf, and Phil Robertson have recently learned, these days one doesn’t need to actually do anything in order to become persona non grata. Before he was defenestrated for the high crime of having donated to California’s Proposition 8, Mozilla’s short-lived CEO, Brendan Eich, made it clear that he considered it his responsibility to ensure that his company remained “a place that includes and supports everyone, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, age, race, ethnicity, economic status, or religion.” It counted for nothing.

Predictably, the boycott-and-divest Left is thrilled by the scalp. “You can be plenty offensive and stay on TV as long as your show’s a hit,” Salon’s Mary Elizabeth Williams lamented this week. Nevertheless, she continued, “thanks to social media, it may be becoming a little harder to be offensive and actually get on TV in the first place.” “I guess,” she concluded, “we’ll call that progress.” That’s one word for it, certainly. Another one might be “McCarthyism.” Americans with unfashionable views do not have a right to have television shows. But, as Twitter’s David Burge likes to point out, “nobody had a right to be a Hollywood screenwriter in 1948” either.

As a rule, the term “McCarthyite” is too lazily and too readily thrown around. Here, though, it is somewhat appropriate. At its root, McCarthy’s contention was that because free nations are vulnerable at their edges, they are on occasion justified in persecuting their radicals. Today’s inquisitors take a similar approach, Erin Ching, a student at Swarthmore College, telling reporters in Februrary that “what really bothered” her was “the whole idea that, at a liberal arts college, we need to be hearing a diversity of opinion.” More specifically, Ching objected to “tolerating conservative views.” Why? “Because that dominant culture embeds these deep inequalities in our society.” And so, it must be repressed.

Future students of language will wonder at the period in our history in which it was said with a straight face that diversity required uniformity, tolerance necessitated intolerance, and liberalism called for dogma. Of late, we have been told that Brandeis University is simply too open-minded to hear from a critic of Islam, that Mozilla believes too vehemently in “freedom of speech” to refrain from punishing a man for his private views, and that a respect for the audience of a show about duck hunting demands that we suspend a man for expressing his religious views in an unrelated interview. “Never,” David Benham confirmed in an interview with CNN, “have I spoken against homosexuals, as individuals, and gone against them. I speak about an agenda.” Later, he added that “that’s really what the point of this is — that there is an agenda that is seeking to silence the voices of men and women of faith.” Say, now where might he have got hold of that idea?

— Charles C. W. Cooke is a staff writer at National Review.

 

Punished for His Thoughts

I disagree with Ben about Mr.Silver's actions; he obviously felt he had to do something meaningful to save the NBA from further damage, but I think and I hope Donald Sterling goes to court and wins. This is a case where the cure is worse than the disease.

　
Ben Stein's Diary

Punished for His Thoughts

More on Adam Silver's panicky rush to judgment.

By Ben Stein – 5.1.14 American Spectator

Thursday
So, here I am, still in Denver, a lovely city, but too high up.

Herewith, a few lowly thoughts about Mr. Donald Sterling, his private conversations with his mistress, the media lynching of him, and the actions of the NBA sanctioning him severely for those private thoughts and comments.

"It’s a slippery slope," said billionaire sports club owner Mark Cuban when asked about the sanctions. I am not sure what he meant, but he’s right.

Sterling is being punished for his thoughts. He is being punished for actions that make the NBA look bad even though they were not actions at all, but thoughts.

As far as I have been able to determine, the NBA code of conduct allows sanctions for actions. I don’t see anything that allows sanctions for thoughts. So, where does the authority for that come from?

Next, if we are to sanction private thoughts and comments by NBA owners, shouldn’t we put all of their mistresses and wives and friends and children under oath and ask about any comments they have ever made in private? Why is only Mr. Sterling being singled out for retribution for his thoughts? Why not start wholesale, Vishinsky-like Stalin show trial interrogation of everyone close to an NBA owner to find out what he has said that might be objectionable? Isn’t the punishment of Mr. Sterling just an in terrorem bill of attainder against one man otherwise?

So, while we’re at it, let’s see what actions other professional team owners have done that might embarrass their league. They are all rich so probably they have girlfriends. We know that one in the Midwest was just arrested for a DUI and drug possession. Nothing at all was done to him. Not a thing.

Are we in a world where a non-criminal thought or comment is punished harshly but an actual deed — an arrest for DUI and drug possession — is not punished ? Can that really be happening?

And while we are on this witch-hunt about racist comments, why stop at NBA owners? How about media personalities? I know some big names that have made some startlingly racist comments in their earlier days. Should we go after them, too? Why should they be allowed to sit in judgment of everyone else?

And why is it suddenly a crime to harbor racist thoughts? Note, I deplore racism and have fought against it all of my life. But when did it become actionable by a self-regulating body with the power to deprive a member of immense amounts of money to do so because of his thoughts? Actions, of course. But THOUGHTS?

And what of Mr. Obama’s pastor and his spectacularly anti-white comments? What about Minister Farrakhan? Is it allowed to make racist remarks about one racial group but not about others?

What about the black comedians I see on TV at night with their endless mockery of whites? Is that allowed? Why?

Mr. Cuban is right. Once we start punishing people on the basis of thoughts, we are in real trouble. There is no end in sight that is compatible with a free society.

And, again, why isn’t there some outcry about Ms. Stiviano and her illegal taping of a private conversation?

Next, Mr. Adam Silver, the head of the NBA. Hailed as a hero. Brave. Decisive. I don’t get it. He was just bullied into taking the path the media demanded. He made a rush to judgment without the slightest thought to the ramifications of his actions in a Constitutional democracy. He’s not a hero. A hero would have insisted on taking some time to study the consequences of his actions. But he did what the media demanded. So he’s a hero to them.

And meanwhile, out there in America, the black person’s world is in chaos. Wildly higher school dropout rates than among whites. Demolished family structure. Terrifyingly higher arrest and incarceration rates than whites. A drug plague. These are catastrophes and the media ignores them. But one lone old rich drunk who talked too much to his mistress... oh, we’ll nail him and things will be great in the world of blacks.

I am telling you, we are in a bad way here. I hate racism but I love freedom and we are throwing it away with both hands.

　

The World’s Bravest Woman

I can’t say this any better than the The Daily Beast did:

Why is Brandeis University giving in to the growing hordes who believe they have a right to not be offended?

It is difficult to conceive of a braver woman alive today than Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Born in Somalia, she was subjected to genital mutilation—a practice commonly inflicted on young girls in Muslim communities—at the age of 5. Fleeing a forced marriage, Hirsi Ali eventually made her way to the Netherlands, where she became a member of parliament, defender of women’s rights, and an outspoken (and, at times, unduly harsh) critic of the religion in whose name she was violently subjugated. When a Muslim fanatic murdered filmmaker Theo van Gogh, with whom Hirsi Ali had collaborated on a short film about the oppression of women under Islam, the killer left a note on his victim’s chest warning Hirsi Ali that she would be next.

Hirsi Ali now lives in America, under 24-hour protection. She is a bestselling author, a frequent presence in international media, and a heroic example to women around the world.

But for the mandarins of Brandeis University, Hirsi Ali’s views are unacceptable.

Here's What I Would Have Said at Brandeis

We need to make our universities temples not of dogmatic orthodoxy, but of truly critical thinking.

By Ayaan Hirsi Ali April 10, 2014 Wall St Journal

On Tuesday, after protests by students, faculty and outside groups, Brandeis University revoked its invitation to Ayaan Hirsi Ali to receive an honorary degree at its commencement ceremonies in May. The protesters accused Ms. Hirsi Ali, an advocate for the rights of women and girls, of being "Islamophobic." Here is an abridged version of the remarks she planned to deliver.

One year ago, the city and suburbs of Boston were still in mourning. Families who only weeks earlier had children and siblings to hug were left with only photographs and memories. Still others were hovering over bedsides, watching as young men, women, and children endured painful surgeries and permanent disfiguration. All because two brothers, radicalized by jihadist websites, decided to place homemade bombs in backpacks near the finish line of one of the most prominent events in American sports, the Boston Marathon.

All of you in the Class of 2014 will never forget that day and the days that followed. You will never forget when you heard the news, where you were, or what you were doing. And when you return here, 10, 15 or 25 years from now, you will be reminded of it. The bombs exploded just 10 miles from this campus.

I read an article recently that said many adults don't remember much from before the age of 8. That means some of your earliest childhood memories may well be of that September morning simply known as "9/11."

You deserve better memories than 9/11 and the Boston Marathon bombing. And you are not the only ones. In Syria, at least 120,000 people have been killed, not simply in battle, but in wholesale massacres, in a civil war that is increasingly waged across a sectarian divide. Violence is escalating in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Libya, in Egypt. And far more than was the case when you were born, organized violence in the world today is disproportionately concentrated in the Muslim world.

Another striking feature of the countries I have just named, and of the Middle East generally, is that violence against women is also increasing. In Saudi Arabia, there has been a noticeable rise in the practice of female genital mutilation. In Egypt, 99% of women report being sexually harassed and up to 80 sexual assaults occur in a single day.

Especially troubling is the way the status of women as second-class citizens is being cemented in legislation. In Iraq, a law is being proposed that lowers to 9 the legal age at which a girl can be forced into marriage. That same law would give a husband the right to deny his wife permission to leave the house.

Sadly, the list could go on. I hope I speak for many when I say that this is not the world that my generation meant to bequeath yours. When you were born, the West was jubilant, having defeated Soviet communism. An international coalition had forced Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. The next mission for American armed forces would be famine relief in my homeland of Somalia. There was no Department of Homeland Security, and few Americans talked about terrorism.

Two decades ago, not even the bleakest pessimist would have anticipated all that has gone wrong in the part of world where I grew up. After so many victories for feminism in the West, no one would have predicted that women's basic human rights would actually be reduced in so many countries as the 20th century gave way to the 21st.

Editorial Note:  Why do liberals spout off all the time about women's rights, and yet not care about what Muslims do to their women?

 

Another Liberal Wakes Up

With Lois Lerner and the IRS busily carrying out President Obama’s campaign to stifle all criticism of his leftist policies, and to target with harassment and criminal investigations all those who criticize (examples – Dinesh D’Souza, Dr. Carson), it was a little refreshing to read this article by Kirsten Powers, who serves as one of the Fox News token liberals.

Kirsten Powers: Liberals' mob rule

Kirsten Powers April 8, 2014 USA Today

Kickstarter's attempt to censor film about convicted abortion doctor is another example.

Last week brought a chilling reminder of how mercilessly some liberals will work to silence and marginalize people who hold views with which they disagree.

Even for those of us who support same-sex marriage, the virtual manhunt of Mozilla chief Brendan Eich was scary to watch. His heresy was a private donation in support of an anti-gay marriage initiative six years ago. Mob rule enforcing groupthink is as illiberal as it gets, and yet it was liberals demanding uniformity of thought — or else.

Another incident of muzzling those without the proper worldview received less attention. Kickstarter, the nation's biggest crowd-funding site,refused to accept a film about convicted abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell unless descriptions of his crimes were removed.

After producers Phelim McAleer and his wife, Ann McElhinney, complained publicly, embarrassed Kickstarter CEO Yancey Strickler claimed on Twitter that the allegation was false. Strickler released an e-mail accepting the Gosnell film, but failed to mention that it was accepted only after the filmmakers withdrew in frustration. The producers released e-mails from Kickstarter demanding that references to stabbing babies and "similar language" be removed. The "acceptance letter" came March 28, the day after the producers withdrew their proposal.

Kickstarter explained its reasoning for blocking the movie by writing, "We understand your convictions … however … our Community Guidelines outline that we encourage and enforce a culture of respect and consideration, and we ask that that language specifically be modified."

Somehow, making a movie recounting the crimes of a convicted abortion doctor is disrespectful and inconsiderate. Kickstarter would only speak off the record, but its explanations were dissembling and contradictory. That might be because Kickstarter's standards aren't exactly rigorously enforced. An album titled Incest is the Highest Form of Flattery was fine. The movie Die Sluts Die telling "the story of ... sex crazed friends ... murdered in unusual and creative ways," ditto.

What type of movie on late-term abortion do our meddling gatekeepers want? Kickstarter accepted After Tiller, a hagiography of the abortionists who took over when Wichita doctor George Tiller was murdered. The film presumably doesn't belabor the process of late-term abortion, where babies are often stabbed in the neck with scissors and the contents of their skulls suctioned out. One wouldn't want to violate Kickstarter's culture of respect and consideration. Or provide factual information.

Kickstarter, like too much of the news media, wants only one version of the late-term abortion story told. If Gosnell hadn't killed the babies outside the mothers' body and instead kept them inside as is standard procedure for the After Tiller docs, he would not have been charged with murder. He'd be the hero in a film Kickstarter would happily fund.

 

Dr. Carson and the IRS

Dr. Carson, “We live in a Gestapo age”.

It’s nothing new that the extreme left-wing tries to harass, intimidate and even destroy anyone who opposes them by speaking out.  It has happened in every communist and socialist government that rose up and then failed.  What’s new is that we now have a president who uses the tools and agencies of government to stifle dissent, and by his own actions and statements, encourages others to do whatever they have to – to eliminate politically incorrect speech.

The latest example of this was the successful effort of the left to force the resignation of Mozilla’s CEO because he made a donation in 2008 in support of traditional marriage.

Using the IRS for political oppression

By SHERMAN FREDERICK  February 16, 2014  L. V.REVIEW-JOURNAL

Last February, the National Prayer Breakfast invited the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Dr. Ben Carson, to speak.

The master of ceremonies said Carson was invited to speak for three reasons: 1. “He loves Jesus.” 2. “He has a compelling life story.” 3. “He is a distinguished man of science and healing.”

He added: “We hope he can help us sort some things out.”

Brother, Dr. Carson did just that, but probably not the way anyone anticipated — especially the president of the United States, who sat at the head table.

Dr. Carson that day delivered a stem-winder, a faith-based speech that, while not what I’d call a head-on partisan address, amounted to a principled rebuttal of President Barack Obama’s policies. It was, no doubt, an uncomfortable 27 minutes for the president.

Carson’s commentary was delivered in an affable style. A black man raised in abject poverty who become a learned man of science, he blistered the paint off how America is devolving into a state of intolerance, welfare, educational slavery and fiscal irresponsibility.

He started innocently enough, with a joke about a successful businessman who always struggled to find gifts for his mother on Mother’s Day.

Finally, he found a pair of exotic birds trained to talk and dance. He had them delivered.

He called to ask her how she liked the birds.

She said: “They was good.”

“Oh no, tell me you didn’t eat those birds,” he said. “They could talk and dance, and they cost $5,000 apiece.”

To which his mother replied: “Well, they should have said somethin’.”

That launched Carson into a string of observations on the principles of free speech.

In today’s America, the politically correct speech police are out in force, he said.

“PC is dangerous,” Dr. Carson told President Obama and the National Prayer Breakfast crowd that morning. “Because, you see, one of the founding principles is freedom of thought and freedom of expression. And, it muffles people. It puts a muzzle on them. And at the same time keeps people from discussing important issues while the fabric of this society is being changed. And we cannot fall for that trick. And what we need to do is start talking about things. Talking about things that are important.”

At the conclusion of the speech, Carson became a national story. Liberal writers raised an eyebrow at what they perceived to be an ill-timed dressing-down of the president. Conservatives, meanwhile, called his message refreshing, a message the country needed to hear.

No one can say whether the president really heard Dr. Carson’s message. But someone in government did, because in June, guess who visited Dr. Carson? The Internal Revenue Service. Carson had never been audited before his speech. Suddenly the tax agency was looking at his real estate holdings.

“I’ve been quite, I would say, astonished at the level of hostility that I have encountered,” Carson said.

“The IRS has investigated me. They said, ‘I want to look at your real estate holdings.’ There was nothing there. ‘Well, let’s expand to an entire [year], everything.’ There was nothing there. ‘Let’s do another year.’ Finally, after a few months, they went away. But they’ve come after my family, they’ve come after my friends, they’ve come after associates.”

And Dr. Carson isn’t the only conservative American under strangely timed IRS scrutiny.

Dr. Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham, wrote a letter to the president accusing the IRS of unfairly targeting his nonprofit groups.

Christine O’Donnell, the former tea party U.S. Senate candidate from Delaware, says she was audited and that some of her personal tax information was breached.

Former Nevada GOP Chairwoman Sue Lowden ran against Harry Reid in 2010. She lost in the Republican primary — and then found herself visited by the IRS.

Even as I was in the process of writing this, a friend forwarded me an email from a man in North Carolina who says that he and his cousin hosted an event for Mitt Romney, and soon thereafter found themselves scrutinized by the IRS.

All of this is anecdotal, of course. But it is beginning to add up, and at a certain point, men and women of good will in both parties must wake up and pay attention to these red flags.

It’s either an unbelievable string of coincidences or our government is, in fact, using the color of law to silence political enemies.

Two things lead me to suspect the latter.

First, Dr. Carson’s story rings true. The timing is so direct, the cause to investigate so suspicious.

Second, in a recent interview with Fox News, President Obama was asked about the allegations that the IRS targeted tea party groups for scrutiny regarding their applications for tax-exempt status.

The investigation is ongoing. From what is known publicly, there is zero doubt that conservative groups were targeted. The only question is how far up the political ladder it went. To compound things, the Justice Department assigned to the case an investigator who just happens to be a big fan of the president. She’s a maxed-out political contributor to President Obama’s campaign.

That in itself is unwise and outrageous. But the point at hand is that the investigation is not complete.

Yet the president tells Fox News that there is not a “smidgen” of evidence of wrongdoing.

How can he know that, unless he has some unholy control over the probe? And how then does he explain his own IRS supervisor taking the Fifth before a congressional hearing?

If there is no “smidgen” of wrongdoing, no one would need to exercise their right against self-incrimination, correct?

It doesn’t add up.

The IRS, of course, isn’t saying a thing about all this.

Let us not forget that these IRS suspicions do not come out of nowhere.

The inspector general issued a report in May that said the IRS “used inappropriate criteria that identified for review Tea Party and other organizations applying for tax-exempt status.” Yet the president says there’s not a “smidgen” of evidence. And a few Democrats in Congress want an investigation of the inspector general, not the IRS. Can we get any more like the book “1984”?

Carson likens his treatment to the Gestapo. And it may be.

But one thing is for certain: Something’s going on.

And if you don’t want to be cooked and eaten, you better say somethin’.

 

Escape From New York

The irony of the advertising campaign that Gov. Cuomo and the state of New York has chosen to overcome its anti-capitalism history has not been lost on me.  When Cuomo appeals to businessmen to come to the low-tax and business-friendly state of New York I roll on the floor with laughter.

God save us and our wonderful country from the kind of people described below:

Escape from New York - with a twist

By Andrew Thomas  February 21, 2014  AmericanThinker

Let me tell you the true story of a married couple whom I will refer to as Donna and Frank, as they must remain anonymous.  Let's just say that I know them well.  Donna is in her early 30's, and Frank is in his early 40's.

Donna and Frank have lived in various areas of Brooklyn NY for the past five years.  Their last apartment was a one-room concrete "cave" on the fifth floor of a converted warehouse.  It had very little lighting, with two windows that looked out at a bleak, aging wall of neighboring apartment windows.  It had no individual temperature control, so the apartment was stifling hot most of the time.  The elevator continually reeked of urine.

Next to the front entrance of the building, an elevated section of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway provided a constant deafening cacophony of diesel engines and honking truck and auto horns.  A depressing amount of garbage covered the sidewalks along Park Avenue and underneath the expressway.  Donna would often walk her dog to a small park several blocks away, where she would be greeted by a group of men who made their homes under picnic tables and park benches lined with discarded cardboard and Styrofoam.

Donna never told me how much she paid for rent, but I would guess that it was in the $2500-$3000 per month range.  She said that they were very lucky to have found such a good apartment in a desirable area of the city.

She made a six-figure salary, which provided them a nearly paycheck-to-paycheck existence.  A long bus ride and two subway changes were required to get to her job in midtown-Manhattan. 

Frank recently got his Master's degree in education.  It took him over a year to finally get his NY teaching certification, as his application kept getting lost in the morass of state government bureaucracy.  After two years of trying, he found it impossible to get a teaching job in NYC because of his race and gender (Caucasian male), and the priority given to previously laid-off teachers (which are legion).  Because of his low priority status, he was unable even to obtain an unpaid intern position.  His status as an honorably discharged veteran was of no use.

They considered starting a small business, but were discouraged by the oppressive city and state regulations, taxes, and fees.

This is the city where 70% of the voters elected an avowed supporter of Communism as mayor.  It is the state where the governor warns those who believe in traditional marriage, the Second Amendment, and the sanctity of life that they are not welcome.  And it is the city where the previous billionaire mayor declares that he will dedicate his fortune to spreading his NYC political agenda to the rest of America and the world.

Last week, Donna and Frank finally left NYC for good. 

It was as if they had died and gone to heaven.  Well, to Orlando, Florida to be exact.  Donna was able to snag another six-figure full time position.  But Orlando's cost of living is about half of NYC's, so she essentially doubled her income.  Frank obtained a Florida teaching certification within three days of their arrival. 

They moved into their luxurious downtown $1500 per month apartment, located in a newly-constructed contemporary-style building, with a brand new washer and dryer in the apartment (as opposed to a coin laundry in a dungeon-like basement in their Brooklyn apartment), a state-of-the-art fitness and cross-training center, and a rooftop infinity pool.  From their balcony, they have a gorgeous view of Lake Eola and the Orlando skyline.

They researched the area for starting a business, and found Orlando to be a very business-friendly environment with few stifling regulations and fees.  Of course, they pay no state or local income taxes there.  Their future suddenly appears very bright.

There is an ironic twist to this story, however.  Frank is a card-carrying member of ISO (International Socialist Organization).  Donna has also been brainwashed by the socialist siren song.  Their library is filled with Noam Chomsky, and radical posters decorate their walls with phrases such as "Turn Off Faux News!"

When I expressed my distain for Obamacare back in 2009, Donna accused me of being a murderer, and asked incredulously, "Why are you against free healthcare?"  I couldn't convince her otherwise.  Their idyllic vision of socialism is where "we will all govern each other".

Frank explained to me that they chose to live in Orlando because that is a part of the state which will still be above water when man-made global warming causes the oceans to rise.

These are two otherwise intelligent, educated, and well-spoken individuals, as are many other left-leaning people.  The only characteristic that seems to stand out in all of them is a streak of apparent emotional immaturity I would describe as "willful naiveté". 

Please do not give me the analogy of rats leaving a ship they helped to sink, only to help sink the lifeboat.  I prefer not to think of Donna and Frank in those terms, as apropos as they might be.

My only hope is that someday the irony will become apparent to them.  That the reason they chose to escape their socialist paradise of NYC is because it doesn't work, and that the personal success and freedom they desire are only achievable in the capitalistic free-market environment they so distain.