On blogging

It's been a long while since I've posted to this blog... Primarily because it was spring, and now it is summer, with so many better things to do than sit in front of a computer. Or worry about politics, for that matter. I've been going back and forth about whether to pick this up at all, trying to answer a seemingly simple question: why am I doing this? I am not a compulsive writer, so I don't really have to write. I also know that what I'm writing here can come back to haunt me. After all, I work at a university, where views like mine are probably in minority, or at least not openly expressed. Someone had already complained about my views, or so I heard... So I probably shouldn't write. Yet these are some of the reasons why I do post things on my website and on my blog: I want to try to find my voice and I don't want to succumb to fear, which seems to be permeating this society. (Note: I'm planning to cover this particular issue in a subsequent post).

I do a lot of thinking, and sometimes in a way too fragmented a manner, and writing helps me slow down, formulate my thoughts, think about something for a while, instead of jumping from one issue to another like a dragonfly on speed. I also want to assert my right to speak my mind. It's a basic human right, dammit! If what I write disturbs you, don't read it. There are mllions, perhaps billions other pages on the Web - go and find something you like. Disagreement is OK, it's even welcome. I don't claim that I know everything or that my views are not subject to change. They are, and I can be persuaded that I was wrong and someone else was right.  What are really hate are people who think that views different from theirs should be supressed, and people who hold them, punished. There are depressingly many such people in the United States. Perhaps fewer than in most (all?) other countries, but still...

Selective sensitivity

Some Polish people are pretty upset about a relatively unfunny cartoon that recently appeared in The New Yorker: one boy says to another, "My parents named me Zbigniew because they were drunk." I'm guessing that what the author of this cartoon found funny was this hard to pronounce name - obviously, someone must have been off their rocker to give that name to a child. The trouble is, that's a fairly popular Polish name, so the Polish equivalent of this cartoon would (in translation) read something like, "My parents named me Sean, because they were drunk." Funny? You decide.

The thing wouldn't be worth two seconds of attention, if it weren't for the selective sensitivity adopted by the Western media of late. Do you think the editors of The New Yorker would have published the cartoon, if the name being made fun of was "Obama?" Or "Shlomo?" Or "Mohammed"? Or "Kfume"? I seriously doubt it. Especially, if the cartoon would even so little as hint at something that might be objectionable to the "perpetually offended", i.e. muslims.

It's not the joke itself, but the context of cowardice surrounding it, that is so offensive. This is what happens when you start sacrificing the right of free speech and free expression on the altar of "sensitivity" (read: "fear"). You can't say anything disparaging or funny about women, because it's "sexist". Racial minorities will accuse you of "racism", if you dare to make fun of them. Then come the various ethnic groups. Pretty soon you find that the only people you can make fun of are abstract white men with no religious or ethnic affilliation. That's the world we're already living in. Do you find that funny?

"Terrifying political correctness"

Here is Vaclav Klaus again, commenting on the responses to his interview:

I am getting a lot of reactions from the U.S. to my Friday interview in "Hospodářské noviny" where I talked about the global warming, among other things. Someone has distributed the interview to many internet servers and I have pleased many American non-Al-Gores by my statements because they feel as a minority that is under the pressure of a terrifying political correctness in the U.S. It is crucial to call things by the right name.

The phrase "terrifying political correctness" has struck a nerve with me, because it is terrifying indeed. How it emasculates people! In all my 27 years of living in the socialist Poland I did not see people as afraid to say what's on their minds as I am witnessing in the United States, a country that seems attached to the idea of "free speech" as no other country in the world. On the one hand, you can of course openly curse and vilify this country not only with impunity, but to the applause of many "progressive" Americans. On the other hand, stating that women may be less genetically predisposed for interest in science than men may spell the end of your career, even if you're a president of Harvard, unless you hurry and apologize profusely. Political correctness is worse than secret police, because it gets internalized, so you always carry it with you - the police at least leave you alone from time to time.

A new low

Just when you thought that Western cowardice vis-a-vis islam couldn't get any worse, along comes YouTube and shows that it is possible to set a new low:

An atheist commentator, Nick Gisburne, has been posting videos presenting his logical arguments against Christianity, but when he tried the same with islam, YouTube removed his video and... canceled his account. His "offense" wasn't even on par with the famous Dutch cartoons - he wasn't openly ridiculing islam or its holy cows, he was merely quoting from quran to make a point. Of course, as a private company, YouTube has the right to say what can or can not be posted on its servers - but isn't their selectiveness at least a little suspicious? Would they be showing the same amount of "sensitivity" toward Christianity, if Christians went on a rampage every time somebody in the West said something "disparaging" about their religion? (Moslems slaughtering other moslems and blowing up their mosques apparently isn't offensive enough to cause mass demonstrations, but that's another story.) Is it just a coincidence that YouTube is now owned by Google, the same spineless company that meekly agreed to carry water for Chinese censors??

Bush is Hitler and you're not dead yet?

If George W. Bush is Hitler, and the United States is a fascist regime, as so many from the Angry Left assert, how come his enemies are not dropping dead like flies, the way the enemies of Russia's Vladimir Putin have been recently? If Noam Fucking Chomsky - to name just one example - had been directing his venom toward Russia and not the United States, he would have been dead by now. It's funny how these assertions about the evil nature of this country are proven wrong by the very fact that they are uttered openly and with complete impunity: in most countries they would not be tolerated. And that's exactly why the Angry Left says those things - because it feels perfectly safe. It is so cowardly that it will retreat and impose censorship at a mere hint of violence from the Perpetually Offended (i.e. muslims) - under the cover of "sensitivity", of course - but it will beat its chest and spray spittle yelling about its inalienable right to say any vile nonsense about the only country that will go to great lengths to protect that right. Few things are more pathetic.

End of appeasement?

There is a significant positive side to the ongoing brouhaha over the remarks made by the Pope, and it is the fact that the West is finally starting to wake up and see the nature of the enemy we're facing. It was easy to ingore when something President Bush said or did, caused muslim hysteria. ("What do you expect from that semi-literate cowboy in the White House?") Even the Danish cartoonists could be left to fend for themselves, dissed by the Left as a bunch of reactionaries, whose gross cultural insensitivity got them what they deserved. But with this recent incident it is becoming awfully hard to keep on blaming  the victim. (Cowboy in the Vatican? An insensitive reactionary? Doesn't quite fit...) Yes, there are still those who try: Scott Adams, the creator of the occasionally funny Dilbert cartoons, has this imbecilic reaction to the news of firebombing of churches in the West Bank: "WHAT THE HELL ARE CHURCHES DOING IN THE WEST BANK?????????" (Hmm, yes, what are churches doing in the land of Jesus? And what the hell are mosques doing in Europe and America?). However, their numbers are rapidly shrinking. Case in point: blogger Matoko Kusanagi posted her criticism of the Pope for "poking the snake". One only needs to scroll down and read the dozens of comments posted on her blog to see that appeasement no longer has the same appeal it did only a few months ago. Pope: 1, moslems: less than 0.

Message to the pope: convert to islam

Pope Benedict expressed regrets that his recent remarks offended muslim sensibilities. His offense? He dared to remind the world that early islam was spread largely by force. (The pope now says that his intention was to point out that it is wrong to use any religion as justification for violence.) Now he'll have to apologize, perhaps go to the muslim equivalent of Canossa (Would it be Peshawar? Tehran? Sadr City?), stand there barefoot, clad only in a potato sack, with ashes on his head, and wait for forgiveness. The followers of the "religion of peace" are already protesting on the streets and threatening violence. It could get out of hand, like with the Danish cartoons. Of course, it is nothing more than another test of Western cowardice, to see how quickly it will promise to censor its speech and apologize profusely.

My advise to the twit in papal robes: accept islam. You know it is going to happen eventually. Once eurabia is under sharia you won't be able to hold off for long, so why prolong the agony and suffer more humiliations? Chances are, the rest of europe will follow your example, and this way the US could finally disengage from the continent that has long ago ceased to be an ally, let alone a friend. Then it will just be a matter of waiting until they attack us, and respond with full force, perhaps liberating europe once again from the grip of yet another totalitarianism that grew on its decaying body.

Oriana Fallaci

Oriana Fallaci has finally succumbed to cancer she had been fighting for years. This is very sad news - with the passing of this incredible woman there is now a little bit less courage in the West vis-a-vis the dominant cowardice and dhimmitude. It is also good news: the assholes who were dragging her to court for daring to criticize islam will not be able to touch her. I hope they spent a lot of money on lawyers already.

I can't say that I knew much about her. (I read "The Rage and The Pride", of course). I was a teenager when I saw her for the first and last time on television, when Polish TV rebroadcast her interview with ayatollah Khomeini, in the midst of which she took off the face-covering hijab she had been forced to wear. I remember being floored by the courage of this woman. (This is what "talking truth to power" means - not some imbecile carrying sign "Bush=Hitler" at a demonstration in San Francisco, knowing full well that there will be no negative consequences for him or her.)

Today, in the "multicultural" world we are being brainwashed to accept as ours, such a gesture would be met with scorn by today's leftists as "insensitive". (In this worldview it is "insensitive" to criticize anybody and anything except Western values, countries, and cultures, especially the USA). Interestingly, Ms. Fallaci was a darling of the Left back then; in recent years she's become an enemy to them. She hasn't changed, always looking for the truth, always alergic to hipocrysy and tyranny. It's the Left that has become a sad caricature of itself.

P.S. A great tribute to Oriana Fallaci by Michael Ladeen at Politics Central. More tributes at Pajamas Media.

Boycott Borders

I'm joining the boycott of Borders and sending back my Borders Rewards card. Read this piece in the Hartfort Currant to find out why. A quote:

Borders, which also owns Waldenbooks, announced last week that it would not carry the April-May issue of Free Inquiry magazine, which contains the Danish cartoons that offended many in the Muslim world. Though there have been no reports of direct threats against stores carrying the magazine, a Borders spokeswoman says the decision was "based on the potential for a compromise of the safety and security of our employees."

As Andrew Sullivan put it: "[V]iolence against free writers and artists gets results. We have all but invited more."

UPDATE: It turns out, you can cancel your Borders Rewards membership online. This is what I did.

South Park and Cartoon Jihad

I do not watch television, and I don't think I miss much, but I've heard good things about the animated cartoon "South Park", with its clever, biting satire, so I do wish I had the chance to watch it streamed on the Web, or buy individual episodes for download. Apparently, the latest episode ridiculed the sheepishness of the West when confronted with (possibility of) a threat of violence from an angry mob of Moslems. The Political Pit Bull posted a clip from the episode - do go see it - and it is, indeed, very funny (and, at the same time, very depressing, because it's so true...) [Hat tip: Michelle Malkin]

In this clip, the townsfolk of South Park are panicking, because a popular show ("Family Guy") is planning to show the famous "Mohammed cartoons" that so outraged Moslems. Fearing that their Muslim neighbors might riot, they ask the mayor of South Park what to do. An invited university professor offers this solution: bring a few truckloads of sand and have the townsfolk bury their heads in it. That way they won't be accused of watching the offending cartoons, and the rioting Moslems may leave them alone.

A lone voice protests, "We should all display these cartoons, to show that we're united in defense of our freedom of speech, and that we will not be intimidated by the threat of violence. Otherwise, we believe in the freedom of speech, but are not willing to defend it." (I'm quoting from memory, so the words used might have been different, but I think I captured the gist.) After a moment of meaning-laden silence, someone from the crowd responds: "I like the sand idea better. Seems easier." The crowd agrees.

It truly is a sorry state of affairs if cartoonists are the ones standing up for the value we seemingly hold so dear, while politicians, the mainstream media, businesses, even academia, are eager to bury their heads in sand and offer platitudes about "sensitivity".

Leader of the Free World?

Didn't it fill you with pride, when, during the murderous riots in Muslim countries, spurred by a few, rather tame Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet of the so-called "Religion of Peace", our President and Leader of the Free World, George W. Bush sharply denounced the violence perpetrated by the rioting Moslems and often directed at innocent Christians, and then announced that the United States would continue to stand firmly on the side of the tiny and brave Denmark, as free speech is one of the values America holds most dear?

Only... it did not happen this way. The President, ever so brave, denounced... the cartoonists. I felt ashamed and betrayed. I voted for him in 2003 (due, to some extent, to the lack of alternatives. I could not possibly consider John Kerry), giving him the benefit of the doubt. Yes, I even admired how he kept outmaneuvering the UN, the Democrats, the Livid Left who considered him an idiot (at their peril). Now, whatever trust I had, evaporated in the aftermath of this shameful display of dhimmitude. His subsequent advocacy of amnesty (by any other name) to the illegal immigrants pushed me over the edge. I no longer trust or respect the President.