ironic meme

A  "meme" picture is making the rounds on Facebook, one that states:

"Your relentless political Facebook posts finally turned me around to your way of thinking."
Said nobody, ever.  

What's especially interesting about this is that the "wall" that this appeared on is a wall that is often populated with "memes" making fun of pro-life stances or opposition to homosexual marriage.  It is one of the more  politically charged accounts Facebook walls.

Now, it's possible that the only reason I see these posts is that I seem nice and educated/enlightened and don't seem to be some kind of religious fundamentalist, and so these "memes" are just preaching to the choir. Generally, I try to only preach to the choir on FB because it doesn't seem like the right forum for challenging people.  There is a "like" but no "unlike" for a reason.  Besides, there are enough people that will "unfriend" me in real life over political matters without automating the process on Facebook.

Solving two border problems with one policy

Here's a thought that freethinking leftleaners can denounce as xenophobic hate speech without actually thinking about:

What if we took all the people that we caught sneaking across our southern border and deported them to Palestine?  These are already desperate people who are willing to leave their homeland to find opportunity in the desert wilderness.  We would find out just how much more open and non-racist the Pan-Arabist insurrectionists, I mean Palestinians, are compared to Israelis.  We would see how they accommodate demographics changes as the Palestinian population shows a growing number of Hispanic Palestinians.

What's that you say?  There would be violence against Catholic Hispanics?  But I'm assured that Islam is a religion of peace and the only violence coming from the Palestinians is an assertion of their rights as citizens just like our Revolutionary War, so that is not a valid objection.

There's a good chance that the growing Hispanic block would side with the more moderate Arab Palestinians and vote out Hamas in favor of a government that would deal more reasonably with Israel.

You say that the Palestinians would drive their Hispanic citizens into the sea?  I remind you that you are talking about peace-loving Arabs who only bomb Israeli civilians in order to be heard.  I don't appreciate your hate speech.  I'm going to report you.

Redistribute all the wealth and all the debt!

Let's redistribute the wealth in America so that all the money (in the most generous definition) so that we each start out with $37,321.  Wow, that's nothing to wink at.

But now, everyone is on an equal footing and has an equal obligation to pay the piper.  The National Debt is quickly approaching $16 trillion and someone has to pay the piper.

The same 209,089,260 people over 19 years of age now have the same obligation at $76,000 per person!   You'll have to pay this off in an economy that is shaped by this new distribution.  You'll have $37,321 with which to incorporate with other people (filthy capitalist!) or buy your own acre of farmland (with what machines/tools?) or buy lotteries tickets.

Ready to start reading up on the Laffer Curve, Thomas Sowell's Hover Proof, and JFK's supply-side economics?  No?

Well maybe somehow the problem will just go away if you bury your head in the sand long enough.  That strategy has been working this long, right?

Modern Progressive Anti-Semiticism

"We see members of the Dutch parliament in hiding, the abrogation of freedom of expression throughout Europe, the rise of right-wing leaders who openly advocate the mass deportation of non-white Europeans, one barely-thwarted terrorist attack after another-and yet, according to the polls, the majority of Europeans consider the United States to be their biggest worry. They're monomaniacally obsessed with the danger posed to them by Americans and the perfidious cabal of Jews who yank our puppet strings."
    --Claire Berlinski

One of several "progressive" paradoxes is the infatuation of the Left with the Palestinian cause along with the predominance of Leftist thinking among Jewish Americans.  The past year though, I've been forming a (partial) theory about that. Until now, I've thought that the Left was partial to whatever cause resembles Christianity least--and I do still think that is a factor.  But here is another piece of the puzzle: Progressive thought is largely guided by the left-dominated academics, who are enamored with Europe.  Europe is soooo cultured compared to us, our academics have a sycophantic fascism, er, I mean , fascination with Europe, that they don't notice when they've swallowed whole some opinion that derives from the still rampant anti-Semiticism in Europe.  (Sure, John Galliano loves Hitler; but would Hitler have loved John Galliano?)  Europe, which drove out the future citizens of Israel, now consistently sides against Israel.  And Europeans read their cultured newspapers while sipping European coffee in their  outdoor bistros, and look worldly wise doing so.  So they must know what they're talking about.  Europe's silly with anti-Semitism, and our academic power structure, having long ago written off American exceptionalism, longs to be equal with European academia.

I don't know enough about history to comment on the popularity of Leftist politics among Jewish Americans. It seems that the minority of Jewish conservatives in America are much more aware that Israel's biggest supporters are found among America's fundamentalists and evangelicals. This would be more common knowledge if CNN wasn't so busy giving air time to Westboro. I read some liberal article that was nothing that Bush was unpopular with American Jews except with regard to Israel, and Obama was popular... except when it came to Israel. Big surprise.  I recently read one of Sholom Aleichem's Tevye stories (think "Fiddler on the Roof") and was struck by the generation gap between the capitalist Tevye and the young Marxist Feferel and his radical friends, who dream of replacing the Czar with Communism, apparently believing that things would be better when the pogroms ended and Utopia began.  Stalin killed at least as many Jewish people as Hitler, but he had the decency to hate all theists equally and regard all people in all numbers equally expendable for the grand utopian vision; anticipating the current progressive thinking that no system is too bureaucratic, too insolvent, or too ineffective to be imposed in the name of "fairness."

Islam and multiculturalism in Canada

Interesting comments from Muslim Canadians:

Arjomand, who calls herself a "victim" of sharia law -- a strict set of rules based on Islam's holy book, the Qur'an, that subjugates women, as well as allows for the chopping off of hands for theft etc. -- says part of the reason she decided to immigrate to Canada was because she had heard about official multiculturalism.
"I thought how wonderful, but not anymore," she declares.
"I came here for Canadian values, not sharia values. I fled Iran on horseback because the values there threatened my very life. If people want to live under sharia or the way they lived back home, let them go back," she said.
Kanwar agrees. He says the time has come for the Canadian government to tell new immigrants "once you're in Canada we expect you to be totally devoted to Canada -- no divided loyalties."
"This country," added Kanwar, "is a democracy and democracy is founded on Christian principles.
"Canada is -- like it or not, take it or leave it -- a country founded on Christian principles where the vast majority of citizens are Christians," said Kanwar.
"Yes, there's separation of church and state but even that was a principle founded by Christians and Christianity.
"If Muslims, or anyone else, doesn't like living in a land filled with Christians or in a democracy they should get the hell out."

A commentor on that page writes that Kanwar has chosen a devotion to humanity over a devotion to Allah. I disagree that Kanwar is an apostate. I think that as many Christians have discovered you don't have to choose one over the other. I don't believe, and I hope the Muslims don't believe some of our modern interpretations of the 1st Amendment are the only school of thought on this, that the choice between a secularized society and a theocracy is a false dichotomy based on a distorted view of Jefferson's "separation of church and state".
   
The criticism of Canada's bend-over-backwards policy toward immigrants is especially noteworthy coming from these Muslims that are invested in their democratic liberties. This criticism seems to be denounced as racism in America, but then that is the easiest way to shut down an argument, but Europe generally doesn't do this (except in the last 10 years for Muslims) and when Americans expect a European country to do this, the response is predictable. As some commentators have pointed out, some ideologues will look to Europe's laws to interpret our Constitution on any matter but this one.
    
I do think that the attack on polygamy reaction to communities based on shariah in place of the law of the land is a misplaced problem. To me, the attack on Mormon or Muslim polygamy has a strong anti-religious basis. A country shouldn't have to modify their marital legalities to deal with it, but we should be wary of completely ignoring these people in our recent reevaluations (or dismissals) of common law.   In the recent criticisms of DOMA, a conservative commentator recently inveighed that before DOMA there was no precedent of federal involvement in state marital law.   Really?   He's apparently unaware of the Reynolds vs. US decision from the days when anti-Mormon sentiment was National Republican Party platform?  This Supreme Court decision is unreversed, and it establishes the U.S. (i.e., the federal entity) as the final authority on what is good for the social order.  

 As good a case as can be made for states deciding what is appropriate, this decision has created a hopeless muddle in terms of how the Fed is involved vs. how "full faith and credit" should be interpreted. As Constitutionally flawed as DOMA may or may not be, it follows from the effect Reynolds had on the reach of our federal government. (The Court made its decision based on the expert advice of a sociologist who told them polygamy was unhealthy for everyone.) Unfortunately, an amendment that protects the states from an unlimited "full faith and credit" interpretation while also protecting a state's right to determine their marital particulars will require a compromise -- a thing present at the founding of this country but now extinct. It is not our elected officials that will determine policy -- it's our Supreme Court that will decide whether a progressive or traditionalist vision is the right way for the whole country, which was founded on uniformity.

However... the thing that offends some people about Muslims is that more than one woman will be allowed to live under one house -- like in Charlie Sheen's house. Who do these polygamists think they are?  Overpaid actors?  The very idea!