Say What?

The people making those kind of statements are not hydrologists - they're developers and builders. ... That kind of attitude is kind of sticking your head in the sand. Hydrologists and geologists have been studying the basin and they say it's dropping.

- Jim Mital, rural Moscow resident and member of the Palouse Basin Aquifer Committee Citizen Advisory Group, "A thirst for answers: Water concerns are a flood of opinions and a drought of facts," Moscow-Pullman Daily News, August 2, 2008

There are a lot of hypotheses, but the frustration is that we just don't know much. There's a lot of gray area. The Palouse isn't going to run out of water anytime soon so communities don't need to dig deeper and deeper or drastically move to a plan B. We're going to run out of oil far before Moscow and Pullman run out of water. It's not a critical situation, but it's something that we need to watch.

- Professor of Hydrogeology, University of Idaho, "A thirst for answers: Water concerns are a flood of opinions and a drought of facts," Moscow-Pullman Daily News, August 2, 2008

...the idea that a community can only thrive with unlimited growth and development is a notion that must disappear, hopefully before the water does.

Post-World War II economy was based on a planned scheme for consumerism —and it worked. The economy grew, people consumed and planned obsolescence became an accepted norm. We become anxious when we consider voluntary reductions of any type. But, we must begin to imagine a “restorative economy” where having less is truly more satisfying, more interesting, and of course, more secure.

In the relatively near future, we must achieve a balance between what we are consuming and the capacity of the earth’s ecosystems to provide, according to author and businessman Paul Hawken. “We need to create an economy… that is not an either/or argument, but a means to create the best life for the greatest number of people precisely because we do not know the eventual outcome or impact of our current industrial practices. In other words, we need an economy based on more humility.”

- April 2003 Moscow Co-Op newsletter

Let's call a spade a spade. The only people calling the water situation on the Palouse a "crisis" are not water experts either. They have a distinct agenda of social(ist) engineering, just the same as those warning of "global warming crisis."

Jon Voight Is Now My Favorite Actor

Academy Award winning actor Jon Voight (aka Angelina Jolie's dad) had an op-ed piece published in Monday's Washington Times.

I love what Voight has to say:

Sen. Barack Obama has grown up with the teaching of very angry, militant white and black people: the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, William Ayers and Rev. Michael Pfleger. We cannot say we are not affected by teachers who are militant and angry. We know too well that we become like them, and Mr. Obama will run this country in their mindset.

The Democratic Party, in its quest for power, has managed a propaganda campaign with subliminal messages, creating a God-like figure in a man who falls short in every way. It seems to me that if Mr. Obama wins the presidential election, then Messrs. Farrakhan, Wright, Ayers and Pfleger will gain power for their need to demoralize this country and help create a socialist America.

Springtime for Obama!

This is a German language poster from the Obamalord's current victory lap in Europe:


My question is, what office is he running for and in what country?


Yikes. The Obama campaign thinks this is a good idea? Patrick Ruffini has more.

An Elitist Snob's Take on Wal-Mart Shoppers

Attention Wal-Mart Shoppers: Here's what the educated elite really think about you. Coastal liberal and long-time Wal-Mart hater Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic magazine wrote the following description of how he saw folks at a Wal-Mart in Martinsburg, WV back on June 23, 2008:

But about those down-and-out customers: If you want to see the underside of the unregulated capitalist economy, the people who can't find the non-existent escape ladder from poverty and its pathologies, visit the Martinsburg, West Virginia Wal-Mart. Morbid obesity; spontaneous, public bouts of corporal punishment directed against dirty children; ten-year girls dressed as whores; tattoos running up necks and down legs; smoking like you only see these days in Baku; it's all here. I considered myself a socialist until I was about 23 (that was when I fled my kibbutz for the final time) but a visit to the Martinsburg Wal-Mart reawakens my distaste for steroidal capitalism.

Goldberg later refers to Wal-Mart workers as "hopeless and toothless." What a collection of stereotypes of working class Americans, straight out of Marx's Grim Fairy Tales of the Lumpenproletariat.

Now, as you can imagine, this column set off quite an uproar in Martinsburg. Rather than apologize, Goldberg states:

It's interesting to me how many people conflate an attack on Wal-Mart with an attack on their community. I suppose this just how the malevolent merchants from Bentonville, Ark., would have it.

Yeah. Wal-Mart made Goldberg an arrogant and self-righteous asshole. Who knows though? Maybe Goldberg is a double agent for Wal-Mart; his overbearing pretentiousness discrediting other Wal-Mart haters. But let's face it. "Ten-year girls dressed as whores?" It WAS a vicious attack on the Martinsburg community, and more generally an attack on all the people who shop at Wal-Mart.

And that ultimately is what the war on Wal-Mart is all about. It's rank class hatred, bigotry and pure snobbery from wealthy elitists towards the people they claim to be "protecting" from Wal-Mart.

But I for one am glad for Goldberg's hateful rant. Next time you read in the Daily News about "$45,000 traffic studies" and "wreaking havoc on small towns," you'll know what those code words really mean.

Technorati Tags: wal-mart walmart

Barack Hussein Obama, Exposed

Cross post from paulezimmerman.com



My apologies for the overlap with other page elements here. This thing is big... but so is the subject matter.

Quote of the Day

Let's all move to Idaho. Then maybe we can select where we want to live and how we want to get to work.

- State Senator Joe Zarelli (R-Ridgefield) on State Senator Chris Marr's (D-Spokane) SB 6580 which paves the way to requiring that local land-use regulations be based on reduction of "greenhouse gases." The measure passed in the Seante and is now being considered by the House.

Andy Jones: Back from Italy and diesel misconceptions

Ugly American back espousing euro-socialist values and ignorance.

Here is Andy's original article here: http://www.dailyevergreen.com/story/24198
You might remember Andy's last propaganda article which focused on the wrong belief about 220v electricity: http://palousitics.blogspot.com/2007/10/turn-off-lights.html
I think the only thing I can really agree with Andy's article is that Italian women are beautiful. After my trip to Kennedy Space Center, there were many beautiful Italian women visiting since the "Harmony Node", aka Node 2 to the ISS, was built by Italy.
Mean while back at the ranch, Mr.Jones wrote something else that was full of crap: Diesel Engnines. Mr. Jones is correct about the efficiency of diesel engines but he is incorrect about the emissions from the engine.
When a diesel engine burns the diesel fuel it does put out black smoke when it starts up and some black smoke comes out when you put the pedal to the metal. This is unburned diesel fuel. When you start up your gasoline car in the morning you will see a lot of white smoke and when you throttle up the accelerator you will see white smoke. This is from unburned gasoline.
The reason why so many people in Italy, Europe and the rest of the world use diesel engines is the effiecency of the engine is about 25%, while the gasoline engine runs about %13. Another reason why diesel is used is it is cheaper than gasoline because you do not have to refine it as much. Go anywhere in Europe and the rest of world, except for the U.S.A., the cost of gasoline is more than twice the cost of diesel. Another side note I wish to add is that one liter of diesel yeilds more energy than one liter of gasoline.
I am willing to bet Mr.Jones has never seen smog before. He probably thinks that if Italy replaces all the diesel vehicles with gasoline, the smog will go away. Wrong, the smog will remain and probably increase since more gasoline will be needed to run the vehicles.

Ciao.

"I've pretty much lost sympathy for most of the working people on the Palouse"

For those of you who doubt that professors are elitist snobs, I submit as Exhibit A the arrogant, bitter, socialistic rantings of Chuck "Mr. Civil Discourse" Pezeshki. If you don't have access to the online version of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News, Chuckie is posting comments on Dnews.com bitching about the Saturday article that reported poor ol' impoverished WSU profs only make on average $92,000 a year.

Pezeshki's comments are some of the most amusing pieces of left-wing intelligentsia fluffery I've read yet and pull back the curtain on how our faculty libs really feel about the issues. His comments demonstrate quite well why we have no reason to ever fear the campus moonbats getting into political power locally.

One thing that really has to change if the relationship between the towns and the universities is to improve is that the towns need to stop HATING the professors that have chosen to come here for their rank and salary. These professors drive the quality of life in our cities, and their taxes pay for many things that people with lower salaries cannot. The universities also profoundly boost the average income in the area.

Mind you, Chuck's happy with his salary. He's just pissed off there's not more genuflecting to our Ph.D. betters like him. And he wonders why people "hate" professors? Chuck forgets one very important point: IT IS THE "FILTHY WORKING CLASS" HE DESPISES SO MUCH THAT PAYS HIS DAMN SALARY AND FOR ALL OF HIS TRIPS TO LONDON, VIENNA, ET. AL. WITH THEIR TAXES! YOU DON'T LIKE SUCKING OFF THE GOVERNMENT TEAT? THEN GO GET A JOB IN THE REAL WORLD WHERE YOU HAVE TO MAKE A PROFIT AND PRODUCE RESULTS, RATHER THAN FLINGING DISDAIN FOR THOSE WITH NO LETTERS AFTER THEIR NAME LIKE YOU!!

Sorry, A G. You get no sympathy from me-- and I've gotten to the point where I've pretty much lost sympathy for most of the working people on the Palouse as well.

If you poll most of the professors on campus, they are for higher taxes, which would predominantly affect the rich. Most of the professors are for socialized medicine, which would profoundly help the working poor and lower middle class in the area. Most professors would be for some form of low-rent, subsidized housing in the area. The one thing that the professors are mostly against is sprawl, and loss of community character, because that's the one draw we have going here.

But it's the working classes that are convinced that these things are the enemy. So be it.

I agree that people ought to be appreciative of the good fortune they have. But it's that doggone MARKET I keep hearing about from the lower-middle class that votes for Republicans that's supposed to raise them up and bring us down. It just doesn't seem to be working that way, though.

I've never seen a more dysfunctional, irrational culture in a 1st World country than what's on the Palouse. Keep voting against your interests, and alienating your intellectual and real allies. It's really worked great so far, hasn't it? Your children are being sent to war, your paycheck is dropping, and I can tell you from where the currency rate sits, the bottom is about to drop out from underneath the dollar, making those 'Guaranteed Low Walmart Prices' a thing of sunny memory.

I'm not happy about any of this. And having run for office to try to stop this, I've put my money where my mouth is. But it's exhausting, personally, the level of acrimony from the community. Myself, as well as others-- the ones that would really be interested in sharing community leadership, are really at the point of almost checking out.

Just remember, when the Gods want to punish you, they grant you your wishes.

Best,

Chuck

Are the arrogant, know-it-all, meddling, elitist, communist professors really going to check out of the Palouse? From your lips to God's ears, Chuck.

You Can't Make Stuff Like This Up

Dr. Forbes and I attended the University of Idaho Homecoming parade in Moscow yesterday as one kid was marching in the Lincoln Middle School band and another in the Pullman High School band.

Queen Nancy led off the parade in the "Sustainablemobile," a biodiesel-powered VW Bug, followed ironically and fittingly enough by a big-ass, gas-guzzling Idaho Army National Guard HMMWV painted in bright, patriotic red, white and blue, filled with young men wearing black berets and Army Combat Uniforms.

But the best was yet to come. The Moscow Civic Association was out in force, 30 or 40 strong, touting their three city council candidates. The ponytailed old hippie dudes, the long, gray-haired old hippie chicks, the dapper metrosexuals, and the "The Simpsons" Comic Book Guys were riding their bikes, waving their signs and flags, banging their drums, and playing their trombones. It was like some freakish touring company of the jongleur show at a Berekely Renaissance Fair.

But even that amusing spectacle was not the best part. The members of the MCA were all wearing RED SCARVES, just like the Young Pioneer organization in the former Soviet Union. I wonder if anyone else caught the significance.

I told Dr. Forbes that, unbelievably, these were the people in charge of Moscow, and God help me, part of me wants them to hang around in power for a few more years. How much better does Pullman look with these blatant communists running Moscow? This is the best thing that has ever happened to Whitman County and Pullman business people. Unfortunately, I think the voters in Moscow will take those red scarves and choke the MCA with them in three weeks.

Neocommies

I saw this column at American Thinker after reading the link Michael posted a few days ago. It is certainly incendiary, but it sure rings true, especially these parts:

There is a compelling factual case to be made that the contemporary radical Left can properly be called "Neocommunist." The Hard Left is grounded in Marxist vision of creating a "new man" under a system led by a vanguard that knows best what the rest of society needs. And Neocommies behave in patterns with startling parallels to Old Communist tactics.

The Neocommies are not members of a Communist Party, and are part more of a movement than a conspiracy. They are utterly different from traditional liberalism in America and Europe. Traditional liberals were democratic -- people like Hubert Humphrey, Scoop Jackson and Harry Truman. They fought passionately against the Totalitarian Left, as Ronald Reagan did when he was president of the Screen Actors Guild. Reagan started as a democratic liberal, and became the most famous conservative of the 20th century. As he said so often, he didn't leave the Democratic Party -- it left him.

[...]

In the US, of course, the NeoCommunists were the Sixties Radicals who decided to carry on a "Long March through the Institutions." That means the college faculties, the high schools, the media, Hollywood, and government.

[...]

The methods of Neocommunism parallel those of Old Communism to an astonishing degree.

The routine use of orchestrated group lying (so that many different people are suddenly making the same accusation );


The constant use of innocent-sounding front groups like MoveOn.org and Media Matters;

The use of stooges (like military retirees, both real and phony);

The need to whip up the rage of the faithful with constant disinformation about the enemy (i.e., America and conservatives);

The infiltration of media and government. Members of the seventies left are sprinkled throughout these institutions, carrying out the long march. These tricks are all straight out of the old, old playbook. Karl Marx really was a genius agitator and revolutionary plotter, though nothing else. Marx is still the model.

In the Democratic Party, the former radical Henry Wallace wing now controls the Party under a different label, because adopting different disguises is the essence of revolutionary konspiratia. (Konspiratia has been one of the biggest Russian indoor sports since Ivan the Terrible. Americans are just pikers by comparison.)

The worst example of PC re-labeling is what the Hard Left has done to the word "liberal." Our current Left is anything but "liberal." They are not concerned with liberty. They have nothing good to say about John Locke, John Stuart Mill, or Thomas Jefferson. Instead, they impose PC speech control wherever possible, including in the mainstream media. They try to intimidate anyone who disagrees, and have purged professors in universities by accusing them of the current smear labels: Racist, Sexist, Homophobe. A distinguished older scholar I know was harassed some twenty years ago when the PC Police took over his college. His scholarly journals were thrown into the garbage and his office was trashed. He was attacked verbally by radical students in his classes, who were openly encouraged by old-style Marxist professors. My friend ended up resigning from his tenured job, had a heart-attack, somehow survived it and retired. These radicals are not liberals, no matter how much they try to use that label.

There are many similar stories from the Putsch period of the New Left -- starting roughly in the 1970s, when the Boomer Lefties were graduating from the colleges where they had been radicalized. That's when the PC Commissars started to take over, often by simply harassing their enemies.

Today, they're in charge on the campuses. President Lawrence Summers lost his job at Harvard, and was recently blackballed at UC Davis, for offending against Politically Correct Orthodoxy. Larry Summers came to fame as a Clinton Administration official -- a liberal, but not ideologically Stalinist enough for the Hard Left.

The New Left utilized "affirmative action," Black Studies and Women's Studies to bring in new indoctrinated troops, and to drive out objective scholarship from humanities departments. Science and engineering departments tended to be a little more resistant, because they had to deal with facts in the real world. The same seems to be true in business and economics departments. For honest humanities scholarship the Left substituted frauds like "post-modernism," "deconstructionism," and "Critical Theory." Those were just new labels for the old vinegar. While those hot new ideas are now dying of ennui, their true believers are going back to the old Marxist gospel. What's that song about the old-time religion? Well, the Left is going back to the old-time religion of Communism. The best proof is that the very word "communism" is now strictly Verboten by the PC Commissars, who don't want to be exposed.

Wow, does that not sound like the leftists of PARD, the WSU Comparative Ethnic Studies department and the Moscow Civic Association or what? Scary stuff. Read the whole thing.

Socialism Explained

Al Gore: Ball of Fire

I've been tuning in to Rush while out and about on the job, and he has had this tune in the rotation on his show quite a bit as of late. I decided to try tracking it down on youtube and sure enough, there it was. Enjoy!

A Picture Worth 10,000 Words

A Wal-Mart Supercenter, the sine pari of capitalism, located in the former East Berlin on a street named for the founder of communism.

The fact we don't have one in Pullman yet proves that there are more socialists here than in a former communist country.

HT: Right Mind

Where in the World is Chuckie Sandiego?

Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of worthless comparisons of exotic foreign locales to Pullman… the thrill of erudite cosmopolitanism… and the agony of plebeian Wal-Marts… the human drama of preening intellectualism… this is Chuck Pezeshki's's Wide World of Socialism!

Chuck "Mr. Civil Discourse" Pezeshki was back today in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News with another travelogue, informing us that

Only a couple of weekends ago, as I sat in my hotel in New Hampshire, next to the seacoast, drinking bottled water because of the salinity of the tap water, I couldn't help but think of this inherent blessing of our region.

Pezeshki then proceeds to skewer the Palouse Basin Aquifer Committee for not joining in the leftist hysteria about water on the Palouse and failing to implement a complete moratorium on growth. I knew it would too much for him to chide the greenies in Moscow on their latest stormwater hypocrisy.

I won't bore you with Pezeshki's standard arrogant, anti-growth drivel.

However, this paragraph is quite illuminating:

For many years, PBAC was led by Larry Kirkland, a nonlicensed geologist and self-proclaimed Young Earth Creationist. The water in the Grande Ronde aquifer is estimated to be somewhere between 23,000 and 12,000 years Before Present - a resource that exists totally out of Kirkland's viewpoint as someone who thinks the world is only 6,000 years old.

Now, that's what I call civil discourse. Impugn a man's professional credentials, and even better, his religious views. Pezeshki couldn't be bothered to provide facts or logic to support his allegation. He also didn't bother providing any proof on how Kirkland's beliefs have anything to do with the science of the aquifer or how they affected his perfomance at PBAC. Even Chuck said "it is estimated." It's the classic Straw Man Fallacy. For a liberal, if Kirkland's a Christian, he can't possibly know anything about science and all his views about water MUST be wrong..

Guess what, Chuck? You're not a licensed geologist either. And neither is Mark Solomon. Yet that doesn't stop Solomon from pontificating endlessly about water issues on the Palouse, heading his own little "water conservation metwork," being hired to conduct an aquifer study for Latah County, and trying to halt all development in the Pullman-Moscow Corridor. Your statement about Kirkland's beliefs are as disgusting and bigoted as if someone wrote that Mark Solomon was not qualified to speak about the aquifers because he is Jewish.

Gotta give Pezeshki some points for chutzpah though. As a professor and Past Chairman of the WSU Faculty Senate, he took a swipe at his employer's "monster golf course."

When the MSM Slips

I was reading through an AP story this evening when I came across a humble admission on their part...

From the article, Army to expand recruiting incentives:

"Beyond the Iraq war, the military says other factors have affected its ability to recruit. More high school graduates are going to college, and the economy is strong, providing lots of civilian jobs. At the same time, only three of 10 people between 17 and 24 fully meet the military's standards." [emphasis added]

No, NO! WAIT! THE ECONOMY SUCKS! IT'S SO TERRIBLE, REMEMBER?! NO ONE CAN AFFORD COLLEGE ANY MORE! THIS IS ALL WRONG! (other people's) MONEY HAS TO BE THROWN AT THIS STUFF!

What will the Breck Girl do now (or the rest of the DNC, for that matter)?

"How to Oppose Liberal Intolerance"

We have been constantly surrounded lately by the double standards of our local liberals. One big box store is bad. But another that would have exactly the same impacts is good. A movie critical of Islam is "racist." A movie criticizing Christianity is "a genuine documentary which actually provides both sides and lets the viewer create their own interpretation." Dr. Weitz's lawsuit against the Moscow School District is "blackmail" by a "bully." PARD's lawsuit against the City of Pullman is "a case that should be allowed to make use of the procedures."
Some conservatives feel that liberals are just misinformed and maybe a little kooky, and that with enough facts they will see the light. Baloney. I've found out first hand that facts make no difference to these people. There can be no "civil discourse" or debate with them. Liberals have a completely different world view that seeks to tear down everything we believe in and hold dear. As Lawrence Auster wrote in the excellent column below from FrontPage Magazine, "liberals" are really leftists. And the double standard that characterizes them is deliberate, because equality of results, the basic tenet of the socialism they espouse, can only be attained by treating people unequally. As Auster writes, "Modern liberalism is a leftist and nihilistic rebellion against the inherently unequal nature of the human condition." This is a must read.

How to Oppose Liberal Intolerance
by Lawrence Auster
FrontPageMagazine, 8/11/2004
The double standard may well be the most characteristic feature of the leftist cultural order under which we now live. A particularly revealing instance of the double standard was the media's wall-to-wall obsession with the Abu Ghraib abuses, combined with its refusal to show the tape of the savage beheadings of innocent Americans by Islamist killers. While conservatives complain endlessly (one might even say boringly) about the double standard, however, they have signally failed to understand it. One explanation may be that today's leftists deceptively describe their politics as “liberal,” a fiction to which conservatives have all too willingly subscribed.

Conservatives have done this partly out of naïveté and partly out of a desire not to be polarizing, since their most basic need as conservatives is to affirm the harmony and cohesion of the existing order. Treating leftists as "liberals," they are constantly surprised and scandalized at the "liberals'" illiberal intolerance. They deceive themselves in regarding political correctness and the double standard as extraneous to liberalism, as a mistake or silly excess or regrettable hypocrisy, which, if pointed out to the "liberals," the "liberals" will renounce.

On confronting any given instance of the double standard, the typical conservative will say something like this: "What would happen if a Republican had said that racist thing, or improperly taken that top secret document, or groped that woman in the White House?" He then leaves the rhetorical question hanging in the air, as if the question alone were sufficient to condemn the double standard once and for all and prevent the "liberals" from using it again. He never seems to notice that his brilliant exposure of the double standard fails to stop his "liberal" adversaries for even a single beat.

Another form the double standard takes is some general rule from which only conservatives are excluded. To such unfairness, the typical conservative responds as follows: "You liberals say you believe in openness, tolerance, and diversity. Yet you want to exclude and silence conservatives. We conservatives believe in a true diversity of viewpoints that would include both liberals and conservatives."

All of which is true, of course. But unfortunately, that is as far as the typical conservative ever takes the argument. Apart from accusing the "liberals" of hypocrisy or bias and calling on them to return to true liberalism, conservatives never suspect that there may be something about "liberalism's" essential nature that has generated this double standard, and that will keep generating it as long as "liberalism" itself survives.

Let us therefore go beyond these futile complaints about the double standard and instead ask why the double standard is so characteristic of today's "liberalism." Once we answer that question, we may be in a position to combat the double standard effectively, instead of spending the rest of our lives complaining impotently about it.

The inherent injustice of equality

The basic reason for the "liberal" double standard has already been alluded to. It is that today's "liberals" are really leftists who have rejected the older liberal belief in a shared equality of citizens before the law and have embraced the socialist vision of "equality as a fact and equality as a result," as Lyndon Johnson famously put it. Since people are unequal in their ability to accumulate property, as Hayek argued in the Mirage of Social Justice, equality of results can only be pursued by treating people unequally. This is the origin of the double standard.

Moreover, since socialism has been discredited following the fall of Soviet Communism, the left has for tactical reasons largely shifted its demand for equality of results away from the economic sphere to the cultural/moral sphere and the advancement of "oppressed" cultural and ethnic groups. The result is cultural socialism, which entails the same kind of bureaucratically imposed egalitarian “solution” as existed under the older socialism, and thus leads to a cultural double standard. This cultural double standard goes something like this: Since "we" (e.g., whites, Westerners, Christians, men, conservatives, Americans, the U.S. armed forces, Republicans, and heterosexuals) constitute an allegedly dominant group in society and are better off than the "Other" (e.g., nonwhites, non-Westerners, Moslems, women, liberals, immigrants, enemy combatants, Democrats, and homosexuals), our superior position violates the imperative of equality. In order for the desired state of equality to be attained, we, the unfairly dominant group, must be condemned, excluded, and dragged down, while the Other must be celebrated, included, and raised up. In short, in the name of equality, society is divided into two radically distinct groups, to which radically different rules apply.

Under this "liberal" regime, for example, the cultures of recent immigrants are regarded as having the same importance as the historic American culture, an "equality" that is systematically reflected in text books and curricula, in museums and other cultural institutions, and even in political rhetoric and national symbols. But such artificial equality, by its very nature, downgrades and diminishes our national identity while placing unassimilated and often hostile immigrants and their cultures at the "heart of America," as Bill Bradley once approvingly put it. The same is true of the "liberal" perspective on the Middle East conflict. The claims of Israelis and Palestinians are regarded as equally legitimate. But since the Palestinians do not accept the existence of Israel, to accord Israelis and Palestinians "equal" political rights in the same land is to delegitimize and destroy a civilized country while empowering a culturally diseased community that straps bombs to its children and celebrates the mass murder of innocents with outbreaks of communal ecstasy.

The key point is that the double standard results automatically from the demand for equality between inherently unequal things. The double standard is not a mere excess or defect of leftism, but its essence.

The problem can perhaps be better understood by considering how the leftist view of justice departs from the traditional Western view of justice. Traditional morality and classical philosophy define justice as giving each person his due, with equals getting equal results and unequals getting unequal results. Leftism, as we have said, defines justice as the guaranteed equality of outcome between individuals of unequal abilities and accomplishments. But equality between unequals cannot be just (because it involves the expropriation of the justly earned fruits of more talented labor) and is incompatible with liberty (because it requires force to achieve). To give the same to everyone requires that undeserved disadvantages be imposed on the more productive and therefore "better off" individuals and that undeserved benefits be provided to the less productive and therefore "worse off" individuals. In a vast inchoate society of many millions of people, equality of outcome can only be pursued by the systematic dragging down of entire classes of persons for the sake of undeserving strangers.

Furthermore, in order to justify this unjust system, the society must lie to its members about how the differences between the respective groups came about. It must claim that the more abundant goods possessed by the better-off group were all attained unfairly, by the oppression or exploitation of the worse-off group. It must devalue individual initiative and creativity and all the other virtues that make for the building up of civilization, while excusing (and ultimately rewarding) failure, misbehavior, and crime.

This double standard, once again, applies as much to the cultural and moral sphere as to the economic. For example, the belief in equality requires leftists to delegitimize anyone who upholds the traditional moral code, and to excuse anyone who violates it, because traditional morality says that some behaviors are objectively better than others, which is (to leftists) discriminatory. The belief in equality requires leftists to demand the virtual dismantling of Christianity, because, as James Carroll claims in his anti-Christian opus, Constantine's Sword, Christianity, by its very existence and its claim to being the true religion, denigrates Judaism and the Jews; Carroll isn't bothered that every sentence of his book denigrates Christianity and Christians.

In the same way, the belief in equality requires leftists to be indifferent or hostile to Western culture, regardless of its virtues, and to excuse and celebrate non-Western cultures, regardless of their vices, because Western culture is currently the successful and "dominant" culture. Indeed, under the inverted moral order of leftism, the more backward or even savage a non-Western culture happens to be, the more we must puff it up, cover its sins, and blame its catastrophes on ourselves. Thus the glowing, celebratory documentaries on the history of Islam, such as "Empire of Faith" and "Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet" (described by National Review Online as a "whitewashed commercial for Islam"), that have become a staple on Public Television over the last three years, during the very period when the totalitarian and murderous nature of a significant section of the Islamic community has become horribly apparent. Thus 9/11 Commission vice chairman Lee Hamilton's statement that Moslems blame us (justly, he implies) for their poverty and backwardness, and that to win their trust (!) in the war on terror we must create a giant welfare state for the whole Islamic world—providing new kinds of schools for them, ending their poverty, giving them democracy, and so on. It follows from Hamilton's thoroughly "liberal" premise that if the Moslems continue to distrust and hate us despite our massive assistance, that would only show that we have not yet done "enough" for them and must do more.

As the cultural leftists and "liberals" see it, to excuse and celebrate our enemies and blame ourselves for their problems is not to practice a vicious and suicidal double standard; it is merely to seek equality, which is a universal good that enriches the humanity of all of us. This claim is demonstrably false. To establish homosexuality as a social norm while banning the disapproval of homosexuality, as today's "liberals" are now doing, is not a universal agenda benefiting all mankind but a very particular agenda, aimed at empowering one concrete interest—radical sexual liberation—and at disempowering another concrete interest—the traditional social and moral order. By convincing everyone that their agendas represent the advance of a general "fairness" and "humanity" to which no decent person could object, modern "liberals" assure that no one can criticize these agendas on any principled ground. The result is that public discourse about the public good—politics itself—comes to an end. As an example of this abolition of politics, consider the fact that anyone who seriously opposes the unconstitutional imposition of homosexual marriage, one of the most radical social innovations in the history of the world, is automatically dismissed and shunned by many people today as a bigot or a cynical political manipulator. Consider the fact that as a result of the Boy Scouts' moral and constitutional refusal to hire open homosexuals as Scoutmasters, many American cities now treat that once honored organization as a pariah.

Therefore the real debate that we conservatives must seek to join with our "liberal" adversaries is not between their alleged support for equality and tolerance and our alleged bigotry and hatred. The real debate is between their desire to dismantle our traditional morality, institutions, and culture, and our desire to preserve our traditional morality, institutions, and culture—indeed our very freedom and existence as a people.

Modern liberalism is a leftist and nihilistic rebellion against the inherently unequal nature of the human condition. If we conservatives named this ideology for what it is, we would have a fair chance to defeat it or at least stem its advance. But if we go on imagining that leftists are liberals who share with us a common moral consensus as Americans—if we continue to regard their hateful assaults on us and our institutions as expressions of "silly" political correctness rather than of their fundamental drive to abolish our system of government and destroy us as a people, then we will be unable to oppose them in any way that counts, and they will keep driving us and our civilization backwards, step by step, until finally nothing remains. If we are effectively to oppose modern liberalism with its destructive double standards, we must oppose it on principle.

Where in the World is Chuckie Sandiego?

Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of worthless comparisons of exotic foreign locales to Pullman… the thrill of erudite cosmopolitanism… and the agony of plebeian Wal-Marts… the human drama of preening intellectualism… this is Chuck Pezeshki's's Wide World of Socialism!


This week, globetrotting WSU professor Chuck "Mr. Civil Discourse" Pezeshki checks in from the island of Kauai in Hawaii for another illustration of his illusionary socialist zeitgeist. In a column in today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News Chuck informs us that the friendly Hawaiians have no need for private beaches, so therefore we should do away with private ownership of farm and forest lands around here, and apparently, motorcycles and four-wheelers:

In our own little neck of the woods, we're running up against a lot of the same kinds of issues. Access across and to private land is big - from disputes on Moscow Mountain, to Potlatch Corp. selling passes for land access, to the recent closing of part of Sanders Beach on Lake Coeur d'Alene. People are flocking to our area to buy their own little part of paradise or ride their ATV on land someone else owns.

[...]

We're not as lucky here. With a few notable exceptions, we've set ourselves up under the screaming principles of "private property rights" or "we've always rode our dirt-bikes here," instead of accepting we all live here because it is a beautiful place...

Pezeshki mentions how expensive homes are Hawaii, without looking more deeply into why other than the old liberal saw of "real estate developers on one side and permanent residents on the other." I imagine the environmental and development regulations in Hawaii are pretty rigorous. That might have something to do with it.

I can hardly wait to see where Chuck visits next time! Perhaps a visit to the former East Germany or Poland might snap him out of his fantasy world of central government planning and no property rights...

An Old-Fashioned Moscow Fourth

Yesterday, I bought some fireworks from our own Ray Lindquist's stand in the Dissmore's parking lot (shameless plug.) My family will be spending the Fourth as we always do: cooking out in the back yard, laying on a blanket in the front yard to watch the fireworks at Sunnyside Park, and then setting off our own display in the driveway.

I really should try to make it over to Moscow though. This post from Moscow City Councilwoman Linda Pall makes it sound like it will be a real hoot:

Dear Visionaries,

Please join us in celebrating what's great about America!

Fourth of July Celebration!!!

City of Moscow

2007

12 NOON, Wednesday, JULY 4, FRIENDSHIP SQUARE

Emcee and Coordinator: Linda Pall, Moscow City Council

(Flags from American Legion, Ice Cream from the City of Moscow and Rosauer's Supermarkets)

a.. Presentation of the Colors: University of Idaho Navy/Marine ROTC
b.. Pledge of Allegiance Moscow City Council
c.. "You're a Grand Old Flag" by George M. Cohan, played by the Moscow Volunteer Peace Band
d.. Star Spangled Banner John Crout
e.. Declaration of Independence, read by members of the Moscow City Council
f.. Girls State Birthday Message Karen Christian, Moscow High School
g.. Boys State Birthday Message Kyler Hoskins, Troy High School
h.. 231st Birthday Message Mike Huebner, Dudley Loomis Post No 6 American Legion
i.. Patriotic Birthday Music Jeanne McHale and Linda Pall

"I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy"

"Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?"

(One more song, whose name I don't remember right now...)

"God Bless America"

a.. Conclusion: "This Land Is Your Land" played by Moscow Volunteer Peace Band

Free ice cream!

THIS EVENT IS FREE AND EVERYONE IS INVITED! We urge everyone to have a glorious Fourth of July and celebrate our nation's 231st birthday in style, with friends and ice cream!

"What's great about America?" Okay, Pledge of Allegiance, check, Star Spangled Banner, check, Declaration of Independence, check, ROTC, check. All standard patriotic fare.

But wait, what's this? The "Moscow Volunteer Peace Band," last heard playing at the Moscow HempFest?

And let's not forget that old Louis Armstrong song (and "patriotic" Fourth of July tradition?), "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?" Why not just change the words to "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans Because George Bush Hates Black People and Caused Global Warming?"

And there IS significance in having radical Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" follow "God Bless America." Guthrie specifically wrote "This Land" as a socialist response to "God Bless America." For example, there are a couple of verses in the first version of "This Land" (originally titled "God Blessed America") that never seem to get sung anymore:

Was a high wall there that tried to stop me
A sign was painted said: Private Property,
But on the back side it didn't say nothing --
[God blessed America for me.]

One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple
By the Relief Office I saw my people --
As they stood hungry, I stood there wondering if
[God blessed America for me.]

A Moscow Fourth indeed.

The Ecomancer

The Ecomancer is a new book by Chris Jones (The Syndrome Rule) he writes of eco-terrorism, America-Haters, and communists/socalists. It is a good read, and I was unable to put it down.

The information from Amazon.com reads:
How far would you go to save the planet? Walter Williams finds himself caught between a group of radical environmentalists and the private military corporation hired to bring them down. On the eve of their would-be capture, the radicals unleash an unimaginable terror attack that destroys Western civilization as we know it. Millions mysteriously drop dead as digital billboards, television, and the Internet are flooded with demonic imagery. Afterwards, Walter Williams embarks on a journey to find his family and build a new life. But like the other survivors, he soon learns that his battle is just beginning, and the stakes are higher than he ever imagined.

Right now, YOU, can get your own copy for free! That is right, you can get your own copy for free. I have a copy from the author who has asked me to give it away to someone who would read and enjoy this book. I think the chances are that someone who reads Palousitics.com would be a perfect fit. If you would like to get this book you can let me know by sending an e-mail to me freebook@cityofpullman.com and stating why you want it and what you'll do with the book when you're done.

It's Only Wrong When It's Israel

Headline:

Lebanese army shells refugee camp
-- BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press
I'm waiting for widespread Arab/Muslim condemnation of Lebanon, for Ahmadinejad to call for Lebanon's destruction, for Al-Qaeda to do the same, for the usual cast and crew of anti-Israeli national governments to threaten Lebanon with this and that, for a chorus of loons to condemn the U.S. for supporting the democratically elected Lebanese government, and for our own homegrown lefties to hold an anti-Lebanese candlelight hackeysack/lack of bar soap/save the rainforest/cause-of-the-week peace vigil, with lots of pictures of Che Guevara.

I will not hold my breath for this, however.