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Archive for January 7th, 2009

USA! USA!

Posted by s.z. on January 7th, 2009

Phyllis Schlafly, the doyenne of American conservatism (“doyenne” = “crazy old bat”) has penned a new Town Hall column (Keeping Our American Identity) about how Americans are all so stupid that we don’t even know what the three branches of government are - and apparently that is what makes us the greatest country on earth!

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI), which earlier has conducted in-depth studies of what American college students know, and don’t know, about civics, now reports equally depressing facts about grown-ups. It appears that adults, too, lack the civic knowledge they need to be informed citizens and intelligent voters
[...]
Almost 40 percent of respondents said they thought the president (rather than Congress) has the power to declare war.

That’s what they get for listening to Dick Cheney.

But Phyllis doesn’t really care how ignorant Americans are – her real gripe is that not everybody believes that we are better than everyone else.

It’s not just that American citizens lack knowledge of historical and constitutional facts about our country, but they also show a declining appreciation of who we are. A survey by Harris Interactive reported that 84 percent of respondents believe we have a unique American identity, but 64 percent believe this identity is weakening, and 24 percent believe we are already so divided that a common national identity is impossible.  

A review of history textbooks used in public schools today reveals a big source of the problem. Textbooks now emphasize America’s faults and mistakes rather than our incredible achievements.

History textbooks should tell the exciting story that the United States has produced nearly all the world’s greatest inventions and that these inventions have produced living standards that are the envy of the world.

Yeah!  Why are textbooks teaching impressionable kids about unexciting stuff like racism, when they should be teaching them that Americans invented the steam engine, the cotton gin, the wheel, fire, gunpowder, the thighmaster, etc.?

This exciting narrative is not based on Americans being smarter than other nationalities, or our having more natural resources than other countries, but on the wisdom of the Founding Fathers, who gave us the superior political and economic system enshrined in our Constitution.

Sure, we DO have more natural resources than other countries, and ARE smarter, but that’s only because the Founding Fathers had the wisdom to be white Christian males.

We should celebrate and honor our nation’s heroes, starting with George Washington. Federal law clearly specifies that the name of the “legal public holiday” on the third Monday in February is “Washington’s Birthday.”

Americans should refuse to buy the calendars that wrongly label this February holiday as “Presidents Day.”

We should storm the stationery stores, seize all the traitorous calendars, and throw them into Boston harbor!

This calendar mischief is very offensive because there are quite a few presidents who are not worthy of a special “day.”

I think that what Phyllis is trying to say is that Bill Clinton doesn’t deserve to have a birthday, being that he got a non-marital blowjob and all.

Maintaining our national identity depends on keeping our Constitution safe from the supremacist judges who want to change it to comport with what they call “emerging standards.” Our national identity depends on keeping English as our official, national language so we don’t suffer the conflicts endured by nations with competing languages.

And since English isn’t our official language, then I guess our national identity is already down the crapper and we’re no better than Canadians.

America was founded by men who shared a common inheritance in the British rule of law developed over centuries (beginning with the Magna Carta), the Christian religion and the English language.

Therefore, we shouldn’t let anyone live here who doesn’t share that British inheiritance, or who doesn’t agree to become a WASP within one year of entry. It’s the only way for us to stay special.

They also shared the belief later expressed by Alexis de Tocqueville that America is “quite exceptional” and by Ronald Reagan that America is “the shining city on the hill.” 

Presumably they also shared the belief later expressed by Reagan that the Nicaraguan contras were their moral equals.  

But let’s now turn to another American patirot, Chuck Norris, whose latest Town Hall column, Invasion USA, is about how Chuck singlehandedly defeated the commie invaders by judicious kicks to the groin and by gunning down Congress.

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No, wait, that was his movie.  The column is actually about how YOU are being a traitor everytime you don’t look for the Union Label. 

The USA is being infiltrated by illegals, sold to foreign powers, and abandoned by its government. But are Americans enabling the dissolution of our economy and country, as well, by continuing to buy foreign goods? 

The gist of Chuck’s column is “Yes. Yes we are.”  There, I just save you minutes of reading time.  You can thank me by kicking a history book in the groin.

Jonah Goldberg Sues Hamas For Plagiarism

Posted by scott on January 7th, 2009

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In his LA Times column today, Jonah denounces the Gazans for breaking Godwin’s Law, cheapening the memory of the Holocaust, and infringing on his intellectual property.

Across the Islamic world, and in too many points West, it is still considered a penetrating and poignant insight to call Zionists the “new Nazis.” For instance, in Sunday’s Gulf News, Mohammad Abdullah al Mutawa, a sociology professor at United Arab Emirates University, penned an essay titled “Zionists are the new Nazis.”

I like a paragraph that’s self-verifying.  Also, a tip to you young wordsmiths out there: notice how Jonah avoided a feeling of repetition when using the same phrase two sentences in a row by moving the quotation marks around.

Type “Israel” and “Nazi” into any news search engine and you’ll be rewarded, or punished, with a bounty of such statements just over the last week or so. Gaza is the new Auschwitz, the Israeli Defense Forces are SS troops … I find myself tempted to simply write “et cetera” because it’s all so familiar by now.

“Also, I’m getting paid by the word, and ‘et cetera’ counts for two, plus it’s classier than ‘etc.’”

But to do that is to dismiss, and therefore accept, such grotesqueries as trivialities, when in fact such charges are deeply revealing — just not about Israel.

As the old Usenet adage goes, the first person to call his opponent a Nazi automatically loses the debate.  But when you do it in the title of your essay (or, say, on the cover of your book) you don’t even give your antagonist a chance to lose.  Have a care, Mr. al Mutawa.

So why the obsession with casting the Israelis as the new Hitlerites?…It also grabs attention, galvanizes radicals, vents legitimate frustrations and anger and helps demonize the enemy…

It also stimulates bulk book sales, juliennes fries, and leads to embarrassing appearances on The Daily Show.  But the most important thing to remember is that by comparing their opponents to genocidal fascists who enjoy whole grains, these Palestinian spokespersons merely demonstrate their own moral and intellectual bankruptcy.  Now, if I can go off-topic for a moment, I noticed that Jonah’s book is out in paperback, marked down to $11.53 from $16.95, a savings of 32%!

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Call me sentimental, but I still have a soft spot for the original subtitle.