Morrow on Narvey.

Walker Morrow reviews Jonathon Narvey's book below. I must be one of the world's most reticent reviewers, so I'll leave it to Walker to do it.

Review: A History of the Middle Eastside, by Jonathon Narvey

by Walker Morrow - 04/02/2011

A History of the Middle Eastside, written by Jonathan Narvey and published late last year, follows a long line of books exploring complicated political issues through satire. And it does it well.

Basically, History is a crime noir allegory for the history of Israel, starting with the influx of European Jews into Israel ( then known as Palestine ) in the late 1940's in the wake of the Second World War, and the Israelis' battle for independence following the withdrawal of the British from the Mandate of Palestine and the UN's creation of the Partition Plan for Palestine.

Review here: http://www.libertaspost.com/blog/2011/02/review-history-middle-eastside-jonathon-narvey.

I hope that in the spirit of good neighbourliness people will read books by our neighbours and friends in this field. Jonathon Narvey is one such friend, as is Walker Morrow. Anything else is a bonus. Narvey is a clever guy and a good writer. I haven't read the book above but my expectation is that he's done a fine job. Please let us know if you agree, and feel free to review this book as well. I might even do so myself if I can bring myself to write a review.

A Man on Fire: A Religious Tragedy

I love spaghetti western movies, particularly Sergio Leone movies with Clint Eastwood starring, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, for example. Other good movies, Sam Peckinpah, like The Wild Bunch. I like what I can relate to, which is Western movies. So, somehow a movie about a Black guy who used to work as an assassin for the CIA and who is now a washed-up alcoholic taking on a job as a low-rent body guard for a Mexican businessman's little kid is not what I would have thought to be my cup of cerveza. A Man of Fire isn't promising to me on its face. But I've lived in Mexico City off and on for a number of years and I thought that if nothing else I might like to see some familiar scenery. The plot? Oh, well.

"In Mexico City, a former assassin swears vengeance on those who committed an unspeakable act against the family he was hired to protect."

We've all seen this type of movie many times before, a revenge flick.

A wave of kidnappings has swept through Mexico, feeding a growing sense of panic among its wealthier citizens, especially parents. In one six-day period, there were twenty-four abductions, leading many to hire bodyguards for their children. Into this world enters John Creasy, a burned-out ex-CIA operative/assassin, who has given up on life. Creasy's friend Rayburn brings him to Mexico City to be a bodyguard to nine-year-old Pita Ramos, daughter of industrialist Samuel Ramos and his wife Lisa. Creasy is not interested in being a bodyguard, especially to a youngster, but for lack of something better to do, he accepts the assignment. Creasy barely tolerates the precocious child and her pestering questions about him and his life. But slowly, she chips away at his seemingly impenetrable exterior, his defenses drop, and he opens up to her. Creasy's new-found purpose in life is shattered when Pita is kidnapped...

Let me wreck this for you if you're one who is interested in "suspense."

The body guard is protecting a little girl from the possibility of kidnapping. We know she's going to be kidnapped. There's no suspense there. It's what the movie is about. We know too that there is not one sane man on Earth who will invest a red, white and blue cent in a movie project in which a cute kid is murdered by Mexican gangsters because a Black movie star couldn't do his job properly. I would be so fucking outraged at the thought of such a movie that I might set the theatre on fire if ever I encountered such a vile thing on screen. And no, none of that is going to happen this side of Nazi Germany or North Korea. Hollywood won't do that to an audience. We know the girl is going to survive and return to her mom. There is no suspense here. But there is something that I found excellent in this story. I find it beautiful and fine for the soul. And we're talking a Hollywood movie here.

Not especially early in the film, some time after we've seen enough of the character to know enough about him to care, he sits alone in his room with a gun to his head and he pulls the trigger because he hates himself and wants to die. That, sorry to know too much about it, is pretty common. Suicide is easy once one makes up ones mind to do it. The character did, he pulled the trigger, and nothing happened. That's what we would expect from any director other than Hitchcock, who killed off Janet Leigh in Psycho in the first third of the film. So nothing happens. Fair enough. The movie can now continue to the point the little girl is kidnapped and the hero fails to protect her. I could have lived well without ever having sat through all that. I was mostly bored by the recovery in hospital and the obligatory scenes of the still wounded hero accumulating an arsenal to do combat with the bad guys. Far more to my liking was what philistines might descry as excessive violence, which I think is about impossible in a good movie. There were some excellent scenes of torture and torment that I completely loved. And then came the good part.

The man on fire was not any longer some typical vigilante out to avenge a wrongful death. He rises and becomes the Wrath of God in the flesh. This late stage of the film is when our hero becomes a Classical Hero, a Tragedy. This guy with guns and bombs and big attitude is going to murder everyone. This is all or nothing, and we know, this being Hollywood, it's going to be All. It stays Tragic in that the hero is dying as he fights, bleeding and fading and not going to make it; and he carries on like he must because he is-- and because life is-- Tragic. Those who did wrong must pay, and he who had no will to live will live long enough to redeem his worthlessness as he becomes a sacrifice to the Good. Why did he survive his suicide attempt? Simply because the bullet in the chamber at the time was a dud. It misfired. He lived just because of that. Stupid, random, arbitrary chance allowed him to continue his miserable life to the point he failed to save a little girl from harm. Maybe it's me and I don't understand the nature of drama, but I hate the man because he failed. I want him to die. He must die because he failed, and I will cheer.

The girl survives, of course, and is reunited with her mom. On the other side of the story, the father is the schemer who set up what was supposed to be a fake kidnapping that would bring him money to rescue his failing business. Our hero confronts him with this, and also presents him with the gun our hero used to attempt suicide. He gives father the bullet that misfired. He leaves father to do as he will. Of course the bullet this time, unlike the first time, does fire. It's good drama because it's good religion. Our hero does die as he must, as he sacrifices himself to save the little girl he failed first time round. Then we can love our hero. He was saved from his vanity to do some great thing. He is redeemed. We are safe in a just world. We witness a right reckoning.

When I read the usual comments by the usual kiddies about religion being the root of all evil I just shake. My head. It aches. Those who complain in imitation of Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins are more than banal and philistine. They got no sense of the movies. That's not tragedy, it's comedy. But it's not funny. A Man on Fire is tragedy in the best sense. It's religious. A Religious Tragedy.

A gentle reminder that my book, An Occasional Walker, is available at the link here:

http://www.amazon.com/Occasional-Walker-D-W/dp/0987761501/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331063095&sr=1-1

And here are some reviews and comments on said book:

http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/2012/04/dagness-at-noon.html

You can't go home again.

I was recently commenting at Green Mountains Homestead that I get homesick badly sometimes, and that in spite of it, I can't see myself going home to a nation run by Obama. Then, moments later, I read this.

Thomas Lifson at American Thinker posts this excerpt about the state of our nation.

Mike Riggs of the Daily Caller reports:

During an exclusive dinner hosted Monday by the Alfalfa Club, Obama adviser Valerie Jarret ...was seated at the head table along with several other big-name politicians and a handful of high-ranking military officials. As an officer sporting several stars walked past Jarrett, she signaled for his attention and said, "I'd like another glass of wine."

Garçon!

White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee, who was seated next to Jarret, began "cracking up nervously," our tipster said, but no one pointed out to Jarrett that the man sporting a chestful of medals was not her waiter.

"The guy dutifully went up and got her a glass of wine, and then came back and gave it to her and took a seat at the table," our tipster said. "Everyone is in tuxedos and gowns at this thing, but the military people are in full dress uniform."

For full story with comments please turn to:

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/02/valerie_jarretts_arrogance.html

I am ashamed. How could people vote for a government like this? Egyptians at least didn't have a choice in the scum-bags ruling them. We do. How did it come to this? What are we going to do?

Rotberg on Egypt

Howard Rotberg, publisher of Jamie Glazov's latest work, available at www.mantuabooks.com., has a post up about Egypt that's worth reading. Here's the introduction:

Howard Rotberg

Egypt: Freedom for Whom?

By Howard Rotberg, Lawyer and writer

One has a natural sympathy for the Egyptian protestors who bemoan the lack of freedom in Egypt under Mubarek. But the question must be asked: Is there any significant movement in Egypt to accept responsibility for developing a political culture based on liberal freedoms and constitutional democracy?

Please turn to the link below:

http://www.tolerance.ca/Article.aspx?ID=103687&L=en

Creduleft (3)

James R. Copland, Paul Howard writing today at City Journal, cover the issue of vaccinations in the Modern world, and in that we see that it's not just Muslims acting like European peasants in the Middle Ages: some up-scale Californians are as superstitious as many Muslims we might meet. I extend that to most Leftists, those who are so wrapped up in the pseudo-science of scientism that they are as credulous as witch-burners and pogromists in Russia. Those who rail about Sarah Palin are no different from those who, in earlier times, were on about witches and Jooos. It is credulity.

Writing about the growth of whooping cough in California, Copland and Howard state: "[M]ore and more parents, worried about the vaccine’s supposed side effects, are choosing to delay vaccinating their children—or not to do it at all.". California, not Nigeria.

[....]

Parental concerns about vaccine safety are mostly wrongheaded. Plaintiffs’ lawyers, eager to translate junk science into jury awards, have long spread misinformation about the dangers of vaccination. They’ve been especially successful among the affluent and well-educated, presumably because those groups have greater access to vaccine pseudoscience.

[....]

In California’s wealthy Marin County, public health official Fred Schwartz reports that parents are “signing waivers to opt out of immunizing kindergarten-bound children.” About 7 percent of all children entering kindergarten in Marin County are unvaccinated, the seventh-highest percentage among California’s 58 counties. It isn’t surprising, then, that Marin County accounts for 15 percent of all California whooping-cough cases, despite having just 0.67 percent of the state’s population.

http://www.city-journal.org/2011/eon0202phjc.html

We might argue that if the intelligentsia in Marin county, the richest and smartest and best educated in the nation, are subjecting their children to whooping cough, then they must know something we idiots who like Sarah Palin do not know. And I agree. They know scientism, a ludicrous belief in science as religion. Their children die due to this credulity. How different are those in America's wealthiest and most successful neighbourhoods different from Muslims obscurantists in Nigeria?

From an old post here, look at Nigeria and other nations to see if there is a significant difference between those places and people and Marin county, California.

Polio is spreading most rapidly in Nigeria and Indonesia, and new cases have cropped up in Yemen, Sudan, Ethiopia, Angola, Mali, Cameroon, Chad and Eritrea. All told, the number of polio cases worldwide has dropped drastically, from 350,000 in 1988 to 483 in 2001. But last year the figure rose to more than 700.

Rumors have been circulating in Indonesia that polio vaccinations are contrary to Islamic dietary law and are a plot by Christians to secretly sterilize Muslim women and introduce the HIV virus. Similar rumours precipitated a 2003 Nigerian outbreak, when Muslim leaders in the country's northern Kano state forbade inoculations for 10 months. The declaration was later rescinded, though the polio virus has since spread across Africa and to Asia.

http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/2005/11/polio-in-islamic-countries-is-said-to.html

Sarah Palin is an idiot. Using a cell phone will give you brain cancer. Using a cell phone will make your dick drop off. Or vaccinations will make you go blind.

Muslim clerics' warning of U.S. plot hinders measles vaccinations

The human cost of the paranoia fueled by jihadists. From AP, with thanks to Twostellas:

KANO, Nigeria -- Accusations by Islamic preachers that vaccines are part of an American anti-Islamic plot are threatening efforts to combat a measles epidemic that has killed hundreds of Nigerian children, health workers say.

Government officials play down the anti-vaccine sentiment, but all the measles deaths have been in Nigeria's north, where authorities had to suspend polio immunizations last year after hard-line clerics fanned similar fears of that vaccine.

Nigeria, whose 130 million people make it Africa's most populous nation, has recorded 20,859 measles cases so far this year. At least 589 victims have died, most of them children younger than 5 and all in the north, the Nigerian Red Cross and the U.N. World Health Organization say.

Southern Nigeria, which is mainly Christian, had only 253 measles cases, and no deaths.

Health services are much better in the south. But the anti-vaccination sentiment in the north, evident from interviews with parents, seems to be a factor.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2005/03/muslim-clerics-warning-of-us-plot-hinders-measles-vaccinations.html

Yuppies in Marin county, peasants in Nigeria, the Middle Ages? Who can tell the difference any more?

Creduleft (2)

Everything is terrible in the world today because America makes it so. America is a capitalist country, and because of that they not only destroy the environment of North America, they destroy the entire eco-sphere in a mindless and evil pursuit of profit for the greedy few who care not about anything other than mere money and power. The American government is evil in large part because it is run by the Jooos. Everything about America is evil, and the Jooos are the worst of it all. It's simple. Those who don't understand this are stupid like Sarah Palin. This is what we believe.

And now, for some corrective, is a wonderful piece on idiot nostalgia. I love this piece below, and I hope and expect that most here will feel at least as positively about it as I do.

http://www.cracked.com/article_18983_5-complaints-about-modern-life-that-are-statistically-b.s..html

Modernity is beautiful.

The Killing Trip

I travel for the sake of discovering my own life, making my wandering and poking into a matter of examination of me. Others travel, sometimes on the very seat beside me, for reasons I cannot phathom, to get drunk and laugh at parties at world-renowned archaeological sites, to meet some guy to marry, to say they saw, to watch birds, to eat in fine restaurants, to do any number of things it wouldn't occur to me to think of. I think about them and ask what it all means, why they do what they do and care about it. Everyone has his own voyage of discovery, and mine is one too. I ask others, and sometimes I just wonder, but mostly I have no opinion because I don't know, and I can't know. The lives of others are mostly a mystery, as is mine to me.

Recently there was a smallish piece on the Internet about movie hit-men, comparing different Hollywood versions of the same kind of man engaged in professional murder for hire. Travellers of a different sort, they all act from different motivations, having reasons I cannot phathom, strange people doing something I don't understand.

Of all the movie hit-men I've seen over the years there is only one who interested me as a literary character, Joubert, an Alsatian in Three Days of the Condor. I read the book long in advance of seeing the movie on television recently.

Joubert: Would you move from the window, please?
Janice: I won't scream.
Joubert: I know.

I am taken with the girl's quiet Stoicism, and with the assassin's quiet acknowledgement of it and his grasp. These are people I would like to travel with.

I spent some time in the jungle some years ago with a man who had killed more people than I can grasp. I can't understand how one can kill so many people. And yet, for all his killing, he will die a virgin, never having penetrated anyone meaningfully. He was the difference between a machine and a poet, the two making, the latter creating. In my travels I have seen these things. I am left considering the nature of the soul. Some don't scream. I know this, too. I know the road.

Molly Norris has no Gurkha

Molly Norris is still underground, in hiding from jihadis who want to kill her. They want to kill here in America. American men rose up in her defence but-- but no, they didn't. That's why Molly Norris, ex-Seattle cartoonist girl is still in hiding from jihadis. Maybe too she's hiding because she's ashamed of American men and doesn't want to see them roll their eyes and shuffle off to play video games if she calls out for help. The incident below is not an exact parallel with Norris's case. In the following there was a man on the spot, directly able to act. Molly Norris had the FBI, she had her friends, she had those around her in Seattle, she had all the men of America and some of those now resident in Canada to step up to defend her. But no one did. She fled the city and changed her name and gave up her life as it was for the sake of living in fear under some other name. No man came to her rescue.

Lone Nepali Soldier Defends Potential Rape Victim Against 40 Men

Whoa...holy cow! Every once in a while someone in the world comes along and reminds us what a true hero really looks like. A 35 year-old Gurkha soldier named Bishnu Shrestha was riding a train when he suddenly found himself in the middle of a massive robbery. 40 men armed with knives, swords and guns stormed the train and began robbing the passengers.

Bishnu kept his peace while the gang snatched cell phones, jewelry and cash from other riders. But then, the thugs grabbed the 18 year-old girl sitting next to him and forcefully stripped her naked. Before the bandits could rape the poor girl in front of her helpless parents, Bishnu decided he had enough.

“The girl cried for help, saying ´You are a soldier, please save a sister´,” Shrestha recalled. “I prevented her from being raped, thinking of her as my own sister.”

Here's the part of the story that makes you cheer. He pulls out a kukri (i.e. a knife) and proceeds to kill 3 of them, injure 8 of them, and causes the rest to flee. During the battle, he suffered a severe knife injury to his left hand, from which he's now recovered.

Photos, video, and comments here: http://www.logiccool.com/blog/591281-lone-nepali-soldier-defends-potential-rape-victim-against-40-men/

Found at Instapundit.
--

Creduleft.

A quick up-date. Raymond Ibrahim has also written on this topic, a few days previous to this post. See here.

Those who will believe anything often won't believe anything.

Sarah Palin is stupid. George Bush is stupid. Ronald Reagan is stupid. Gerald Ford is Stupid. All intelligent people know this.

America is the most evil nation in history. Israel is the most evil nation in history. The West is the most evil empire in history. Capitalism is the most evil system in history. All intelligent people know this.

Fundamentalist Christians are worse than the Taliban. Fundamentalist Jews are worse that the Nazis. Islam is the religion of peace. Islamophobia is racism. All intelligent people know this.

Michael Moore, Barak Obama, Noam Chomsky, and Al Gore are geniuses. All intelligent people know this. Everyone else is stupid.

And now there's this:

Mossad sends Zionist sharks to attack innocent Egyptians

Some said sharks had been drawn to shallow waters after cattle being shipped in for last month's Islamic feast of the sacrifice, or Eid al-Adha, had died and were thrown overboard.

Others suggested it could have been part of a secret plot by Israel's Mossad intelligence agency.

"What is being said about the Mossad throwing the deadly shark (in the sea) to hit tourism in Egypt is not out of the question, but it needs time to confirm," South Sinai Governor Mohamed Abdel Fadil Shousha was quoted as saying by state news site egynews.net....

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/12/mossad-sends-zionist-sharks-to-attack-innocent-egyptians.html

Iranians arrest 14 squirrels for spying

By Dudi Cohen for Ynet News (thanks to all who sent this in):

Iranian intelligence operatives recently detained over a dozen squirrels found within the nation's borders, claiming the rodents were serving as spies for Western powers determined to undermine the Islamic Republic.

"In recent weeks, intelligence operatives have arrested 14 squirrels within Iran's borders," state-sponsored news agency IRNA reported. "The squirrels were carrying spy gear of foreign agencies, and were stopped before they could act, thanks to the alertness of our intelligence services."

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2007/07/iranians-arrest-14-squirrels-for-spying.html

Iran: We busted a pigeon spy ring

"Iran arrests pigeons 'spying' on nuclear site," from the Telegraph, October 20:

One of the pigeons was caught near a rose water production plant in the city of Kashan in Isfahan province, the Etemad Melli newspaper reported. It said that some metal rings and "invisible" strings were attached to the bird, suggesting that it might have been somehow communicating what it had seen with the equipment it was carrying.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2008/10/iran-we-busted-a-pigeon-spy-ring.html

Palestinians complain of Zionist rats

"Palestinians: Israel uses rats against J'lem Arabs," by Khaled Abu Toameh for the Jerusalem Post, July 20 (thanks to Block Ness):

The Palestinian Authority's official news agency Wafa says Israel is using rats to drive Arab families out of their homes in the Old City of Jerusalem.

In the past the news agency, which is controlled and funded by PA President Mahmoud Abbas's office, has accused Israel of using wild pigs to drive Palestinians out of their homes and fields in the West Bank. In the reports, Palestinians were quoted by the agency as saying that they had seen Israelis release herds of wild pigs, which later attacked them.

But this is the first time that Palestinians have spoken of rats being used against them.

"Rats have become an Israeli weapon to displace and expel Arab residents of the occupied Old City of Jerusalem," Wafa reported under the title, "Settlers flood the Old City of Jerusalem with rats." The report continued: "Over the past two months, dozens of settlers come to the alleyways and streets of the Old City carrying iron cages full of rats. They release the rats, which find shelter in open sewage systems."...

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2008/07/palestinians-complain-of-zionist-rats.html

Zionist vulture captured in Saudi Arabia!

"Vulture in Saudi Custody Suspected as Mossad Agent," by Gil Ronen for Israel National News, January 4 (thanks to Jules):

Saudi Arabian security forces have captured a vulture that was carrying a global positioning satellite (GPS) transmitter and a ring etched with the words "Tel Aviv University." They suspect the bird of spying for Israel, Maariv-NRG reported Tuesday.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/01/zionist-vulture-captured-in-saudi-arabia.html

And:

A few years ago the Egyptian press was full of reports about an alleged Mossad plot to distribute chewing gum that would cause young women to become sexually promiscuous. Though it heavily censors its press, the government did nothing to discourage the story.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2011/01/israels_spying_vulture--and_ki.html

And:Israel has also been accused of releasing lethal jellyfish in the waters off Sinai and of infecting mosquitoes with HIV,^[5][6] even though this form of HIV transmission is not considered possible.^[7]

American journalist James Bamford, who writes about the American intelligence community, suggests that there is some credibility to suspicions that animals are being used in espionage. He cites CIA attempts to build robotic fish and dragonflies for use in surveillance as evidence that it is possible to use animals in espionage.^[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_animal_spy_conspiracy_theories#cite_note-post-4

Former Gitmo inmate: Jewish guards used witchcraft on prisoners, made me feel a cat was trying to penetrate me

Interviewer: Did they ever use witchcraft on you?

Walid Muhammad Hajj: There was one attempt.

Interviewer: How did they do it?

Walid Muhammad Hajj: Once, when I was sleeping - on the floor, not on a bed - I suddenly felt that a cat was trying to penetrate me. It tried to penetrate me again and again. I recited the kursi verse again and again until the cat left.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/12/former-gitmo-inmate-jewish-guards-used-witchcraft-on-prisoners-made-me-feel-a-cat-was-trying-to-pene.html

Ali Stardust and the Spiders from Allah

OPERATION: IRAQI FREEDOM
Sheik: Allah sent giant spiders to combat U.S.
Cleric says arachnids as big as a chair killed soldiers in battle

© 2004 WorldNetDaily.comAn Iraqi sheik claims Allah sent giant spiders to the town of Fallujah to help its residents fend off attacks by U.S. military forces.

Sheik Mahdi Saleh Al-Sumide'i spoke to Syrian TV on Monday, claiming several Arab television stations videotaped the helpful arachnids.

The interview is featured on the website of the Middle East Media Research Institute TV Monitor Project, or MEMRI TV. The organization translated the conversation into English.

"They [the Americans] attacked Fallujah and tried to cause great damage to its residents," he explained. "They destroyed mosques and homes, killed women, children and youths, and spread corruption in Fallujah. Nevertheless, we believe that Allah protects the believers, and indeed, Allah stood beside Fallujah, and I'd like to mention some miracles Allah performed in Fallujah. It is possible that the media does not know about them."

Continued Al-Sumide'i: "The first miracle that occurred in Fallujah took the form of spiders that appeared in the city – each spider larger than this chair, or about the size of this chair. The American soldiers left, holding the legs of this spider, and I too, in one of the Friday sermons, held up a spider, with all its magnitude, in front of the satellite channels and in front of the world. This spider also had thin black hair. If this hair touches the human body, within a short period of time the body becomes black or blue, and then there is an explosion in the blood cells in the human body - and the person dies."

The sheik's interviewer then asked about the alleged TV coverage: "The people saw it, but the TV stations did not air it?"

Responded Al-Sumide'i: "The people saw it and the TV stations indeed aired it. I held the spider, and there were between 13 to 15 TV stations, including Al-Arabiya, Al-Jazeera, Al-Majd, Dubai, Abu-Dhabi and other stations, and they saw it with their own eyes."

Some Arab Internet sites have repeated claims of Iraqis about the spiders, and there also are stories circulating of phantom white-robed knights on white horses sent by Allah that killed U.S. Marines in battle.

http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/2005/11/ali-stardust-and-spiders-from-allah.html

Nine Eleven was an inside job. The Zionists did it. They did to control the world's oil supplies. They want to destroy the environment so they can live in opulence and make everyone a starving slave. They are greedy. All intelligent people know this. You can't reason with such people because they know the truth. Few people seem to realise this.

Lars Hedegaar Acquitted of Hate Crimes.

Lars Hedegaard is a Danish writer who has been charged with what in our day is termed a "hate crime" against Muslims. He's one of many in the West that governments are attempting to silence individually, the result being that the general public is either afraid of government doing the same to them or that those who slavishly worship the state then have a "moral authority" to cite in support of anything the state claims they should support. In either case, fear of the power of the State reigns supreme. Some fear the fear, and others love it. In either case, fear of the State makes life simple: one knows where one stands in life. That knowledge, that security of knowing ones status and place in life, is satisfying to many. Certainty is appealing to many. Denmark, which has historically been what we would roughly deem to be a democracy, is not now a democracy. Instead, it is rule by "enlightened" elites. This is rule by Philosopher Kings, and many lap it up, such rule giving many all the comfort they want in a confusing experience of living rightly in a terrifying and dangerous cosmos. The State, ruled by an intellectual elite, enlightened people, demands of its citizens, that they conform to the elite vision of the Moral. From that point on, there is little use in concerning oneself with alternatives to the narrative of Force, of the State. One just gives up and lives within the confines of authority's pronouncements. John Milton puts it right in Areopagitica, (1644) in a different context but with the same kind of mind in mind: That there is nothing a man would rather give up to another than the choice of his religious beliefs. We called this right to decide for ourselves the important questions of nearly anything, "Freedom." But that was then, and even then, many didn't like freedom. Freedom means insecurity, doubt, even terror. "What do I believe?" and worse, "What if I'm wrong?" and finally, because it is difficult for many to live with doubt about the validity of the rightness of their own lives, all others must validate their beliefs by believing the same, by not raising doubts and therefore fears about the worth of ones moral: "Tell us what we believe and that such is right and good, and from there on we will never live in fear again. We will submit and believe in safety from then on." Such is life for most men, and for Muslims and others, it is all of Life. They submit, totally, and all is good, even unto death. Challenge that commitment to certainty and safety, and then we find believers going so mad that they blow up themselves and others in a state of rage. Questioning the narrative so deeply committed to is to bring down upon oneself the rage of True Believers. In Denmark, such happened to Lars Hedegaard. Here's what happened, briefly.

Diana West writes: Alyssa Lappen pulls it all together in an excellent piece at Pajamas Media:

In December 2009, Hedegaard remarked in a taped interview that a certain kind of domestic violence was peculiar to Muslim families (“they” rape their own children). He was charged as a common criminal. [3]

Denmark’s public prosecutor charged Hedegaard with racism for allegedly violating article 266 b of its penal code — a.k.a. the “racism clause” — which allows a prosecutor to infer criminal offense in any statement that he believes threatens, demeans, or ridicules anyone based on race, skin color, national or ethnic origin, religious faith, or sexual orientation. In other words, the law gives the prosecutor endless latitude to levy criminal charges over a wide range of easily misconstrued statements by or about almost anyone. [4]

Denmark, and other Western national governments, has imposed a "safety" on its people. Those who tamper with the safety are therefore "dangerous." We are all supposed to live with this Noble Lie of the Philosopher Kings for the sake of living rightly, that Islam is a religion of peace, and that all cultures are equally good in their own terms and so on. It is the safety of a certain Moral. If everyone at least pretends to believe the lie, then all is safe in the cosmos. Anything that goes wrong can be sorted out according to a pre-packaged lie, for example, that Muslim terrorism is a matter of rage against racism. There is a pat answer for everything that all must pretend to adhere to. It makes no difference if it is obviously stupid, the point is the Lie is the Safety. So, when a man like Lars Hedegaard speaks an obvious truth about Islam, he disrupts the safety of the elites in Denmark, prompting them to arrest him and put him on trial for disrupting the safety of the established public Moral. The Law is all about preserving the Lie for the sake of the people and the utopia of the Left Moral. Sense? Right and wrong? These things have nothing to do with the point of the Lie. It's all about not having to think about Truth. We can all get along so long as we all pretend to get along.

West continues to quote Lappen, in part:

And in May 2008, Gregorius Nekschot, a pseudonymous Dutch cartoonist, was similarly arrested and charged with discriminatory speech. In September 2010, Dutch prosecutors finally dropped charges against Nekschot (on the eve of Holland’s next travesty of justice). Despite a court order that he dismantle his personal website, Nekschot was victorious.

[....]

Then came five charges of hate speech against Dutch MP Geert Wilders. Prosecutors initially ruled that Wilders’ statements might hurt Muslim feelings but weren’t crimes. But in January 2009, Amsterdam’s Appeals Court reversed the finding and ordered prosecutors to proceed. [24]

[....]

Next up was Austria’s Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff — [....] In September 2010, Sabaditsch-Wolff learned she was accused of “defamation of religion” during a 2009 three-part seminar on “Islamization of Europe” for the Freedom Education Institute (FEI).

[....]

That same month, the European Union required member states to implement the “framework decision on combating racism and xenophobia,” a measure adopted on November 28, 2008, to combat “certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law.” This EU legal provision required all EU member states to comply fully by November 28, 2010, Sabaditsch-Wolff asserts, and to punish “intentional conduct” considered a pretext to target “a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin.” [30] Oblique or not, this means Muslims.

http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/1656/The-Show-Trial-of-Lars-Hedegaard.aspx

Most people believe what most people believe. It makes life easier. If one challenges what most people believe, one is likely to be friendless, to be seen as, at best, a crank, maybe as a lunatic, or even a criminal, as dangerous. That's not a career move most people would like. Those who see through the obvious lies often enough shrug it off as not worth the fight. Why bother going to gaol for a mere principle? Why cause trouble? Why upset anyone? Yes, Islam is a terrorism. Yes, anyone who looks into it knows this. But the government has decided to pursue a Lie for the good of all, and to provoke the government is to bring down harm on oneself for nothing more than principle. It's not worth the loss.

Today, Lars Hedegaard was acquitted of the charges against him in Denmark. Tomorrow someone else will be attacked for something similar.

Up-date:

By chance, an hour after posting the copy above I see this at Jihad Watch:

COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Jan. 31 (UPI) -- Accused terrorists planned to cut the throats of reporters at a Danish newspaper that printed Mohammed cartoons, police wiretaps reveal.

The men hoped to kill as many people as possible at Jyllands-Posten within 20 minutes, recordings made by the Danish security service PET and published Monday in the Ekstra Bladet newspaper show.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/01/denmark-jihad-plotters-planned-to-cut-throats-of-reporters-at-paper-that-published-muhammad-cartoons.html

More at : http://covenantzone.blogspot.com/2011/01/lars-hedegaard-acquitted-without.html