Category Archives: The West

UPDATE II: Manhattan Le Magnifique

America, Capitalism, Ilana Mercer, Racism, Technology, The West, Trade

YES, MANHATTAN’S STILL THE GREATEST. I say so in reply to Barely a Blog reader Sunny Black.

Another reader, “Contemplationist”—he was at the libertarian-cum-Objectivist New York City Junto gathering, where I featured as speaker for the month of May, 2012—had once admonished me on the blog: “You gotta see things to believe them.”

As I crisscrossed Manhattan in high-heels (naturally) on lengthy walks, I was overcome with a surge of patriotism for very specific (and modest) reasons.

I had hoped to keep this passion and the attendant insights for a new column on a new forum. Stay tuned.

No other city I’ve visited in my longish lifetime measures up to Manhattan (New York City). Paris sucks by comparison—and I loved that city in the 1980s, before “les beurs”—the darling buds of France, aka her raging Muslim youths—took over.

Manhattan Le Magnifique.

UPDATE I: Huggs: People were okay and efficient, compared to the sullen slackers of the Pacific Northwest. On the subway, certain sorts glared angrily and refused to let you sit down, preferring to hog the entire bench. I was only too pleased “they” did not lunge at me, though. No wilding attack. And Central Park is the most beautiful place ever for a runner. I was up Sunday at 6:00AM because of jet lag, I guess. By 7:00am I was running. There were many many people doing the same. Fabulous.

UPDATE II: At the South-Street Sea Port, on the East River, near Wall Street. What a skyline.

UPDATED: Putin Saves Us From Ourselves

Foreign Policy, Ilana Mercer, libertarianism, Middle East, Neoconservatism, Ron Paul, Russia, The West, War

“Putin Saves Us From Ourselves” is my new column (front page on RT, the column was buried at the bottom of WND’s second page, where two-day-old columns go to die, so is unlikely to edify the few who might have been amenable to edification). Here’s an excerpt:

“He vetoed a draft United Nations Security Council resolution calling on President Bashar Assad to step down. Such a resolution, he argued, would serve as a ruse for the US to do a Libya in Syria.

He made the case that the “Syrian crisis would be better resolved by Syrians themselves,” and that the West should confine itself to brokering a ceasefire in that country, and encouraging dialogue between the feuding factions.

And, “Six months ago,” by the Daily Star’s telling, he “vetoed an earlier draft resolution threatening Damascus with sanctions.”

He is Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president elect. And he has done nothing that Ron Paul, president of America’s libertarians, would not have done: work to avert another ill-conceived, idiotic American intervention in a country in which it has no business, advocate for a peaceful resolution to the conflict, and oppose economic sanctions, which always and everywhere do more damage than good.

A just course of action is a just course of action irrespective of the actor.

The Sino-Russian alliance has been promoting the idea of an accord, involving “all the Syrians, the government and all opposition groups,” or so the Washington Post framed their side. NATO (nee the US) was champing at the bit to take the battle for Syria away from the Syrians and put it where they believe it belongs: the US military and its proxies.

Now, out of the blue, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is pretending that the United States and its Arab and European allies have always supported such a civilized solution in Syria, and were merely waiting on the Russians to get with the peace program. This is the same woman who came close to squatting on Gadhafi’s corpse, in honor of her country’s custom of peeing on its dead enemies.

Yes, one minute the Obama Administration and its UN and Arab-League lickspittles had been itching to oust Assad. The next, the same coalition was dusting Kofi Annan off and dispatching him, as a UN envoy, to mediate a resolution to Syria’s civil war.

What’s going on here? …

The complete column is “Putin Saves Us From Ourselves.”

If you’d like to feature this column in or on your publication (paper pr pixels), contact ilana@ilanamercer.com.

Support this writer’s work by clicking to “Recommend,” “Tweet” and “Share” the “Paleolibertarian Column” on RT and “Return To Reason” on WND.

UPDATE: So true, Stephen Hayes. This is why I keep at my readers to post their responses to what they read here far and wide; post them to where my columns are featured, at RT (a new audience), and WND (which buried this column on the second page, where 2-day-old columns are posted), on Amazon (where is your Cannibal review, Stephen?), and other forums. Here on BAB, you are preaching to the converted.

Is the Progressive West Perverse, Or What?

Crime, Criminal Injustice, Democracy, Law, The West

Citing Tom Fleming, the post “In A Perverse Way, Afghan Justice Is Less Perverse” raised the perverse topic of restorative justice (which is, for the most, no justice at all) that has come to dominate Western criminal justice systems. Citing Imanuel Kant, Fleming wrote:

Judicial punishment can never be used solely as a means to promote some other good for the criminal himself or for society, but instead must in all cases be imposed on a person solely on the ground that he has committed a crime….woe to him who rummages around in the winding paths of a theory of happiness looking for some advantage to be gained by releasing the criminal from punishment or by reducing the amount of it….

Not a day goes by when examples of this crookedness don’t present themselves. While French SWAT teams were taking days to bring to an end a stake-out at a Toulouse apartment building in southern France—they were waiting on the killer of three French paratroopers, a rabbi and three children to “surrender” or kill more innocent bystanders—a cabinet minister told RT that the purpose of democracy was to capture criminals alive, not kill them.

Given the ever-expanding remit of democracy, the French official is probably correct. All I know is that the purpose of a just government is to protect the lives and property of non-aggressors.

Next, on the grounds that “capital punishment is wrong in principle and should be abolished,” and that a worldly, wise authority should enforce this universal understanding—the perverse EU is threatening Belarus’ Lukashenka regime “with sanctions … listing 21 judges and top police officers who face travel bans and asset freezes in the EU.”

“Lukashenka had last week refused to pardon the two men, Dzmitry Kanavalau and Uladzislau Kavalyou, both aged 26, who were convicted last year for a number of offences, including a deadly attack on the Minsk metro,” in which 15 people were killed and over 200 injured.

It’s one thing to question the quality of justice and due process in Belarus, and advocate for judicial review of proceedings in the trial. But it is quite another to have demanded that the two men be pardoned (as Human Rights Watch has done)—they have since been executed for the massacre in the metro station of the Belarusian capital—no less, and the death penalty repealed, which is what these arrogant internationalists are demanding.

UPDATE II: Priority Mail International To South Africa (5 Weeks & Counting)

Affirmative Action, Africa, Government, Human Accomplishment, South-Africa, Technology, The West

Will I ever learn? I’ve written a book about the New South Africa, yet I still attempt to get a priority envelope to my father (at a cost of $53.50), who lives in that country. Accepted in the US on Feb. 6, with a promise of a 5 to 7 day delivery, the item is currently STILL in transit to the destination. It is being stalled in South Africa.

Although the USPS has more or less completed its part of the deal, the onus is on the USPS stateside not to offer a “Priority Mail International Parcels” service to South Africa. I use the Mail-Clinic interface, which although more pleasant than the toxic USPS, is, nevertheless, still beholden to it.

Here is the USPS tracking data, beginning from the bottom:

7. PROCESSED THROUGH SORT FACILITY ON FEBRUARY 14, 2012, 3:51 PM, SOUTH AFRICA: THE ITEM IS CURRENTLY STILL IN TRANSIT TO THE DESTINATION.

6. Processed Through Sort Facility February 10, 2012, 12:58 pm, ISC LOS ANGELES CA (USPS)

5. Arrived at Sort Facility, February 10, 2012, 12:58 pm, ISC LOS ANGELES CA (USPS)

4. Electronic Shipping Info Received, February 07, 2012

3. Processed through USPS Sort Facility, February 06, 2012, 8:20 pm, WA

2. Dispatched to Sort Facility

1. Acceptance, February 06, 2012, 6:42 pm

[SNIP]

I’ve been through this many times. As a Pope once said, hope springs eternal in the human breast.

UPDATE: Mail and parcel theft is rampant in SA. It’s not so much political, as criminal. These are the things one takes for granted in the West. However horrid and monopolistic is the USPS, it does get a thing from A to B, generally “honoring” the contract with the American forced to purchase the service.

UPDATE II (March 15): JP, I thought the ANC was too much of a disorganized criminal syndicate to compile a list of subversives and chase the listed down. Do you honestly believe they have one such list and are capable of flagging “suspect” material?