Update III: Beck Blasts Bush (But Praises Diablo)

Bush, Glenn Beck, History, Islam, Politics, Pseudo-history, Republicans, States' Rights, Terrorism

It’s official. Glenn Beck gets his own category/archive on Barely A Blog. He deserves it. In addition to his other attributes—you can now track my analysis of Beck’s progression as a force for liberty by clicking on the BAB Beck category—he is the only conservative, mainstream TV commentator to treat Bush with the contempt he reserves for Obama.

The tirade against “W” begins 3 minutes or so into the broadcast.

“Debt, spending; this was insane what G. W. Bush was doing. Spending us into oblivion. National security. How about you declare a war and fight to win? How about you secure our borders? … Some people wanted global warming. The rest of us wanted us out of the Middle East; use our own energy. The Republicans had a crack at it, but what did we get? GB, in his last year, lost 3 million jobs. Debt. Spending: How about $4.9 trillion? He increased discretionary spending almost 50 percent. Fiscal year 2004 and fiscal year 2000: Bush almost spent double than President Clinton. And who can forget the $550 billion prescription drug fiasco? He abandoned the free-market system to save it with a $700 billion TARP slush fund. … The border was left wide open. Corruption was rife. Oh, and global warming: the biggest schemes of all times not only supported by Republicans, but by leading Republicans. Lindsey Graham, Tim Pawlenty, John McCain. All pro cap-and-trade.

Update I Feb. 16): In the same program, Glenn conducted a devotional to Diablo—Abraham Lincoln—rejecting some of the most solid historical revisionism.

One of the reasons a volume like The Real Lincoln is so sound is that it does NOT refute historical facts; most historians agree about what transpired during the War of Northern Aggression; it’s the interpretation of these fact.

With Diablo it boils down to deciding matters of natural law: did the states create the union or vice versa (dah Diablo)? Was secession legitimate” Is it right to sic brother on brother so as to coerce the one to remain with the other? Suspend the Bill or Right?

The “Church of Lincoln” says “Yes” to all; we who are with liberty say NO.

A reminder that I’m not adjudicating Lincoln in this post; but Beck’s progress toward the founders’ freedoms. It’s one step forward, two steps back with Beck.

Update II: To follow on RG’s excellent post, this from my “Classical Liberalism And State Schemes”:

“We have a solemn [negative] duty not to violate the rights of foreigners everywhere to life, liberty, and property. But we have no duty to uphold their rights. Why? Because (supposedly) upholding the negative rights of the world’s citizens involves compromising the negative liberties of Americans—their lives, liberties, and livelihoods. The classical liberal government’s duty is to its own citizens, first.”

Update III (Feb. 18): This post went off-topic, because some would rather rehash their convictions despite the answers provided. So, in reply to,”Do you believe those 500 million people form a serious military threat against which we must defend ourselves?”

For one, there are about 1 billion Muslims in the world. In the previous post, I replied to the same question. I’m reproducing the update:

Polls show a respectable percentage of Muslims condone Jihadi pursuits (search for some fresh data; I like those). If equaled by as many Jews and Christians, liberals and libertarians and elements on the American Right always helping to make the “Islamikazes'” case would protest as loud as you lot squealed over placing a bug in Abu Zubaydah’s cage. Hence the issue of fifth-column immigrants.

Back in 2005, “a leaked Whitehall dossier revealed that affluent, middle-class, British-born Muslims were signing up to Al-Qaida in droves. Translated into official speak by Timesonline, only ‘3,000 British-born or British-based people have passed through Osama Bin Laden’s training camps.’

And if that doesn’t allay unwarranted fears, ‘Intelligence indicates that the number of British Muslims actively engaged in terrorist activity, whether at home or abroad or supporting such activity, is extremely small and estimated at less than 1%.'”

In other words, 16,000 homicidal sleepers are loose in England!

These figures, of course, probably replicable in the US, are statistically significant—stupendously so—given the barbarism they portend. It is over this sort of astoundingly consequential number that our liberal-minded readers are jumping for joy.

Such is the liberal mindset.

Update III: Murder By Majority (Or Mercy Killing)

Barack Obama, Homeland Security, Islam, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Military, Propaganda, Terrorism, War

Barack Obama needed a war he could call his own. In Afghanistan, OB has found such a war. A meaty presence in Afghanistan has morphed into an all-out onslaught, with the attendant slaughter of innocence.

It wasn’t a daisy cutter of the Bush era, but a Himars rocket, an acronym for High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, that killed at least 10 people, including 5 children, in Marja, a Taliban stronghold in Helmand Province, to where Obama has taken his war.

The place is dotted with rural villages and villagers, so some are bound to be incinerated by American bombs. So far nothing about BO’s shame in the op-ed pages of the LA Times or the NYT.

Most Americans may approve of BO’s pet war, but murder by majority approval is still murder. Those Afghans who died today are involuntary conscripts—they get to partake of the wonders of American democracy only indirectly: a mob (of Americans) in a far-away land decided their fate. And by golly what a splendid job this mob has done.

Update I: THE MIGHTY TALIBAN.

“I don’t think you can really describe them militarily. It seems like a few guys taking potshots … and not terribly effectively, with some exceptions.”

That’s NYTs correspondent ROD NORDLAND describing the Taliban on the PBS News Hour today.

His Boy Obama and his General get top marks for mercy killings. When Bush finished off civilians it wasn’t nearly as kindly as when McChrystal does it under the divine inspiration of BO:

Remember “the — the wedding, one of several, actually, that was bombed a year or two ago,”? … “the Bush administration, you know, they just — it took them months to ever admit they had even done anything wrong.”

Barack, by contrast, is positively killing these kids with kindness:

“They were so quick to announce that, in fact, that it turns out they exaggerated, apparently, the number of civilians they killed. It turned out it was actually only nine, and there were also three Taliban in the house who were shooting from the house, and thereby, at least arguably, making it a legitimate target.”

To listen to NORDLAND, you’d think that BO brought back from the dead three civilians thought dead.

In fairness to this correspondent, the NYT was all for the previous warbot’s war as well.

During Bush’s war, “Fox News was able to create the perception of a parallel universe in Iraq replete with big (nuclear) bangs and miraculously materializing al-Qaida terrorists because its Hollywood-inspired vision resonated with viewers. The ratings provided proof. By popular demand, MSNBC, CNN, and the New York Times (This means you, Judith Miller) adopted a similar faux patriotism devoid of skepticism and serenely accepting of every silly White House claim.”

Everything is as it is in the USA.

Update II (Feb. 16): Thanks you Van Wijk for reminding the errant folks that, as I put it, “Our adventurous foreign policy might be a necessary condition for Muslim aggression but it is far from a sufficient one.”

Update III: I loathe rehashing arguments I’ve already won on this space many times over. Alas, this is the human condition.

Myron: Polls show a respectable percentage of Muslims condone Jihadi pursuits (search for some fresh data; I like those). If equaled by as many Jews and Christians, liberals and libertarians and elements on the American Right always helping to make the “Islamikazes'” case would protest as loud as you lot squealed over placing a bug in Abu Zubaydah’s cage. Hence the issue of fifth-column immigrants.

Back in 2005, “a leaked Whitehall dossier revealed that affluent, middle-class, British-born Muslims were signing up to Al-Qaida in droves. Translated into official speak by Timesonline, only ‘3,000 British-born or British-based people have passed through Osama Bin Laden’s training camps.’

And if that doesn’t allay unwarranted fears, ‘Intelligence indicates that the number of British Muslims actively engaged in terrorist activity, whether at home or abroad or supporting such activity, is extremely small and estimated at less than 1%.'”

In other words, 16,000 homicidal sleepers are loose in England!

These figures, of course, are statistically significant—stupendously so—given the barbarism they portend. Over this sort of astoundingly consequential number, our Myron is jumping for joy.

Such is the liberal mindset.

Update III: Why No One Robs A 7-11 In Israel:

Feminism, Gender, GUNS, Individual Rights, Israel, Military

The adorable, armed girls of Israel (via Walter Block). (I’d be careful not to shortchange the redhead.)

Clearly, mowing down Israeli soldiers on and off base is not as easy as it is stateside. When a Jihadi committed fratricide last year at Fort Hood, murdering 13 people and maiming 31, Lieutenant General Robert W. Cone, commander of III Corps at that based, boasted: “We don’t carry weapons here, this is our home.”

Invert that and you’ll arrive at my philosophy, and that of most patriots.

Be it on the border or on base, the American treason class proves over and over again that it hates its own.

As hateful as they are to some of Israel’s enemies, Israeli politicians (there is no such thing as a Jerusalem Elite) simply don’t hate their own as much as Washington hates its underlings.

Update I (Feb. 15): Unlike the US Army—and contrary to the utter ignoramuses who’ve called Israel a “bristling Sparta” without ever having visited there—Israelis society, its armed forces especially, is very informal. There is no jumping to attention every second; uniforms are worse than casual (positively disheveled, I’d say), etc. Women—again, unlike our crazy PC military—don’t go into combat. They serve in auxiliary roles, as they should. This does not mean they are unable to drop a Jihadi.

Update II (Feb. 16): Van Wijk makes an astute comment. These Israeli girls carry rifles as naturally as other women carry handbags or pooches, or adopted, exotic ankle biters. That’s precisely what’s so good about the image.

Update III: “Hottie with Krinkov Uses Live Ammo On Attacker.” This is an ad, yes? Which means it’s not real, right? So in a phony universe, where everything comes alive provided it’s on TV or YouTube, a scantily clad bimbo shooting off a machine gun—in real-life probably a lefty who opposes what she’s doings—this is better than ordinary kids buying candy, guns strung across their shoulders?

Phony, stylized illusion (model filmed shooting a nice toy) is preferred over natural, organic behavior (Israeli lasses)?

I give up. Or perhaps the reader was just joking.

The attempts to demote the Israeli youngsters, a representative sample of tens of thousands of such kids in that country, is pathetic.

As reader Alan Butler notes, “the 2nd lady on the right has a 30 round magazine in her belt. Only seconds away from lock and load!!!”

The girls’ outfits indicate to me that they are undergoing basic training, which mean these sweet things are all of 18! Babies.

Shame on their detractors. Most of you, in secret, wish you had such daughters.

BO The Joker

Barack Obama, Debt, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Inflation

“Obama signed a bill Friday reinstating budget rules known as ‘paygo’ — short for ‘pay as you go.'” (The Washington Examiner)

President Barack Obama said Saturday new budget rules that say spending cuts must accompany spending increases will force Congress to “pay for what it spends, just like everybody else.”

A list of the programs that are exempt is here..

This, after having just increased the debt ceiling from $12.4 trillion to $14.3 trillion.
The National Debt is $12.3 trillion! It increases an average of $3.85 billion per day in lieu of interest payments.
The federal budget deficit is “a $1.6 trillion deficit this year, $1.3 trillion next year, $8.5 trillion for the next 10 years combined.”

Not that this is what he’s promising, but if BHO never again spent another dime, the US would still never again run surpluses, not in my lifetime.