RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/01/toward_a_conservative_foreign_policy.html

What might a “conservative” foreign policy look like?

In the post-9/11 era, it’s fair to say we have mainly followed a “neoconservative” foreign policy. This policy has been based on the rock-solid belief that there exist universal values that all peoples everywhere share and indeed yearn for if they don’t already enjoy them. Our neoconservative foreign policy, then – our war-fighting policy, too – has been a matter of spreading such universal values.

This has been a disaster. Think of nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan — policies predicated on this denial of the existence of cultural difference. Certainly in this decade since 9/11 we should have learned that cultures, the West and Islam, namely, are different and that such universalism is a fantasy. The West enshrines the liberty of the individual, while Islam, like other totalitarian systems, enforces a collective will. Still, to this day, we don’t permit this simple reality to be discussed let alone reflected in any meaningful policy way.

The main dissent to neoconservative foreign policy on the Right comes from the libertarian point of view, most popularly expressed by Ron Paul – and not too dissimilarly expressed by President Obama’s nominee for Defense Secretary, Sen. Chuck Hagel. This is the policy of “Come Home, America.”

I, too, subscribe to coming home, America, but with a difference. What I hear from our libertarian friends is that the way to fill the resulting vacuum is with a foreign policy that seeks negotiation and accommodation with Islam. Such a policy, exactly like that of the neoconservatives, fails to take into account Islamic realities that make such negotiations worse than fruitless, and such accommodations quite dangerous to our liberty.

So, what should a conservative foreign policy that is neither neoconservative nor libertarian look like?

To formulate a conservative alternative, I am starting with love of country. This is not to suggest that any of the other competing voices or views do not represent love of country. But I think it’s essential to start building a new foreign policy from the desire to live by and protect the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

NO URL: JAN POLLER IS MY FRIEND

The President’s hoped for laws and regulations are supposed to end massacres by mentally deranged people. Can they? Do all the proposed legislation and executive orders make any sense or are they just for show?

What makes one gun dangerous and another gun not dangerous? Does the shape of a grip make one gun really dangerous and another one, exactly the same except for the grip, really not dangerous? I may be simplistic in my thinking, but if a gun fires a bullet, it is dangerous. If it can’t fire a bullet, then it isn’t a gun.

Why is a ten round magazine safe but an 11 round magazine dangerous? If you shoot two rounds a second and it takes two seconds to change a magazine, how long does it take to fire 20 rounds? Even a treasury secretary who can’t figure out his own taxes can figure this out without a computer:

10 round magazines 12 seconds

20 round magazine 10 seconds

What will happen to lessen the death toll with those additional 2 seconds? Nothing, absolutely nothing! The death toll will be the same. A fully automatic rifle is different because it can effectively fire 40 – 150 rounds per minute although a burst at 900+ rounds per minute is possible but only until the magazine is emptied – 2 seconds for a 30 round magazine.. Aren’t fully automatic weapons already illegal?

The magazine limitation sounds really good but is essentially meaningless.

At the bottom are the 2007-2011 murder statistics by type of weapon per the FBI. Note that in 2011, more people were killed by Hands and feet (728), and knives (1594) than by rifles and shotguns combined (679). The vast majority were killed by hand guns (6220). More people were killed by fire and narcotics than were killed in the Sandy Hook school massacre. Should we outlaw narcotics and fires?

If rifles (323 dead) warrant such attention, why don’t blunt instruments, sharp instruments and hands and feet? Should there be a limit to the length of a blade to reduce the lethality? Should blunt objects (baseball bats, shovels and tree limbs) be outlawed or their size restricted?

How will laws change things? If fear of getting killed doesn’t stop a gang-banger from engaging in a shooting, how will a law? Will they go register a gun? Will they give up automatic weapons? Will they give up large-capacity magazines? Of course they won’t. Will laws stop mass murder like Columbine and Sandy Hook? These people knew that they would also die. Does that stop them? It sure didn’t, did it?

We already have laws that make murder illegal. It didn’t stop the murder of 12,664 people in 2011.

I added the column showing the percent change from 2007 to 2011. Except for murder by explosives, all categories decreased with a total decrease of 15%.

STOP THE WITCH HUNT AGAINST REP. BACHMANN:
http://frontpagemag.net/witch-hun

And watch Frontpage editor Jamie Glazov defend Rep: Bachmann:
Video: Jamie Glazov Defends Michele Bachmann
by Frontpagemag.com
Frontpage editor exposes the unholy alliance fueling the vicious witch-hunt against a heroic truth-teller.
http://frontpagemag.com/2013/frontpagemag-com/video-jamie-glazov-defends-michele-bachmann/

UK Muslim Bought 11 Year Old Girl, Branded Her With “M” for Mohammed

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/

This is Islam.

“You [Mohammed] are not permitted to take any further wives, nor to exchange the wives you have for others, even if these attract you with their beauty. But this does not apply to your slave-girls.” (Quran 33:52)

This is Islam in the UK.

Karrar – known as Egyptian Mo – bought the youngest victim from an unnamed man just after her 11th birthday.

He befriended her with gifts of perfume and hard drugs but then began to beat her up and raped her, the Old Bailey was told.

He branded her with one of her hair pins, which he had twisted into the shape of an ‘M’ and heated with a cigarette lighter. It left a scar on her left buttock.

‘He regarded her as his property,’ Mr Lucas said. ‘He showed her no regard. If she had the temerity to resist, he beat her.

‘He branded her to make her his property and to ensure others knew about it.’ At the age of 12 she was introduced to Karrar’s brother Bassam, 33, who is also accused of raping her.

Nothing you’ve read here is against Islam. Muslims are permitted by the Koran to capture women and girls in the Dar-Al-Harb, the non-Muslim territories that the Dar-Al-Islam is forever at war with.

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/ Last week featured the shocking revelation that two athletes had lied to the whole country for years in order to become rich and famous. This is the same thing that politicians do except without the exercise regimen. Moral theater is an odd event in a country which has mostly given up on morals. In […]

Dear Friends,

It is with a very heavy heart that I deliver the sad news of the passing of the Mayor of Ariel, Ron Nachman. Ron was a dear friend of AFSI’s and our beloved Chairman, Herbert Zweibon, z”l.

He was a featured speaker at an early AFSI Conference in New York, when Ariel was a nascent community in the Shomron, just beginning to grow. Ron always appreciated the fact that AFSI encouraged and applauded his efforts in pushing forward with every initiative to expand the community into a city, and to introduce the College of Judea and Samaria in Ariel, which has now been awarded University status.

On our most recent Chizuk (strength) mission to Israel in Nov. 2012, we visited Ariel, as we always try to do, and Avi Zimmerman arranged for the group to attend a beautiful concert at the Ariel Performing Arts Center where we met with Mayor Nachman.

At the time he looked vigorous and healthy, and we were so pleased to see him looking so well, knowing that he had been fighting his battle with cancer for many years. Below is a picture I took with him at the time.

My heart breaks with the knowledge that he is no longer with us. We pray that Ariel will have a new champion who will persevere, as Ron did, in dedicating himself to the growth of this beautiful city. It has welcomed Russian immigrants, the refugees from the former Gush Katif communities, and students from throughout the country, Arabs and Jews alike.

Ron succeeded in making Ariel a true symbol of a beautiful Israel. May it continue to thrive and be a credit to his memory.

We offer sincere condolences to the entire Nachman family, and to the Ariel family, as well as all who loved and admired Mayor Ron Nachman. May the family know no more sorrows, and may they be comforted among the mourners of Zion.

Helen Freedman,

on behalf of AFSI

http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/editorials/2013/01/16/editorial-the-real-tragedy-in-zimbabwe HAS there ever been an economic tragedy simultaneously so profound and so disregarded as Zimbabwe? The situation is so much more tragic because it has raised so little attention in the capitals of the world. No outraged editorials in the New York Times; just vast, international indifference. Zimbabwe’s financial collapse resulted in an inflation […]

HOW MAYOR BLOOMBERG FUNDS AL QAEDA

New York has the highest cigarette tax rate of any state, and nearly two-thirds of the state’s cigarette market is illegal, announced the think tank Tax Foundation on Thursday.

In New York City the tax rate is even higher, adding another $1.50 per pack to the state rate. It’s not uncommon for smokers to pay $12 for a pack.

Large scale cigarette smuggling networks in New York State are dominated by tight knit nationality-based networks, primarily families through blood or marriage of Lebanese, Yemeni, Jordanian and Palestinian descent.

Federal and New York State law enforcement officials estimate that nearly 60 percent of all convenience retail outlets in New York City are now Arab-owned, and with the Arab networks compartmentalized by ethnicity and family ties, the risk of infiltration by law enforcement is minimal.

In total, law enforcement officials in New York State estimate that well-organized cigarette smuggling networks generate between $200,000 – $300,000 per week. A large percentage of the money is believed to be sent back to the Middle East where it directly or indirectly finances groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas and Al Qaeda.

…maybe they can get into large sodas next.

3 Out of 5 Cigarettes Sold in State With Highest Cigarette Taxes are Smuggled

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/ LET’S GET RIGHT TO THE POINT While the White House was busy drafting proposals to ban assault rifles, the last of the regulations imposed on Saudi travel to the United States after September 11 were being taken apart. While some government officials were busy planning how to disarm Americans, other officials were negotiating the […]

Concern in Cairo The latest news from Cairo is that ousted president Hosni Mubarak is to face trial all over again, both on charges from which he was acquitted a year ago (corruption) and on those he was convicted on (the killing of demonstrators). The retrial was ordered speedily, even strangely, by the standards of […]