The Freedom Fighter's Journal: Dhimmitude Alert

Justice Stephen Breyer expresses the left's conception of freedom of speech: you have a constitutional right to burn the American flag, but he's not sure whether you have a right to burn the Koran.

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Commentary by Robert Tracinski

1. Radicalized

I linked yesterday to a Peggy Noonan article on the Tea Party movement, but I forgot to quote a line which captures what I think is really so extraordinary about that movement: "The past few years, a lot of people in politics have wondered about the possibility of a third party. Would it be possible to organize one? While they were wondering, a virtual third party was being born. And nobody organized it."

The Tea Parties have come from nothing and nowhere—or rather, they have come from something intangible: an idea. The source of the Tea Party movement is a vast intellectual reserve of understanding and respect for America's founding principles, a reserve that turned out to be deeper and more intense than anyone had guessed, least of all the people in the Tea Party movement.

And now the Tea Parties are the most powerful factor in American politics, so much so that, according to the main article below, establishment Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina is now appealing to the Tea Party vote in California, one of the most leftward-leaning states in the nation.

But of course, there will always be those who try to mess it up, and Glenn Beck—who helped stoke the movement early on—is now becoming a significant danger to it. It's not just that Beck is emboldening the religious right for an attempted takeover of the movement. He is also urging Tea Partiers to change their approach now that they are successful, and to tone down and moderate so as to improve how they are presented by the mainstream media.

As you can imagine, I have no truck with this kind of reasoning. TIA Daily reader and Philippine Tea Party founder Joshua Lipana is now blogging at David Horowitz's NewsReal Blog, and he put up a post on Beck's advice. So I added a comment to the post, which gives my answer to Beck. Check it out.

"Fiorina Serves Up What 'Tea Party' Voters in Clovis Want to Hear," Maeve Reston, Los Angeles Times, September 19

A week before the June Republican primary, Carly Fiorina appeared before the Central Valley Tea Party and asked the group to help her clinch the Republican nomination for US Senate, winning over many skeptical members who had favored a rival and promising that she'd be back to visit if they helped her defeat three-term Democrat Barbara Boxer.
The former Hewlett-Packard chief executive went back early, speaking to the group Saturday in a month in which the "tea party" movement showed its muscle by defeating incumbent Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, and notching its eighth Senate nomination with Christine O'Donnell's win in Delaware. This time, Fiorina brought signup sheets and members of her campaign team to lead a seminar on getting out the vote for her campaign.
Pacing on stage at the Veterans Memorial Building in downtown Clovis before an audience of 165 people, Fiorina railed against Boxer as a "big-spending, big-taxing, big-regulating liberal politician" who had supported programs like the stimulus, which Fiorina deems ineffective, and allowed her votes to be controlled by "extreme environmentalists."...
Fiorina's Democratic opponents have argued that her support among tea partyers would be a liability in November. Boxer's campaign manager, Rose Kapolczynski, warned Saturday that Fiorina was taking a risk by "aligning herself with some of the most conservative elements in politics today, which will reinforce for California voters how out of touch she is on so many issues."...
But Fiorina has embraced the movement, telling reporters after the event that the "tea parties have been a tremendous help to my campaign."

2. The DeMint Caucus

I've written a lot about the likelihood of Republicans taking control of the House or Representatives, possibly by a strong margin. But not many analysts have broken it down in a systematic way, surveying a large number of individual races. So those interested in the details—and if you're reading TIA Daily, chances are you're interested in the details—should check out a good analysis that backs up previous projections that Republicans will probably gain at least 60 House seats.

But the big question is: what are they going to do with their majority?

As an indication of how radicalized things are getting, the Republican Party's cautiously mainstream Mr. Establishment, my very own representative Eric Cantor, has a new op-ed promising that House Republicans won't back down about preserving Bush's tax cuts for high earners, declaring that he wants to prevent America from "becoming a stagnant European-style welfare state with limited individual opportunity and entrepreneurship."

It looks like House leaders have also put repeal of ObamaCare at the top of their agenda—which would mark the very first rollback of a major welfare-state program.

Even better is Jim DeMint, the leader of the incoming crop of Republican radicals in the Senate. DeMint gets it dead right when he describes what is at stake when Republicans take control of Congress next year. "We spent too much, we borrowed too much. And frankly, if we get the majority again, even if it's just in the House, and we don't do what we say, I think the GOP is dead."

Below, DeMint lays out the message he thinks Republicans need to get from the Tea Party uprising. And he also makes it subtly clear that, whoever holds the title of Majority Leader in the Senate next year, Jim DeMint is going to be setting the agenda.

"Washington Can Hear You Now," Jim DeMint, Washington Post, September 19

For years, conservatives have been told that the only way to create a big-tent party was to support big-government candidates who were "electable," rather than principled. History suggests otherwise. Majorities are built on principles, not the other way around.
When that big tent came to Washington last September, everyone in it was yelling that they wanted less government, not more. Democrats mocked these voters and tuned them out, but liberty-minded Republican candidates tuned them in. As a result, races that were once considered unwinnable have flipped from "safe Democrat" to "lean Republican" this election cycle.
Thanks to the grass roots, Republicans have a slate of candidates who believe in constitutional, limited government. We will balance the budget, repeal the unconstitutional health-care takeover, create a predictable tax and regulatory environment in which businesses can create jobs, and restore a sense of fairness to the economy....
Americans quickly realized that if this country was going to survive, they needed to elect people who would respect, not ignore, the limits of government prescribed by the Constitution. I vowed to do all I could to help. The Senate Conservatives Fund, which I chair, was designed to do just that. I knew in my heart that the Republican Party could save this country if it could recruit more members to stand up for the principles of freedom....
These men and women are coming to Washington to join the fight, not the club. Their principles are clear: free-enterprise economics, limited government, and individual liberty. These views are based on 200 years of American history and written into our founding documents....
Americans have rallied against out-of-control government for two years. "Can you hear me now?" they yelled. Thankfully, a crop of common-sense conservative Republican candidates listened.

3. The Myth of the Moderate Democrat

Meanwhile, the Democrats are doing everything they can to ensure that they go down in flames. Thus, the Obama administration is considering an ad campaign intended to connect the Republican Party with the Tea Party movement. Like I've been saying, the Republican Party should be so lucky. But the administration is so out of touch it apparently imagines that the Tea Party movement is unpopular.

Yet Obama himself is beginning to encounter more voters like the lady at a presidential "town hall meeting"—usually carefully stage-managed events—who launched into a litany of dissatisfaction:

I'm one of your middle class Americans. And quite frankly, I'm exhausted. Exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the mantle of change that I voted for....
My husband and I have joked for years that we thought we were well beyond the hot dogs and beans era of our lives, but, quite frankly, it's starting to knock on our door and ring true that that might be where we're headed again, and, quite frankly, Mr. President, I need you to answer this honestly. Is this my new reality?

Democrats running for re-election in tough races—which is most of them—have a better sense of what is happening, and the New York Times notes that many of them have begun to advertise their supposed independence and their willingness to stand up to the Democratic leadership, an obvious attempt to appeal to or at least mollify the Tea Parties.

It's all a lie, of course. Virginia's fifth district incumbent, Democrat Tom Perriello, has been saturating the local airwaves with an ad that focuses entirely on this theme of independence from the Democratic leadership. But it cites a bunch of insignificant legislation, usually where Perriello's vote didn't make a difference. On all of the important issues—the "stimulus," health care, the DISCLOSE Act, and so on—Perriello has been a reliable vote for the Speaker of the House.

TIA Daily reader and fellow Charlottesville-area resident Dymphna, who writes at the Gates of Vienna blog, has done some valuable research that pins down exactly who Perriello is. The post linked to below is long, and much of it is analysis of a TIA Daily article I wrote about an encounter with the congressman.

What I have excerpted below is the part that is new: Tom Perriello's background as an internet-based activist with a string of groups funded by leftist billionaire George Soros. What struck me is how these organizations have incredibly vague mission statements and don't actually seem to do very much—they trumpet, as a great achievement, when they get a few thousand signatures worldwide for an online petition.

This looks to me like a corrupt arrangement in which Soros gives money to feed and house a cadre of leftist political activists for the purpose of bringing them to Washington, DC, where they can mingle, develop political contacts, and then launch political careers, either as congressmen, or perhaps more importantly as administrators behind the scenes.

Oh yes, and one of these organizations is named after a Persian word for "voice"—as in giving voice to the people—and what do you suppose it has been doing? Advocating for freedom in Iran against a brutal theocratic dictatorship? No, silly, it has been putting together petitions and candlelight vigils demanding that the United States shut down our industrial power plants.

All of this definitely gives the lie to Perriello's claim, and the claim of many other Democrats, to be non-collectivist, pro-American "moderates."

"The Myth of the 'Moderate' Democrat," Dymphna, Gates of Vienna, September 6

Look at his résumé, taken from that [Christian Science] Monitor article:
"Born and raised in the district, Perriello graduated from Yale with a major in humanities, then consulted on youth and environmental campaigns in Washington at the Center for a Sustainable Economy (now part of Redefining Progress). After graduating from Yale Law School, he cofounded Res Publica, a Net-based organization of public-sector professionals; Catholic Alliance for the Common Good; and, most recently, Avaaz.org (avaaz means "voice" in many languages [sic; it's actually Persian—RWT]), a global Web movement on issues ranging from human rights to climate change. With 3.4 million on-line members, Avaaz.org is the largest on-line organizing movement in the world, says cofounder and executive director Ricken Patel."...
Res Publica, anyone? You can look at the website for yourself and see if you can figure out what they're up to....
"Res Publica is a community of public sector professionals dedicated to promoting good governance, civic virtue and deliberative democracy.
"We work as 'public entrepreneurs,' choosing our location and projects based on assessments of threats to the public good and opportunities to maximise our impact. While many public and public-interest bodies restrict themselves to particular roles and means, Res Publica pilots a new model: rapid, flexible, project-specific responses to problems, focused on results and emphasising effectiveness, creativity and innovation."...
"Avaaz is managed by a team of campaigners working from Switzerland, Brazil, the United States, Argentina, and the United Kingdom. They communicate with members via email, and employ campaigning tactics including online public petitions, videos, and email-your-leader tools."
From wiki again, here's what Avaaz does:
"At the 2007 G8 conference, Avaaz.org protested against the 'US administration [for its] "wrecking tactics" and failure to agree to specific, binding global goals' when it came to the mitigation of global warming. At the event, Avaaz.org presented a petition signed by 355,000 people from 193 countries that supported its position."
Give me a break. 355,000 people from 193 countries is... (wait I have to use my toes for this one)... is less than 2,000 citizens per country. Busy work. Potemkin People....
So, if you didn't know before, you are up-to-date with the job description for a "social entrepreneur." Find someone to fund your existence and then get other organizations to buy your services which include candlelight vigils and petitions. So much for Perriello's ignorance about "making things" (if you can remember back to that speech to the Tea Party). I'll bet he can make dandy paper airplanes out of some of the pages of his endless petitions....
I didn't pay attention to that election in 2008. If I had, if even a few people had done so, Perriello might not have won by 700 votes. A "majority" of 0.0029% is a crime, and I and others like me were guilty of complacency. No wonder the Tea Parties are forming in such numbers. There must be a great many other people who have the same feeling.

4. Dead Tree Media

I just caught a fascinating little snippet highlighted on Rush Limbaugh's radio show: a Rasmussen poll showing that two thirds of the public believe they are better informed about politics today than they were ten years ago. Notice the way the Rassmussen report begins: "While newspapers and broadcast outlets struggle to survive in the Internet age, two-out-of-three Americans (67%) feel they are more informed today than they were 10 years ago."

As Rush pointed that, that should read: "Because newspapers and broadcast outlets struggle to survive in the Internet age." The big story of the past ten years is the collapse of the left-leaning "mainstream media" and the rise of alternative media, particularly the propagation of information on the Internet, where it moves more rapidly—and, more the point, is not filtered through the bias of a left-leaning establishment.

"67% Say They Are Better Informed Than 10 Years Ago," Rasmussen Reports, September 19

While newspapers and broadcast outlets struggle to survive in the Internet age, two-out-of-three Americans (67%) feel they are more informed today than they were 10 years ago. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just eight percent (8%) consider themselves less informed these days, while 22% think their level of knowledge is about the same.
Women are more confident than men that they are better informed now. Adults ages 30 to 49 believe that more strongly than those in any other age group.
Forty-four percent (44%) of all adults say the Internet is the best way to get news and information. Television comes in second, with 36% who still turn to the tube. Print newspapers are a distant third with just 11% who view them as the best source for news and information. Only nine percent (9%) still rely on radio....
The majority of Americans under 50 regard online sources as the best for news and information. Older Americans trust television more.

5. Dhimmitude Alert

While everyone has been focused on defending the rights of "moderate Muslim" con-man Faisal Rauf to build a $100 million Islamic "cultural center" for which he hasn't raised the money yet and probably won't, a cartoonist who ran afoul of Muslim intolerance has been quietly expunged from public life.

A Seattle Weekly editorial explains what happened to a liberal cartoonist who inadvertently touched off a call for "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day." She didn't really mean it as a call for defiance of Muslim intolerance and immediately issued a weak-kneed apology and retraction. What that got her was a fatwa from erstwhile "moderate Muslim" Anwar al-Awlawki calling for her assassination. Here's what happened next.

You may have noticed that Molly Norris' comic is not in the paper this week. That's because there is no more Molly.
The gifted artist is alive and well, thankfully. But on the insistence of top security specialists at the FBI, she is, as they put it, "going ghost": moving, changing her name, and essentially wiping away her identity. She will no longer be publishing cartoons in our paper or in City Arts magazine, where she has been a regular contributor.

There is no mention of whether she will be wearing a burqa from now on, but you almost wouldn't be surprised to hear that. The editorial announcing Norris's disappearance is written in a flat, meek tone, expressing sorrow but not outrage—because outrage would require identifying the enemy and defying him, none of which would be multicultural or politically correct. It all has an air of dhimmitude, of giving up and accepting the status of second class citizens living under the yokes of our Muslim overlords.

But it gets worse. The Molly Norris story is about giving up our rights. The story below is about taking them away.

One of the Supreme Court's left-leaning Justices, Stephen Breyer, has come out wondering whether anti-Muslim speech could be banned as the equivalent of "shouting fire in a crowded theater"—which would mean having the Supreme Court serve as the enforcer for Muslim threats against the free speech of Americans. So another Molly Norris would not only lack protection from the government; she would be pre-emptively shut down by our government.

The overview below by blogger Ed Morrissey gives the basic facts and also cites the relevant precedent: Supreme Court rulings protecting the right to burn the American flag. So there you have the left's conception of freedom of speech: we have constitutional right to burn the flag, but not the Koran.

"Justice Breyer: No Right to Burn Korans in First Amendment?" Ed Morrissey, Hot Air, September 14

Until now, I perhaps naïvely thought that everyone understood that the provocateurial pastor in Florida had the right to burn Korans, or any other book he legitimately owned, but that it was a really bad idea for many reasons, most of which Allahpundit argued in his excellent posts on the subject. Silly me:
"Last week we saw a Florida Pastor—with 30 members in his church—threaten to burn Korans which lead to riots and killings in Afghanistan. We also saw Democrats and Republicans alike assume that Pastor Jones had a Constitutional right to burn those Korans. But Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer told me on 'GMA' that he's not prepared to conclude that—in the internet age—the First Amendment condones Koran burning.
"'Holmes said it doesn't mean you can shout "fire" in a crowded theater,' Breyer told me. 'Well, what is it? Why? Because people will be trampled to death. And what is the crowded theater today? What is the being trampled to death?'...
"'It will be answered over time in a series of cases which force people to think carefully.'..."
Hopefully, they put more thought into it than Justice Breyer does in this argument. The "fire in a crowded theater" standard is intended to limit government intrusion on free speech, not enable an expansion of it....
Furthermore, the Supreme Court has already ruled on burnings as free speech. In both Texas v Johnson and US v Eichman, the court ruled that free speech trumped any offense and/or concerns about public safety raised by burning the American flag....
Now, perhaps Breyer foresees a reversal of Johnson and Eichman, but that doesn't appear to be where he's leading. Instead, Breyer seems to want to put the Koran in a separate class for purposes of protest, a dangerous direction that flies in [the face of the] the other First Amendment restriction, the establishment clause regarding religion.

6. "Please—Do Something!"

TIA Daily Mark Tammett recently sent me this fascinating note:

"I live in Christchurch, New Zealand, and on 4 September we suffered a 7.1 Richter scale earthquake—the biggest close to a major city in New Zealand's history. It was of similar size to the Haiti earthquake which killed hundreds of thousands. However we have had no deaths whatsoever—a remarkable contrast I thought you might want to comment on in TIA Daily.

"Whilst we've had significant damage to a lot of older brick buildings, and ground upheaval where soils liquefied, the vast majority of modern buildings suffered minor or no damage.

"In general this can be attributed to our relative wealth compared to Haiti—and more specifically to the fact that New Zealand and California lead the world in earthquake engineering. Virtually all modern buildings are built with earthquake protection in mind."

Mark then sent a link to a very good post on this in a Daily Telegraph blog, which is linked to below.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that Haiti is still a disaster, under the headline, "Haitians Cry in Letters: 'Please—Do Something!'"

I mention this, not to gloat at the fate of the Haitians, but to point out the moral crime of those who refuse to recognize the life-and-death value of capitalism. We know how to create a free, prosperous society, one in which human life is not at the mercy of famines, floods, and earthquakes. All we have to do is to adopt a few key principles of government: property rights, free markets, free trade, the rule of law. Over the long term, this is the only "humanitarian" program that can save the world.

So by all means, let's listen to the cries from Haiti: "Please—do something!" Let's restore, embrace, and promote capitalism. And do it now, because the world doesn't have a moment to lose.

"Mammon, More than God, Caused the Christchurch Earthquake 'Miracle'," Geoffrey Lean, Daily Telegraph, September 5

It's an "absolute miracle" that no deaths have yet been reported from the earthquake that struck New Zealand early yesterday, says Bob Parker, mayor of the stricken city of Christchurch. You can see what he means—but Mammon may have had more to do with it than God. For it underlines how wealthy countries and communities suffer much less from a given natural disaster than poor ones.
The quake was the same magnitude, 7.1 on the Richter Scale as the one that hit Haiti in January, and its epicentre was slightly closer to Christchurch than the Caribbean one was from Port au Prince (13, as against 16, miles).But the latest estimates reckon that some 230,000 people died in Haiti, compared to no one in New Zealand....
Eighty per cent of earthquake deaths are caused by collapsing buildings and so properly built ones save lives in even the fiercest shocks, while poorly constructed ones become killers....
An 1976 earthquake in Guatemala City, which killed 23,000, was even dubbed the "class quake" because of the accuracy with which it hit the city's poorest communities and spared the richer ones. So let's be glad of the miracle in Christchurch—but recognise that world poverty is the greatest disaster of all.

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