Daniel Greenfield

The Immorality of the Moral High Ground

Throughout the War on Terror, liberals have been lecturing us on the virtue of holding on to the "Moral High Ground", which is their way of saying that we should forgo trying to defeat terrorists military, and instead show them up with our superior civil liberties. Yes, Abdul, you may have a suitcase nuke, but if we catch you, we'll still  pay for your legal defense. Torture our soldiers if you will, Mohammed, but see if you aren't impressed when we TIVO your favorite team's soccer matches for you in that horrible 19 million dollar hellhole of misery and degradation at Guantanamo Bay.

The Inhuman Government

One of the great errors of big government liberalism is its belief that inhuman systems are superior to human beings. This form of mechanical thinking is a commonplace error in a scientific age in which we have become used to using mechanical systems to solve problems. But people are not machines, and trying to turn people into gears in the great machine of government leads to tragic results. The embrace of big government in the United States was driven by the belief in scientific government as a perfectible system. This creepy worship of elitist technocracy lingers around the more idealistic liberal administrations, from FDR to JFK to Obama.

A Special Relationship- Jews, America and Israel

Three months after Obama deliberately snubbed Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel was invited back to put on a good show of friendship before the midterm elections. There were smiles all around, reassuring sound bites and even some waving. The idea was to assure everyone that things were back to normal. At least until the mid-term elections delivers the Jewish vote. Just another cynical round in a very cynical administration.

The Way of the Cuckoo

The common cuckoo has a very simple reproductive strategy. It lays its eggs in the nests of other birds, which then drive out the chicks of that bird's own species. Instead the bird raises the cuckoo's young as its own. The name for this sort of behavior is brood parasitism. Which is a name that we should be very familiar with as our society has fallen victim to it.

Learning from Christie and Brewer How to Confront the Problem

The most important lessons for the Republican party aren't coming from any of the retired politicians doing their speaking tours right now. They come from two sitting governors, Governor Christie of New Jersey and Governor Brewer of Arizona, and what they're doing is very simple. They're confronting the problem. When Christie won an election, like so many other state governors, he was thrust into the middle of an impossible budget nightmare which was full of impossible problems. State budgets had been bulked up by entitlements and their attached public sector unions. Cutting them meant a battle with the unions. But not cutting them meant serious tax hikes. Most governors chose to walk some kind of middle path, negotiating with the unions with the least political fallout, and raising taxes, to create a compromise that everyone hated.

Stolen Trailers

Say you're 82 years old. Say that you see two people a third of your age with criminal records stealing your trailer. Say that you run out to stop them and they almost run you over. You fire two shots. The thieves are let go, and you find yourself facing life in prison. It's not a hypothetical scenario.

Why Do Muslims Murder Americans?

The latest talking point in the Western terrorism apologist camp is that Islamic terrorism against Americans began in 1968 when a PLO supporter named Siran Sirhan assassinated Robert Kennedy. Thaddeus Russel, a radical professor and author of something called, "A Renegade History of the United States", circulated the latest version of this meme when he wrote;

Objectiveless in Iraq and Afghanistan

The dominant question on everyone's mind is when are we going to get out. Out of Iraq and out of Afghanistan. Liberals who voted for Obama with the certainty that both wars were the product of some evil plot hatched by Cheney in the White House subbasement are confused and frustrated as to why the US hasn't just pulled out.

NASA Unveils New Plan for Muslims in Outer Space

Barack H. Obama 666 Pennsylvania Ave Washington, DC 20006 Dear Sir, I cannot tell you how much we appreciate your budget cuts, your cancellation of the space shuttle and any replacement launch vehicle for it, forcing us to rely on Russian Soyuz ships and their space program, which can't even seem to dock with the ISS Space Station.

That Dangerous Idea of Liberty

This Fourth of July marks the 234th anniversary of one the most dangerous ideas ever unleashed on the world. That people do not belong to governments, but governments belong to people. This was not an altogether new idea. History was filled with all sorts of theorizing and debating over the grounds on which a king might be overthrown. But the process that began with the Declaration of Independence did not merely set out to replace one set of chains, with a nicer set, but to overturn the top down rule of government, and replace it with a system in which people choose and replace their governments at will.

Europe in Twilight

It is not too incredible to imagine that within a century, German, the language of Goethe, Schiller and Mann, may become a dead language. That is already the almost certain fate of the Swedish and Norwegian languages. French, Spanish and English will survive as the pidgin languages of distant colonies, but in their own capital cities, these languages are swiftly becoming transformed into dialects, crossbred with Middle Eastern and African intonations and jargon to become increasingly alien to their own origins.

Islam and the Left - Two Sides of the Same Coin

On the surface of it they seem to have very little in common. The left claims to be progressive, embraces gay bars, abortions, feminism, worker's rights civil rights, multiculturalism and obscene slogans. The Islamists throw acid in women's faces, hang gays on every streetcorner and repress minorities and freedom of expression. This seeming contrast baffles many who demand to know how for example the left can champion Islamic regimes which mandate the death penalty for homosexuality. The answer is very simple. The people asking the question have mistaken the facade for the reality.

The Tree of Zionism

Helen Thomas suggested that Jews should go back to Poland and Germany. The Turkish flotilla headed to Gaza was more specific, radioing, "Go back to Auschwitz." But both are only bubbles on the surface of the larger narrative in the Muslim world that is widely redistributed by the left and the far right, that Jews are foreign strangers to the land. On the surface this would seem to be plainly absurd. Israel is not some sort of obscure footnote in history or some forgotten fragment of the past that has to be looked up in an encyclopedia.

A Socialist Government is One that Distrusts its Citizens

The definition of a socialist government is one that distrusts its citizens. It may distrust them in a "benevolent way", that is its leaders believe that the people are insufficiently competent to look after themselves, or it may distrust them in a "paranoid way", in that its leaders believe that the people are dangerous and must be rigidly controlled for the state and society to function along their guidelines. The practical difference between these two lies primarily in their viewpoints and attitudes, in how ruthless and undemocratic the advocates of socialism are willing to be when they don't get their way.

Cracking the Code of Civilization

Civilization is a code, and while we easily fall into the habit of assuming that civilized norms are universal, they are limited to the civilized. Kindness, humility and reaching out to the enemy are valid behaviors only when they are likely to be reciprocated. Practicing that code toward nations and cultures which markedly refuse to be civilized, is the same thing as painting a target on your own back.

Open Borders, Open Pit

New York City's Mayor Bloomberg seems to have a new exit strategy. After trying to spread rumors that suggested he might run for President, in the hopes that one party or the other would give him the V.P. spot, failing and struggling through a third mayoral election that he promised would never happen against a candidate who never bothered to show up and still almost beat him, Bloomberg needs a way out.

Loose Lips Lead to Pink Slips

This was the week of the big McChrystal story, in which the Obama Administration's answer to McArthur proved to have some of the same problems. The irony is that McChrystal had barred access to Michael Yon, and banned FOX News from playing. He namedropped voting for Obama.

Turkey’s State of Terror

This week Turkish forces invaded Iraq and its warplanes bombed 7 Kurdish villages killing a teenage girl and wounding her mother and 3 year old sister. A week ago Iran had done the same things, killing a 14 year old girl and a 45 year old woman. There are no shouts of protest. No worldwide demonstrations. The Obama administration and the media did not deliver any lectures on disproportionate force. Not even when Erdogan vowed to drown the Kurdish rebels "in their own blood".

Obama’s Collapsing Base

In a single year Obama lost the support of independent voters and liberal Republicans by passing the left's agenda. And this year, he is well on the way to losing the support of the left for not passing enough of their agenda. Being too left wing for mainstream America, and too mainstream for the left is not a new problem for the Democratic party. It's a problem they've faced since what had been the counterculture became the party establishment. But it's a special problem for the man who rose to power as the poster child of the left. Barack Hussein Obama.

The Mosques and Bank Robbers of Paris

What does this horde of slaves, Of traitors and conjured kings want? For whom are these ignoble trammels, these long-prepared irons? La Marseillaise

While Jews are fleeing Paris due to Muslim violence and harassment, Robert Haroush, an Israeli businessman, decided to fund the reconstruction of a mosque in order to build a "bridge of peace". The shortage of mosques in Paris, is of course almost as grave as the surplus of intact cars that need burning. And the City of Lights needs more dark mosques, the way Baghdad needs more IED's.