Daniel Greenfield is a New York City writer and columnist. He is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and his articles appears at its Front Page Magazine site.
Monarchist Liberals Fear the Mob
Liberals have never been too fond of democracy. Even when they win elections, they prefer to treat those victories as "historic events" that are almost supernatural in nature, to avoid dwelling on the fact that what really happened was that the votes were counted, and they racked up more than the other side. Instead they condescendingly describe their victories as a sign that the country has reached a new level of ethical and intellectual awareness. Like a kindergarten teacher handing out gold stars, liberals pat the country on the head (at least the right parts of it) for making the right decision.- Sunday, December 19, 2010
It's fitting that No Labels, the new group launched by liberal Republicans and not very conservative Democrats, kicked off with Mayor Bloomberg, a liberal who ran as a Republican, because the Democratic line was already taken. Almost as fitting was the appearance of other transparty types like Charlie Crist and Mike Castle, who were Republicans until they lost a party primary, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who was a conservative Democrat until a disgraced governor picked her to be New York's Senator, and Governor Manchin, who beat the landslide by desperately grabbing his gun and acting like a right wing caricature long enough to win reelection.
Two years ago, the road to 2012 seemed like a cakewalk for Obama and an unreachable mountain for the Republicans. The roles haven't quite reversed yet, but they are evening out. And like in the old Hope-Crosby movies like "Road to Morocco" or "Road to Singapore", the road to 2012 has turned into an absurdist journey. Not a traditional political journey, but a silly parody of it with very serious stakes.
American politics has changed so dramatically over the last several years that anyone who had been in a coma would have trouble adjusting to this new world, in which the occupant of the Oval Office spends half his time abroad and the other half appearing on TV shows, and his likely opponent is doing her press releases via Facebook and has her own TV show.
As the seventh and penultimate day of Chanukah arrives, the candles are once again lit, wispy cotton wicks floating in pools of golden oil, touched by a burst of white flame. In Israel the spreading fire that killed 42 people and consumed 4 million acres has finally abated. And the freeze that Obama attempted to impose on hundreds of thousands of Israelis also melted in the light. And after a severe drought, rain has begun to fall upon the land. But the worst is not over. Not by far.
The first night of Chanukah marks the beginning of a holiday that for many of its celebrants has no identity, that celebrates 'celebration', with no thought to what it is celebrating. For many Americans, Chanukah appears to overlap with Christmas. But there is no similarity between the two other than the season. The more appropriate analogy is to the 4th of July overlaid with Thanksgiving, a celebration of divine aid in a military campaign against tyrannical oppression.
The overt militarism of the Chanukah story has often made it an uncomfortable fit for both religious and secular Jews. And both have found it easier to strip away its dangerous underlying message. The message that a time comes when you must choose between the destruction of your culture and a war you can't win. And then a war must be fought, if the soul of the nation is to survive. Because there are worse things than death and slavery, the fates waiting for the Maccabees and their allies had they failed. The fates that came anyway when the last of the Maccabees were betrayed and murdered by Caesar's Edomite minister, whose sons went on to rule over Israel as the dynasty of Herod.
The working theory among the think-tanks, academic campuses, newsrooms and diplomatic offices is that terrorists are just like us. Except depressed and insecure about it. Filled with self-loathing and in desperate need of anger management classes. If only some kind soul could plop them down on an analyst's couch and stuff them chock full of Prozac or Paxil, hug them without letting go, while reading passages from Jonathan Livingston Seagull-- then they'd be just as right as rain. And twice as wet.
Mistletoe. Egg nog. And now Muslim terrorism. Last year's Christmas bomber was an African Muslim who stuffed his underwear full of plastic explosive and tried to detonate it on Flight 253.
This year it's another African Muslim who tried to get an early start on Christmas terror by trying to car bomb a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony.
Last year's Christmas terrorist hailed from Nigeria. This year's mad Muslim bomber comes from Somalia. And they bring with them tidings of a new season. A season in which holiday shopping now comes with massacre plots mixed in with the radio jingles and cheer.
Three men go on a camping trip. On the way there they're told by a park ranger to be careful because their campsite is located near some dangerous animals. What dangerous animals? The park ranger won't say, because that would be profiling. "Just keep in mind", he tells them, "that people who camped there in the past never made it back alive."
As the sun goes down, they pick up their hunting rifles and stand watch for dangerous animals. But they don't know what dangerous animals, they're watching out for. And they don't want to profile. So they keep watch for crickets as much as for bears, and for deer as much as for mountain lions. A rabbit, an owl or a bullfrog all equally frighten them out of their wits. They open fire on mosquitoes and stand watch against monstrous raccoons. By the end of the night, they can hardly see anything or react to danger. That morning, a pair of mountain lions stroll lazily into their camp and find them snoring away.
When Senators give speeches, they will say that you can't put a price on freedom. But as it turns out you can. You can actually put an exact dollar amount on the Constitution. And that amount is $335,906.
That's the amount that Hollywood gave Senator Patrick Leahy. And in return, Leahy gave them COICA. That's not the same of some new disease, it's the abbreviation for Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act, the biggest and more comprehensive internet censorship proposal in the history of this country. It would give Attorney General Eric Holder the power to create a blacklist of websites and force all companies that do business in the United States to comply with that blacklist.