Daniel Greenfield

Behind the Facade of Tolerance

Tolerance is the talk of the West today. You can hardly go a minute without hearing a government congratulate itself on its "tradition of tolerance" or without hearing an agency lecturing others on the importance of tolerance. In the late 20th century and early 21st centuries, tolerance has eclipsed every other moral and social virtue. A child of the first world is far more likely to be taught tolerance, than the value of manners, decency, charity or chastity. And to grow up with very little moral values, except the firm belief that intolerance is a terrible thing.

The Ghosts of Chappaquiddick

When Senator Ted Kennedy was first diagnosed with a brain tumor, I wrote a piece titled, "No Tears for Ted", now with the media awash in salty tears for the departed Ted Kennedy, I can only reaffirm what I wrote then, "Still, No Tears for Ted."

The Family vs The State

Throughout history there have been two fundamental human institutions. The first is "the family" in the form of the basic family unit as well as the extended family and the tribe. The second is "the state" in the form of any overarching institution that claims total authority and control over every aspect of the lives of those who live under it.

The Big Israel Lie

There are two interconnected lies that reside at the heart of any American discussion about Israel. The first lie is that the road to peace in the Middle East lies through Israel. The second lie is that Israel controls American policy toward itself. Those lies are not the product of ignorance or misunderstanding, they are the product of an effective propaganda campaign by the unofficial suit and tie spokesmen of the Saudi lobby who dominate American policy in the Middle East. The goal of that campaign has been to make Israel seem like the axis on which the Middle East and America turn, in order to put Israel on the firing line. And it is a campaign that has been wickedly successful up until now.

Who’s Afraid of a Health Care Debate?

The union packed town halls, the boycotts organized against Glenn Beck and Whole Foods, and the entire smear campaign against critics of ObamaCare demonstrates all too clearly that it is the Obama administration and its allies that are afraid of a real debate on health care. After all people who aren't afraid of a real debate don't need to try and force critics off the air or boycott an entire chain because its CEO ran an op-ed pointing out what's wrong with ObamaCare.

Obama Offers Circuses Without the Bread

Unemployment is up and the economy is down. The price of flour is up by 5 percent, the price of ground beef is up by 4 percent and the price of wine has gone up a whopping 8 percent. Even the price of bread has gone up from Obama's inauguration. Obama had promised "bread" and in six months in office, he has delivered nothing but circuses.

Woodstock’s Poisonous Legacy

The media has already begun unrolling its wave of commemorations for Woodstock, or what is euphemistically referred to as "The Legacy of Woodstock", which for some reason is described in vague terms as "Peace and Love", instead of more accurately, hundreds of injuries, of which only three were fatalities, not counting the miscarriages, the rapes, the drug addictions and all of Sullivan County being shut down.

Fear of a Fat Nation

ObamaCare has only been the latest and largest trigger for the government's growing concern over how Americans live their lives. If conservatives focus their fire on sexual promiscuity, liberals seem positively obsessed with obesity. Hardly a day goes by without the news media running a story declaiming how overweight Americans are in comparison to the rest of the world, and how something must be done about it. Even the grotesquely obese Michael Moore got in on the act, touring England and proclaiming that all Americans were fat and stupid, while unconsciously presenting himself as a chief example.

How the Battle of ObamaCare Was Won

With Obama's allies sounding the retreat on the public option, ObamaCare has taken a decisive blow. And Obama has taken his first major political defeat. What is particularly extraordinary is that he has suffered this defeat, despite interrupted media sycophancy delivering programming that reflected every single White House talking point.

What a Real Middle East Process Would Look Like

As the Obama Administration tries to drag the rotting corpse of the peace process out from under the table and into public view, accompanied by the expected Israel bashing and phony rhetoric about everyone learning to get along, it might be time to revisit why the peace process failed in the first place.

Time Magazine’s Disgusting Michael Scherer Whitewash of Ezekiel Emanuel

No one can at this point claim to be surprised to see the media routinely lie or distort the truth, smear Obama's political opponents and generally function as the propaganda organ for the White House. It was inevitable then that the media would try to whitewash Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, whose high profile status as the brother of the White House Chief of Staff, has made his ugly views into an extremely high profile matter.

What Will a Muslim Europe Look Like?

The Telegraph recently made headlines with a survey that suggested that a fifth of the European Union will be Muslim by 2050. This is if anything an understatement of the situation, since once you subtract Eastern European states and focus in on Western European countries such as England, France and Italy... or Sweden, Islam will comprise a sizable enough minority to be considered a state within a state. And even the most pessimistic statistics will grow gloomier if 75 million Turks inside the presently Islamist Turkey will become part of the European Union.

Socialized Medicine’s Logic of Killing the Elderly

It's hard not to notice that many of the most vocal ObamaCare protesters are senior citizens. And senior citizens remain the largest challenge for ObamaCare. Not in political terms, but in terms of resource management. Senior citizens are likelier to require medical care than younger workers, and contribute little or nothing to the system. From the perspective of socialized medicine it becomes all too easy to contemplate "cutting the waste" by reducing the care given to senior citizens, the disabled, infants with birth defects, the mentally retarded and anyone else who fails the system's "Productivity in Practice or Potential" test.

Other People’s Money

The debate over ObamaCare has also once again raised the debate over socialism in America. Its proponents argue that their plans are a social safety net that will coexist with the free market, that unfortunately is wrong, because socialist systems are parasitic on the free market. Think of a pumping system fueled by water, that pumps water out of a bucket and then redistributes half of it back into the bucket. The system will sooner or later run out of water. Or in Margaret Thatcher's words, "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."

The Arab World Makes Way for the Muslim World

In the video below, Azmi Bishara, an Arab member of the Israeli Knesset speaks openly about the fact that there was never a Palestinian nation/people (Ummah Palestini) only an Arab nation (Ummah Arabi). During the 2006 war with the Syrian and Iranian backed Hizbollah terrorist group (another proxy group, this one aimed at both Lebanon and Israel), Azmi Bishara provided Hizbullah with information on targets in Israel. He has since fled Israel.

The ObamaCare Revolution Wages War on American Democracy

The Town Hall meeting has long been a hallowed symbol of American democracy, as embodied in the famous Norman Rockwell painting, "Freedom of Speech" that shows a man, surrounded by his neighbors, rising to speak his mind. It is an image and idea that states forthrightly that government belongs to the people, and that it is governed by the people, not simply in some abstract national vote, but at the local level. That is why the Town Hall is a far more sacred and enduring definition of American democracy than the White House, the Capitol Building, and even perhaps the Constitution, because it defines the American system of government as based on public participation from the bottom up.

“The Golden Apple” - A Socialist Fairy Tale

Once upon a time there was a street fair. Then the government created a Ministry of Street Fairs funded by taxing the produce sold at the street fair. At first the Ministry brought some some order to the street fair. But to justify its expansion, the Ministry would periodically launch new "street fair initiatives" paid for by higher taxes on the produce. The produce becomes too expensive and people stopped shopping at the street fair.

Why Islamic Law is the Antithesis of Equal Justice

In Sudan a dozen women were sentenced to be flogged for wearing pants. Some of them were Christian, but that has never really mattered, as the essential premise of Islamic law is that it is inherently superior to every other law. Naturally no men have ever been sentenced for wearing pants. That is a law that applies only to women, because there is a fundamental difference between Islamic law and Western law, not simply in morality or structure-- but in equality.

Race, Class and Henry Louis Gates in Obama’s America

In the wake of the Gates arrest heard 'round the world, the media, Obama and of course Henry Louis Gates himself, have done their best to position this as a black and white incident, the collision of two men divided by race. But in fact the arrest of Henry Louis Gates was not about two men divided by race, but two men divided by class.

The Modern Day Siege of Jerusalem

At the end of July, Jews concluded three weeks of mourning commemorating the first and second fall of Jerusalem and its two temples. In a perfect bit of timing, Obama chose that period to ratchet up pressure over Israeli construction in Jerusalem. Because there is no better time to demand that Jews stop living in Jerusalem, than the Jewish commemoration of two bloody conquests and exiles.