"Who will defend these people, these truest heroes of modern freedom? That is the only question."

One of those people is liberal Muslim freedom fighter Irshad Manji, who was attacked by Islamists in Indonesia, for promoting reform within Islam. For all the talk about the "war on women," the idiotic base politics of foolish Republicans may be worthy of scorn, but let's put things in perspective, folks--actual fascists are waging a full-scale war on women, which is a part of a larger war on free thought. If you mad about a ban on contraception, but not about Irshad Manji being attacked with iron bars, then you're not serious... HT: Michael Totten

"If the insurrection continues, a fast hard shove might well push it over. If the regime survives, it may well feel invincible."

Michael Totten, on the manifest corruption of the Iranian regime, the people in the street protesting the regime, and what our response ought to be in the West. I just thought I'd add this to this discussion.

The regime’s only allies in the world are terrorist armies and Bashar Assad’s Baath Party state in Syria. Assad himself, like Khamenei and Ahmadinejad, is a pariah among the Arabs, Persians, Turks, Kurds, Azeris, and Israelis who make up the region.

Iranian civilians risk violent beatings and worse by the thousands for standing up to the regime in the streets and treating it as the enemy it clearly is. There is no better time for the rest of us to do so, as well, especially since such gestures carry far less risk for us. The Pasdaran have no divisions in Washington, Paris, or London.

Obama Administration officials still hope they can talk Khamenei out of developing nuclear weapons and supporting Hamas and Hezbollah. This is delusion on stilts. Khamenei can’t even compromise with his own regime or his hand-picked presidential candidates. He placed them under house arrest, along with a Grand Ayatollah, and deployed thousands of violent enforcers into the streets. Not only does he confront the world, he is at war with his very own country.

Understand the mind of a totalitarian. “Probe with a bayonet,” Vladimir Lenin famously said. “If you meet steel, stop. If you meet mush, then push.”

Read the whole thing. This situation does appear to make the chances of diplomacy monumentally less likely to be effective. I'm cautiously optimistic that the internal revolt may yet bring real change, or that some form of hard diplomacy may still work. Obama promises hard diplomacy with the regime. Assuming diplomacy has any real chance of working, it's going to have to be really hard--as hard as steel.

Also posted on Stubborn Facts.

"His shtick is really more of a “question authority” pose taken to its limits of paranoia and nihilism"

Via Hot Air (and Althouse), on this clip of Mos Def, Hitch, and Salman Rushdie on Bill Maher last Friday:



I watched the whole show, and I didn't find it that excruciating to watch, at least not quite in the same way others did. It was vexing no doubt, to see a performer I always thought was cool expose himself as being neck-deep in naivete, ignorance, and "the government-can't-be-trusted-on-anything style paranoia, but as Allahpundit points out, Hitch saves the day:

Consider this yet another reason to like Hitchens, though. Is there anyone else on the chat-show circuit who would have kept after Def as persistently as he does? You keep waiting for him to relent in the name of “cultural differences,” but he never does. No sacred cows for Hitch.

Hitch is fearless. He's proved that. You can call Hitchens a lot of things, but cowardly is not one of them.

"That a part of my family started Jim Crow is kind of a load to carry, " she said. "I wish I could change that."

That's from Phoebe Ferguson, the great-granddaughter of Judge John Ferguson, who ruled against Homer Plessy in the infamous Plessy v. Ferguson. The descendants of Plessy and Ferguson met in New Orleans, to remember the historic event of Homer Plessy's act of courage:

People often think that his ancestor held some responsibility for the legalized segregation known as "separate but equal, " said Keith Plessy, 52, a longtime New Orleans hotel bellman whose great-grandfather was Homer Plessy's first cousin. In actuality, Homer Plessy boarded that train as part of a carefully orchestrated effort to create a civil-rights test case, to fight the proliferation of segregationist laws in the South.

Keith Plessy first learned about his relationship to the case from his teachers at Valena C. Jones Elementary School, who called him to the front of the room as they discussed the case. But his textbooks simply listed the name of the case and its result: a half-century of "separate but equal" schools, drinking fountains and buses.

Phoebe Ferguson, 51, a documentary filmmaker, left New Orleans in 1967 but moved back after discovering her great-great-grandfather's role in the infamous legal fight.

Judge John Howard Ferguson ruled against Plessy from his bench in Orleans Parish Criminal Court. The judge was born in Massachusetts and had strong ties to abolitionists, she said. So she doesn't think he was a racist.

Still, Phoebe Ferguson can't quite get over the powerful impact his decision had on the black community, which would endure a half-century of government-sanctioned segregation.

"That a part of my family started Jim Crow is kind of a load to carry, " she said. "I wish I could change that."

Read the whole thing.

HT: Althouse

"You may be thinking of voting for John McCain but you're not sure. Some of you have never voted for a Republican before"

Joe Lieberman made his plea for McCain tonight, and he was good:

Senator Obama is a gifted and eloquent young man who can do great things for our country in the years ahead. But eloquence is no substitute for a record - not in these tough times.

In the Senate he has not reached across party lines to get anything significant done, nor has he been willing to take on powerful interest groups in the Democratic party.

Contrast that to John McCain's record, or the record of the last Democratic president, Bill Clinton, who stood up to some of those same Democratic interest groups and worked with Republicans to get important things done like welfare reform, free trade agreements and a balanced budget.

And this:

Especially at a time of war, we need a president we can count on to fight for what's right for our country - not only when it is easy, but when it is hard.

When others were silent, John McCain had the judgment to sound the alarm about the mistakes we were making in Iraq. When others wanted to retreat in defeat from the field of battle, when Barack Obama was voting to cut off funding for our troops on the ground.

John McCain had the courage to stand against the tide of public opinion and support the surge, and because of that, today, our troops are at last beginning to come home, not in failure, but in honor!

Indeed. I'll tell you straight, that Lieberman damn near persuaded me tonight. It could be based on other things I've been feeling about the election in recent days, and the far-Left pile on Sarah Palin, but let me say that as far as my vote goes, Obama is lucky the election isn't being held tonight.

Sammenhold

First off, allow to clarify. I have no desire to offend Muslims. I mean that. The thing is, there is a persisent and pernicious effort afoot to stifle free speech, in the name of not offending Muslims, particularly in the case of five jihadists arrested for plotting to kill one of the Danish cartoonists. This is an outrage. The answer to offensive speech is more speech, not violence, and not moral cowardice that refuses to condemn such violence. The blog campaign is once again well underway, and I proudly hitch my wagon to the train.

Thanks to Pat for the holy hat tip.

Of Heroism, Courage, Sorrow, and Pride

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."

John 15:13

I dare say it is your duty to read in full this deeply moving piece by Christopher Hitchens, on the heroic life of Lt. Mark Daily, and the emotion Hitchens felt when he learned that his words inspired a young man to fight and sacrifice for his country. Quite possibly the best and most emotional piece he's ever wriiten, and maybe one of most moving pieces on this war you'll ever read.

HT: Centerfield

UPDATE: He's still utterly lost when it comes to religion, though:

He also told the crowd that heaven would be comparable to North Korea, as they both embody a totalitarianism of eternal gratitude.

Hitchens pointed to the “horrific pointlessness and misery” of having to thank a leader for everything when the leader was never asked for in the first place — which he said is intrinsic to both the concept of heaven and in North Korea.“At least you can fucking die and get out of North Korea,” Hitchens added.

Sigh. I'm praying for you, Christopher. I really am.

A Matter of Principle

"Where there is no vision, the people perish."

Proverbs 29:18


"The result by the 1980s was a much weakened liberalism that was no match for a renewed conservative movement. Sapped of energy, liberalism had become, in Paul Starr's words, mostly "defensive" and "oppositional." Liberals tried to stick to the catechism of the older values, but were often pushed off course by the conflicting priorities championed by the cultural left. Liberals lacked any clear conception of first principles or anchoring ideas to guide them. Except for the fact that the Democratic party remained the home of almost all of the intelligentsia, it had now become the "stupid party" of American politics, an honor previously reserved for Republicans. Not even the two Clintons, with their high IQ's and a new generation of policy wonks to serve them, could change this. The "New Democrat" thrust was wholly strategic and practical: to move the Democratic party to the center and to "reinvent" government. Whatever other contributions may be ascribed to the Clinton Democrats, deep reflection about the party's theoretical foundations was not among them."


A must-read article, on the future of liberalism, the Democratic Party, and political discourse at large. Read the whole thing.

HT: Stubborn Facts

On This Fourth of July,

Let us remember the words of Thomas Paine:

"THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but "to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER" and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God."

Amen. Read the rest.

Brezinski's Rebellion

This is a couple of days old, but in case you missed it, watch as Mika Brezinski shows us the way:



Bravo, madam.