Reflections

As this tumultuous year 2016 winds down, I gather my loose synapses into some form of strained logic to reflect on who has been boiling our porridge over our last orbit 'round the sun.

First, the Religion of Peace has only killed a few hundred thousand of us this year ... mostly their kindred souls tragically but, for the rest of us, fortunately. However, their belief that martyrdom rewards them lavishly and lasciviously propels them into the most uncivilized brutality that man can invent. This twisted form of moral immorality is both the reason for this tribe's remarkable successes and, unless corrected, its eventual doom. The primary reason for its rise is that it offers discipline and order in an undisciplined and unordered world. It has become the flickering flame to which many meek seekers are moth-driven. They are clearly charting their, and possibly even our, end.

Second, after an eight year escape from our senses, the American middle has, at least temporarily, recaptured its mojo. We have chosen an unlikely leader who knows how to get things done and is doing things ... most of which seem intent on righting our ship of state after a long meandering voyage with open scuppers. Trump's words and actions are often crude and rude, but he is all we got, so we have given him the helm with our fingers crossed. His choices for his crew who would carry out his mandate are a mite questionable but, I for one, am willing to wait and see ... mostly because he has obviously had more life successes than failures. Yes, there will be some duds appointed. But I suspect he will not be shy with the term, "You're fired!"

Third, the Democrat party has been pulled so far into the outback of loony liberalism that they are going to need a modern-day Moses to lead them back to civilized thought and action. Their travel agents for this sad sojourn, Obummer, Schumer, Hellery, Pelosi, Biden and the like still have the party's ideological credit card and are spending them into policy penury. Unless liberals can find new and more moderate leadership, they will continue to enjoy ballot box failure. Will the Republicans get vindictive toward the left after they assume full power on January 20th? I surely hope so. And, if Trump can fulfill even half of his economic promises, he will likely change the traditional political alliances for a generation.

Fourth, for the first time in my dotage I have some hope for some Mideast pacification. Trump's pledge to put Iran back in the box, his moving our embassy to Jerusalem, his recognition of Egypt's el-Sisi as a Muslim mitigating force, and his (hopefully) persuading Russia to help stop the slaughter in Syria ... all have me optimistic, not for full peace, but at least for detente. My expectation is that his policy in this region will be to reward moderation and punish radicalism ... exactly the opposite of what the current administration has been doing. Why Obummer has pursued this insanity is between him and his Mullah ...

More to come later ...

Strong Coffee

Sleepyheads, if you wish to be jolted awake about the threat that Islam (not just Islamic jihad) poses for the future of civilization, then read the following essay by one of my favorite bloggers, W. Lewis Amselem (the Diplomad). In this frank and studied blast at this "religion of Peace" Amselem disassembles a lot of the myth and misinformation that we are being fed by those unwilling or unable to see the naked threat that our world is facing  ... see: Dealing with the Islamic Threat. This is pretty powerful stuff ... so be forewarned.

And now I have one more reason not to vote for that Islamophile, Ms. Clinton.

Fatwa This

The I-word State (an accommodation to Obummer's delicate sensibilities regarding this religion of peace's establishment of a Mideast caliphate) has issued a fatwa decreeing that all children with Down Syndrome and other such birth defects should be murdered ... and so far about 38 such infants, some only a few weeks old, have been so dispatched by this group of M-word extremists ... see: Breitbart Article.

As barbaric and "final solution" like this fatwa sounds ... it differs by only a few months from that advocated by Planned Parenthood here in the United States ... just a thought.

Tinfoil-Hat Time

An astrophysicist at CalTech claims to have found possible evidence of a parallel universe ... see: USA Today Story. Supposition of one or more parallel universes, with different rules of existence, have kept science fiction writers busy for decades. But, if this new evidence bears fruit, all types of new fanciful suppositions should now come bursting forth into the tinfoil-hat kook-a-sphere. For instance, how about the thought that, in this parallel universe, people can self-identify as black even though they have no African DNA. Or perhaps, men with penises can claim to be females and demand to be given access to women's locker rooms. Or perhaps one religion in this parallel universe can crucify apostates, burn them alive, enslave them, or demand tribute payments from them ... yet still be called a " religion of peace."

There, there might even be beings who chop up their unborn claiming that they are only hunks of protoplasm. Or, perhaps the prevailing economic rule states that "to each according to his need ... and, from each, according to his ability." In this wonderful parallel universe, the gas that is the fundamental basis of all life, such as our CO2, can be government-labeled a "pollutant." And there the wife of a former supreme leader might feel she should be the next supreme leader only because she lacks the equivalent of a Y chromosome.

This alternate universe surlely has a lot of strange goings-on.

[crickets]

ISIS, representing the religion of peace, has recently executed in excess of 300 Yazidi (quasi-Christian sect) prisoners in northern Iraq ... read all about the Islamic State's barbarism in the: UK Daily Mail Story.

Once more, what was President Obama's reaction to such an atrocity?

[crickets] ... or if you want the real thing: Crickets.

I suppose had it happened in Ferguson or Staten Island or Baltimore ...

On Another Planet

This country, nay this world needs to be grounded in reality … else we earthlings begin to do lots of stupid things. The leader of the free world is assumed to be the President of the United States, Barack Obama, and, when he avers silliness, he unnerves the rest of us. On his way back from his recent Asian confabs he duplicated one of his more naive pronouncement … that Islam represents a religion of peace … see: Breitbart Story.

Yes, I hope that this looniness is an attempt to convince those few Muslims who don’t want a worldwide caliphate (where we all must convert to Islam or be beheaded) that they are benign beings. But, if Muslims have read the Quran (aka, Koran) like they are supposed to, they are likely prone to unnerving violence. Here are a few quotes from The Religion of Peace edited by Glen Roberts 

The Quran contains at least 109 verses that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers for the sake of Islamic rule.  Some are quite graphic, with commands to chop off heads and fingers and kill infidels wherever they may be hiding.  Muslims who do not join the fight are called 'hypocrites' and warned that Allah will send them to Hell if they do not join the slaughter. 

 The strangest and most untrue thing that can be said about Islam is that it is a Religion of Peace.  If every standard by which the West is judged and condemned (slavery, imperialism, intolerance, misogyny, sexual repression, warfare...) were applied equally to Islam, the verdict would be devastating.  Islam never gives up what it conquers, be it religion, culture, language or life.  Neither does it make apologies or any real effort at moral progress.  It is the least open to dialogue and the most self-absorbed.  It is convinced of its own perfection, yet brutally shuns self-examination and represses criticism.

This is what makes the Quran's verses of violence so dangerous.  They are given the weight of divine command.  While Muslim terrorists take them as literally as anything else in their holy book, and understand that Islam is incomplete without Jihad, moderates offer little to contradict them - outside of opinion.  Indeed, what do they have?  Speaking of peace and love may win over the ignorant, but when every twelfth verse of Islam's holiest book either speaks to Allah's hatred for non-Muslims or calls for their death, forced conversion, or subjugation, it's little wonder that sympathy for terrorism runs as deeply as it does in the broader community - even if most Muslims personally prefer not to interpret their religion in this way.

Although scholars like Ibn Khaldun, one of Islam's most respected philosophers, understood that "the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force", many other Muslims are either unaware or willfully ignorant of the Quran's near absence of verses that preach universal non-violence.  Their understanding of Islam comes from what they are taught by others.  In the West, it is typical for believers to think that their religion must be like Christianity - preaching the New Testament virtues of peace, love, and tolerance - because Muslims are taught that Islam is supposed to be superior in every way.  They are somewhat surprised and embarrassed to learn that the evidence of the Quran and the bloody history of Islam are very much in contradiction to this.

 and …

For their part, Western liberals would do well not to sacrifice critical thinking to the god of political correctness, or look for reasons to bring other religion down to the level of Islam merely to avoid the existential truth that this it is both different and dangerous.

Our president certainly is an archetypal Western liberal … living on another planet where political correctness is worshiped to a fault.