Bill Whittle: 'One Thing About Being a Conservative is You Don't Have to Lie'

Funny, but that's exactly the opposite of progressives: They lie about everything.

See: "WFP Interviews Bill Whittle." Talking about how he frames arguments and creates his video productions, Whittle says that "the great thing about being a conservative is you don't have to lie and you don't have to invent stuff..."

Yeah, that is a great thing, at about 3:00 minutes:

Update on Zilla's Resistance Honor Roll

A follow-up to my earlier entry: "Conservatives Stand Up! — Zilla's Resistance Honor Roll Keeps Getting Bigger!" And Zilla's is here: "Stand Against Evil - Never Let it Win."

I didn't get a chance to link everybody up last time, and I've also been getting support via e-mail. Maggie Thornton sent this, "Harrassment":

Donald, the Left must deeply hate that you have classrooms of young minds in front of you every day. You are in their dominion, Education, and they believe they own it. How dare you treat with those they believe they own. You are their nightmare. Then you are bold enough to leave the classroom and share with your blog readers the insanity of promoting the destruction of capitalism and all that made this country great. You write from strength, with passion, and moral vision. I will pray that you be given the energy and will to prevail against this evil. Never forget that you are on a good and righteous mission.

Maggie

I don't, Maggie. And I appreciate the support.

And Jimmie Bise published a response to the progressives at his blog, "Beware the Howling Mob." Jimmie starts with a discussion of Ann Coulter's phenomenal book, "Demonic," and then writes:

My friend Zilla has been the subject of the left-wing mob, to the point where she ingeniously erected a Troll Tollgate which allows people to yell at her to their heart’s content so long as they fill up her tip jar for the privilege. Thus far, though, Zilla’s thuggish trolls have restricted their activities to childish rants in the comment sections of her blog posts.

Donald Douglas, on the other hand, has suffered that and far more. Left-wing agitators have gone after him, very personally and directly. They have dedicated a blog to his personal destruction and have attempted to get him fired on several occasions over the past three years. So far, they have failed, but their efforts have cost Donald countless hours of his time and, I will assume, some nontrivial amount of money to defend himself from the baseless attacks.

And all he did was give voice to his conservative political opinions.

Smitty, in a post on the subject, noted that it is not sufficient to the left that they prove their ideological opponents wrong. They must oppress. They must take away your ability to speak freely. We can complain about how unfair they are to us, but it won’t matter. They will not change. That is what they do. That is who they are. Progressivism over the decades is nothing but instance after instance of pure power politics: the rule of the howling mob, the haughty “We won”, the vicious “push back twice as hard”.

Here’s the thing, though. That exercise of power requires a faceless mob. When we begin to name and shame the offenders, the power diminishes. Their mob tactics require that they remain numerous and anonymous and that the victim remain isolated. When we band together and identify them as the thugs they are, their courage runs away like water.

It’s time we made the cowards run.

Just keep an eye on these people, Jimmie, and don't let your guard down. They're merciless bastards!

Also, Tania at Midnight Blue stands up as well: "A Progressive Attack on Conservative Blogger." And at Invincible Armor, "Stand With American Power Against Intimidation and Harassment."

Thanks!

And very interestingly, The Independent Realist has administered a brutal flogging to stalking asshat W. James Casper. In fact, Independent Realist engaged RACIST = REPSAC only to come away convinced he wasted his time on an epic loser. See, "Repsac3, W. James Casper — The Final Word." And from the conclusion there:

So there you have it. The whole sordid story of my involvement with a paranoid delusional. I gave him his chance to defend himself, and instead he now spends his days and nights tapping away on his keyboard writing post after post about the evil me and the conspiracy I am leading to ban him from the internet. The comment queue for this blog is filled with his rants are his blogs. As I have no desire to fuel his paranoia any further (not to mention that I don't enjoy playing games with the mentally ill), I am done with him. He cannot be rational or logical, and has slid down into irrational delusions. I fear for his sanity, and I can only hope that he will seek professional help, and not harm himself or others.

The Independent Realist has two other entries, here and here. Amazing isn't it? It took Independent Realist about two seconds to pin down W. James "Costanza" Casper. The idiot's completely deranged. It's too freakin' obvious. Indeed, Casper the hate-blogger responded with some incoherent ramblings attempting to deflect Independent Realist's devastating takedown, only to get hammered by one of his own progressives in the comments! His commenter calls out RACIST = REPSAC as crossing the line, indicating that Casper's campaign of intimidation is becoming "a real drag." Of course, you can't help someone who refuses wise counsel. RACIST = REPSAC's a nut case. A raving hatemonger and lunatic. He rambles at the post, spewing lies about how he's going to stop stalking me, and then says screw it, and starts up again with a new sets of rants.

Clinical.

Kudos to The Independent Realist. Thanks for taking this idiot Casper out back for a smackdown! The dude needs some help, no doubt. Sad.

Conservatives Stand Up! — Zilla's Resistance Honor Roll Keeps Getting Bigger!

The freak leftist fascists are unrelenting, but again I'm overwhelmed by the awesome moral support I'm seeing across the blogosphere. So, here's a follow-up to my earlier entry, "Huge Shout Out to Ladd Ehlinger!"

Thanks again to Zilla, by the way. She had oral surgery the other day. But I got a tweet shortly thereafter, and she was doing fine! (And ICYMI, see "Stand Against Evil - Never Let it Win.")

And well, before I forget, at word of thanks to SHOUT FIRST, ASK QUESTIONS LATER. The support is much appreciated.

Also at WyBlog, "Free Speech for thee but not for me?":

Donald was the first guy to link WyBlog, way back when I was starting out. And he got me hooked on Twitter too. He's a gentleman and a scholar; really. We don't always agree, but that's OK. Disagreeing without being disagreeable seems to be purely a right-wing / conservative trait. The politics of personal destruction was invented by the Left, and they're masters at it. Silence is Golden, unless it's their own shrill cacaphony which of course must be tolerated by all.

If Free Speech is to mean anything it absolutely must mean that the other guy has the inalienable right to say things you don't like. There is no right to not be offended. Sorry, but that's the truth.

Thanks Chris!

Also, check Bob Belvedere, "Right Wing Bloggers Under Relentless Attack: The Battle Rages On":

Donald, the man behind American Power, has been subject to efforts by these radicals to get him fired from his job as a college professor. He has posted a Roundup on Progressive Campaign of Workplace Intimidation and Harassment that I urge you to read all of, including the links, so that you can get a real understanding of th extent of these attempts to destroy this good man and hurt his family. What the Left is doing to him is but one instance of many that I fear will grow in number as the Progressives become more desperate. By having rejected tradition and morality and, thus, decency, the Left is free to achieve their end [the silencing of all opposition] by any means necessary. There is nothing to restrain them; God-like, they have given themselves license to do as they see fit.

And more, at Marooned in Marin, "Standing With a Fellow Blogger & Friend Against Vicious Attacks By Leftists":

Just as The Lonely Conservative writes here, I have also found it ironic how liberals, Leftists, whatever you want to call them, have always claimed to be such great champions of free speech and free expression. Yet when someone has a different point of view, the Left are always the first ones who try to obscure and censor differing opinions. We saw it during the Prop 8 campaign in California, where lists of people who donated to defend traditional marriage had their workplaces and or businesses distributed in order to punish and silence them.

There is nothing traditionally liberal about that. In fact, it is the totalitarian and fascistic face of the Left that has also existed in nations where Americans spilled their blood to defeat their tyrannical regimes. If you want to disagree with another point of view, fine. But when it comes to threatening one's livelihood, libeling critics, falsely accusing them of crimes, etc--that crosses a line. Not only that, it shows how these Leftists cannot support their own arguments, and must silence their dissenters by any means necessary. Which is the essence of totalitarianism.

It is for this purpose that I stand with my friend and fellow blogger against these attacks.

I'll continue updating.

Meanwhile, thanks to Blazing Cat Fur for linking some time back.

And Adrienne's Corner.

And Doug Ross.

And Invincible Armor.

And Right Wing News.

And That Mr. Guy.

And The Pagan Temple has a really interesting take on things, "Donald Douglas — Struck By The Poison Of Progressive Ideology."

BONUS: Maggie Thornton e-mailed a while back and I've been meaning to post her comments. I'll get to that over the next few days, and anyone else I might have missed.

Thanks again, everybody!

Huge Shout Out to Ladd Ehlinger!

Zilla put the call out for conservatives to stand against evil, and a number of folks have answered the call, joining Zilla's honor roll of moral right.

I've been off the grid, so I'm just now reading all the responses. Ladd Ehlinger responded at his blog with an entry, and I read that first and was moved to write without delay. See "When Flame Wars Spill Offline: Conservative Media Should Stand Up." And my comments there:

Ladd, we've engaged enough times by Twitter that I certainly consider you a friend. The battle is of one big piece. The collectivists go by many names, with the Democrat Party being the most familiar. From there you can go on down to real Marxist-Leninists, the folks so closely tied to the party in power today. Values-wise, they're all the same. Perhaps there are degrees, but it's the obliteration of the individual vis-a-vis the state that's the result. I'm going do a roundup of all the support I've received. I can't begin to thank you all enough. I've been on a high all day and I haven't come down yet. That strength from conservative solidarity is unconquerable, and I hope we sustain it!

The progressives mock and ridicule the notion of secular collectivism, but when I argue that the left's attacks on truth and honesty are "satanic," that's the referential understanding. Marxism is a secular religion. It is a belief system which seeks a totalizing dominion over truth and over those who claim a truth based on universal right. According to Leonidas Donskis, in Forms of Hatred: The Troubled Imagination in Modern Philosophy and Literature:

A world religion, a secular belief system, and a rival civilization, Marxism came into existence as a false secularization of consciousness. Marxism has always rested on a sort of secular demonology, splitting humanity into warring groups and demonizing what it took as agents of exploitation and social evil.

As a kind of secular Church, Marxism succeeded, in a historically unprecedented way, in satisfying the ideological, political, and psychological needs of marginalized and alienated intellectuals scattered around the world. It became the first secular Umma of intellectuals. Moreover, it provided its adherents, those secularly religious radicals and doctrinaires, with a sense of pride --- after all, Marxism made intellectuals a major force in history and a presence in all societies, Marxist and non-Marxist alike --- and also with a spiritual fatherland. Marxism designed the revolutionary-ascetic moral culture, which has always been at odds with all other modern systems of moralization, especially with the liberal and nationalist moral cultures.

Linkmaster Smith, at The Other McCain, responds to developments with a version of this, "They Truly Hate Liberty." But more formally is Lisa Graas, "Is American Power Blog Under Attack From Satan?" Both warn that conservatives, in fighting evil, must stay true to God. Conservatives must live good and decently, for then they will have even more strength to carry them forward. Here is my response to Lisa Graas:

Thanks Lisa. Your advice is welcomed. I live by Him in my actions. None of us are perfect, but I never waver from the truth in my dealings with people, I never bear false witness. I can thus claim a moral position that my opponents repeatedly have made frightening haste to abandon. At my blog I linked the series of workplace attacks I've endured, with a record there of the libelous allegations made against me. Even were these normal political and ideological differences, one must beware the forces of evil lurking about in all the lies. This is what I believe. And in that I believe in God, in that He would have me stand for truth and against the lies. And more, in that all politics for me is moral, I do good by Him if I push ahead for a political vision of goodness and right. Sometimes, I'm told, I might use more care to stay on the side of right. So, I'm working on it. I succumb to emotion at times. But in faith I find strength, for no one should be subject to these campaigns of destruction. Those endlessly and remorselessly working against me are secular demons who live not by His holiness, but by the opposite that attempts to pull the Christian warriors asunder.

Thanks again.

I will be updating and adding new posts --- with links to others blogging on this--- in appreciation for all the support. Please head over to Zilla's if you haven't already. She'll add your link to the honor roll.

From Incendiary Insight: 'Capitalism — The Hated Enemy of the Children of the West'

An amazing essay (via Instapundit):

At this moment, I'm sitting in my home and watching television. Typing this I'm using a Dell XPS laptop. Outside, I can see my swimming pool with moonlight reflecting off its shimmering surface. If you are reading this, you're also using a computer. The air conditioning turned on, and my refrigerator is running. Tomorrow, I'll shower, get in my car, and go to work. I'll head home around 5, exercise, and watch a movie with the family.

If I were living in any non-Western country, I would not have a laptop, a television, a refrigerator, air conditioning, or a car. If I did have any of those, they'd be in shockingly poor shape and probably break by year's end. I'd earn a paltry sum that could barely keep my family from starving. I'd not even have a 'social safety net' because so little of the country has wealth to give anyway.

Read it all...

War and Sacrifice in the Post-9/11 Era: The Military-Civilian Gap

A new survey at the Pew Research Center:

Only about one half of one percent of the U.S. population has been on active military duty at any given time during the past decade of sustained warfare. Some 84% of post-9/11 veterans say the public does not understand the problems faced by those in the military or their families. The public agrees, though by a less lopsided majority—71%.

U.S. Jihadi Samir Khan Killed in Awlaki Drone Strike in Yemen

This really is an significant bonus to the story.

Background at WaPo, "A ‘proud traitor’: Samir Khan reported dead alongside Aulaqi":

A Saudi-born American of Pakistani heritage who was raised in Queens, N.Y., was reportedly among those killed in a U.S. drone strike targeting radical cleric and fellow U.S. citizen Anwar al-Aulaqi.

A self-proclaimed traitor to America, Samir Khan contributed to the efforts of al-Qaeda’s Yemen offshoot to promote itself among English-speakers. He was apparently a major force behind the widely-read English-language magazine Inspire, a mixture of ideology, first-person accounts of operations and do-it-yourself jihad advice. Copies of the magazine’s bomb-making and other sections have been found in the possession of several would-be attackers in the U.S. and Britain.

“I am proud to be a traitor to America,” wrote Khan, 25, in an article in the second issue of the online magazine, published in fall last year. He described his life as working in the “jihadi media sector” in North Carolina, before his beliefs turned him into a “rebel of Washington’s imperialism.” He believed FBI agents were watching him in America, including a man who feigned a conversion to Islam, and one who antagonized him, sparking a fist-fight about his online work.

And more background at this 2007 piece from New York Times, "An Internet Jihad Aims at U.S. Viewers."

And don't miss Michelle Malkin's post, "Second U.S. jihadi reportedly killed in drone attack; Plus: Refresher course on American bloggers vs. Samir Khan." She honors the work of Jawa Report, the blog that's been on the trail of Samir Khan for years, and whose publisher Rusty Shackleford was targeted by with death threats. See the post there: "American Traitor Anwar al-Awlaki Killed in Yemen! Upd: SAMIR KHAN, Threatened Rusty's Family, Dead! Obama Confirms, Awlaki DEAD -- Now with More Cowbell, M.C. Hammer Online Jihadis Confirm: Samir Khan Dead! Fingerprints Confirm!"

Commemorating September 11 on a Left Coast Liberal Campus

From former Long Beach City College student, and current UCLA senior, Barbara Efraim, at Human Events. An excellent piece.

Marine Who Saved 36 in Afghanistan Gets Medal of Honor

I was at lunch today and watched President Obama award the medal to Cpl. Dakota Meyer.

At Los Angeles Times, "Marine is awarded rare Medal of Honor at White House":

The desperate call crackled over the radio in predawn darkness: A small team of American and Afghan troops was pinned down in a remote village under withering fire from three sides. A young lieutenant was begging for artillery or air support. Without it, he yelled, "we are going to die out here."

Can't be done, came the reply. It might kill civilians.

Less than a mile away, Marine Cpl. Dakota L. Meyer heard the radio exchange in agony. His buddies were dying, yet Meyer was under orders to stay where he was. Four times he requested permission to go to their aid, and four times he was refused.

After two hours, Meyer decided to defy his superiors. The powerfully built 21-year-old with a soft Kentucky drawl climbed into the turret of a gun truck mounted with a .50-caliber machine gun and, with another Marine driving, raced toward the battle.

On Thursday, Meyer was at the White House to receive the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for valor, for saving the lives of 36 combatants — 13 Americans and 23 Afghans — and personally killing at least eight Taliban fighters that day, Sept. 8, 2009. He is the first living Marine to receive the award since the Vietnam War.

Meyer, now 23, stood at attention in dress uniform as President Obama recounted what happened in the village of Ganjigal in Afghanistan's Kunar province.

Added: Bing West's essay, "The Afghan Rescue Mission Behind Today's Medal of Honor."

Israel's Memorial to September 11

At Berman Post, "Israeli 9/11 Memorial":

If the measure of a true friend is how sincerely they mourn for your loss, Israel once again showed how close of an ally they are to the United States.

RELATED: At Jerusalem Post, "PM on 9/11: We are still susceptible to terror attacks."

9/11 Tributes

From Bruce Kesler, at Maggie's Farm, "My Son, Age 11, Made This 9/11 Video For His 6th Grade Classmates."

RELATED: From Dana Loesch, at Big Journalism, "All Hail Salon, the 9/11 Tribute Police."

EXTRA: At Atlas Shrugs, "INFAMY."

MORE: From Glenn Reynolds, "SO HOW TO NOTE THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF 9/11?"

9/11 Remembered — Ezra Levant

Really astounding commemoration.

I enjoy Ezra Levant more each time I listen, via Blazing Cat Fur:

George W. Bush Speech at Shanksville Flight 93 Memorial

Watch President Bush in full at Gateway Pundit, "George W. Bush at Flight 93 Memorial: “One of the Lessons of 9-11 Is That Evil Is Real and So Is Courage” (Video)."

Ari Fleischer Remembers 9/11

This is an extremely fascinating discussion, from Alexis Garcia, at Pajamas Media, "PJTV: Ari Fleischer on 9/11 and the Fog of War." I'm struck by Fleischer's discussion of signalling to President Bush, upon first learning of the attacks, when he was still at the Florida elementary school, that he wasn't to go public with announcements or statements that the U.S. was under attack:

Herman Cain 9/11 Tribute

Via The Other McCain, "Herman Cain Records Moving 9/11 Tribute, Alex Pareene Calls It ‘Tasteless’."

Ten Years Without an Attack

From John Yoo, at Wall Street Journal (alternative link). Discussing President George W. Bush's leadership, Yoo writes:

Looking back over the decade, the first clear lesson is the critical importance of Mr. Bush’s decision to consider the struggle with al Qaeda a war. Unlike past administrations, his chose not to view al Qaeda as a Middle Eastern version of the mafia, if on a grander scale. The 9/11 attacks constituted an act of war—they were a decapitation strike, an effort to eliminate our nation’s leadership in a single blow. If the Soviet Union had carried out the same attacks, no one would have doubted that the United States was at war.

Al Qaeda’s independence from any nation state would not shield it from the American military and leave it solely to the more tender mercies of the FBI and the courts.

Choosing war opened the arsenal that has decimated al Qaeda’s leadership and blunted its plan of attack. A nation at war need not wait for a suicide bombing to arrest the “suspects” who remain. Instead, it can fire missiles or send in covert teams to pre-emptively capture or kill the enemy. Our government doesn’t need a judge’s permission before tapping an al Qaeda operative’s phones, intercepting his emails, or arresting him.

We need not provide terrorists with Miranda warnings, lawyers and jury trials. A nation at war can detain the enemy without lawyers or civilian trials and interrogate them for information to prevent future attacks.

In its second critical decision, the Bush administration pushed to translate knowledge into action. Winning the war requires, above all, the gathering, analysis and exploitation of intelligence. Before 9/11 our national security bureaucracies, prodded by the civil liberties worries of the courts and Congress, had deliberately handicapped their ability to pull all intelligence into a single mosaic. Passage of the Patriot Act, the expanded interception of international terrorist emails and phone calls, and the tough interrogation of a few high-ranking al Qaeda leaders broadened and deepened the pool of information on our enemy.

At the same time, the intelligence community and the U.S. Armed Forces have honed the integration of tactical intelligence and operations to a deadly knife’s-edge. Bin Laden’s killing this summer was not a one-off lucky shot, but the culmination of a decade of work combining intelligence-gathering, analysis and rapid strike teams. American presidents did not have such reliable options in the past—witness Jimmy Carter’s disastrous attempt to rescue the Iranian hostages or Bill Clinton’s failure to kill or capture bin Laden.

RELATED: "John Yoo at David Horowitz's West Coast Retreat, April 3, 2011."

Michael Coren Loves Zionism!

Via Blazing Cat Fur:

Pamela Geller on 9/11: A Day of Mourning, Grieving and Remembering

I so much wish I could be in New York for 9/11, but it's not happening this year. Ten years is a long time, but decades from now I'm confident that Pamela Geller will be remembered as one of the brightest lights commemorating the fallen. She'll also be remembered for sounding the tocsin of "Never Again." And for that, she takes a lot of grief for all of us who live in dignity and work to preserve our cherished freedoms against the forces of modern totalitarianism.



Here she's interviewed by Ezra Levant, via Blazing Cat Fur:

And see Pamela's post, "PAMELA GELLER ON SUN TV WITH EZRA LEVANT: 911 FREEDOM RALLY."

AP Interview With Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani

It's getting close to the 10-year anniversary, so expect lots of 9/11 coverage across the media-sphere over the next couple of weeks. See "AP Interview: Post-9/11 politics of Rudy Giuliani" (via Memeorandum).

Hugs and Thanks to Maggie Thornton

Maggie picked my piece on teaching the Gettysburg Address: "Donald Douglas: A Professor Teaching Real Political History."



And from the comments there:

In today’s American world, this professor is a gem!

Well, thank you!!



More at Maggie's Notebook.



Also, a warm appreciation goes to Gator Doug: "The DaleyGator supports our friend, Donald Douglas."



I get by with a little help from my friends.