"Unlike the U.S., guns are tightly regulated in Europe, but the French gangs have armed themselves with weapons obtained on the black market"

Walid Marzouki and his girlfriend stopped their black Renault Twingo at a red light on the deserted Boulevard Casanova late one night in August. Another car pulled alongside. The driver opened his window, pulled out an automatic rifle and killed Mr. Marzouki, using more than 20 rounds.  

The next time a Frenchman — or anyone, for that matter, even (or especially) an American — 1) lectures you on the violence of America and/or 2) tells you how the European model of gun control is the way for the country to go and/or 3) insists that at least there are no assault weapons in civilized Europe, tell them to read Maïa de la Baume's New York Times article from September where the "magnitude of violence" in southeast France provoked calls fro the army to intervene.

Mr. Marzouki, 25, was a drug dealer from Marseille, the police said.

“I heard loud bursts of gunfire,” said Nina Lamraoui, 31, who lives in a building near the murder scene. “I was so terrified for my children that I told them it was a car accident.” 

Mr. Marzouki was a victim of one of the most violent waves of gang crime ever to hit this city on France’s southeast coast. In nine months, 20 people have been killed in Marseille and the surrounding area, according to the police. 

The magnitude of violence, which the police say is committed mostly by drug dealers using combat weapons, has pushed the new Socialist government to lay out an ambitious plan to help this city of 800,000, described by Interior Minister Manuel Valls as “in great distress.” 

The government was also pushed to act after Samia Ghali, a Socialist who represents the impoverished and troubled 15th and 16th Arrondissements here, called for the army to intervene. Her request, which many viewed as exaggerated, has nevertheless drawn news media attention to the city’s struggle with gang leaders. 

The killing of Mr. Marzouki has not been solved, the police said. But they blamed the drug trade for the recent killings, specifically dealers from the “Quartiers Nord,” the predominantly immigrant districts of northern Marseille. Top dealers can easily make 100,000 euros a month (about $131,000), the police said, relying on violence and murder to intimidate others or defend their territory. Unlike the United States, guns are tightly regulated in Europe, but the gangs have armed themselves with weapons obtained on the black market. 

“We are confronted by inhuman situations,” said Jean-Louis Martini, the local spokesman of Synergie Officiers, one of the major police unions in France. “It becomes terrifying, because it has no limits.”

Marseille, one of France’s poorest cities, has long been a haven for gangs, which first surfaced to control prostitution. It was home to a major heroin ring known as “The French Connection,” the basis for the 1971 film. And like many port cities, it has been identified with smuggling and political corruption. 

Today, experts and police officers say that the number of crimes, mostly related to marijuana trafficking, has not increased significantly. But the crimes have become much more violent in the past year. Police officers and residents are particularly worried about the increasing use of automatic and semiautomatic rifles, especially the Kalashnikov. Knockoff versions are made in many eastern European countries and China, and cost about $1,300. 

They were introduced in France after the breakup of the former Yugoslavia and became more available recently after the chaos that followed the uprising in Libya. The police said about 300 Kalashnikovs have been intercepted in Marseille [in the first 9 to 10 months of 2012].

 … For Ms. Ghali, the northern districts she serves have been abandoned by the state and left to the authority of gangs and to dealers who “are able to shoot the friend they ate and slept with the previous night.” The economic distress in Europe has reinforced the phenomenon. “Before we had temporary work,” she said in an interview. “Now there is more unemployment and no temporary jobs.”

Marseille was not hit hard by the 2005 riots that inflamed the Paris suburbs. But some people believe that its embrace of multiculturalism and strong local identity no longer protect it from social unrest. 

“We got overwhelmed by the expansion of this new delinquency,” said Mr. Martini, the police official.

 … “Walid was a good guy, a nice guy” said Inés, 20, a nurse who went to school with Mr. Marzouki. “We are used to murders here — it is ‘mektoub,’ ” the Arabic word for fate. 

But her fatalism is not shared by others in the northern districts who have been terrorized by the violence. “It’s a city of crazy people,” said a man who works near the spot where Mr. Marzouki was killed, who spoke on condition he not be identified. “If a 16-year-old kid can use a Kalashnikov, it means that he never experienced a childhood, and his parents never cuddled him.” 

Mr. Marzouki’s parents may not have cuddled him. But placed on that light pole on the Boulevard Casanova are flowers and a note, written in what appears to be red lipstick, saying: “Walid, we’ll love you forever.”

Turning France around involves “reversing the trajectory of a country which refuses to make sacrifices”

Jacques Julliard, a left-wing political commentator who has written a history of the French Left, makes a [harsh] point about his compatriots. Turning France around, he has said, involves “reversing the trajectory of a country which has accepted no longer being in the front rank, which has consented to its own humbling, and which refuses to make sacrifices.” 

Thus writes John Vinocur in his International Herald Tribune column.

Julliard hardly considers [François Hollande] the cause, but describes [the president] as not “sufficiently prophetic or adventurous” to engineer the turnabout. 

Of course, this is not just a matter of 10 months of limited response by the left. 

Ten years ago, Nicolas Baverez, a conservative economist and essayist, wrote that the entire French leadership class “cultivates status quo and rigidity” resulting in protectionism, narrow definition of French interests, and a disinclination to transfer significant sovereignty to the European Union. 

… With Hollande in charge, this leaves the French with what the French historian and novelist Max Gallo described to me as the mind-set of a “retiree of independent means.” And what Alain Minc, an economist who served as a close adviser to Sarkozy, calls a “fragile country without a compass. In its own way, it is sicker than Italy because of the inefficient French productive apparatus.” 

What to do? With a major demonstration of authority, Hollande could start pushing the French by calling on the full institutional powers of the presidency in the manner of François Mitterrand’s historic course reversal when he turned away from Socialist economics in 1983. 

It would require a bold, exemplary act with universal symbolism, like officially abolishing the 35-hour workweek. It would require practical measures like lower taxes, and much greater flexibility in the French labor market. Moreover, it would take Mitterrand’s willingness to face down strikes and political turmoil, and demand vast political courage of Hollande. 

Could it happen? Take this as an answer: When Hollande was asked on television last week about future levels of public spending, he replied, “We’re going to make savings in 2013 so that there won’t be any more effort required by the French.”

Rest in Peace, Iron Lady

From many sources and with many links, E-Nough has an in-depth obituary to Margaret Thatcher.

To quote Damian,

If nothing else be sure to watch the embedded video to the end. It's quite amazing.

"We Declare Ouselves the Apostles" of Saint Hugo Chávez, "the Christ of the Poor"

In this Holy Week, vendors gathered around churches Venezuelan sell candles, holy virgins, and religious images in the likeness of Hugo Chávez

writes Marie Delcas in Le Monde (most of her article is pretty neutral, except for the positive-souding sentence, "some priests are more understanding" of the effort to beatify el Commandante — "Sur le terrain, certains prêtres se montrent plus compréhensifs" — suggesting that the leaders of the church are clueless and intolerant of an event that turns out to be pretty banal).

It shows the former president as a saint, bathed in heavenly light. "Hugo Chavez, Christ of the poor," reads one of them. In Caracas, in the 23 de Enero neighborhood where the remains of the head of state who died on March 5 is lying, a modest altar was inaugurated Thursday, March 28, in honor of "Saint Hugo Chávez."

Needless to say, the dignitaries of the Catholic Church are galled by the cult. Especially as the acting president and presidential candidate Nicolas Maduro has no qualms about playing the saint card. "We declare ourselves to be the apostles of Hugo Chávez, the apostles of the cause of el Commandante," Maduro declared on March 18. Polls expect the heir of the "eternal leader of the Bolivarian revolution" to win the March 14 [the April 14] election. The opposition accuses Maduro of exploiting the memory of Hugo Chávez, deifying him to hide its own shortcomings.

"GIVE ME YOUR CROSS"

This polling day turns out to be an important day in the Chávez calendar. Ousted by a coup on 11 April 2002, Hugo Chávez returned a hero on Sunday 14 early in the morning. For Nicolas Maduro, April 14 will be "the Sunday of Resurrection, the Sunday of popular victory, the Sunday of Christ the Redeemer of the poor in Latin America."

Referring to "the faith which we must not get away from," Cardinal Jorge Urosa Saviño, the Archbishop of Caracas, saw fit, on the occasion of the Holy Wednesday homily, to remind his listeners that "the Catholic religion is not guided by a human being, but by Jesus. No government and no man, no matter how beloved, can be equalled to Jesus Christ." Along with a reminder: "The religious aspect of life must be different from  the socio-political aspect of life."

On the ground, some priests are more understanding. On the public TVT channel, Father Numa Molina, of Caracas's San Francisco parish, insisted that "President Hugo Chávez was a prophet who made his voice heard in favor of the forgotten and the excluded of the world."

At loggerheads with the Catholic hierarchy, Hugo Chávez never concealed his admiration for Christ, a "great revolutionary" and the "first socialist in history." His disease made ​​him even more of a believer. "Give me your crown, Christ, give it to me that I bleed, give me your cross, give me a hundred crosses, but give me life," he implored publicly exactly one year ago.

5 Gay Marriage Myths: "It is those who oppose same-sex marriage who are the true champions of liberty"

The main part of yesterday's post linking Canada's Precedent in Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage turns out to have been based mainly on Robin Phillips's Five Gay Marriage Myths. Read the whole thing or various excerpts below:

Myth #1: Marriage is fundamentally a voluntary union of persons in a committed relationship

… how we think about homosexuality has been enormously influenced by pairing homosexuality with words that already had a positive semantic range, such as gay. In David Kupelian book The Marketing of Evil, he showed that these and many other language shifts did not just happen, but arose out of a deliberate strategy for changing the way Westerners perceive certain key issues. 

The same thing is now occurring in the debate over same-sex marriage. Almost without anyone taking notice, our society has begun to talk about marriage as a voluntary union of persons in a committed relationship, rather than a union of a man and a woman. Never before has marriage been spoken about in this way and the implications are profound. Because of how the brain works, this shift in how we talk about marriage has been attendant to a shift in how we think about marriage. Unconsciously we begin wondering: if marriage is really the union of persons in a committed and loving relationship, why shouldn’t gay people be allowed to participate in this institution?

As same-sex marriage was discussed in the public discourse of various English-speaking countries (first Canada, then Britain, and now America), it was almost universally taken for granted not simply that marriage ought to refer to the union of persons, but that the essence of marriage always has been the union of persons. As a result, less and less people, even among the Christian community, understand marriage to be intrinsically and inviolably heterosexual.

…

Myth #2: Gay marriage legislation would remove the ban on same-sex couples getting marriage

The issue of same-sex marriage is often framed in terms of a choice between either preventing or allowing gay people to get married. When the issue is framed in these terms, that is usually a good indication that the person has fallen victim to another key myth. The reality is that legislation to introduce gay marriage would not remove a ban on same-sex couples getting married because no such ban exists. There is no more of a ban on same-sex couples getting married then there is a ban on two-wheeled unicycles or square triangles. The very nature of what marriage is necessarily excludes same-sex unions.

Now government could always change the definition of marriage. However, as I pointed out in my earlier article, ‘Apples, Oranges and Gay Marriage‘, few people on the other side of the debate are upfront that this is what they are pushing for. Instead they will almost always frame the question in terms of giving same-sex couples access to an existing institution. The reality—which Douglas Farrow drew attention to in his book Divorcing Marriage—is that a ban on same-sex couples getting married only exists if you first start out by assuming that marriage is a union of persons rather than a union between a man and a woman. But to assume this is already to presuppose the conclusion of one side of the debate, which is why most arguments for same-sex marriage are ultimately circular.

There is more going on here than merely a lapse in logic. By framing the issue in terms of a supposed “ban” on same-sex marriage, the media has followed the gay-rights lobby in subtly altering the categories in which the debate is taking place. This is analogous to the way the media altered the terms of the abortion debate by deliberately framing the issue in terms of ‘choice.’

Myth #3: Gay marriage is the most tolerant option

 … The problem with this argument from liberty is not simply that it is false, although it is. The problem is that it is the exact opposite of the truth, as I have already suggested in my article ‘Will the Real Enemies of Liberty Please Stand Up!’ It is those who oppose same-sex marriage who are the true champions of liberty. Indeed, if gay “marriage” is ever legalized, it is likely to result in unprecedented restrictions on freedom of speech and even thought. This was a point that S. T. Karnick drew attention to back in 2008. The Director of research for The Heartland Institute pointed out that,

The issue, it’s important to remember, is not whether society will allow homosexuals to ‘marry.’ They may already do so, in any church or other sanctioning body that is willing to perform the ceremony. There are, in fact, many organizations willing to do so … Such institutions either explicitly allow the consecration or blessing of same-sex ‘marriages’ or look the other way when individual congregations perform such ceremonies.

No laws prevent these churches from conducting marriage ceremonies—and nearly all Americans would agree that it is right for the government to stay out of a church’s decision on the issue. Further, any couple of any kind may stand before a gathering of well-wishers and pledge their union to each other, and the law will do nothing to prevent them. Same-sex couples, or any other combination of people, animals, and inanimate objects, can and do ‘marry’ in this way. What the law in most states currently does not do, however, is force third parties—individuals, businesses, institutions, and so on—to recognize these ‘marriages’ and treat them as if they were exactly the same as traditional marriages. Nor does it forbid anyone to do so.

An insurance company, for example, is free to treat a same-sex couple (or an unmarried two-sex couple) the same way it treats married couples, or not. A church can choose to bless same-sex unions, or not. An employer can choose to recognize same-sex couples as “married,” or not. As Richard Thompson Ford noted in Slate, ‘In 1992 only one Fortune 500 company offered employee benefits to same-sex domestic partners; today hundreds do.’

In short, individuals, organizations, and institutions in most states are currently free to treat same-sex unions as marriages, or not. This, of course, is the truly liberal and tolerant position. It means letting the people concerned make up their own minds about how to treat these relationships. But this freedom is precisely what the advocates of same-sex ‘marriage’ want to destroy; they want to use the government’s power to force everyone to recognize same-sex unions as marriages whether they want to or not.

The effects of such coercion have already been felt in some places. Adoption agencies, for example, like any other organization, ought to be able to choose whether to give children to same-sex couples, or not. But in Massachusetts, where same-sex ‘marriage’ has been declared legal, these agencies have been forced to accept applications from same-sex couples or go out of business.

What’s at issue here is not whether people can declare themselves married and find other people to agree with them and treat them as such. No, what’s in contention is whether the government should force everyone to recognize such ‘marriages.’ Far from being a liberating thing, the forced recognition of same-sex ‘marriage’ is a governmental intrusion of monumental proportions.

Myth #4: Gay marriage will bring greater equality

Throughout this year there have been near-daily reports of prominent folks coming out for marriage “equality.” The basic idea is simple: if heterosexual couples can get married, isn’t it simple fairness that homosexual couples can also get married?

The idea that gay marriage will bring greater equality is a total myth. The reason it is a myth is because it is not true, and the reason it is not true is because it is based on a meaningless idea and only meaningful statements can have a truth value.

…

Myth #5: Gay marriage will not undermine the traditional family

The Republicans who now support gay marriage have been keen to emphasize that it is consistent with “family values” and that it will strengthen rather than undermine the institution of marriage. Senator Rob Portman reflected this idea when he came out for gay marriage.

 … It is, in fact, a myth that gay marriage will not undermine the traditional family. The reason this is a myth is because, once again, it is the exact opposite of the truth.

By making marriage simply the formalization of an intimate relationship between two adults, same-sex marriage does two things. First, it undermines the organic connection between marriage and child-bearing; second, it undermines the centrality of sex in marriage, including sexual faithfulness. Both of these things have profound ramifications for how we understand the relationship between the family and the state, ultimately undermining the integrity of the traditional family and, consequently, “family values.”

 … You see, once our understanding of “union” in marriage is reduced to “a loving relationship between two committed adults”, then what two people do with their bodies becomes extrinsic rather than intrinsic to that union.

 … a person might have a “committed and loving relationship” with any number of other persons without it being marriage. Because of this, the only way that a committed and loving relationship can be upgraded into marriage is if the state steps in and declares that relationship to be a marriage, in much the same way as the state might declare something to be a corporation or some other legal entity. By contrast, traditional marriages have and could exist without the state’s recognition because it is fundamentally a pre-political institution. Marriage is pre-political in the sense that it has intrinsic goods attached to it, not least of which is the assurance of patrimony and thus the integrity of inheritance. Such goods do not exist by the state’s fiat even though the state may recognize, regulate or protect them.

 …  the philosophy behind same-sex marriage is one which makes both marriage and family entirely the construct, and therefore the province, of positive law. … Unlike heterosexual marriage, which has an existential fixity that can be recognized within a state of nature, gay marriage is meaningless without the mechanisms of government to legitimize it.

  … my basic point is very simple: without the intervention of government, there is no a priori existential state of affairs that marks certain types of same-sex relationships out as being marriage within a state of nature. Unlike heterosexual marriage, which exists in nature and is then recognized by the state, homosexual marriage is an abstract legal entity with no natural or existential existence. … at the centre [of traditional marriage] there is a recognizable reality that is pre-legal, and the hard cases arise by virtue of how far removed we are from the centre.

 … All this has enormous implications for how we understand the relationship between the family and the state, to return to my point that gay marriage undermines the traditional family. By rearranging the very nature of what it means to be married, gay marriage raises the question of whether family and marriage can be considered pre-political institutions on the basis of natural and biological realities and intrinsic goods. This is because such natural and biological realities are being expunged from the essence of what we are now told marriage is and always has been, namely the union of persons through a committed and loving relationship.

 … we can realize the logical consequence of same-sex marriage and say that the only thing left to determine what actually makes something a complete marriage or a legitimate family is the law itself. But have we really considered the implications of saying that traditional marriages and families are entirely the construct of the state?

There is no escaping from this problem. If homosexuals and heterosexuals are really “equal” before the law, then logically heterosexual marriage must collapse into being little more than a legal construct as well. Indeed, marriage and family become mere adjuncts of the state after the removal of the de facto conditions that make the traditional family a pre-political institution in the first place. No longer is family something that, in the words of Douglas Farrow, “precedes and exceeds the state.” No longer is the family a hedge against the totalitarian aspirations of the state because no longer is the family prior to the state.

  … Most people are not aware of how gay marriage will undermine the traditional family because it does so in ways that are subtle and ubiquitous.  However, once gay marriage is introduced into a nation, it undermines the integrity of every family and every marriage in the nation. It does this by rearranging the family’s relationship to the state. The state which legalizes gay marriage is a state that has assumed the god-like power to declare which collections of individuals constitute a ‘family.’ But by this assumption government declares that both marriage and family are little more than legal constructs at best, and gifts from the state at worst. In the former case, marriage and family lose their objective fixity; in the latter case, we become the wards of the state.

• Related: To Understand Liberal Issues Like Gay Marriage Correctly, It Is Vital to Get the Basic Premises Right

— a post which quoted a prominent constitutional theorist from the 1830s (Joseph Story: "Marriage is … in its origin a contract of natural law … It is the parent, and not the child of society; the source of civility and a sort of seminary of the republic") as well as a prominent constitutional theorist from today (Harry Jaffa: "…it is human families or their representatives, rather than "abstract" human individuals, who found or institute political communities" and "Only as one understands the priority of the partnership of male and female in the generation, nurture, and education of the young can one understand the relationship of individuality to community in the political order").

Canada's Precedent in Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage: Is There Any Valid Reason to Be Against Gay Nuptials?

You may remember that a couple of years ago, I wrote a post on gay marriage which, among other things, quoted a prominent constitutional theorist from the 1830s (Joseph Story: "Marriage is … in its origin a contract of natural law … It is the parent, and not the child of society; the source of civility and a sort of seminary of the republic") as well as a prominent constitutional theorist from today (Harry Jaffa: "…it is human families or their representatives, rather than "abstract" human individuals, who found or institute political communities" and "Only as one understands the priority of the partnership of male and female in the generation, nurture, and education of the young can one understand the relationship of individuality to community in the political order").

In case you're wondering why anybody — liberal, conservative, or neutral — would be against two consenting adults marrying (adding that such a position can only be ridiculous, not least because, in the immortal liberal words quoted by George Neumayr, "The political debate over gay marriage is over"), Clash Daily provides a response that mirrors my own post on the subject.

If homosexuals and heterosexuals are really “equal” before the law, then logically heterosexual marriage must collapse into being little more than a legal construct as well. Indeed, marriage and family become mere adjuncts of the state after the removal of the de facto conditions that make the traditional family a pre-political institution in the first place. No longer is family something that, in the words of Douglas Farrow, “precedes and exceeds the state.” No longer is the family a hedge against the totalitarian aspirations of the state because no longer is the family prior to the state.

This is not mere hypothetical speculation about what ‘might’ happen if same-sex marriages are legalized. Canadian theologian Douglas Farrow has shown that after Canada legalized same-sex marriage, even traditional marriage began to be spoken about as little more than a legal construct. In his book Nation of Bastards, Farrow criticized  warned that by claiming the power to re-invent marriage, the Canadian state “has drawn marriage and the family into a captive orbit. It has reversed the gravitational field between the family and the state… It has effectively made every man, woman, and child a chattel of the state, by turning their most fundamental human connections into mere legal constructs at the state’s disposal. It has transformed those connections from divine gifts into gifts from the state.”

Most people are not aware of how gay marriage will undermine the traditional family because it does so in ways that are subtle and ubiquitous.  However, once gay marriage is introduced into a nation, it undermines the integrity of every family and every marriage in the nation. It does this by rearranging the family’s relationship to the state. The state which legalizes gay marriage is a state that has assumed the god-like power to declare which collections of individuals constitute a ‘family.’ But by this assumption government declares that both marriage and family are little more than legal constructs at best, and gifts from the state at worst. In the former case, marriage and family lose their objective fixity; in the latter case, we become the wards of the state.

On the Nation of Bastards book's Amazon page, reviewer Paul Adams writes about Douglas Farrow's book (what another reviewer calls "the check-and-balance on government power that resides in the family — and that's husband/wife/children family, not 'we love each other ergo we are family.' It illustrates that divorcing procreation from marriage leads inevitably to a government that is not only 'big brother,' but 'mother and father' as well"):

By fundamentally redefining marriage, [Douglas Farrow] says, the state has appropriated the institution of marriage and turned children, indeed all citizens, into wards of the state. Marriage and family have always existed in relative autonomy vis a vis the state, resting as they do on the nature of human beings and the natural human family.

In a liberal society, marriage and family mediate between individual and state. As such they are indispensable to liberal democracy. They may or may not be recognized and protected by the state, but marriage and family in any case are not created by it. They are, by their nature and not the state's fiat, the way in which one generation turns from its own concerns to those of the next, requiring a sacrifice and commitment of the autonomous ego to a relationship ordered to procreation, fidelity, and a covenantal relationship involving man, woman, and any children that result from their union.

In abandoning this traditional understanding, Farrow argues, the Canadian state … has overturned the natural family, separating biological from legal parenthood to the point where the terms mother and father are replaced by parent 1 and parent 2. In a recent case, the Ontario Court of Appeals ruled that a child could have three parents - in which case it seems only a matter of time before the state decides that a child's three or more parents can all be married to each other.

 … in deconstructing marriage, the state is defeating a key institution that offsets its power and domination over society. The real contrast is not the bogus one between civil and religious marriage as the Canadian courts described it, but the one they ignored, between state and civil society.

It is true that totalitarian states invariably seek to undermine and subordinate the family and all of civil society, dismantling them and slowly grinding them up, in Nietzsche's expression, "into a random collection of individuals, haphazardly bound together in the common pursuit of selfish ends." That sounds right for Nazi Germany or Communist Eastern Europe, where all civil society, everything that stands between individual and state, is weakened and destroyed.

But Canada? It sounds far-fetched, but if Farrow is right, we can expect to see, as in Europe today, the increasing control of the state over children's education and socialization (home-schooling was outlawed in Hitler's Germany and just recently parents have been arrested for defying the law). Parents cannot be trusted not to raise their children in their own faith, whose values may contradict those of the state; parents will have fewer and fewer rights to exempt their children from the state's version of sex education and instruction in the moral acceptability of fornication. Professionals, denied protections of conscience, will be fired, not for "imposing their moral views on their clients," but for failing to impose the state's.

It's already happening.

"We Are Stark Naked, Hollande Is Stark Naked, the Left Is Stark Naked": The Left "will have to be superhuman to face" the Swiss bank account scandal

President François "Hollande had staged the paragon of his presidency as the only palliative making a stand against the right and against our lack of innovation regarding fundamentals. Our only bonus on the soul side [the only bonus of the French Left, that is] was the moral one." Thus spake a socialist parliamentarian, who goes on to admit that, in the wake of The Cahuzac scandal, that soul bonus "is now dead as a doornail. We are stark naked, Hollande is stark naked, the Left is stark naked."

Added to the continuing rise in unemployment and the shrinking budget policy, writes Le Monde, the scandal is a severe blow to all. "There was already the difficult economic and social issue before us, if we now add moral disqualification, we will have to be superhuman to face" the country's problems, admits Thierry Mandon, the spokesman of the Socialist Party group in parliament.

Meanwhile, Jean-Pierre Raffarin opined that "the moralizing left has collapsed."

"I believe that the Left's pledge is more discredited than any other pledge because it has always been based on moral legitimacy and because the left has always wanted to give lectures to the whole planet," the former Prime Minister declared. François Hollande's campaign program has become obsolete. "It is economically obsolete, politically obsolete, and now morally obsolete as well."

"La gauche morale s'est effondrée", a ainsi estimé Jean-Pierre Raffarin. "Je pense que la parole de la gauche est plus décrédibilisée que toute parole parce qu'elle se fondait toujours sur une légitimité morale et que la gauche a toujours voulu donner des leçons à l'ensemble de la terre entière", a-t-il déclaré à Questions d'Info LCP/France Info/AFP/Le Monde.

… "Le président doit reformuler sa proposition aux Français", a-t-il poursuivi en faisant valoir que "son programme de campagne (était) devenu caduc". "Il est économiquement caduc, politiquement caduc et aujourd'hui moralement caduc."

As for Bastien Bonnefous, this is his report in Le Monde:

Après la haute "trahison", le tout petit espoir d'un "sursaut". Au lendemain des aveux de Jérôme Cahuzac, les députés socialistes ont tant bien que mal tenté de faire bonne figure mercredi 3 avril à l'Assemblée, sonnés et choqués par une vérité que beaucoup pensaient impossible.

Faute de mieux dans l'immédiat, les membres de la majorité se raccrochent comme des naufragés aux maigres annonces de l'exécutif sur un renforcement des règles de moralisation de la vie politique. Réuni le matin devant Jean-Marc Ayrault, le groupe parlementaire a été invité par le premier ministre à rester soudé et à "se projeter dans l'avenir, sur l'horizon", relate son président Bruno Le Roux. "On nous a dit "N'apparaissez pas abattus dans l'Hémicycle"", raconte un député, résumant le message général d'un "Souriez puisque c'est grave" plus dépité qu'ironique.

Rares sont les parlementaires à traîner dans la salle des Quatre Colonnes envahie par les micros et les caméras, comme c'est pourtant l'habitude le jour des questions au gouvernement. Jérôme Guedj (Essonne) confesse qu'"il y a des jours où on préférerait aller se promener dans le jardin des Tuileries". Le jeune député, membre de l'aile gauche du PS, cache mal son spleen. "Le dernier point sur lequel on pouvait se distinguer du précédent quinquennat, celui de la morale politique, vient de passer par-dessus bord", se lamente-t-il.

L'argument est partagé par beaucoup. "Hollande avait mis en scène l'exemplarité de son pouvoir comme seul palliatif face à la droite et à notre absence d'innovation sur le fond. Notre seul supplément d'âme était moral. Il est à présent mort. Nous sommes à poil, Hollande est à poil, la gauche est à poil", dramatise un autre élu. Ajouter le scandale Cahuzac à la hausse continue du chômage et à la politique de contraction budgétaire est un coup rude pour tous. "Il y avait déjà la dure couche économique et sociale, si on ajoute maintenant la disqualification morale, il faut être surhumain pour faire face", reconnaît Thierry Mandon (Essonne), porte-parole du groupe PS.

AMOUREUX TROMPÉS

Ces députés qui appréciaient tant les directs portés à la droite par le boxeur Cahuzac dans l'Hémicycle sont comme des amoureux trompés : leur dépit est à la hauteur de leur admiration d'hier. "Jérôme Cahuzac a démonétisé la parole du politique et celle qui récupère la donne, c'est Marine Le Pen. Maintenant, on ne croira plus personne et on aura tout le temps un doute", enrage Yann Galut (Cher) qui compare l'événement pour la gauche au "21 avril 2002" et craint le retour de flammes dans l'opinion.

"J'ai du mal à imaginer ce que je vais dire à mes électeurs qui vont nous accuser d'être des irresponsables, explique-t-il. La colère que nous avons, ils l'ont encore plus fortement. Toutes les semaines, sur les marchés, j'expliquais qu'il fallait faire des efforts, que tout le monde devait y contribuer..."

  … Les plus cyniques tentent de relativiser, espérant une rapide amnésie générale. Mais craignent de faire un rêve pieux. "On essaie de faire comme si on maîtrisait quoi que ce soit, comme si ce n'était qu'un mauvais moment à passer. On se dit que dans cinq jours, il ne restera rien de l'affaire Cahuzac, mais on se ment à nous-mêmes. On sait qu'on est entré dans une crise politique profonde", admet l'un d'eux.

Car derrière le cas Cahuzac, c'est une partie de l'identité de la gauche qui est questionnée, y compris par ses représentants nationaux. "Mon grand-père était à la CGT-Mineurs, mon père était syndicaliste. Mardi soir, j'ai pleuré car pour moi, Cahuzac, ce n'est pas la gauche pour laquelle je m'engage", explique Nicolas Bays (Pas-de-Calais).

Devastating News of the French Budget Minister's Secret Bank Account in Switzerland: "The Left's Entire Reform Movement Has Been Disgraced"

The huge scandal rocking the French government for the past couple of weeks is typical of the laws being for the common man and not for the (law-making) élites. A socialist government member, the country's budget minister no less — you know the type of leftist urging the people to be virtuous and upright citizens, to pay their taxes, and not to engage in fiscal fraud — has finally had to admit, after resigning that he has a bank account in Switzerland.

While the Jacques Cahuzac scandal is taking a heavy toll in François "I do not like rich people" Hollande's administration, with interior minister Manuel Valls denying any knowledge of the matter and Pierre Moscovici claiming that his earlier attempts to defend Jacques Cahuzac were part of a conspiracy to "use" him (i.e., to use Pierre Moscovici), in other news we learn that Jean-Jacques Augier (François Hollande's campaign treasurer!!) is known to have… invested in the Cayman Islands.

While Plantu delivers a stinging cartoon (drawing on the — historical — parallel between the Swiss flag and the Red Cross), the conclusion of François Chérèque (président de Terra Nova, ancien secrétaire général de la CFDT): "C'est toute la gauche réformiste qui est humiliée"— it's the left's entire reform movement which has been disgraced.

As for Le Monde, the daily in no way lets François "I do not like rich people" Hollande off the hook: an editorial states that we cannot tell which is worse: either the president knew, and he has been covering a lie, or he didn't  know, and he is incompetent…

Après quatre mois de dénégations solennelles, l'aveu par Jérôme Cahuzac qu'il possédait bien un compte bancaire à l'étranger est dévastateur.

Pour l'ancien ministre, foudroyé par sa faute et son mensonge. Pour le chef de l'Etat et le premier ministre, dont l'autorité a été bafouée. Pour l'Assemblée nationale, dont la confiance a été trahie. Pour tous les responsables politiques, enfin, que les Français mettront, plus que jamais, dans le même sac.

… "Faute morale impardonnable", a tranché le président de la République. Certes. Mais dont il est désormais le premier comptable. Le scandale Cahuzac est devenu, dans l'instant, l'affaire de François Hollande. Elle l'atteint au coeur même de son pouvoir.

    Depuis dix mois, la perte de crédit du chef de l'Etat était déjà profonde et handicapait son action. Elle risque de devenir abyssale, paralysante. Aux yeux des Français, soit il a été naïf ou incompétent, soit il a, peu ou prou, couvert ce mensonge. Dans les deux cas, la faute est lourde.

Tout aussi calamiteux : Jérôme Cahuzac était l'un des principaux artisans et l'un des meilleurs avocats de la politique économique menée par le gouvernement. Comment les citoyens ne seraient-ils pas écoeurés ou révoltés de constater que le grand argentier de l'Etat s'était froidement affranchi de la rigueur et des efforts qu'il leur réclamait ? Comment espérer convaincre, désormais, que la "justice" est au coeur du redressement ?

A la crise économique et sociale dans laquelle est plongée la France, au climat politique qui avait pris un tour délétère depuis peu, s'ajoute désormais une profonde crise démocratique, tant le plus élémentaire contrat de confiance entre le peuple et ses gouvernants est rompu.

La responsabilité du président de la République est, aujourd'hui, d'y répondre. Elle est immense. Elle est immédiate. Mais elle s'impose à François Hollande s'il veut éviter au pays des catastrophes politiques et une régression démocratique plus graves encore.

Update: the BBC reports that

French newspapers are calling it the biggest political crisis for Mr Hollande since his election last year, the AFP news agency reports.

He had promised voters morality and integrity in public life after what were nicknamed the "bling-bling" years of his conservative predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy.

But this year Mr Hollande's opinion poll ratings have slumped, as the country remains mired in recession and unemployment at 10.6%.

 … But Mr Hollande's administration has been chasing the wealthy with such investments abroad, our correspondent says. So Mr Augier's affairs are a problem for him.

Update: "We Are Stark Naked, Hollande Is Stark Naked, the Left Is Stark Naked"

La Marseillaise — The Parody

This parody of La Marseillaise should have been posted a couple of days ago,
on April 1st, but tant pis.

ThDubya also has parodies of such anthems such as those of Germany, Denmark, and of course the United States — not to mention the leftists' Internationale…

The post-tinfoil hat era has begun...

How will we be able to spot our betters without their trademark tinfoil hats?

Of course, we are aware of the date.......

Found in the Sands of Normandy: 69 Years Later, D-Day Veteran Recovers Item Lost on the Beaches

Last September, Stéphane Lamache, director of the Airborne Museum of Sainte-Mère-Eglise, in Normandy, in northern France, was taking a walk on the dunes of Agon-Coutainville with friends. It was a cloudless day. A small piece of metal was sticking out from the surface of the sand.

The historian immediately recognized that it was a dog tag, the metal identification worn around the neck by American soldiers on D-day.

Thus writes Benoît Hopquin in a un article pour Le Monde from the beaches of Normandy (translated by Worldcrunch).

On it were engraved the soldier's name – James Kelson -- his blood type, religion, and next of kin: Elsie Kelson, as well as an address in Washington DC.

This kind of discovery isn’t unheard of in Normandy, where more than 160,000 Allied soldiers landed on D-Day – June 6, 1944 – to liberate Europe from the Nazis. But when locals stumble upon a World War II relic, they usually just put it on a shelf or in a drawer and forget about it.

But being a D-Day historian, Lamache decided to search for Kelson in U.S. military archives and was able to retrieve a partial biography of the soldier.

James Kelson was born in 1921. He was African-American -- a Negro citizen as they were called at the time. He worked small jobs in restaurants, trains and steamboats. He was drafted on Dec 2, 1942, and sent to Fort Myer, Virginia before being sent to England and eventually landing in Omaha Beach, Normandy, in June 1944.

Like many African-American soldiers during the years of segregation, he was not in a combat unit, but in supplies – laundry.

A few words of French

The archives gave information on Kelson’s life but nothing on the circumstances of his death. When he searched death records and burial registers, Lamache found no mention of a James Kelson. He contacted a genealogist network in the U.S., who discovered a daughter, named Joan.

“And then, she told us that her father was still alive,” says Lamache. The 91-year-old veteran lives in a retirement home in Washington DC.

Antonin Dehays, a historian from the Airborne Museum who was in the U.S. for a research project, was able to meet with him in Washington. “I met a lot of French people, good people,” says Kelson. After being stationed in Normandy – in the cities of Cherbourg and Valognes – he was sent to patrol the Franco-Belgian border in late 1944, and then to Japan. He returned to the U.S. in 1946, and found work in construction.

He still remembers a few words of French, like the expression “comme ci, comme ça” (“so-so”).

What about the dog tag? Kelson has no memory of losing it, but it doesn’t matter anymore. Last Friday, the veteran was given his dog tag back in a small ceremony -- nearly 70 years after it was forgotten in the sand of a Normandy beach.

France, the Eldorado of America's Fast-Food Chains

La France est le pays où les KFC sont les plus rentables, avec un chiffre d'affaires par restaurant de 3 millions d'euros en moyenne, à peine inférieur à celui du leader du secteur, McDonald's (3,4 millions d'euros). C'est pour cette raison que KFC a démarré sa conquête de l'Europe par l'Hexagone.

   Remember all the brouhaha about America's awful food and the malbouffe that their fastfood joints are introducing to le pays de la gastronomie? No, neither do we.

In a full-page Le Monde article (La France, paradis du fast-food américain), Chloé Hecketsweiler and Julien Dupont-Calbo explain that for fast-food chains, France is a paradise and an Eldorado, a country that provides the largest number of restaurants and in which they make their best sales, in addition to being the nation that the Yanks in the mold of Ray Croc invariably use as a stepping stone to other markets in Europe.

   The hamburger has become haute couture in France, the country has become the second-largest market for McDonald's, Burger King's Marseille outlet attracts 2,000 customers per day, and Kentucky Fried Chicken opened its 150th restaurant recently (KFC is already busy planning for the next 150).

More McDonald's articles here…

Ivan Schofield, le directeur général pour l'Europe de l'Ouest de KFC … [le] patron britannique du groupe américain n'est pourtant pas très enclin à discuter malbouffe, même avec son français impeccable. Il voudrait plutôt parler de l'inauguration du 150^e KFC de France, situé dans le centre commercial de Rivesaltes (Pyrénées-Orientales), au bout des pistes de l'aéroport de Perpignan.

Pour KFC, ce chiffre est un vrai cap. "Nous voulons ouvrir 150 restaurants [de plus] d'ici à 2017, ce qui devrait représenter 17 % de croissance annuelle jusqu'à cette date", dit M. Schofield. Les ventes dans l'Hexagone ont déjà bondi de 8 % en 2012. Devant son expresso, il ne doute pas un instant que ses poulets figureront souvent au menu des Français, aux côtés des burgers de McDonald's ou des sandwichs de Subway. …

ELDORADO

Véritable eldorado pour le groupe américain, la France n'est pas pour autant un marché facile à conquérir. "Le déploiement demande beaucoup de temps et d'argent", explique M. Schofield. KFC cherche "des emplacements en périphérie [des villes], idéalement situés sur un rond-point en face d'un hypermarché".

 … Depuis 2001 et la relance de l'enseigne en France, la maison-mère, Yum ! Brands (aussi propriétaire de Pizza Hut et de Taco Bell) a investi près de 500 millions de dollars (380 millions d'euros) dans le développement du réseau.

Pour séduire la clientèle, le roi du poulet pané a aussi dû adapter ses recettes, suivant les traces de son rival McDonald's, le premier à avoir fait le pari d'une "francisation" de son offre. Ainsi, les Français ne raffolent pas des "buckets", ces "seaux" d'ailes ou de pilons frits qui ont fait la réputation du "colonel Sanders", l'homme qui fonda KFC dans les années 1930 – ils ne représentent que 10 % des ventes en France. Les petits soldats du colonel ont ainsi concocté une gamme de sandwichs, tel le "Brazer" – du poulet mariné cuit au four –, adaptés au goût des Français.

Et pour limiter l'effet "bombe calorique" (1 300 calories pour un repas complet tout de même), KFC propose de remplacer les frites par un épi de maïs ou une salade. …

 … Les poulets de KFC pourraient quoi qu'il en soit bientôt se lancer à la conquête de l'Europe. "La France est un modèle. Si l'on réussit ici, on réussira partout", plaisante M. Schofield. Ce que cette expérience lui a appris ? Mieux vaut jouer la carte de l'outsider que celle du leader mondial. Une "french touch"... pas très française.

Marriage has always been a forward-looking institution aimed at nurturing the next generation of children, not a love license for the adults of the present

Before the judiciary settles [the same-sex marriage] question — or perhaps leaves it unsettled — it would behoove us to pause in this rush, and ask what purpose the institution of marriage serves in our society

says Ed Morrissey (thanks to Robert Tracinski) in a The Week post which mirrors my own post from almost two years back (To Understand Liberal Issues Like Gay Marriage Correctly, It Is Vital to Get the Basic Premises Right).

Let's start by refining the argument. Supporters of same-sex marriage talk of "legalizing" gay marriages, but that's not an accurate depiction of current law. No U.S. state, regardless of its definition of marriage, will prosecute same-sex couples who call themselves "married," nor should they, outside of an intent to defraud — which is a crime regardless of the sexual circumstances. In fact, the government has a very limited legitimate interest in sexual or living arrangements. Especially after the Lawrence v. Texas case, the government has no role in regulating sexual activity with the exceptions of consanguinity (close blood relations), use of force and victimization, commercial trafficking of sexual favors, and exploitation of minors.

No one wants the government to dictate who may or may not share a bed, outside of those exceptional circumstances. Those who choose to cohabit in non-traditional relationships have ample options for formalizing their arrangements through the private contract process, which government enforces but does not sanction. That leaves adults free to choose whatever sexual arrangements they desire outside of the actual prohibitions that are objectively applied to everyone. That is actual freedom and equality.

Marriage, however, is a unique status even apart from religious concerns, which I'll address later. Marriage licenses exist as government recognition of the unique procreative potential of heterosexual relationships. The government takes a special interest in that potential for good reason — because a failure of the procreators to act as proper guardians forces the government to build safety-net systems for children whose parents either cannot or will not provide for them. Marriage provides a structure for assigning responsibility for children potentially produced by heterosexual relations. Put simply, it fixes responsibility for paternity on the husband, regardless of who may have fathered the children during a marriage — a fact that more than a few cuckolded husbands have discovered during divorce settlements. That structure ensures that the state can enforce responsibility for the care of its most vulnerable citizens, even to the extent of criminal prosecution for neglect.

In Western societies, including the U.S., marriage has always been a forward-looking institution aimed at protecting and nurturing the next generation of children, not a love license for the adults of the present.

Most states, until relatively recently, provided incentives for marriage and disincentives for divorce. Social experimentation undermined both, and safety-net programs accelerated the process. Thanks to no-fault divorce laws that put the whims of adults over the needs of children, the results of devaluing marriage for heterosexual unions have produced heavy social costs for the past few generations that have fallen outside of the traditional family structure.

 … In pushing to overturn a referendum passed by a large majority in California that enshrined the traditional definition of marriage into the state constitution, the opponents of Proposition 8 argue in essence that both the process and the policy chosen by the voters are entirely illegitimate. Voters used a direct-democracy mechanism that has existed in California for decades to amend the constitution no differently than other such propositions, and affirmed the definition of marriage that has existed during the entire history of this country. The challengers don't like the outcome, and argue that nine justices should only accept as a legitimate result of that referendum a definition of marriage that until the last few years few would have accepted, and negate a legitimate outcome in an election. That's an argument for an oligarchy or an autocracy, not a democracy. 

Tolerance, it seems, works only in one direction — and that brings us to the religious argument, but not in the manner one might think. 

While as a practicing Catholic my definition of marriage involves its sacramental character, I understand that others may not share my faith and perspective on its meaning or value. That, however, will not work both ways, as recent examples have made plain. For example, a baker in Oregon faces potential criminal charges for refusing to provide a wedding cake for a same-sex couple because of his religious beliefs. What happens when churches refuse to perform such ceremonies for the same reason?

Most people scoff at this question, but religions have partnered with the state on marriages in a way that bakers have not. Priests, ministers, rabbis, and imams act in place of the state when officiating at wedding ceremonies, and states that legalize same-sex marriage are eventually going to be forced by lawsuits to address that partnership, probably sooner rather than later. In similar partnerships, that has resulted in pushing churches out of business. 

… It's not difficult to see the writing on the wall when it comes to the ability of churches to perform a core sacrament in any meaningful sense once the government changes the definition of marriage.

The best outcome would be for Americans to recall the limited state interest in marriage and preserve it as a forward-looking institution, and return to incentivizing families rather than lowering barriers to failure.

Indeed. To return to the no-fault divorce laws "endemic to a governmental regime whose very existence is predicated and dependent on the power to remove children from their parents", Stephen Baskerville writes that the

practices and powers [of the nation's family courts] are undermining constitutional government in its most fundamental principles. The power to take children from their parents for no reason is arbitrary government at its most intrusive, since it invades and obliterates all of private life. Yet we have created a governmental machinery that exists for no other purpose.

Lenin: "Destroy the family, and you destroy society"

Those Wicked, Wicked Bankers! You Know Where All Those Bastards Are From, Dont'cha?

Xavier Gorce:
• So many bank charges for one tiny overdraft?!
• I hate bankers!
• They're all Krauts!
• So they're not Jews anymore?!

The Tsunami's Japanese Ghost Town

Le Monde carries Google's virtual visit of Namie, a ghost town a few kilometers from the Fukushima nuclear plant.

It Ain't Easy Livin' with a Femen Protester!

Ukraine's bare-breasted female protesters from the Femen movement with messages written on their (not unattractive) bodies have inspired copycats in France, leading Plantu to make a topless cartoon:

• T'ain't easy livin' with a Femen protester!

• Today is the day to take out the garbage!

Rest in Peace Hugo Chávez, Says a Mural in Paris Filled with Portraits of Venezuela's Caudillo

This Maria Thunholm photo of a mural from the Northwest of Paris saying "Rest in Peace Hugo Chávez" adjoining a massive portrait of Venezuela's late Caudillo was shared with us by Carine, a New-York-based Frenchwoman who asked if we now understood why she doesn't miss France…

Indeed, melanietoulouse comments :

you have to see it, to believe it… Comme les larmes et les phrases de Jean-Luc Mélenchon qui n’a jamais vécu sous une dictature communiste, brrr…

Apart from that, feel free to visit the Swedish photographer's photo website…

On the same wall in the same street (Rue Ordener) is another mural saying "Long Live Chavez!" along with "Patria O Muerte" (Fatherland or Death).

Obama is going to use the same tactics Communists used to control public opinion

Obama is about to launch a new campaign that will pick up where the old one left off

writes Thomas J. Basile in Forbes.

He’s going to use the same tactics Communists used to control public opinion. Back in the days of the old Soviet Union, the massive state-run information apparatus would fill news outlets with a persistent message about how ‘evil’ the United States was and the danger it posed to the world.

The Obama strategy is to do the same thing, leveraging liberal media bias, the latest technology, robust data and grassroots community organizing techniques, to smear the Republican Party as extremist, out of touch and disconnected from the needs of the majority of Americans.

  …What does the national GOP have to counter this juggernaut? In short – nothing. Of course, Republicans are quick to remind anyone who will listen that they supposedly have the intellectual high road and to a degree they’re right. More people in this country self-identify as conservative as opposed to liberal. Ask virtually any group of people and the majority of them will tell you they would choose a government that costs less, taxes less and provides fewer services over a government that costs more, taxes more and provides more services.

The problem is that in any pitched battle with [Obama for America, transformed into a 501(c)4 organization, Organizing for Action (OFA)], Republicans are faced with their own records of spending and giveaways that makes the President seem less radical than he actually is.

Republicans need to both hear and understand this point: Obama’s victory was not a vindication of his policies. It was the result of effective communication and an aggressive political infrastructure. He will win again and again without organized opposition.

 …We can’t rely on solely Congress to combat Obama and drive a rehabilitation of the conservative brand. Bottom-up organizing on a national level is what is needed. Go around Congress. Look beyond tired institutions like the national political committees to solve the problem if they are too paralyzed to act. Stop thinking about the beltway and start acting locally.

 … This is the way our system is supposed to ensure that the natural tension between freedom and collectivism is sustained.
Obama understands this better than anyone in recent history. He’s benefitted from not having an organized opposition. OFA will sell ice to Eskimos while conservatives worry about labels, party affiliation and litmus tests when they should be worrying about how best to preserve freedom. The infighting, the lack of vision and the insular thinking on the right has to come to an end.

If the Republicans are just going to rely on Obama moving too far to the left for moderates and conservative Democrats, they have another guess coming. It’s time for a summit of conservative leaders and organizations to define a series of priorities and commit to aggressive, coordinated outreach to a broader range of people than ever before. It’s time for conservatives to stop the bickering and start cooperating and organizing. It’s time to raise an army to turn this mismatch into a fair fight for freedom.

Illegal immigration is to immigration what shoplifting is to shopping

Arresting people for illegal activity is scandalous?!

 … Robbers are real people too, but we don't rush to their defense with the argument that they're somehow too special to get arrested…

Jerry Agar points ou that Illegal immigration is to immigration what shoplifting is to shopping (thanks to Instapundit).
 
• Related: It So Happens That Every Illegal Alien in America Already Does Have Papers

• No one talks about legal immigrants who are hard working men and women, who wait for the frustratingly slow process that seems to discriminate against those who want to do it by the book

• Sarah A. Hoyt on Being American

• Phyllis Schlafly's Rules for Addressing Amnesty