The Difference Between Economic Power and Political Power

Economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward, an incentive, a payment, a value; political power is exercised by means of a negative, by the threat of punishment, injury, imprisonment, destruction. The businessman's tool is values; the bureaucrat's tool is fear.

— Ayn Rand 

Plus another Ayn Rand quote:

Humor is not an unconditional virtue; its moral character depends on its object. To laugh at the contemptible, is a virtue; to laugh at the good, is a hideous vice. Too often, humor is used as the camouflage of moral cowardice.

— The Romantic Manifesto

The story of Matthew Shepard's life and death bears no resemblance to what actually happened

Fresh off the presses this week is a book that liberals already hate

writes Benny Huang, as it emerges that the gay movement's martyr was not killed in a hate crime, for the simple reasons that 1) the Matthew Shepard slaying concerned drug dealing (as conservatives have long been claiming) and (this one's the revelation) that 2) the supposed ' “homophobic” rednecks ' were as gay as Matthew Shepard himself was (having shared his bed).

Stephen Jimenez’s The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard reexamines the 1998 murder of a homosexual college student in Laramie, Wyoming, and concludes that the media narrative simply doesn’t square with reality.

Shepard was indeed the victim of a very brutal murder but it was never about gay-bashing. It was about crystal meth. The killer and his accomplice were not strangers to Shepard, as had been previously reported. They had known each other prior to that night, done drugs together, and one of them had even had sexual relations with Shepard.

As expected, the thesis isn’t going over well with the pink triangle crowd. They will not however, be able to silence Jimenez with accusations of “homophobia.” He is an openly homosexual journalist.

Jimenez’s journey began in the year 2000 when he travelled to Wyoming intending to write a screenplay about the murder. The picture he planned to paint matched the threadbare media narrative exactly because it was all he knew. He soon discovered that most of what he believed about case was a fiction.

It is nearly impossible to overestimate the importance of Matthew Shepard’s martyrdom to the homosexual movement. If he hadn’t existed, they would have had to have invented him. They did invent him, in a manner of speaking. The story of his life and death bares no resemblance to what actually happened. The really nice gay kid who was slain by “homophobic” rednecks for no other reason than his sexual orientation is a myth. He shares a name with the real Shepard—a troubled drug-dealer who ran with the wrong crowd—but little else.

The Shepard murder marked the beginning of the end of rational discussion about homosexuality in this country. Prior to his murder, people could still voice their objections without losing their jobs and being publicly shamed. His murder blurred the lines between ideas and murderous deeds.

Homophobia killed Matthew Shepard. That was the moral to the Shepard story. Holding the wrong beliefs about homosexuality was akin to killing another human being. Belief equals violence.

Time Magazine ran a cover story about the murder depicting the fenceline upon which Matthew’s tortured body was found. The headline said it all: “The War Over Gays.” All wars have at least two sides. Whose side are you on? The side of the redneck cowboy murderers or the seemingly nice young man whose corpse was found on that fence?

 … A mother’s mind can become warped by the trauma of burying her 21-year old son. She has spent the last fifteen years believing a lie. But in what alternate universe does a person have to live to believe that a dyed-in-the-wool “homophobe” like me is more guilty of her son’s murder than Henderson and McKinney?

If Mrs. Shepard wanted some good to come of this she could expend her energy educating people on the danger of drugs. She has chosen to defame innocent people instead. “homophobic” rednecks patrols the open range of America in search of the thought criminals who supposedly killed her son. She won’t rest until she’s rounded them all up. The badge she wears is that of a mother’s “absolute moral authority.” Readers should recall that handy term from the summer of 2005 when syndicated columnist Maureen Dowd declared that Cindy Sheehan’s antics were legitimate because she had lost her son in Iraq. Absolute moral authority means that the rest of us aren’t allowed to argue with her because her grievance makes her right.

 … the mythical version is a sham. Aaron McKinney wasn’t a “homophobe” but a homosexual. More importantly, he was a methamphetamine addict who hadn’t slept in days. He killed Judy Shepard’s son so he could keep his binge going. He then took the victim’s wallet, coat, shoes, and the key to his apartment so he could burglarize that too. That’s the true story of Matthew Shepard.

How terrifying the truth must be to people who have believed a lie for so long. Why must they cling to this fiction like a life raft in the middle of the wide ocean? The answer is that so much “good” has come out of his death. Matthew’s murder propelled the movement forward. Same-sex marriage was just a dream in 1998; today it’s a reality in eleven states and the District of Columbia. A hate crimes bill that bears his name is now the law of the land. Schools from coast to coast now have anti-bullying codes that ban speech homosexuals don’t want to hear. The Supreme Court has discovered a right to sodomy in the Constitution.

German Greens' Early Support for Pedophilia Comes Back to Haunt Them

The Greens were trounced in the latest elections, gathering only half the numbers that the polls had expected them to win, writes Frédéric Lemaître in Le Monde, and a major part of the reason is the recent revelations of their earliest programs, which have come (back) to light, notably the party's 1980 program which wanted to depenalize adult-child sexual relations ("the sexual liberation of children") as well as same-sex relations.

Related: The Sexual Revolution and Children — How the Left Took Things Too Far:

In his 1975 autobiographical book "Der Grosse Basar" (The Great Bazaar), Green Party politician Daniel Cohn-Bendit describes his experiences as a teacher in a Kinderladen in Frankfurt. When the children entrusted to his care opened his fly and began stroking his penis, he writes, "I was usually quite taken aback. My reactions varied, depending on the circumstances."

 Frédéric Lemaître in Le Monde:

La critique a d'abord touché Daniel Cohn-Bendit. Puis le parti écologiste dans son ensemble. Puis, par ricochet, le Parti libéral (FDP). Et maintenant la presse. Et la vague est loin d'être retombée. Trois ans après les révélations sur les pratiques pédophiles au sein de l'Eglise catholique, l'Allemagne s'interroge aujourd'hui sur sa tolérance passée à l'égard des rapports sexuels entre adultes et enfants.

 … mi-mars, un mois avant la remise du [prestigieux prix Theodor-Heuss] à [Daniel Cohn-Bendit] à Stuttgart, Andreas Vosskuhle, le président de la Cour constitutionnelle de Karlsruhe, fait savoir qu'il renonce à prononcer l'éloge de l'ancien leader de Mai 68. La raison ? Ses écrits, "qui ne sont pas sans poser problème". Le magistrat fait référence au Grand Bazar (Belfond, 1975), ce livre dans lequel Daniel Cohn-Bendit raconte son expérience d'éducateur dans un jardin d'enfants autogéré de Francfort.

Il m'était arrivé plusieurs fois que certains gosses ouvrent ma braguette et commencent à me chatouiller, écrit-il. Je réagissais de manière différente selon les circonstances mais leur désir me posait un problème. Je leur demandais : "Pourquoi ne jouez-vous pas ensemble, pourquoi vous m'avez choisi, moi, et pas les autres gosses ?" Mais s'ils insistaient, je les caressais quand même.

 A de nombreuses reprises, le député européen s'est par la suite défendu en expliquant qu'"il n'y a eu aucun acte de pédophilie. La pédophilie est un des crimes les plus abjects qui puissent exister. Il n'y a pas eu de ma part non plus de désir d'enfants. Là où il y a un grand problème, c'est mon désir de provocation".

DANS LE PROGRAMME DU PARTI EN 1980

 … impossible, à six mois des élections fédérales du 22 septembre, de se contenter de dénoncer une exploitation de faits anciens à des fins politiques. Pour éteindre l'incendie, le parti écologiste ouvre ses archives à Franz Walter, un professeur qui dirige un institut de recherche en science politique (Göttinger Institut für Demokratieforschung). Rémunéré 209 000 euros, celui-ci doit remettre son rapport à la fin de 2014, mais le contrat prévoit qu'à chaque fois que le chercheur fait une découverte significative il la publie sans attendre, se contentant de prévenir les Verts douze heures à l'avance.

Auteur de nombreux travaux de sociologie politique, Franz Walter ne passe pas pour être complaisant avec les Verts. La suite va le confirmer. Le 12 août puis le 16 septembre, le chercheur publie dans la presse deux articles retentissants. Dans le premier, il revient en détail sur le combat mené par les Verts pour dépénaliser les relations sexuelles entre adultes et mineurs, au même titre que les relations entre personnes de même sexe. Cette revendication figure explicitement dans le premier programme du parti, adopté en 1980. Il montre aussi comment, à la même époque, l'Association allemande d'études et de travail sur la pédophilie a fait du lobbying en ce sens et pesé sur les débats d'une autre formation politique, le Parti libéral (centre droit).
 … 

"UN FORT HÉDONISME INDIVIDUALISTE"

 … Le 22 septembre, les Verts n'attirent que 8,4 % des électeurs. Deux fois moins que ce que laissaient encore prévoir les sondages un an plus tôt.

Pendant la campagne, les choses paraissaient simples : les Verts, dans leur volonté de subvertir l'ordre établi, avaient, lors de leur fondation dans les années 1980, plaidé pour une autre sexualité, plus permissive, allant jusqu'à porter des revendications qui, aujourd'hui, paraissent déplacées. La Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung a d'ailleurs publié, le 15 septembre, un article en ce sens (refusé par la Tageszeitung) dans lequel l'auteur, Christian Füller, expliquait sur deux pages que les Verts ont "créé une idéologie qui favorise l'abus des enfants".

Le professeur Walter ne partage pas cet avis. "La protection de la nature et le développement durable ne constituent pas un terreau propice à la pédophilie et à l'abus d'enfants. Mais les Verts ont un deuxième créneau qui est curieusement peu compatible avec le premier : une sorte de libéralisme fondamental associé à un fort hédonisme individualiste. Dans cet environnement, ont émergé dans les années 1970, avant la fondation des Verts, des revendications pour la dépénalisation des délits sexuels et pour une tolérance à l'égard de la sexualité entre adultes et enfants. Au début des années 1980, une partie de ce libéralisme radical s'est retrouvée chez les Verts", explique-t-il au Monde.

DANS LES ANNÉES 70, UNE PRESSE PLUTÔT COMPLAISANTE

Certains articles de la presse allemande des années 1970 illustrent cette tendance. D'ailleurs, le Spiegel et Die Zeit ont battu leur coulpe, à la suite des recherches du professeur Walter. "Les principaux médias de la République ont contribué à banaliser la pédophilie dans les années de la révolution sexuelle", reconnaît le Spiegel, qui consacre, le 1er octobre, plus de deux pages à cette "errance morale".

A plusieurs reprises, l'hebdomadaire a publié des articles complaisants à l'égard de la pédophilie, cette "variante plus tendre du travail social". Et que dire de cette "une" de 1977 sur "les enfants et le marché du sexe" illustrée par la photo d'une fillette de 12 ans simplement vêtue d'une paire de bas et d'un collier lui descendant jusqu'au nombril ? "Cette publication était problématique et elle le reste aujourd'hui", écrit le journal, qui a d'ailleurs retiré cette couverture et ce dossier de ses archives en ligne.

Les charges contre Die Zeit, l'hebdomadaire de l'intelligentsia allemande, sont aussi accablantes. Dans une série d'articles parue en 1969, Rudolf Walter Leonhardt, responsable du Feuilleton (l'équivalent d'une rubrique Culture et Débats), défend longuement la pédophilie, "un tabou qu'il faut revoir", estime-t-il, s'appuyant notamment sur certaines théories d'Adorno, du sexologue Alfred Kinsey, ou sur les pratiques d'intellectuels comme Edgar Allan Poe ou Novalis.

 … Est-ce un hasard ? Les deux partis qui incarnent ce mouvement, les Verts et le Parti libéral, ont nettement reculé aux élections.

DES RÉPERCUSSIONS EN FRANCE ?

Les résultats des travaux de Franz Walter pourraient avoir des répercussions dans d'autres pays européens. Dès son premier article, le professeur a insisté sur l'influence des défenseurs de la pédophilie aux Pays-Bas, encore plus grande qu'en Allemagne, selon lui, ainsi que sur la France, où "il y avait une plus longue tradition et aussi une plus grande sympathie pour ce courant de pensée chez des intellectuels de premier plan qu'en Allemagne".

Et le professeur de rappeler que, en janvier 1977, la fine fleur de l'intelligentsia française, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Louis Aragon, Catherine Millet, André Glucksmann, Jack Lang et Bernard Kouchner, avait publié dans Le Monde et Libération une lettre ouverte dans laquelle elle affichait sa solidarité avec trois hommes détenus et en attente de procès pour délit sexuel à l'encontre d'enfants de 13 et 14 ans. La boîte de Pandore ouverte par les Verts allemands n'est pas près de se refermer...

Monty Python on Colonialism and U.S. Imperialism

Since Instapundit references an American Interest story on the evils of colonization (not), I thought it would be entirely appropriate to reproduce an NP post (with video) in which a Mali Native Tells an (Incredulous) MSM Reporter That He Would Like Nothing Better Than for Mali to Be Colonized by Whites Again.

To that I will add a No Pasarán post from 2004, the blog's first year of operation (yup, this blog is celebrating its 10th anniversary next Spring, how 'bout that?), reproducing what is perhaps the best sketch ever — and certainly the most thought-inspiring — in the history of comedy.

****

Since Dominique Dhombres praises a French intellectual for chastizing the United States as the modern equivalent of the Roman Empire, I thought it not unhelpful to present one of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite films. In fact, any time somebody talks to me about imperialism, American or other, modern or old, I have to resist the urge to jump the person, tie him to a chair in front of a video player, and show him the scene in a loop for 48 hours straight.

In the scene (video below), the members of one of the most patriotic, determined, extremist, and intransigent resistance groups fighting against the Roman occupier have gathered in a dark room for a secret meeting. All the men of the People's Front of Judea are masked, except for their leaders, and when the scene starts, the top honcho is ending a pep talk.

Furious about the Roman Empire's occupation of their land, Reg spits out: “They bled us white, the bastards! They’ve taken everything we have.” He continues raving and ranting about how they took everything from their “fathers” and their “fathers' fathers”, before ending with a majestic rhetorical question. “And what have they ever given us in return?!” With that, he stops, and crosses his arms, feeling very satisfied. He realizes that he has made one of the best speeches of his career.

Just then, a shy masked commando raises a finger. “The aqueduct…”

“What?” asks Reg, slightly taken aback.

“The aqueduct”, repeats the man.

“Oh yeah yeah they did give us that, uh-huh that’s true…”

Another commando, as masked as his colleague, chimes in. “And the sanitation…”

Stan, Reg's second-in-command sitting next to him, intervenes with naïve energy: “Oh yeah, the sanitation, Reg. Remember what the city used to be like.”

Murmurs of agreement rise from the commandos in the room.

The meeting is not at all going in the direction Reg expected it to, and he's starting to lose patience: “Yeah, all right, I’ll grant you the aqueduct and the sanitation are two things the Romans have done…”

Another terrorist interrupts him: “And the roads…”

Reg, brusquely: “Oh well obviously the roads, I mean the roads go without saying, don’t they?! … But apart from the sanitation, the aqueduct, and the roads…”

Other terrorists, who have definitely not understood the purpose of their leader’s speech and his rhetorical question, chime in: “Irrigation” “Medicine” “Education” “Public baths” “And the wine” while their comrades nod and murmur words of agreement (“Yuh, yuh that’s something we’d really miss, Reg, if the Romans left”).

Stan adds, innocently: “And it’s safe to walk in the streets at night now, Reg”. Reg’s lips have become ever more pursed and his expression ever darker as he taps his fingers impatiently, but nobody seems to notice, least of all Francis, Reg’s other neighbor, who adds with joviality: “Yeah, they certainly know how to keep order. Let’s face it, they’re the only ones who could in a place like this!” (general laughter).

Finally, with a sharp voice, Reg cuts the discussion short: “Alright, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, the roads, a fresh-water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?”

A shy finger goes up…“Brought peace…”

“Oh, peace! SHUT UP!”

****

There you have it! The only way that the liberals can perpetuate their self-serving self-image (of themselves as valiant resistance fighters arriving to help the people like gallant knights on white horses) is by ignoring facts, inconvenient and otherwise, and getting people, adversaries as well as followers, to keep their mouthes closed about said facts.

Related: For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid! pleads Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati

[Good intentions such as eliminating hunger and poverty] have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid.

It sounds like government programs in the West:

As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa's problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn't even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid.

Obama's Revenge

Le Monde's headline is called Obama's Revenge, calling him the winner in the budget crisis, while Philippe Bernard demonizes the Koch brothers (Kochtopus) and Plantu has Obamacare saving a debt-covered Uncle Sam while Barack states that "He [the sadistic-looking teapot] is finally putting an end to his tea-based care" (which is doing nothing but burning Unca Sam's feet)…

The government reserves special hatred for the family, because it gives the individual a locus of attention besides the state, and therefore, must be crushed

On Instapundit, Joseph White writes that

The long-term goal of the government's social policies are to flatten society out into one atomized mass. There will be only the state and the individual, and the individual will have no protection, no mediating institutions, between itself and the state.

Antipathy towards a wide variety of actors--the Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts, "special interests" of all types, political parties, private universities--can all be understood in light of this fact.

The government reserves special hatred for the family, because the family is older than the state and, unless steps are taken, will outlast it. It gives the individual a locus of attention besides the state, and therefore, must be crushed. The ongoing destruction of the concepts of both marriage and family by the left is intended to remove permanently the transcendent family from the political sphere, leaving only mere biological relationships, which are not enough to inspire resistance to the state.

The Shutdown, as Seen From France (2): Cruz and Palin "went to the White House to move some barricades around"

Ted Cruz … went to the White House in the company of Sarah Palin to move some barricades around

writes Corine Lesnes in Le Monde.

Ted Cruz … est allé remuer quelques barricades près de la Maison Blanche en compagnie de Sarah Palin

That's it. Make it sound as silly and ridiculous as possible.

The fact that the barricades are/were special barricades set up for a specific (and entirely political) purpose is left out; the White House's whole kabuki theater of shutting down (open-air) memorials is omitted; all the veterans and other protesters present are dropped out of the picture (Cruz and Palin seem to be almost alone in Le Monde's one-sentence description of their protest).

That's the mainstream media for ya — in Europe as in America…

Serguei is no better, needless to say, with the Le Monde cartoonist showing the Republican Party's elephant fiercely keeping the American eagle from taking off.
See also: The Shutdown, as Seen from France (1)

Democrat Leader Wants to Ship Americans at Odds with the White House to "an American Siberia" (i.e., Alaska)

Mayor Frank Hague, rabid champion — by his own definition and according to his own lights — of the doctrine of “America for Americans” … added to his program the proposal of an American “Siberia” in Alaska, to which Americans at odds with the government would be shipped posthaste. The Jersey City boss made this expansion to his reiterated basic program this afternoon in testifying in his own defense in court here as proceedings were continued in the suit brought by John L. Lewis’s Committee for Industrial Organization.

Notice how the fact that Frank Hague is a Democrat is never stated (in fact, even the New York Times cannot deny that he was "the … mayor and political boss who set the standard for corruption, even by New Jersey standards").

Having said that, there is something we have no choice but to confess. Alright, full confession: this item appeared in International Herald Tribune's 75 Years Ago section, and is thus from 1938 — and that at a time when Lenin and Stalin's Soviet society (along with its labor camps) was praised all over the West.

Still, why is it that the first thing that comes to mind is: "Plus ça change…"?

Sarkozy Wife Prides Herself in Feeling Like a Little Girl When Meeting Obama

One of the publishing events of the season in France is an autobiography by Cécilia Attias Nicolas Sarkozy is back in the news, having successfully fought off at a time when "investigation into charges that [the former President] had manipulated a fragile heiress into financing his 2007 campaign, removing a potential obstacle to the political return that Mr. Sarkozy is widely assumed to be planning."

The wife (his second) who divorced Sarko (her second husband) shortly after he was elected president in 2007 wanted to tell her own truth and has been going around giving interviews.

Among other things in the Elle interview, the former Cécilia Ciganer-Albéniz ex-Martin ex-Sarkozy has something quite good to say and something rather appalling to say.

For instance, she writes that in New York, where she now lives, they would speak of someone like her father (a Jewish immigrant who had to rebuild everything in France) as "a self-made man."

I regret that in France, such a person is called an upstart [a parvenu].

But later, when asked to explain why Nicolas lost in 2012, she suggests that it might be too much transparency, which is

a double-edged sword. By showing oneself too close [to the people], one risks to lose the grandeur of the
post. For instance, I don't like the idea of a "normal president" [as François Hollande styles himself]. When I meet a president, i like to be intimidated. I may be naive but I claim the right of being impressed. I need to admire. When I met Barack Obama, I became a little girl!

Perhaps women should become like little girls when meeting people like Obama, Cécilia, but should grown men feel like small boys?!

No man — indeed, no citizen, male or female — should feel like a child before a leader — also known, and better known, as a servant. They are grown-ups, they are citizens, and such they should remain at all times outside the home and with whomever they are dealing.

That may or may not have been the message of the French Revolution, but that was certainly the message of the American Revolution.

That may or may not be the way it's supposed to be in the French Republic, but that is certainly the way it is supposed to be in the American Republic.

The Shutdown, as Seen from France

Like an immense Godzilla or King Kong, a huge white Republican elephant
stomps on poor Barack Obama's White House in Chloé Pazat's Le Monde cartoon.

Like an immense Godzilla or King Kong, a huge Republican elephant with stars on the trunks worn by its white body stomps on poor Barack Obama's White House in Chloé Pazat's Le Monde cartoon…

The International Herald Tribune Is Gone, Off the Newsstands for Good

(Well, Not Really) Today, the International Herald Tribune is gone:

On Tuesday, The International Herald Tribune, the global edition of The New York Times, becomes The International New York Times. The paper has changed names a number of times since its founding 126 years ago, but its mission has always remained the same: to provide a global perspective on events and ideas shaping the world. This is a look at its journey so far.

What follows at the link is a retrospective of news and editorials, from the 1890s to the 2000s, but if you really want a good time, read Art Buchwald's 1956 report of the Monaco wedding between Prince Rainier and Grace Kelly. A couple of years earlier, the humorist had written Tax Deductions Made Easy…
My take:

I've been a devoted reader of the International Herald Tribune since the tender age of 8.

(Okay, at that time I only read the comics page, but still…)

I had a number of letters to the editor in the paper since then, although only about boring international happenings and tedious issues of liberty and freedom (they never published my missives complaining every time they got rid of another comic strip — Buzz Sawyer, Beetle Bailey, Blondie, etc; I never understood why Dennis the Menace was less important than Dilbert).

Maybe soon the NYT will take the next logical step, and follow the NYT's example, getting rid of if its comics page altogether (no, seriously, folks, the Big Apple-based editors pride themselves on the NYT being without a comics page)!

Leave the comics page alone, New Yorkahs.
And leave the IHT's name alone, as well!

If you must change anything at all, do as follows:
change the name of the New York Times to
the "New York International Herald Tribune"!

In Obama's America, Everyone Must Know Their Place

In the leftist paradise that is Barack Obama's America, everyone must know their place.

That goes from common citizens to journalists while including soldiers and combat veterans who must give up their right to visit war memorials so that the apologizer-in-chief can use them — "my military", remember — for his kabuki theater against Republicans and whoever else his opponents, real or imagined, may be. (Yes, places too must "know their place", in a manner of speaking — for they exist too merely, or mainly, for the benefit of the supreme leader.)

And God forbid (so to speak — it really ought to be "Obama forbid") that a Catholic priest in the military should want to celebrate Mass on an army base. Bringing relief to a given soldier, even with the priest forgoing his payment because of the government shutdown, is not an option if it goes against the Supreme Commander's attempt to utilize said shutdown to his benefit. And so, if he does not know his place, the priest will face arrest. (Sarah Hoyt calls this "a means of “spanking” the American public for not falling into line.")

For in the leftist pantheon, people who took to arms and risked their lives on the battlefield are not heroes. (Well, a bit, but only to a certain extent…)

The only real heroes there are — the only white knights on white horses there are — are the leftist politicians — those people who don't cling to their guns and bibles but who are wise, and tolerant, and generous, and forward-looking, etc etc etc — who come dashingly to the rescue of the poor and defenseless.

The real villains in the world are not the Russians, the Iranians, the Syrians, the communists…

The only true despicable people in the world are red-blood Americans who can't understand, who don't want to understand, that Obama and his government is here to help them, others, everybody.

And they must be punished.

Punished for not knowing their place.

Punished for opposing the leftist agenda.

Punished by the IRS for having the temerity to vote against Barack Obama and Obamacare.

Punished with IRS audits that will put those despicable individuals in their place.

Blacks, Obama is on your side; physicians, Obama is here to help you; black physicians, Obama is here for your sake, and if you don't understand your duty to stand by your savior (ya listenin', Ben Carson?!), then, by golly, you will be punished too!

Time to recall what I consider the single most important paragraph in Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism (to which I have added a couple of editor notes):

That is how the liberal Gleichschaltung works; contrary voices are regulated, barred, banned when possible, mocked and marginalized when not. Progressive voices are encouraged, lionized, amplified — in the name of "diversity,'' or "liberation," or "unity," and, most of all, "progress."

Shouldn't we update that for the Obama adminsitration?

That is how the liberal Gleichschaltung works; contrary voices are regulated [by the IRS], barred [by the IRS], banned [by the IRS] when possible, mocked and marginalized when not. Progressive voices are encouraged, lionized, amplified — in the name of "diversity,'' or "liberation," or "unity," and, most of all, "progress."

Fox News:

“This is the people's memorial,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz told a crowd of several hundred gathered near the WWII Memorial on the closed National Mall, which has become a national symbol of the shutdown and the country’s response. “Simple question: Why is the federal government spending money to keep veterans out of the memorial? Why did they spend money to keep people out of Mount Vernon, Mount Rushmore? Our veterans should be above political games.”

 … “Today somebody’s wife [or] husband is dead in Afghanistan. Is somebody going to pay her husband [or] his wife or their children?” one protester shouted at the White House, referring to the partial shutdown cutting off benefits for the survivors of military personnel.

Some of the metal barricades were carried the roughly half-mile walk from the memorial to the White House, where they were left near the fence in front of Pennsylvania Avenue.

 …  Protesters shouting “U.S.A.” and “Tear down these walls” put the blame squarely on President Obama and Democratic congressional leaders.

“In a mean-spirited fit of selfish anger, Barack Obama has shut down our nation’s war memorials,” march organizers said in a press release. “And he has declared open war on our honored veterans. The World War II memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial, Obama has shut them all down to force his will on the House of Representatives and, frankly, to get revenge on the American people who oppose ObamaCare and his other naked power grabs.”

Sent Directly to Hell: Early Censorship on French Television

Le Monde's Daniel Psenny presents a report, which shows how much the French television was into censorship. In journalist lingo, the reports that displeased the authorities prior to being broadcast were sent to "hell", hell being the part of the TV headquarters building where undesirable news reports, cultural programs, and others ended up.

L'"enfer" … Pour comprendre dans quelles conditions ces films ont été précipités en enfer, il faut remonter dans le passé. Plus précisément à la présidence du général de Gaulle, au début des années 1960. Souhaitant contrôler les journaux d'informations à la radio et à la télévision - "les voix de la France" -, le président de la République avait mis en place un système de censure que les journalistes avaient bien du mal à contourner. A la tête de ce système, on trouvait Alain Peyrefitte, ministre de l'information depuis 1962, chargé des basses oeuvres audiovisuelles. Chaque matin, il réunissait dans son bureau les responsables de la radio et de la télévision, à qui il dictait le conducteur quotidien de leurs différents journaux. Ensuite, il les faisait surveiller par quelques fonctionnaires du service de liaison interministériel pour l'information (SLII), organisme interne de son ministère chargé, jusqu'en 1969, de contrôler la "bonne conduite" de la radio et de la télévision. Rien n'échappait à ces hommes de l'ombre dont le zèle frôlait souvent l'abus de pouvoir. Ainsi, lorsqu'un reportage traitait d'un sujet politiquement sensible ou que des images ou des commentaires ne plaisaient pas, il était immédiatement envoyé en "enfer".

 … De leur côté, les moindres gestes du général de Gaulle et de son gouvernement sont surveillés. Un fonctionnaire du SLII a par exemple envoyé en "enfer" quelques images du chef de l'Etat qui, lors d'une visite officielle en Italie, se mouche en se promenant sur la place Saint-Marc, à Venise ! Enfin, les opposants au Général sont systématiquement censurés : ce sera le cas, notamment, du fameux appel des généraux "félons" d'Alger.

 … Les événements de Mai 68 ont mis fin aux activités du SLII, qui n'a pas survécu aux grèves générales des personnels de télévision ni aux attaques de l'opposition, représentée alors par François Mitterrand. Cependant, tous les gouvernements qui se sont succédé au pouvoir - y compris ceux de gauche - ont créé des organes de substitution. En 1976, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing a créé le Service d'information et de diffusion (SID), dont le rôle était la coordination et la diffusion de la communication gouvernementale. En 1996, sous Jacques Chirac, le SID est devenu le Service d'information du gouvernement (SIG), qui est toujours en activité et dont les missions, qui ont évolué depuis, sont de valoriser l'action du gouvernement et de coordonner sa communication auprès des médias.

Aujourd'hui, le jeu est plus subtil et rien n'est imposé aux journalistes. Désormais, au lieu de supprimer ou de censurer des reportages, ce sont les partis politiques eux-mêmes qui produisent et fournissent gratuitement des images aux chaînes de télévision... Un autre enfer.

French Waiters' Mentality: ‘Don’t bother me when I’m working’

On a recent afternoon near the Place de la Bastille, Alberto Riberio, a tourist from Spain, stopped with his family at a quaint cafe and asked a waiter if they could sit down

writes Liz Alderman in a New York Times article in which the money quote comes in the final paragraph.

 “Look around!” he recalled the waiter replying abruptly. “You see empty tables, don’t you?”

When the family tried to order food in halting French, the waiter rolled his eyes, Mr. Riberio said. Later, when a wrong dish was served, an argument ensued over whether it would be changed. 

“In general, the French can be quite friendly and helpful,” said Mr. Riberio, whose family went on to have a pleasant stay. But the encounter “was a reminder of why they can also have a reputation for being rude,” he said. 

In the City of Light, an eternal question is once again spurring debate: Is the stereotype of the brusque Frenchman justified, or do visitors just not understand the French? 

The soul-searching is coming from an unlikely place: the Paris tourism board. It is ramping up a charm offensive to burnish the image of France — and Paris in particular — as a kinder place for tourists. Officials have been deluging cafes, hotels, shops and taxi ranks with 20,000 more pamphlets titled “Do You Speak Touriste?”, a manual on how to make travelers feel more welcome, after 35,000 copies handed out in July ran out.

The British, it advises, want to be called by their first names. The Japanese need to feel reassured. The Spanish mainly want people to be nice. (“I would agree with that,” Mr. Riberio said.) As for Americans, the guide notes, they are glued to their personal devices and want to eat as early as 6 p.m. — a frightful thought to a typical Parisien.

“The goal is to fight against a bad reputation, and improve the quality of the welcome in Paris,” said François Navarro, the communication director for the tourism board, the Comité Régional du Tourisme Paris Île-de-France. With 30 million tourists a year, Paris is one of the most visited cities in the world, he said. “But we can do more.” 

How much more remains to be seen. Paul Kappe, an owner of the renowned Brasserie de l’Isle Saint-Louis, perched behind the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, gave a Gallic shrug when he saw the brochure.

“It starts with the assumption that the French are disagreeable,” said Mr. Kappe, a contemplative man who kept a watchful eye on the restaurant’s sunny terrace, full of waiters and patrons crammed behind tiny tables. “Well, that does have the ring of truth,” he said. “But it won’t stop a waiter from being unpleasant.” 

He added, “Their mentality is, ‘Don’t bother me when I’m working.’ ”

 … many of the 600,000 Parisiens employed in the tourism industry place a premium on politesse. 

Still, “snobisme” is hardly a relic of the past, and even the French complain about a perceived lack of civility among some of their big-city brethren. A spate of mocking television ads by the newspaper Le Parisien a few years ago, showing Parisiens cutting in line and leaving poodle droppings on the sidewalk, provoked knowing laughs. And this is by no means the first time the government has encouraged a more polished image: in 1995, a “Bonjour” campaign urged people to be pleasant to tourists, echoing several similar efforts since World War II. 

Of course, tourists can be uncouth, too. “A lot of Americans shout, or don’t say hello, and then they say the French treated them rudely,” said Karen Fawcett, the president of BonjourParis, a Web site that dispenses travel and cultural insights. “If you don’t have some cultural sensitivity, you are probably not going to be well received.” 

Ms. Fawcett said her main tips for visitors were to be polite, keep their voices down and not assume they will be served immediately. “A simple ‘bonjour’ or a ‘s’il vous plaît’ will go a long way,” she said. 

 … “In the United States,” Mr. Kappe observed, “waiters can be fired at any time and must work for tips, so they have to be nice. In France, you can’t just fire somebody if they’re not doing a good job. If you could, everyone would be friendly.”

Did You Know That in France, People Also Use Guns in Self-Defense? And That the New York Times Would Present the Shooting of a Criminal in as Biased a Way as Possible?

Members of the French élite and its political class may preen about how their country is in favor of gun control as well as poised against the death penalty — thus showing themselves far above the Wild West mentality of those clueless Yanks — but average French citizens apparently think differently when one of theirs comes face-to-face with crime in the streets — something you would have trouble seeing sometimes in Dan Bilefsky's New York Times article.

Early on the morning of Sept. 11, a 67-year-old jeweler in Nice, France, raised his unlicensed semiautomatic pistol and shot a teenager in the back as he and an accomplice sped away on a motor scooter with gems they had stolen at gunpoint … the jeweler, Stephan Turk, was arrested last week and charged with murder. 

So a vigilante shoots a "teenager" in the back, we learn. Why don't we hear that the jeweler was "punched and kicked" by both the "youth" and his accomplice, as they forced their way into his jewelry shop? Doesn't the NY feel the need to report that?! Sure it does! But only 11 paragraphs into the story…

The case has set off a national debate in France about how to define self-defense, and about the decision to charge Mr. Turk. Many have rallied behind the jeweler, lauding him as a hero who was protecting his life and property, while others have accused him of being a reckless and unfeeling vigilante. 

  … a Facebook page created to support Mr. Turk by an anonymous author has attracted about 1.6 million “likes” — a figure so high that some social-network experts have challenged its veracity. 

Well — but of course. High figures are always — and only — challenged when they seem to support the right…

At first Mr. Turk was held in police custody, but after a public outcry, he was moved to an undisclosed location under house arrest, wearing an ankle monitor

At this point the International Herald Tribune added a tongue-in-cheek comment (not on the website) — although it made sure to disguise it under unnamed "critics" of the jeweler's:

—a show of empathy that his critics say he did not show his victim.

Notice who is, who it is who has become, a "victim". Notice who has become "the" (i.e., the only) victim.

Yes, it is Anthony Asli, a "onetime horticulture student" with — to be sure — "a string of previous convictions for assault, theft and driving offenses". The victim of "Mr. Turk, a prosperous business owner" in a city where, the New York Times has no choice but to note, "400 jewelry robberies occurred last year."

Now let's pick up on the evil and fearful far right forces, including the awful capitalists, the true enemy of the country:

After the left-wing newspaper Libération lamented on Monday that the support on Facebook for Mr. Turk was “worrying” and “unprecedented,” a reader using the name Rantamplan insisted that the wellspring of admiration for Mr. Turk showed that France was dominated by reactionary right-wingers. “Some people feel that property is worth more than a life,” the reader wrote online in the comments section.  

Only after all that do we get to the 11th paragraph:

Eric Bedos, a Nice prosecutor, told reporters that Mr. Turk was held up at gunpoint by two young men as he opened for business on Sept. 11, and that security-camera video showed him being punched and kicked, and then opening his safe. 

It's not even Stephan Turk being "punched and kicked", it's not even a "security-camera video [showing] him being punched and kicked", it's as follows; it's "a Nice prosecutor [reporting] that security-camera video showed him being punched and kicked"! How far away from simple factual reporting can you get, disguising it under emotion-lacking "he said, she said, it showed"?!

President François Hollande said in an interview on the French channel TF1 … that he recognized the “exasperation and anger” in the case, but that “it’s up to the justice system to do justice, and no one else.” 

Well, that's just the problem, ain't it, Monsieur le Président? When police acting as tax inspectors, i.e., are busy raising money for the French state by ticketing car drivers right and left instead of patrolling (say) the streets of (say) Nice.

The International Herald Tribune decided to change paragraphs around, in order to end the story full of emotion, adding a claim that "a" girlfriend "told Le Monde that she was pregnant at the time of his death" ("a" girlfriend? How many did he have? How many are expecting?) and with a quote from Anthony's dad:

  … the father of Mr. Asli said, he did not deserve what happened to him, the newspaper Nice-Matin reported. “He was a little delinquent, a scooter thief,” the newspaper quoted the father as saying. “But he had the face of a child, and no child should have to die like that.” 

No quotes from Stephan Turk's wife, mistress(es) — if he has any — parents, children, or 3rd cousins…

Related: 
• For a Nation Used to Giving Americans Lessons on Firearms and Police Trust, France Has Been Amassing Quite a Collection of Bullet-Ridden Bodies

• For a Country Always Giving Yanks Lessons on Civility and Gun Control, There Has Been an Amazing Amount of Kalashnikov-Related Killings

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

• In a Country with Gun Controls Like France, the Kalashnikov Has Become the Thug's Rolex of Choice

• PLUS: this lengthy, dispassionate, in-depth discussion on the issue of gun control:
What Is to Blame for the Connecticut Shooting? Does the Blame Lie with the Right to Bear Arms Or Can It Be Found Elsewhere?

Serguei on the Likelihood That Assad Will Be Prosecuted for War Crimes

Serguei on the International Criminal Tribunal and on the improbable sanctions that will be placed on Bashir Assad for his use of chemical weapons:
• ICT honcho: There's one head we're not about to bag anytime soon…

Again, "Dialogue" for the Left Amounts to Rejecting Any Argument by Their Adversaries as Nothing More Than Inanities

Xavier Gorce again demonizes the adversaries of global warming:
• So, according to our latest scientific projec-tions…
• Global warming might precipitate a change of one meter…
• the drop of the climate skeptics into their inanities…
• Easily…

The Faceless and Diabolical Enemies of Barack Obama

Disarmament in the United States

Serguei takes on those despicable enemies of Obama's, Congress and (again) the Gun Lobby…

Russia's Gulag in the 21st Century 4: It Would Be Nice to Hear Our Leftist Activists React With More Vigor

“I am declaring a hunger strike starting Sept. 23. I refuse to take part in slave labor in the camp until the penal colony authorities start to conduct themselves in accordance with laws and start treating women inmates like people rather than cattle.”

Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is starting a hunger strike in Mordovia's penitentiary colony # 14, report Marie Jégo and Masha Gessen.

 Nadejda Tolokonnikova, l'une des militantes incarcérées du groupe russe Pussy Riot, … purge sa peine dans la colonie pénitentiaire n°14 en Mordovie, devenue récemment la nouvelle patrie de Gérard Depardieu, à 300 km au sud-est de Moscou. De sinistre mémoire, l'endroit est peuplé de "camps de rééducation par le travail" aux conditions de détention dignes du Moyen Age.

Selon son témoignage, les détenues y sont forcées de travailler quotidiennement jusqu'à dix-sept heures pour coudre des uniformes de police, au rythme de 150 pièces par jour. "On a les mains piquées par les aiguilles et pleines d'éraflures, le sang se répand sur la table de travail, mais on continue à coudre", écrit-elle. Les détenues ont droit à moins de quatre heures de sommeil par nuit et jouissent d'un jour de repos toutes les six semaines.

Les punitions sont cruelles et dégradantes. Ainsi, il est fréquent de laisser les détenues des heures à l'extérieur dans le froid, de les empêcher de se laver, d'aller aux toilettes, de boire et de manger. "Dans la 2^e brigade, celle des invalides et des retraitées, il y a une femme qui a dû se faire amputer d'une jambe et de plusieurs doigts de la main parce qu'elle avait été trop longtemps punie dehors", écrit Nadejda Tolokonnikova.

Devant la banalité dans les commentaires de lecteurs et, pour tout dire, la quasi-absence de réactions tout court, une lectrice réagit :

Véronique Pillet

Ce serait bien d'entendre nos belles âmes de gauche (et de droite) réagir un peu plus vertement...

"Flexibility" Is for Putin; Not for Members of the Republican Party

Yesterday's debate (Note to Americans Who Believe Europeans' Health Care System Is the Way to Go) continues…

I'm looking at the government shutdown regarding health care from a different perspective…

Notably from a European perspective, where (believe me) a LOT of people would like it if hundreds of thousands of bureaucrats were sent home! (I read somewhere, "if they are "non-essential", why were they hired in the first place?" That certainly applies here in France, where the dream of most young people, according to one poll after another — you would hope it was to go out and start a business useful to one's fellow citizens — is to land a civil servant job with the administration — one that is safe and one where one doesn't have too much to do…)

 Certainly I do not view us as enemy debaters on two opposing sides of one single issue…

Notice however, that my very first comment on this thread did address your main point (by quoting a Professor of Law at George Mason University School of Law):

It is … worth noting that the Republicans are not the only side in this dispute who are willing to shut down the government if they don’t get what they want on health care policy.

President Obama and the Democratic-controlled Senate could just as easily avoid a shutdown by accepting the House bill.

Later, I quoted the Washington Post, which said that shutdowns were commoner than thought, and even occurred when the three "parts" of government were in the hands of the same party (shutdown #4)…

As for "stable and reliable management", wasn't the revolutionaries' message of 1776 to their overlords, "we can do very well without management, thank you very much"? (And that they went on to prove that they could…)

There's an organization here in Paris, where the basic message is "Nous ne sommes pas des vaches à lait". That means "we are not milch cows" and it is a message to politicians, local and national, to "cease throwing money out the window".

And that, to me, is the main message of the Tea Party, of all Tea Partiers, left'n'right.

Now, if Tea Partiers have a bad reputation, it is for one of two reasons:
Either 1) they deserve the bad reputation,
or 2) the bad reputation is somewhat artificial and designed, serving the purpose of those who do not like their message of self-sufficiency, notably knight-on-white-horse-come-to-save-us politicians (and newspapermen!) who relish their (self-attributed) role of heroes in shining armor coming to the rescue of one group of poor innocent victims after another.

I am inclined to suspect that more often than not, the second reason prevails…

You mention death panels. True, that was/that is a (very) dramatic war of putting it, but there happens to be truth in the expression, although it is not active, but passive denial of care…

If a bureaucrat has two people who need an artificial knee or a back operation, and one of them is, say, a young 35-year-old athlete while the other is an old woman over 75, they are not unlikely to deny that care to the second person because he or she "is too old", who might even have trouble surviving, or surely benefiting from the operation for a great many years, and because the younger person is more in need of it.

That makes sense, somewhere, doesn't it? If you are a bureaucrat with an overview, and you see an operation required by a young healthy person and one close(r) to death, it makes more sense, and it is more humane, to choose the younger one.

The magic word, however, is "if"!

IF you have an overview! Maybe the solution is to take away the bureaucrat(s) and the bureaucracy. If no one has an overview, if an army of bureaucrats is not involved, both the younger man (in Denmark, say, or in Iowa) will make a decision with his doctor(s), while the 75-year-old woman (in France, maybe, or in Texas) would make her decision with her doctor(s), along with with her family and children.

And to the Americans protesting that this is not taking into consideration the poor, you need to remember that those despicable American capitalists are world leaders in charity and donations (also internationally, think of the Marshall Plan) — by contrast, here in Europe people will say, let the government take care of whatever the problem is.

Maybe you think this is only theoretical and you can continue to mock the term death panel. I don't know whether Forbes is also totally untrustworthy, but here comes a recent article that lends some truth to the term:

Why The Federal Government Wants To Redefine The Word 'Cancer'
The federal government wants to reduce the number of Americans diagnosed each year with cancer. But not by better preventive care or healthier living. Instead, the government wants to redefine the term “cancer” so that fewer conditions qualify as a true cancer." 

 This is how government works! Now the bureaucracy has so many fewer people to take care of!

A French comedy took this on several years ago. In Les Ripoux (The Rotten Cops), a young trainee arrests a pickpocket (minute 25:05). His older partner typing the thief's testimony instead makes up a report that the thief was an honorable citizen who found the handbag in the street and brought it to the station. (And if the handbag's owner doesn't come to reclaim it, after a year and one day the thief can call it his own!) The younger cop is outraged. The older one says, this is doing more good than arresting him. Because local politicians want crime statistics to look good (they're already 11% higher than last year's), they've stopped counting pickpockets and other lesser criminals into the statistics — until next year. As the film progresses, Thierry Lhermitte becomes as manipulable as Philippe Noiret…

And this is the type of thing America wants in its health care system, to come between you and your doctor (who has changed from being "your" doctor to being "the community's" doctor)?! This is what you want to pay for at ever mounting prices?

Here's a proposition: your "broken" health system may be far better than you think, certainly than the Europeans ones that you laud so much (and that Europeans laud endlessly — and selv-servingly)…

As for the 1850s, you are correct, of course, to say that the Republicans were honorable as well as nation-oriented.

However… that is not how they were treated!

Look at how Republicans, or Tea Partiers, are treated today — as the ridiculous, despicable, mindless human beings whose condemnation is without the shadow of a doubt warranted; you might even go as far as calling people such as them reptiles (in fact, that is how James Carville described the Republicans in 2010). They are so despicable that Obama is willing to talk to people such as Medvedev (I will have "more flexibility" after the election), and Putin, and Iran's leaders, Venezuela's caudillo, easily, but to the Republicans he — and for this he is praised — will not give an inch. They are too despicable for him — for America — for the world. (No "flexibility" for people such as them!)

Well, guess what: that is exactly how Republicans were treated in the 1850s…

It went so far that one prominent frontier lawyer had this to say in 1860, as he told supporters how he would speak to the party's adversaries, in the Democrat Party as well as in the South, assuming they were willing to listen:

…when you speak of us Republicans, you do so only to denounce us as reptiles, or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. You will grant a hearing to pirates or murderers, but nothing like it to [Republicans]. In all your contentions with one another, each of you deems an unconditional condemnation of [Republicanism] as the first thing to be attended to.

Abraham Lincoln — for it was he — added:

Indeed, such condemnation of us seems to be an indispensable prerequisite — license, so to speak — among you to be admitted or permitted to speak at all. Now, can you, or not, be prevailed upon to pause and to consider whether this is quite just to us, or even to yourselves?
Sure, you're right: many things are different from the 1850s/1860s.

But maybe we shouldn't be too quick to deny the similarities…

(Indeed, Republicans were then condemned, by Democrats North as well as South, forllll everything from hare-brained schemes to lack of respect for the status quo, through disregarding the unity of the nation (or the Union), mixing into the affairs of others, dissing the Constitution, and recklessly opposing duly-voted laws that should be regarded as the law of the land…)