There’s no disputing that the bent of most colleges is toward boosting blacks and Hispanics, which makes employers justifiably skeptical about their credentials

Following last week’s Justice Department decision to join a group of Asian-Americans in a civil rights lawsuit against Harvard University the online newspaper Vox rushed to post an article from an Asian-American, Alvin Chang, who seems to enjoy getting the short end of the stick.

Thus writes Benny Huang, who (as his name implies) has Asian connections himself.

Chang’s point, if you can call it that, is that only really bad people see affirmative action as harmful. He recounts an episode during an SAT prep class in which he first encountered resentment among Asian-Americans toward discriminatory affirmative action policy.

“During a snack break, another Asian kid in the class said to me, ‘You know we have to do better than even the white kids, right?’ I had never heard affirmative action framed that way — as a ‘bonus’ for black and brown people and a ‘penalty’ for white and especially Asian people.”

Well he should have heard affirmative action described that way because that’s exactly what it is. The other fellow in his prep course was obviously a whole lot more world-wise than Chang and yet we’re supposed to see him as borderline racist.

“At the time, I didn’t understand just how pernicious it was to think about affirmative action in those terms. Not only does that frame gloss over the reasons why race-conscious policies are necessary; it’s also the first step toward arguing that all race-conscious policies are unfair.”

Yeah, it’s a slippery slope from one logical thought to another. If we start thinking about affirmative action “in those terms”—in other words, for what it really is—we might start seeing the unfairness of affirmative action in other settings too. We might start seeing it as racial discrimination. And then we wouldn’t understand why it’s, um…”necessary.”

Perhaps that’s because it isn’t necessary. It’s merely desired, mostly by a group of people who don’t believe blacks and Hispanics can make the grade without being afforded a substantial handicap.

And maybe those people have a point. Studies have indicated that whenever affirmative action programs are deep-sixed, minority enrollment drops. This is absurdly intuitive. When the admissions department stops putting its thumb on the scale for a certain race, the proportion of that race in future freshman classes will be lower. Duh.

The Michigan public university system offers a good example. Following that state’s 2006 constitutional amendment which prohibited racial discrimination (“affirmative action”), minority enrollment dropped by about 30%. To affirmative action defenders the sharp decline is proof that continued discrimination against whites and Asians is “needed.” To the rest of us it’s proof that 30% of the minority students on campus were affirmative action babies who were taking someone else’s seat.

But that’s the “pernicious” way of looking at it. It also happens to be true.

Chang’s article struggles and ultimately fails to explain why affirmative action should not be understood as a system of bonuses and penalties distributed along color lines. Instead it makes the case that Asians are being manipulated by whites, as if Asians wouldn’t and shouldn’t be upset about a system that requires them to perform substantially better than other races to gain admission to the same schools.

In this regard, Chang reminds me of the white southerners of yesteryear who insisted that “their negroes” were content until a bunch of “outside agitators” descended to stir up resentment in the black community. Asians would apparently be thrilled to be punished for their skin color if it weren’t for those outside agitators. Blame them [shouldn't they be called deplorables?], not the discrimination, for Asian discontent.

 … The question is why Asians-Americans have become the face of the [lawsuit against Harvard]. Perhaps it’s because the penalty for being born Asian is stiffer than for being born white. Another possible explanation is that white people in our society aren’t allowed to complain about anything—not about legally codified discrimination, or being assaulted, or being cursed out by a mob while studying at the library.

White plaintiffs have traditionally failed in court to make the government live up to its own nondiscrimination statutes which unambiguously prohibit racial discrimination. The fourteenth amendment bans the practice at public universities and the Civil Rights Act of 1964—that law that everyone claims to adore but no one actually follows—bans it at all universities that accept federal money.

And yet white plaintiffs have not traditionally prevailed in cases that they should have won. … Which has forced whites to come up with clever ways of pushing back against policies that deliberately screw them over. Rather than saying that they oppose affirmative action because it harms them and their children economically, whites claim to oppose it because it harms Asians and their children economically. That’s true of course, but it sounds disingenuous.

Another approach is to argue that affirmative action actually hurts black Americans.

 … Then there’s the social stigma of affirmative action. This one addresses what happens after black and Hispanic students graduate and venture out into the job market. Many report that the value of their diplomas has been degraded because potential employers believe that they received preferential treatment on account of their race. This reaction is entirely rational because black and Hispanic applicants do receive preferential treatment because of their race. And perhaps it doesn’t end there. Sympathetic professors might have been rooting for minority students to succeed, going so far as to fudge their grades in the same way that they do for athletes. There’s no disputing that the bent of most colleges is toward boosting blacks and Hispanics, which makes employers justifiably skeptical about their credentials.

The liberals’ solution to this problem is pretty straightforward. Any employer who believes that the bar has been lowered for black and Hispanic applicants—even if it really has been lowered—should be relentlessly pilloried and sued into oblivion. My solution is a little more subtle: we ought to end the perception of special treatment by ending the reality of special treatment.

The Latest Item on the Left's List of Pieces of Evidence Proving Racism Is… Beards

In case you were wondering what the Left has on its racist list now,

sighs Kim Hirsch on the Victory Girls Blog,

The Atlantic just let us know. It’s beards. Apparently beards have a “racially fraught history,” or something.

Even allowing for the ridiculousness of ever-expanding ludicrous examples of racism — with a touch of sarcasm, Sarah Hoyt writes "SURE [BEARDS ARE RACIST], BUT THEN AGAIN, EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE IS" — it still stands to reason to point out, however, as I write in a comment, that, if anything, one can actually call the Americans' (and the Britishers') fashion for beards anti-racist: from pro-Turkish and pro-Arab to pro-Islamic. (Shookhran for the link, Maggie.)

Think about it: in the American Revolution, in the Napoleonic wars, in the entire first part of the 19th century, beards seem to be rare in the Western world (Europe and North America), certainly in polite society, if not inexistent. The Founding Fathers, American presidents, and generals, kings, emperors, and armies of all nations — all, or the vast majority of them, without facial hair.

In the second part of the 19th century, whiskers (whether beards or mustaches) are ubiquitous. In the 50 years between Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson, the only elected president not to have whiskers would be William McKinley (elected 1896, four years before the turn of the century and a full third of a century after the Civil War).

The "modern" propensity for beards in America, and in the West, actually predates Honest Abe and the Civil War (1861-1865), although by less than a decade.

It started with the Brits, during their experiences in the Crimean War (1853-1856) next to their (dark-skinned) Ottoman allies.  Seeing the splendid Turks with their colorful uniforms and their magnificent beards, the British, both in the military and in civilian life, started the "fashion" of letting their whiskers grow in the mid-1850s, and it spread across the Atlantic.

In a photo album of Crimean War photos, it is close to impossible to find more than a handful of allied soldiers (British, French, Ottoman, or other) who do not sport some kind of facial hair. (As it happens, the rigors of the winters at Balaclava — as bad as the Russian winter of 1812, wrote one Irish soldier — were not entirely immaterial in helping to spread the fashion.)

(Incidentally, the bloodiest European war in the 100 years between the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the beginning of World War I in 1914 (the Crimean War, 1853-1856), the bloodiest war in North America of the 19th century and also of all time (the Civil War, 1861-1865), and the bloodiest war in Latin America of the 19th century and also of all time (The Paraguayan War or the War of the Triple Alliance, 1864-1870) all broke out within 10 years or so of each other…)

As it happens, Americans also took to the fashion of the French units in North Africa, resulting in several Zouave units in both armies during the War Between the States.

That's right: if anything, you can call the British and American fashion for beards:
pro-Arab (or at least pro-Ottoman) and pro-Islamic. I don't know about you, but in my book, that would happen to fall in the anti-racist department…

La police française sous l'Occupation, précieuse alliée du IIIe Reich

Les 16 et 17 juillet 1942, 9 000 policiers et gendarmes français montrent aux autorités allemandes de quoi ils sont capables lors de la rafle du Vél d'Hiv. Durant l'Occupation, du simple gardien de la paix au préfet, les fonctionnaires français vont appliquer avec zèle la politique des Allemands, devançant même parfois leurs exigences.

Dans GEO du 1 septembre 2011, Cyril Guinet nous parle de La police française sous l'Occupation, "précieuse alliée du IIIe Reich" :

Et les autres, l'immense majorité des policiers français ? Pour la plupart, ils restent en place, dans l'expectative, attendant leurs nouveaux ordres. Ceux-ci ne vont pas tarder.Concrètement, le policier de base change très vite de métier : on ne lui demande plus de régler la circulation. En revanche, il doit désormais mettre en œuvre les mesures décidées par l'Etat français, sous la pression ou non des occupants. Il apprend à confisquer les postes de radio, faire respecter le couvre-feu et appliquer les lois anti-juives du régime de Vichy, édictées à l'automne 1940. Dans le métro, il s'assure que les juifs montent bien dans le wagon de queue qui leur est réservé. Dans les commissariats, il tient des permanences pour les enregistrer...

René Bousquet … qui concentre entre ses mains la quasi-totalité de la machine policière, veut montrer aux Allemands que son administration peut être moderne et efficace. Il inaugure des écoles où sont enseignées l'identification d'un suspect de face ou de profil, les filatures, les planques... Il augmente aussi les recrutements. La police attire de nombreux chômeurs mais aussi, à partir de février 1943, tous ceux qui souhaitent éviter le STO puisque cette administration offre une dispense automatique aux personnes qui la rejoignent. Au plus fort de la collaboration, les effectifs atteignent 120 000 hommes. Du jamais vu. Dans le même temps, on compte moins de 3000 policiers allemands sur le territoire.

Cette main-d'œuvre fraîchement embauchée peut rêver de promotions rapides. Car l'époque et le contexte sont propices aux carrières fulgurantes. Si on ne s'embarrasse pas trop de scrupules et qu'on choisit le bon service, on peut facilement sauter les échelons. …

Les Groupes mobiles de réserve s'occupent des sales besognes

Le travail de police devient presque entièrement politique. Dans les rues, les enquêteurs des RG se mêlent à la population. En civil, ils font la queue devant les magasins d'alimentation, espionnant les propos anti-allemands. Déguisés en postiers, en employés du gaz ou en ouvriers, ils organisent des filatures qui durent des semaines, parfois des mois, avant de déclencher un coup de filet. …

Gare à ceux qui tentent de camoufler leur étoile jaune!

Mais c'est dans la mise en œuvre de la politique anti-juive que la police française va se montrer la plus redoutable. La machine infernale se met en branle en mai 1941.
 … Et tout le monde collabore en vue de la plus grande efficacité possible. …

. LES ROUAGES D'UN ÉTAT POLICIER

A l'automne 1940, le gouvernement de Vichy procède à une légère épuration administrative, écartant les fonctionnaires qui ne collaborent pas efficacement. En avril 1941, les effectifs des polices municipales sont intégrés dans la police nationale. Ils échappent ainsi au contrôle des maires, et la police nationale devient un puissant organisme d'Etat. …

. UN ÂGE D'OR POUR LE MILIEU

Tandis que les agents sont occupés à traquer les juifs, les résistants et les francs-maçons, criminels et délinquants ont la belle vie. Ces années comptent parmi les plus belles de la pègre française. …

1944 : Pourquoi le général allemand épargna Paris

Par rapport à d’autres villes, la capitale est sortie quasi intacte des combats de la Libération. Pourtant, elle aurait pu payer cher sa fronde contre l’occupant. Décryptage.

Dans GEO Histoire du Vendredi 24 août 2018, Volker Saux explique pourquoi von Choltitz décida d'épargner Paris pendant les 10 jours de la libération fin 1944…

Hitler n’avait aucune intention de préserver la Ville lumière, ni de la déclarer "ouverte" – c’est à dire rendue sans combats –, comme Rome en juin 1944. Le général von Choltitz, dernier gouverneur militaire du Paris occupé, reçut des ordres sans nuance, dont celui du 22 août :

"Paris est à transformer en un monceau de ruines. Le général doit défendre la ville jusqu’au dernier homme et périra s’il le faut sous les décombres." 

Pourquoi alors la capitale fut-elle épargnée ? L’explication réside d’abord chez von Choltitz lui-même, qui n’appliqua pas les ordres de son Führer. Non pas que l’homme soit porté à la mansuétude. Mais le général ne voyait pas la logique d’une telle destruction. La bataille de Normandie était perdue, les troupes allemandes se repliaient, les maigres contingents stationnés dans Paris évacuaient la ville. Ravager la capitale aurait été coûteux en vies humaines – y compris allemandes –, inutile d’un point de vue militaire et gênant pour la circulation des soldats du Reich se repliant depuis la Normandie.

Volker Saux nous apprend que le consul suédois n'était pas aussi neutre et désintéressé qu'on nous l'a présenté :

Le consul de Suède, un intérmédiaire clé

D’autres facteurs ont pu dissuader le haut-gradé allemand de passer à l’acte. Les pressions extérieures, d’abord. Celles du consul de Suède Raoul Nordling, intermédiaire clé entre von Choltitz et la Résistance, … aida à limiter la tension et les combats entre Allemands et résistants. "Francophile, de mère française et de père suédois, il avait à cœur de préserver la capitale, note Christine Levisse-Touzé, historienne et directrice du Mémorial du maréchal Leclerc à Paris. Il défendait aussi ses intérêts, puisqu’il possédait des parts dans l’entreprise de roulement à billes SKF en région parisienne – entreprise qui, par ailleurs, fournissait le Reich.

Voir aussi: Les premiers libérateurs de Paris en 1944 ne sont ni français ni américains, mais… espagnols

Les premiers libérateurs de Paris en 1944 ne sont ni français ni américains, mais… espagnols

 … le 24 août 1944, les premiers soldats de l’Armée de la Libération furent ceux de la Nueve, un bataillon composé de combattants défaits par Franco

Dans GEO Histoire du Vendredi 24 août 2018, Frédéric Granier nous apprend l’odyssée des soldats oubliés dans la libération de Paris…

Reste maintenant à remporter la plus symbolique des victoires : Paris. Le 23 août 1944, la compagnie se met en route avec l’ensemble de la 2e DB. Les ordres de de Gaulle sont clairs : la première unité qui entre dans Paris doit être française. Mais Leclerc piétine en banlieue sud.

A la fin de la journée du 24, devant la difficulté de vaincre la résistance allemande, et craignant que les forces américaines ne les devancent, il ordonne à [Raymond Dronne] de pénétrer dans la capitale, avec seulement quelques blindés. Le souhait de de Gaulle est exaucé : la section qui tire les premiers coups de feu sur la place de l’Hôtel de Ville est bien française. Mais son lieutenant s’appelle Amado Granell, ex-capitaine anarchiste. 

Une plaque sera posée en leur honneur… en 2004 

L’ensemble de la 2e DB les rejoint un jour plus tard. Cependant, dans les journaux qui annoncent la libération de la capitale, le half-track "Guadalajara" est devenu le char "Le Romilly". Pour consacrer le triomphe de la résistance française, on rejette dans l’ombre l’action des valeureux combattants espagnols…

 … La fin de la guerre laisse un goût amer aux survivants : les aléas de l’Histoire ont placé Franco dans le camp de l’Ouest, celui du monde anticommuniste. Le retour de la République d’Espagne n’est guère une priorité pour la France et ses alliés… La plupart des combattants espagnols ne reverront jamais leur pays, tandis que leurs faits d’armes tomberont dans l’oubli. Il faudra attendre 2004 pour qu’une plaque en leur honneur de la Nueve soit installée sur le quai Henri-IV. Quant aux célébrations de la libération de Paris, elles commencent toujours le 25 août, jamais le 24…

Is the Notion of Islamophobia Even Possible?

Not according to Peter O'Keefe, who writes:

Islamophobia is, by definition, impossible.

A phobia is an anxiety disorder in which the subject experiences an irrational and unreasonable fear that has no demonstrable basis in reality.

Anxiety about the intentions of Islam vis-à-vis Western society is hardly irrational or unreasonable given the constant clamoring of Islamic spokesmen for the subjugation and/or death of everyone unconvinced by its claim to being the ultimate authority about everything.

The 1944 Liberation of Paris: Ten Days that Shook la France

Eté 1944. Six mille soldats du Reich sont encore dans les murs quand l’insurrection éclate. Dix jours de combats incertains s’ensuivent, qui auraient pu se solder par un bain de sang. Retour sur ces journées mouvementées.

Dans GEO Histoire du Vendredi 24 août 2018, Frédéric Granier et Volker Saux racontent la Libération de Paris : le récit de dix jours mouvementés.

Difficile d’imaginer la Libération de la France sans les images des chars de Leclerc à la porte d’Orléans, ou celles de de Gaulle descendant les Champs-Elysées. Et pourtant, il s’en est fallu de peu pour que Paris rate le train de l’Histoire. 

"La ville n’avait plus aucune signification tactique. En dépit de sa gloire historique, Paris ne représentait qu’une tâche d’encre sur nos cartes ; il fallait l’éviter dans notre marche vers le Rhin"

raconte ainsi Omar Bradley dans ses mémoires. Au cœur de l’été 1944, l’avis de ce général américain est partagé par l’ensemble du commandement allié, pour qui la progression depuis la Normandie vers le front de l’est demeure la priorité absolue. Mais pour de Gaulle, Paris vaut bien une bataille…

Le chef de la France libre a compris que la force du symbole dépasse de très loin l’enjeu militaire. Non seulement la Ville lumière doit être prise, mais elle doit l’être par des troupes françaises ! De Gaulle s’en est soucié dès 1943, désignant le général Leclerc, chef de la 2e division blindée, pour libérer la capitale. Il a aussi fait nommer les préfets de police et de la Seine par le gouvernement provisoire d’Alger, et a chargé Alexandre Parodi de le représenter à Paris afin d’y préparer l’arrivée du Gouvernement provisoire de la République française (GPRF). Reste encore, après le Débarquement, à convaincre les Alliés d’envoyer une division française. Récit d’un été brûlant. …

Read the whole thing™

"On peut estimer qu’au total la bataille de Paris se traduit sans doute par 3 400 morts et 5 500 blessés [ndlr : Allemands, FFI, forces alliées et civils confondus]", écrit Jean-François Muracciole dans son ouvrage "La Libération de Paris" (éd. Tallandier, 2013). On est très loin des hécatombes des batailles de Stalingrad ou de Berlin ! Enfin, rapportée à la puissance de l’opération Overlord (le Débarquement et la bataille de Normandie) qui s’achève au même moment, la libération de Paris n’est qu’un épiphénomène, qui pèse peu dans la défaite allemande à l’ouest. Mais la portée de l’événement est ailleurs. Dans le symbole, d’abord : les scènes de joie des Parisiens incarnent la fin du joug nazi en Europe de l’Ouest. Dans la politique, ensuite, par la victoire de la Résistance. Et par le sacre populaire de son chef, de Gaulle.

Voir aussi: Les premiers libérateurs de Paris en 1944 ne sont ni français ni américains, mais… espagnols

Is it true that there’s no freedom of speech in France?

Alexander Boot recounts how he got censored in France:

When we met in Paris, [a charming French journalist] said she was envious of Britain, where it was still possible to express conservative views in all media.

The left, she said, had such tight control of the papers, broadcast media and publishing that many conservative books published by les Anglo-Saxons would never see the light of day in France.

As an example, she pointed at her heavily thumbed and bookmarked copy of my Democracy as a Neocon Trick, which she said was brilliant even though she disagreed with some of the points I made. The book, she lamented, ought to be widely read in France, but it would never be published.

 … Since my lovely and intelligent interviewer sounded like a run-of-the-mill British or American conservative, with a slight neo- tilt, I assumed that Radio Courtoisie was roughly in the same political band.

Anyway, the interview was recorded at the end of May and was scheduled to run today at midday, French time, and then again at midnight. I promptly told all my French friends about it, ordering them to listen on pain of death.

They all promised to do so, what with the fierce expression on my face. But, they said, they were surprised that Radio Courtoisie, which they described as ‘extreme right-wing’ and ‘pro-Poutine‘, would run my interview on that subject.

Knowing that I too am extreme right-wing to them, I was surprised. It’s all that political taxonomy, which in France is even more confused than here.

 … Late last night, my interviewer sent me an e-mail specifying the broadcast slots, and I was about to forward it to all and sundry in France. But then, seconds later, another e-mail arrived:

“I’ve just had a phone call from the Radio Courtoisie director and editor-in-chief … She has decided to cancel the broadcast because it ‘contains violent libellous accusations against Putin that could draw the ire of the Russian embassy’.”

Now this isn’t the first time I’ve been censored, but never for that reason.

For ‘violent’ though my accusations against Putin might have been, they certainly weren’t libellous – for the simple reason that they were all true.

 … So I suppose my interviewer was right when saying there’s no freedom of speech in France. I should have listened more attentively.

Read the whole thing™.

Did it ever occur to CNN that if these Muslims had not been stockpiling weapons and training children for school shootings, no one would need to be worried about “Islamophobia”?

As usual, the mainstream media is more concerned with imagined threats by (deplorable) segments of the U.S. population/of Western populations against minorities — threats that never seem to pan out — than they are about the real threats, direct or indirect, by minorities or others, against U.S./Western society.

In that perspective, Jihad Watch's Robert Spencer explains that "This is why they call CNN fake news":

Mass shootings, and they’re worried about a chimerical backlash against innocent Muslims that seldom, if ever, materializes[?!]

 … One wonders if it ever occurred to CNN that if these Muslims had not been stockpiling weapons and training children for school shootings, no one would need to be worried about “Islamophobia.”

As for Tim Brown, he goes further as he quotes part of the CNN article in a FreedomOutpost piece called CNN Is More Concerned That The New Mexico Islaimc Jihad Compound May Lead To "Racism & Islamophobia" [Than] They Are [About] What Actually Took Place There.

The Fabricating News Network, CNN, seems to be more concerned that the news around the New Mexico Islamic jihad compound where Islamists killed a young boy in an Islamic ritual and were training other young children to commit mass school shootings in their jihad effort will lead to a [rise] in racism and Islamophobia than they seem concerned over what was actually going on there and the apparent government coverup of it.

 … [CNN's] Emanuella Grinberg writes [that]

those who met [members of the black Muslim family] said they seemed friendly. A resident recalled how one of the men tenderly wiped the nose of a crying child.

 … The region’s history of welcoming outsiders has contributed to cross-cultural exchanges and a tolerant attitude that locals consider points of pride. Many are quick to distance the state’s countercultural vibe from the compound and its inhabitants, who are accused of training the children to commit mass shootings. But they also fear that the publicity around a case infused with allegations of terrorism, child abuse and faith healing might contribute to a rise in racism and Islamophobia.

 … “People come here and they want to be left alone and sometimes they do things that are unconventional,” said Malaquias “JR” Rael, whose family arrived in the Taos region in the mid-1800s. … “It can be difficult to be alarmed or judgmental, because people have been doing this kind of stuff for a long time.”

Isn't this the case in almost every single instance of Islamic jihad here in the States?  The Muslim seems normal and just like everyone else and then all at once, they go jihadi, right?

In a seperate piece, Robert Spencer adds that

The establishment media takes for granted that there is a rise of “anti-Muslim activity” in the US, … however [in Aaron Schrank's Southern California Public Radio report] … There are no examples given of the “marked increase in anti-Muslim activity,” and FBI figures show that hate crimes against Jews are much more common than hate crimes against Muslims.

But Muslim groups and Leftist groups in the US both find it useful to claim that Muslims are experiencing a wave of discrimination, harassment, and persecution in the US. This claim helps them demonize Trump and his attempt to limit immigration from jihadi hotspots, and to cast counterterror efforts in general in a bad light, because, you see, they create “hate” against Muslims. Just stay quiet and you’ll be okay.

15 Facts and Arguments in the Hiroshima Debate Which Are Ignored by the MSM and Historians Alike

A critical examination of some common charges against the Americans regarding the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Racism

Americans may have felt hatred for the Japanese during WWII, but it was not for what race the Japanese belonged to and it was certainly not a hatred that allowed them to murder on sight (what did the so-called American racists hate, and fight, the Nazis for, then ; for being blond, blue-eyed Aryans?!). It was for what they had done, the treachery in Hawaii (remember Pearl Harbor?), the murders of POWs on the Bataan death march, and the numerous other atrocities committed throughout the Pacific, of which the rape of Nanking is only the most repellent. Still, that anger alone was not what led U.S. authorities to drop atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was the Japanese refusal to surrender, backed by the prospect that the blood-letting would continue and that the fighting would, in fact, intensify.

The Americans' Uncalled-for
Intensification of the War

Many more Japanese died in the hell-hole of Okinawa than in the nuclear blast of Hiroshima. More were killed in the battle of Leyte Gulf than in the explosion at Nagasaki. Based on America's 35% casualties on Okinawa, if 767,000 Americans were to attack Kyushu, one prediction said the dead and wounded would number 268,000, as many as the number of battle deaths that the U.S. had experienced in the war so far. As for Japanese battle death figures, they inevitably dwarfed those of the U.S. (On average, the ratio of combat fatalities was 4:1; on Iwo Jima, three Japanese died for every American; on Okinawa, that figure was 15:1; at Leyte Gulf, 20:1; on Attu, in the Aleutians, 50:1.) Japanese casualties on the battlefield by summer 1945 numbered 1.2 million total.

Nobody suggests that the Japanese be grateful for being the target of at atomic bombs — but, bearing those figures in mind, who can doubt that far more lives — as millions of soldiers and civilians rushed to the defence of their homeland — would have been lost in conventional warfare than actually were at Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

War on Civilians

Those who criticize the Americans for waging war, nuclear or otherwise, on civilians forget that the Japanese armed forces were arming every person available in Japan, from women and children to the elderly, and with everything from advanced firearms to primitive pointed bamboo sticks, to fight the Yankee invaders to the death.

Incidentally, this was not as fanatical as it may sound at first, given their own behavior on enemy soil. The Empire of the Sun expected American soldiers to submit the Japanese people to the same atrocities — in fact, it expected the "foreign devils" to treat them worse — that its soldiers had hoisted upon foreign civilians such as those at Nanking or Manila. Japan's coming victims might as well avoid dishonour and at the same time contribute to holding back the U.S. onslaught by, if possible, taking a few enemy soldiers with them to their death. Fight to the last had been the Japanese motto throughout the war.

Thus, the war promised to become even more bloody, as it indeed already had.

Still, the atomic targets were not chosen out of the blue. "[O]ne of the most important military-command and communications centers in Japan [that] would have become the Imperial headquarters had the islands been invaded and Tokyo been captured" (The New Yorker's John Hersey), the Honshu island city was (correctly) referred to as an "important naval base" by Le Monde back in August 1945, although it is typical that in a retrospective 60 years later (scroll to bottom), the independent daily omitted all types of strategic information and all types of context, for expressions such as "martyrdom", "crimes against humanity", "a haughty indifference of the laws created by men to check barbarism", and "a graduation as useless as indecent into horror". (Needless to say, Japanese actions at Nanking and the Bataan Death March did not figure into this kind of rants.)

Peace Feelers Ignored

It has become common for some to say that the Japanese were ready to sue for peace, and that the treacherous and demagogic Americans (or their leaders, if you want to be cute) ignored the peace feelers. There's so much to say to this charge one hardly knows where to begin. First of all, we are told the peace feelers were secret. If it was so obvious as we are told that the Japanese (or, at least, their government) as a whole were desirous to establish an era of peace and goodwill (unlike the murderous Yankees), why didn't they simply make the call for peace public (and thereby stigmatize the leaders in Washington, had the latter refused to take them up on it)? If asked the question, we will be told that it wasn't that easy and that Japanese pride was involved.

Well… exactly! If pride is involved, to what extent can you be sure the peace offer — or any message — is sincere, and especially, how much power does the individual (or the band of individuals) have in proffering it if he or they are surrounded by sizable parties of prideful leaders, soldiers, and other individuals?

As it happens, if and when you get a message (be it a peace proposal or anything else) from a mortal enemy — or even from a traditional friend (think Chirac and Villepin at the UN in early 2003) — how are you to know they are sincere? Is disinformation of some kind involved? How do you know they're not stalling for time? Time for what? To prepare their fellow leaders, and the population, for surrender? (In that case, how do you know what the chances are they will be successful in the task?) Or to build more weaponry (including their own… atomic bomb!), arm more combatants, launch more attacks, and/or kill more of your own nationals?

And who would the peace feeler have been from? From the entire government (in which case they could have made it public, supposedly)? From a clique in the government? And if, so, how much power did its members actually have — and were the latter sincere, were they wishful thinkers, or might they the victims of manipulation (from those who wanted to stall for time for military reasons)?

To use a surreal example of a peace feeler (from the same conflict), in May 1941 Rudolf Hess asked for peace between Britain and Germany (after flying a Messerschmitt solo to Scotland), only to be immediately disowned by Adolf Hitler. For months — years, really — British citizens, commoners and responsible leaders alike (not to mention nervous foreigners, and their governments), wondered what secret intentions, if any, might have laid behind the feat.

Also, to what extent should we go in trusting today's Japanese accounts of their willing and innocent peace-seeking forebears?

In any case, here are some things to ponder: it is well-known that the Imperial Army was full of officers and men of the type as those who, when they learned that Japan would eventually surrender, tried to prevent Hirohito's message to that effect from being broadcast. It is also known (not least to the Navy personnel at the time!) that while the Japanese were supposedly desiring peace, kamikaze pilots were crashing their Zeros into U.S. Navy warships. What is less known is that over 400 people were arrested in Japan in 1945 on the mere suspicion of favoring negotiation.

In conclusion: the Americans were aware of the propensity of the Japanese to fight to the very end, and untold thousands had bled, suffered, and died in so learning. And for very good reasons, Americans were not very trustful of the Japanese; indeed, the formers' tendency to regard the latter as duplicitous cannot be ascribed only to racism, far from it (remember Pearl Harbor?).

Related:
• Hiroshima 15: Examining the Issues Surrounding the Dropping of Atomic Bombs on Japan (Erik Svane)

• Hiroshima 14: "I regard Hiroshima revisionism as the greatest hoax in American history" (Robert Maddox)

• Hiroshima 13: Although It Is Not Said Openly, Hiroshima Also Played a Purifying Role, IE the Baptism of a New Japan, the Event that Put an End to 50 Years of Crimes (Le Monde)

• Hiroshima 12: Political Correctness in Japan: The comment "tramples on the feelings of victims", so… Shut the F**k Up and Lose Your Job! (re the forced resignation of Japan's defense (!) minister)

• Hiroshima 11: If Western elites cannot find perfection in history, they see no good at all; most never learned the narrative of WWII, only what was wrong about it (Victor Davis Hanson)

• Hiroshima 10: If Not for the Atom Bombs, Japan, as we know it today, would not exist (S L Sanger, author of “Working on the Bomb”)

• Hiroshima 9: Over one million warning leaflets were dropped over Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and 33 other Japanese cities 5 days before the Hiroshima bombing (Bill Whittle)

• Hiroshima 8: Was It Wrong to Use the Atom Bomb on Japan? (Father Wilson Miscamble)

• Hiroshima 7: Some Facts About Hiroshima and World War II That You Hear Neither From America's MSM, University Élites, and History Books, Nor From Japan's (New York Times)

•  Hiroshima: Did Japan's top officers know a bomber was approaching Nagasaki, 5 hours beforehand, and do nothing?

• Hiroshima 6: "Lance or spear practice was a regular women's exercise to practice for the anticipated U.S. landing" (a Japanese American)

• Hiroshima 5: Japan's plans for defense involved mobilizing the civilian population, including women and children, for the customary suicidal battle tactics (Thomas Sowell)

• Hiroshima 4: "Les 300 000 morts d'Hiroshima ont épargné bien davantage de Japonais, qui auraient été écrasés sous des bombes ordinaires" (Charles de Gaulle)

• Hiroshima 3: A mainland invasion could have resulted in millions of Japanese deaths—and that's not counting civilians (Wall Street Journal)

• Hiroshima 2: Hand-wringing over Hiroshima is just virtue-signaling by people who never said a bad word about Stalin or Mao’s mass murders (Glenn Reynolds)

• Hiroshima 1: Unlike the ends of the majority of conflicts, World War II in the Pacific grew increasingly bloody as U.S. forces approached the Japanese homeland (Erik Svane) 

 

Updates: 16 Did Japan's top officers know a bomber was approaching Nagasaki, 5 hours beforehand, and do nothing? 

 

• Hiroshima 17: During WWII, Japan Killed 7 Times More People (Most of Them Civilians) than They Lost (Victor Davis Hanson)

Why Leftists like Ruth Bader Ginsburg LOVE the South African Constitution

President Trump [has] nominated Brett Kavanaugh, a DC Circuit judge, to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by Anthony Kennedy

writes Benny Huang (update: much obliged — obrigado — Sarah, for the Instalink).

“My judicial philosophy is straight forward,” said Kavanaugh at the press conference announcing his nomination.

“A judge must be independent and interpret the law, not make the law. A judge must interpret the constitution as written.”

In a perfect world Kavanaugh’s judicial philosophy would be the default for all judges but in the flawed world we live in that is just not the case. More than a few believe that their job is to be arbiters of justice, to correct the voters when they are in error, or simply to do what is right.

On its face, none of these guiding principles sounds awful. Is it wrong to dispense justice? Well yes, it is, when “justice” is merely a gussied-up political agenda. Is it wrong to correct the voters when they have erred? No, not when their elected representatives are violating the Constitution. That’s called judicial review and it’s right and proper.

On the other hand, a judge who strikes down a law simply because he finds it wrongheaded, ineffective, or immoral and then scrounges for a post facto rationalization has committed an egregious offense against the republican form of government. That’s called judicial activism. Is it wrong for a judge to simply do what’s right? Yes, because it’s not his place to decide what’s right. That’s our job.

A judge should never ask if a law before him is prudent or righteous. He should ask how it squares with the text of the Constitution, which ought to be, with the exception of rare statutory cases, his only guiding light. Everything else is bias.

Related — The Leftist Worldview in a Nutshell:
A World of Deserving Dreamers Vs. Despicable Deplorables

While not all judges seem to revere our founding document, a few appear not even to like it. For example, the recently retired Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner wrote an op-ed while still on the bench in 2016 in which he explained in no uncertain terms that the Constitution is basically worthless.

He opined:

“I see absolutely no value to a judge of spending decades, years, months, weeks, day, hours, minutes, or seconds studying the Constitution, the history of its enactment, its amendments, and its implementation … Eighteenth-century guys, however smart, could not foresee the culture, technology, etc., of the 21st century. Which means that the original Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the post–Civil War amendments (including the 14th), do not speak to today.”

Posner’s antipathy for the Constitution hasn’t stopped him from decreeing all sorts of laws to be, ahem, unconstitutional. In 1999, he wrote a legal opinion (fortunately the minority opinion) in which argued that a Wisconsin law against partial birth abortion violated the Constitution. The law withstood legal challenge but not for lack of trying on Posner’s part.

Of course, it didn’t violate the Constitution. There’s no right to abortion in the Constitution much less a right to the most gruesome last-minute variety. And yet Posner asserted that the duly enacted law violated that old, useless piece of parchment that he finds irrelevant because he couldn’t keep his personal agenda out of his decision.

Another example of contempt for the Constitution can be found on a higher court, the US Supreme Court. In 2012, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, perhaps the most radical leftist ever to ascend to SCOTUS, explained to an Egyptian audience that they ought not use the US Constitution as a model for their new, post-Arab Spring government. She suggested using the South African Constitution instead.

This is alarming, to say the least.

The current South African constitution become law in 1997 after the end of Apartheid and the rise of the African National Congress, a Moscow-backed crypto-Communist political party that was once the political arm of the terrorist organization Umkhonto we Sizwe.

If American leftists were to write a replacement constitution for our country today it would probably look a lot like South Africa’s. The South African constitution comes with many positive rights including the right to health care. South African healthcare sucks, by the way, but at least everyone has a right to it. The document contains a free speech clause but also a “hate speech” exception that renders it essentially void. Rather than robust free exercise of religion protections it offers a very weak “freedom of conscience” clause. Citizens may believe what they wish, something that no government can take away though many have tried, but citizens must still speak and act as the government commands.

One of the more hideous aspects of South Africa’s constitution is its supposed protection against discrimination, which actually offers no protection at all. I would be fine with this provision if the only discrimination it addressed were the private sector variety but that is not the case. Their constitution prohibits only “unfair” discrimination which is code for discrimination against blacks, leaving plenty of room for supposedly “fair” discrimination against whites.

How do they get away with this? There’s a nice loophole in the constitution:

“Discrimination on one or more of the grounds listed in subsection (3) is unfair unless it is established that the discrimination is fair.”

So the state can’t discriminate unless the state decides that it can. The black-majority South African government takes full advantage of this power to discriminate against its white citizens under the policy known as “black economic empowerment.”

This is the document that Justice Ginsburg believes young governments should pattern themselves after. Terrifying.

Evidence exists that Justice Ginsburg does more than merely admire the South African constitution from afar, she seeks to imitate it.

For example, our Constitution does not contain the same allowance for “fair” racial discrimination enshrined in South Africa’s constitution but that hasn’t stopped Ginsburg from ruling repeatedly that it does. In cases such as Fisher v. Texas and Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Ginsburg has sided with discriminatory policies that hurt whites and Asians.

She doesn’t seem to like free exercise of religion either. Ginsburg has brushed off this fundamental American precept in such cases as Masterpiece Cake Shop v. Colorado and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. Clearly, she prefers the pale facsimile known as “freedom of conscience” because of its general meaninglessness.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been using her gavel for more than twenty years to hammer our Constitution into something that closely resembles its South African counterpart. No American voted for her stealthy transformation of our founding document but she’s giving it to us anyway, one landmark decision at a time.

Another judge who can’t keep his personal agenda to himself is the thankfully retired John Paul Stevens. This Supreme Court justice wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post entitled “The Five Extra Words That Can Fix the Second Amendment”—which came as a surprise to those of us who didn’t know it was broken.

Stevens argued that the second amendment has been grossly misinterpreted in recent years and suggests gutting the amendment by making a small addition that would nullify the whole thing. Stevens’ new and “improved” second amendment reads as follows:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms when serving in the Militia shall not be infringed.”

Note the italicized text. Since no one is actually serving in the militia in 2018 this amendment would not prevent the government from seizing every [pea]-shooter in the country. But at least we could still keep our second amendment as some kind of memento. It would be worthless but at least the gun grabbers could pretend that they didn’t trample on anyone’s constitutional rights.

It should not be overlooked that Stevens stood opposite the pro-second amendment majority on the two most important gun rights cases of the recent era: Heller v. DC and McDonald v. Chicago. In other words, Stevens handed down opinions that reflected the Constitution as Stevens wished it to be, not as it was written.

That’s judicial malpractice. The second amendment was approved by a constitutional convention and ratified by three quarters of the state legislatures. Stevens’s policy wishes were approved by no one except Stevens and they don’t (or shouldn’t) amount to a hill of beans.

Not surprisingly, Stevens wrote an op-ed in the wake of Parkland mass shooting that argued for the repeal of the second amendment. It’s almost as if Stevens had tried for years to erase it by court decision. Stevens didn’t like that amendment and his rulings reflected that prejudice.

These aforementioned judges proved themselves not disciplined enough to resist the lure of power once on the bench. The law is what they say it is, or at least that’s what they believe. Our country can’t afford any more of these judges.

Traitors and Russian Lackeys in the White House? Also, Are They Trump's Intelligence Agencies or Are They Obama and Clinton's FBI and CIA?

Regarding the alleged treason summit:

    It's dismaying to read about traitors and Russian lackeys in the White House and in the Western hemisphere.  Indeed, who can deny that we have had an Oval Office occupant who whispered to the Russian president that he would have "more flexibility" after the next election? a secretary of state who worked for a "Russian reset" while being involved in an attempt to sell 20% of America's uranium reserves to Moscow? and a European leader who decided to pay billions of dollars into the coffers of Russia for natural gas imports, all the while nuking her country's nuclear power industry?  (Like numerous pacifists during the Cold War, today's greens and environmentalists have turned out to be, consciously or otherwise, doing the Kremlin's bidding…)

    Oh silly me!  I forgot: Barack Obama, the Clintons, and Angela Merkel are Democrats, Democrat-friendly, and/or statists who lean to the left, and so of course, those facts must be dismissed as mere Republican talking points — there is nothing to investigate, no, nothing at all.

    In Helsinki, Donald Trump was asked if he believed Vladimir Putin's words over "your own" intelligence agencies.  Of course, the CIA and the FBI are not Trump's intelligence agencies, nor George Bush's, nor Ronald Reagan's, nor John F Kennedy's.  They are America's.  That has been the rule.

    During the previous administration, however (aka the one under an allegedly scandal-free president), the CIA and the FBI — along with such departments as Justice and the IRS — indeed seemed to be Obama's and Clinton's intelligence agencies.  Didn't they run cover for the Democrat party while targeting conservatives and Republicans?  The question is, has that changed or are they — or are at least their top dogs — still beholden more to the Democrat Party than to the nation?

Today is George Bush's Birthday (George Turns 15)

Today George Bush will be celebrating his birthday. Some will protest and say, that's not true, the president's birthday was July 6. But we're not talking about the same person, apparently. Nor his father. Because this George Bush turns only 15 today.

The George Bush I have in mind is not the one whose full name is George Walker Bush, nor the one whose full name is George Herbert Walker Bush, but the one whose full name is George Bush Abdul Kader Faris Abed El-Hussein (no relation to Saddam). And this George Bush was born in Baghdad on July 11, 2003. (Update: Shookhran to Instapundit's Stephen Green.)

From a post of one decade ago:

As far as can be ascertained, George Bush’s parents named him in honor of some Western leader one of whose recent feats they found to be not only impressive and admirable, obviously, but worthy enough to name their new-born son after. They must have been plenty impressed, in view of the fact that they gave their child the name of someone not of their faith, with linguistic roots not of their culture. (Sort of like a Westerner — say, someone from the Bush clan — giving a newborn son a name such as Mohammed Ahmed Yusuf Bush.)

Now, here is what I suggest. I suggest that the West should send a number of representatives to Baghdad. The type of people that David Brooks calls “the members of the sneering brigade”, “the think-tank johnnies and the rest of the commentariate” in “their usual sky-is-falling mode” — people like José Bové, François Hollande, Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schröder, José Luis Zapatero, Jean-Marie Colombani, Plantu, Willem (to name only the Europeans), etc… They should choose a couple of high-visibility VIPs, “arm” them with all the usual arguments, and send them to Baghdad.

And there, they should seek out the parents of George Bush. Once the couple has been found, they should patiently explain the “truth” to them and seek thereby to install some common sense in them. That would include telling them…

• that the war was unnecessary and a sham, conducted for bogus reasons;
• that Iraq, and the world, were far better off before the conflict;
• that the presence of foreign soldiers is “humiliating” for George Bush and his fellow countrymen;
• that they must resent America (or at least, the Bush administration) for the current situation in which thousands have been killed over a period of more than three years and hark back to the previous situation in which the secret police killed several thousands per month with total impunity;
• that, in contrast to the administration of George Bush’s namesake, they, the holier-than-thou members of the peace camp, had (and have) nothing but the best interests of his parents in mind;
• oh, and, of course, that George Bush’s namesake is nothing but a nincompoop and a despicable liar.

Once the parents of George Bush have been converted to the sky-is-falling truth, the “the members of the sneering brigade” could go to work convincing more of Iraq’s population.

The members of “the commentariate” could start with Mohammed, Ali, and Omar, the brothers from Iraq the Model and expand outwards, to include the Iraqis who lost hands and tongues to Saddam’s thugs, had their faced scarred by acid, had their sisters, mothers, and daughters raped, and had their parents, brothers, and children shot down and their bodies thrown into unnamed graves. With luck, “the think-tank johnnies” would eventually reach that vast majority of people who in polls believe life has never been better since the war toppled Saddam and who say they feel more optimistic than they ever had in the past.

Let us join together and wish them “good luck and godspeed with your sacred mission”.

Oh, and by the way, Georgie: Happy birthday!

Related: There's a new George Bush in Baghdad,
six weeks old and screaming in a crib
• Nadia Jergis Mohammed, 34, … told Associated Press Television News:

"I tell you all Iraqis hated Saddam's regime. It was only George Bush who liberated us, without him it wouldn't have happened. If he hadn't done it the sons of Saddam would have ruled us for years. He saved us from Saddam and that's why we named our son after him"

Related: George Bush of Iraq, Meet Little Trump of Syria…

July 4th Celebrated on French Radio

Pour le 4 juillet 2018, le Libre Journal du Nouveau Monde fêtait l'indépendance américaine avec une émission de une heure et demie sur Radio Courtoisie (dank U wel à KC).

---

Evelyne Joslain, assistée de Stanislas, reçoit :

• Erik Svane, membre du groupe des Républicains à Paris
• Paul Reen, membre du groupe des Républicains à Paris

Thème : “A l’occasion de l’indépendance des Etats-Unis, point sur l’actualité américaine”

Let’s be honest, the ACLU has never defended all freedoms for all people; For example, it rarely, if ever, defends the Second or Tenth Amendments

If the American Civil Liberties Union was ever a champion of its supposed namesake — civil liberties — it no longer is. 

Thus writes Benny Huang.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the ACLU has quietly drafted new guidelines that address which legal battles it will wade into. Civil liberties are now being balanced with other considerations.

In an eight-page memo, the ACLU agonized over whether and when to lend a helping hand to people it clearly despises. It did not categorically reject the possibility that the organization would defend deplorables’ civil liberties, but it left itself plenty of weaselly escape hatches.

It’s complicated, you see. Really, really complicated.

I suspect that the ACLU has always quietly exercised discretion when choosing its cases even if it didn’t say so publicly. To be sure, even these guidelines were for ACLU eyes only, a clear indication that the organization still wants to be perceived as stalwart defenders of the Bill of Rights.

Maintaining the organization’s public image is paramount. As former ACLU president Nadine Strossen said in a recent interview, “The ACLU defends all fundamental freedoms for all people.”

But it doesn’t and, let’s be honest, it never has. For example, the ACLU has never filed a Second Amendment lawsuit. Their Bill of Rights apparently includes only nine amendments. Or is it eight? Despite the federal government’s extreme overreach, the ACLU rarely sues the federal government for violating the tenth amendment. The ACLU does however fight valiantly for “a woman’s right to choose” (to kill her unborn baby) even though that one doesn’t appear anywhere in the Constitution. Clearly there’s an agenda here beyond motherhood and apple pie.

The ACLU is now admitting that there are lots of factors that need to be considered before taking a case. The first question that needs to be asked is whose rights are being trampled? Is it good people or bad people? Its own side or the other side? Supposed oppressors or the supposed oppressed?

 … While the memo stresses that the ACLU might still decide to take on such cases, it isn’t automatic.
 

And so the great climbdown begins. The ACLU, that great defender of free speech even when it’s inconvenient, is now affixing caveats.

But at least it’s finally admitting what I have been saying for a long time, namely that there’s a conflict between fundamental constitutional principles — free speech, free exercise of religion, a free press — and what they like to call “justice,” which is nothing more than code for their political agenda.

And make no mistake about it, their agenda creates a lot of “tension” — a word that appears eight times in memo — with Madisonian rights. The ACLU will now approach this tension gingerly, hoping that no one notices that it’s deserted its core mission of defending the Bill of Rights. People will just have to understand that its members failed to defend our supposedly inalienable rights only after serious deliberation that made plenty of allowances for, as they call it, “nuanced and intentional consideration of the competing interests.”

At the core of these guidelines is the tacit admission that the ACLU’s “values” are in fact antithetical to the Constitution. On this we can agree. Clearly the ACLU has arrived at a time for choosing even if it doesn’t want to admit it.

Throughout our history there have always been constitutional violations and in every case they were defended by people who believed they had other, more important interests to uphold, such as the protection of public morals, the dignity of the family unit, or wartime necessity, to name a few.

This last justification for ignoring the Constitution is what eventually gave birth in 1917 to the National Civil Liberties Bureau (CLB), forerunner to the ACLU. It was a tumultuous time, with the United States committing itself to war in Europe over the stringent opposition of socialists, communists, and anarchists. Citing the need to mobilize the country for “the war to end all wars,” the U.S. government cracked down on dissent. The CLB argued (correctly) that there was no wartime exception to the civil liberties safeguarded in the Constitution.

[The ACLU memo] is obviously a veiled reference to the recent Masterpiece Cake Shop decision, which was, at the time this document was written, on its way to the Supreme Court. The memo is clearly implying that Colorado really was violating two of the First Amendment’s clauses — free speech and free exercise of religion — but the ACLU just doesn’t care. “Equality” was more important.

In any other context I have no doubt that the ACLU, with its expansive view of speech, would have come to the aid of an artisan compelled to use his talents to create a message of which he disapproves. But not when it’s a Christian baker who doesn’t want to custom-design a cake for homosexual nuptials. “Gays” good, Christians bad.

It would have been bad enough if the ACLU had refused to take on the Christian baker’s case because of other, competing, anti-constitutional values. But it went further than that. It litigated the case from the other side. Not content to stand on the sidelines while Jack Phillips’s constitutional rights were being savaged, the ACLU decided to jump in and get some blood on its own knuckles.

Not that it would ever admit this openly. In court the ACLU attorneys argued that Jack Phillips’s rights were not being violated, which is a more compelling argument than “Yeah, but so what?”

 … The ACLU is suffering from a bad case of cognitive dissonance, trying to navigate a course between what it thinks it stands for and what it actually stands for. It can have the Constitution or it can have its agenda, but it can’t have both.

The Leftist Worldview in a Nutshell: A World of Deserving Dreamers Vs. Despicable Deplorables

The more you think about it, the more you realize how brilliant it was for Donald Trump to state in his first State of the Union address that "Americans are dreamers, too."

In that short phrase, indeed, the president took on what is the entire worldview of the left in a nutshell.

The world perspective of the Democrats in the Donkey party and their allies in the Democracy-Dies-in-Darkness media can be called the Dichotomy of the D's. (Thanks for the link, Maggie.)

The "basket of deplorables" is not just a Hillary Clinton expression for those "offensive, hateful, mean-spirited" Republicans who are "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it." 

A Deplorable turns out to be the description of every "normal" bourgeois Westerner (first and foremost Americans).

Dreamers, by contrast, are not just the nickname given to young illegal immigrants who, according to DACA, ought to be allowed to remain in the United States. Anybody and everybody who is opposed to the above-mentioned caste of untouchables turns out to be some type of a Dreamer.

• Related: The Era of the Drama Queens: Every Crisis Is a Triumph

From illegal aliens to foreign leftist dictators, the population of the planet turns out to be formed almost exclusively of admirable and deserving dreamers, all the forward-looking prophets in America and just about all the foreigners in the world.

With one glaring exception: all red-blooded Americans and every one of their allies abroad.

(Update: Almost four months after posting the present post, a Peter Hasson article on a Tom Steyer ad comparing Donald Trump to Saddam Hussein appeared in the Daily Caller with a photo of the billionaire wearing a T-shirt saying exactly what this post says about the ubiquity of dreamers. Update 2: By 2020, the British edition of Evan Osnos's Joe Biden biography was American Dreamer.)

Think about it:

Isn't it true that, basically, you can take any position of the left these days — the people who could best be described as drama queens — and apply the D Dichotomy to it: it all turns out to be about the Deserving Dreamers versus the Despicable Deplorables

• Right-wing Conservative journalists, undercover reporters, and/or other conservative activists are called "despicable" by such people as the executive editor of the New York Times, Dean Baquet, who goes on to say that a real journalist "has to have in his or her heart a desire to make society better" — in other words, the real MSM operative has to be some sort of a dreamer.

Thus it is hardly surprising to find a Times op-ed saying that the ignorant do not have the right to an audience. (The author turns out to be Bryan W Van Norden, “a professor of philosophy at Wuhan University” and therefore, according to Robert Shibley, an employee of the Chinese Communist government. But hey! Don't communists turn out to be dreamers, too?! Fear not, we will get back to the subject…)

• Ted Cruz, during the 2016 debates, echoing Newt Gingrich during those of 2012, summarized the mainstream media's outlook well: explain to us why you Republicans are such cartoon caricatures, while for the Democrats, the questions were: Tell us about your sublime plans (your glorious dreams) to bring our nation, our planet, towards a bright shining future.

Where conservatives are involved, it is, it must be, about the personal, because these deplorable beings are driven by greed or by politics and have nothing but nefarious schemes. They may say the same exact thing as a liberal and have a similar policy to that of a Democrat, but should that happen, it can only be attributed to politicizing and other types of hypocrisy.

Leftists, by contrast, are always, and only, driven by the highest of principles, by their dreams.

Turn back to Barack Obama's Hope 'n' Change. As Ann Althouse points out, this is the dream of destitute people in need. (But conservatives are not against people in need per se; they are for people being, or bringing themselves, "outside" of need — preferably, if and when possible, through their own efforts.)

Think of the adulation (past and/or present) afforded to such people as Che Guevara, Hugo Chávez, Mao Zedong, Vladimir Lenin, and Karl Marx, as well as, last but not least, the author of Dreams From My Father and Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, the president who dreamed (and dreams) of "fundamentally transforming the United States of America", i.e., the land of the haters, the (fill-in-the-blank)phobes, and… the deplorables.

Homosexuals, women, blacks, transgenders, illegal aliens, even children and… the mentally ill (!): every minority is composed of victimized, and martyred, dreamers yearning, and deserving, to break free, to tell their story, to give their special brand of wisdom, while every member of the majority, every Christian, every member of the white race (unless they turn good and side with the dreaming leftists or at least pipe down) is an oppressor, a bad person, a despicable deplorable.

(Why do so many American, and Western, citizens, go along with this? Because they get to take pride in being part of the small, élite band of good guys, the club of the virtuous, those wise beings who see how terrible their neighbors in the general population are…)

Here are some more illustrations:

• Why were fans of Jimmy Fallon upset that Donald Trump appeared on his show during the 2016 campaign? Because a dreamer, or someone admired by dreamers, managed (almost?) to make a human being out of a deplorable, i.e., a monster.

Meanwhile, Jimmy Kimmel's tears on ABC are clearly the antics of a dreamer upset with the decisions of the deplorables who no longer want to follow the aspirations of his class.

• Stormy Daniels may be a porn star while Sarah Huckabee is a government spokesperson, but Stormy is a dreamer, or on the side of the dreamers (or certainly not actively against the dreamers), while Sarah is one of the deplorables. (Indeed, even adult actors are not in the same class as deplorables, as can be evidenced on Twitter, which likes nothing better to censor the tweets of conservatives such as Stacy McCain, Milo Yiannopoulos, Kevin Williamson, Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds, Sheriff Clarke, Mark Dice, and Breitbart, but for which the XXX-rated photos and the hard-core videos of professional porn stars (NSFW) are entirely permissible.)

• As for any leftists, in Hollywood or elsewhere, bold enough to suggest that any of these monsters might be something as innocuous as… "a genuine person" — or that we shouldn't criticize a fellow leftist for being willing to [cross] the aisle and being open to making precisely such a comment — woe upon those heretics and upon their careers.

• Why is Roseanne punished for a personal tweet while Samantha Bee, Kathy Griffin, and Michelle Wolf get little to no blowback for their expletive-sanctioned shows?

Well, because conservative comics have no excuse for being the despicable deplorables they are, while liberal comics have the excuse that y'know, deep down, they are… deserving dreamers, Hollywood dreamers who to boot manage to correctly identify and mercilessly mock the wicked enemy.

• This is why Hollywood lies about its blatant liberal bias: The artists are the dreamers forced to hide, at least partially, their agendas, i.e., their dreams, because the content thereof is (sigh! how unfortunate!) something the clueless deplorables would never be able to understand. (Needless to say, this is what, in the Ghostbusters reboot or in the Star Wars universe, causes Hollywood (creators and journalists alike), to blame the the fans for not being woke enough.)

• As for the Southern Poverty Law Center, the SPLC's hate groups map is basically a message that anybody who is not a liberal like is a despicable monster belonging to a vicious hate group.
• Also, when leftists find excuses for the criminal class while blaming society, what they are basically doing is calling the criminals a type of dreamers whose pipe dreams where shattered by the deplorables of the "normal" bourgeoisie and by the disgraceful society that they or their forefathers created.

• Because deplorables are clueless clods, because Americans are terrible citizens, because “arch-conservatives” are “kooks,” “crackpots,” and “crazies”, it is okay — even necessary and recommended and, yes, encouraged, not to mention, as it happens, rib-tickling — to pull the wool over their eyes. (See the Obamacare promise and Obama's Iran deal…)

Of course, when leftists deplore the stupidity of the American voter or call Americans ignorant hillbillies or opine that Americans are Either Really Stupid or Incredibly Bigoted… Really, Really Dumb People, they are not really making a dispassionate comment on the IQ of the average American, a topic that is open for debate and discussion. Members of the tribe of the virtuous are outraged that the deplorables do not share, or do not support, the dreams of the leftist dreamer class.

Why, by the way, do so many "independent" journalists turn out to be Democratic operatives with bylines? Because, almost of necessity, by the very nature of their work, they must start out as, or become, drama queens — always in search of a crisis, real or otherwise.

Try taking Jim Treacher's ever-green definition of modern journalism and substitute a few choice ex pressions for "Democrats":

Modern journalism is all about deciding which facts the public shouldn't know because they might reflect badly on the Dreamers and on the drama queens and on the crisis finders/crisis creators.

Now try doing the same with Iowahawk's journalism definition:

Journalism is about covering important stories detrimental to Dreamers and to drama queens and to the crisis finders/crisis creators. With a pillow, until they (the important stories) stop moving.

Speaking of which, an institution created (no matter how many decades or centuries ago), and run, by deplorables is an abomination; headed by dreamers, it is deserving of nothing but the utmost respect…

Head over to Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, and see if the deplorable/dreamer dichotomy doesn't make sense in the following sentence:

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

First Amendment rights must be curbed because it enhances the deplorables' free speech to the detriment of the aspirations of the dreamers. As Ben Shapiro writes,

Free speech is just another element of a corrupt republic that must be torn down brick by brick in favor of a better world. When you see Donald Trump as the final iteration of a hierarchical system built to prevent the world from achieving utopia, that system must be dismantled — starting with the freedoms that allowed Donald Trump to become president. It’s that simple for the Left.

With several examples of how dangerous and insane liberals have become, Matt Tapscott asks, along with Craig Shirley and Scott Mauer, why liberals are always so violent.

Easy. Because they are drama queens. Drama queens who split the world into two — Deserving Dreamers Vs. Despicable Deplorables.

This is why leftists, aka dreamers, cannot maintain peaceful and reasonable discourse, and why protests turn vicious, dangerous, and personal.

Men, inches from her face, screaming at [Florida attorney general Pam Bondi] and blocking her path

In their immigration furor, the spitting mad dreamers can barely tolerate moderate Republicans.

All of these haters must be as bad as fascists. All of them must be as bad as Saddam Hussein, as bad as Adolf Hitler.

Because deplorables are such horrid people — can those monsters even be termed human beings?! — they must, in one way or another, be made to shut up.

It is always okay to believe the worst of these "untouchables" and to go about punishing them in any which way possible, from Facebook bans and doxxing to licking their doorknobs and spitting in their food. Not to mention (cough) incivility, blacklisting, and assassination, along with family strife, mainly dreamer parents not letting deplorable grandparents see their grand kids.

• Related: The Divine Right of Democrats: Kevin Williamson on the liberation of the Donkey party by the practical elimination of the Republican party (America is  "suffering from a kind of infection in the form of the Republican party, which inhibits the normal and healthy — meaning Democrat-dominated — political life of the United States")

You get the picture.

This article has lasted long enough.

Let's end it with a view on foreign affairs…

Why did the media ignore Barack Obama's faux pas and half-truths, fawning over his every move, while lashing out at every Trump White House?

As we have seen, because Obama was, and is, an admirable dreamer while Trump is, and was, a despicable deplorable.

What gave secretary of state Hillary Clinton the right to aim for a reset button with Moscow and Barack Obama license to whisper to the Russian president that he would be more flexible after the coming election?

Wouldn't you know it? The deplorables' foes are in fact no foes at all, only dreamers in their own right, and it is only the puerile bigotry of the despicable deplorables that makes them foes in the first place.

The Russians are (somehow) dreamers — that is, unless and until they are said to allegedly side with a Republican (of which, more 8 or 9 sentences down). In the Obama White House, as in the Carter administration, the Iranian ayatollahs are/were dreamers as well.

Go back further to the mid-1970s. Jimmy Carter tries to convince Americans to be more understanding and accepting of communism, while using human rights sanctions on such allies as the Shah of Iran. Why?

America's allies, being allies of the despicable deplorables, become despicable deplorables themselves — they run the gamut from Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and Chile's General Pinochet to Miami's Cubans and the Florida family members of Elián Gonzales — while the foes of the despicable deplorables (American or foreign) turn out to be no more than misunderstood dreamers.

In this respect, the basic message of the 1960s peace movement and all its Hanoi Janes amounts to  America's deplorables trying to prevent dreamers in North Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh's Viet Kong allies (all of whom were even called the equivalents of America's founding fathers) from realizing their aspirations.

Meanwhile, Americans are bitter and frustrated deplorables clinging "to guns and religion" who have no understanding of foreigners' aspirations and dreams.

All foreigners, all Europeans, in this grass-is-greener simplification, are dreamers — setting up roadblocks to hate speech, implementing gun control, guaranteeing universal healthcare…

To quote Tucker Carlson's recap of an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez interview, "people who show up here and ignore our laws are more American than you are."

Why, in the 1980s, would Ted Kennedy secretly contact Moscow to get the Soviets' help in defeating Ronald Reagan in the presidential election?

Because the leader of the Kremlin was, somehow, a dreamer in his own right while the Gipper was a war-mad deplorable.

Incidentally, as we have seen, Vladimir Putin was a dreamer with whom the deplorables could do business, if only they knew how to expand their vision and, like Barack Obama and the Clintons, be tolerant of and open to his personal dreams.

That is, until the Russian president was accused of having helped a despicable deplorable win the 2016 election, in which case the ally of such a monster instantly became a despicable deplorable himself.

What is it that, for a century now, has given the communists an excuse for the millions upon millions upon millions of citizens they butchered?

You know the line:

"They had good intentions." What does this mean?

They had constructive dreams. Yes, the communists, they were/are dreamers.

Joseph McCarthy was among the ultimate deplorables deserving of nothing but contempt and condemnation. Why so much paranoia about communists who were basically harmless?! Well, okay okay; sure there was that minor matter that they killed millions and millions and millions of Russians, and millions and millions and millions of Chinese, and millions and millions and millions of Cambodians, etc, etc, etc, but (!) c'mon — remember the communists were (or are) dreamers, and they had (or have) good intentions (good dreams)…

Related: The Era of the Drama Queens: Every Crisis Is a Triumph

Update: Andrew Klavan on PJ Media:

Every television show you watch, every movie, every woman's magazine, every comedian, and, yes, every news program tells you you suck. Your country sucks. Your culture sucks. Your religion and your morals suck. And you personally are one of those dumb-ass racists who clings to his Bible and talks funny.

If you believe your country should vet its immigrants, you're racist. If you voted for Donald Trump, you're racist. If you make a joke about Barack Obama on Facebook, you're racist twice. If you think motherhood is a woman's highest calling, you're sexist. If you take it ill when Islamists blow you up in the name of their nasty little god, you're Islamophobic. If you know that a man is a man even if he says he's a woman, you're transphobic. If you think it's fair to debate whether homosexual actions are moral or not, you're homophobic.

Every day. From every outlet. All the time.