Peggy Noonan Figures Out How Most Americans Already Live

Cross posted from The Lonely Conservative

There are times I read Peggy Noonan’s columns and can barely believe she once worked for Ronald Reagan. It’s as if she’s been living in a bubble for far too long. She’s not the only one. I think the entire political class has been in that bubble with her.

Ms. Noonan’s column in Saturday morning’s Wall Street Journal was a bit depressing when I read it.

More predictions. The cities and suburbs of America are about to get
rougher-looking. This will not be all bad. There will be a certain authenticity
chic. Storefronts, pristine buildings—all will spend less on upkeep, and gleam
less.

So will humans. People will be allowed to grow old again. There will be a
certain liberation in this. There will be fewer facelifts and browlifts, less
Botox, less dyed hair among both men and women. They will look more like people
used to look, before perfection came in. Middle-aged bodies will be thicker and
softer, with more maternal and paternal give. There will be fewer gyms and fewer
trainers, but more walking. Gym machines produced the pumped and cut look. They
won’t be so affordable now.

I forgot about the column while I went about my day. We took the kids to a Syracuse Chiefs baseball game. We sat next to the man my son nicknamed “Robbie the Trash Talker.” My husband, his friends and my son started with the cat calls. It was such fun!

We talked to a guy who served in Afghanistan. He heard me say I was going to use my birthday money to buy a blackberry. He showed me his blackberry and somehow I found out it cost his girlfriend $600 to call him on Christmas Eve while he was in Afghanistan. If I had $600 in my pocket I probably would have given it to them. Regardless, we had some laughs and I was thrilled to be sitting with someone who served our country.

We always have a blast at the Chiefs games. The stadium is easy to get to and never too crowded. I prefer it over the big ball parks in New York City and Philadelphia. Other than paying $4 for a Diet Coke there were no complaints. Even our four year old, who normally has plenty of complaints, was all smiles all afternoon.

Which brings me back to Peggy Noonan. My family is a middle class family. Years ago we decided to stop vacationing if it meant incurring more debt. If we wanted to really stretch our budget we could probably afford a larger house, fancier cars and nicer clothes. But those things really don’t mean that much to us.

An afternoon watching a farm team play baseball is good enough for us. Always has been and always will be.

Welcome to America, Ms. Noonan.

(By the way - the Chiefs won!)

Shame on American “Exceptionalism”

Shame on Sarah Palin and shame on the failing John McCain campaign for targeting Barack Obama’s association with so-called domestic terrorists. That’s nothing more than race-baiting!

We all know that it isn’t true. Well it is true that Obama knows William Ayres, but only superficially and only because Ayers is Obama’s neighbor and they happened to serve together on a couple of boards. Ok, and Ayres did host a fund-raiser for Obama. What’s the big deal? Racism – that’s the big deal!

Oh yea, those backwoods dying racist Republicans want to make a big deal of something that happened long ago when Obama was only eight years old. Give us a break! They just want to tarnish the amazing image of our first Black President.

Bill Ayres is now a distinguished professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The fact that Ayres and his wife Bernadine Dohrn were once far-left Weatherman terrorists who may or may not have been complicit in several bombings that caused American deaths is old news. What’s that got to do with Obama’s friendship with Ayers today?

You know there’s a lot of self-righteous talk from so-called “American Patriots” about how Ayers and Dohrn’s group bombed United States Capitol in 1971 and then they bombed the Pentagon in 1972. Gee Whiz!!! Talk about myopic American exceptionalism! The Capitol bombing was a heroic protest of the US invasion of Laos, and the Pentagon bombing was a necessary retaliation for the US bombing raid in Hanoi. And when they bombed the U.S. Department of State in 1975 it was a righteous response to the U.S. escalation of warfare in Vietnam.

The other bombings were too numerous to mention but in every case Ayers and Dohrn were true to their Marxist revolutionary values. That’s what counts! But Oh No! That’s not what Joe Six Pack or what that well known Hockey Mom want to see. They want to tarnish Obama for his association with the “unrepentant” Ayres. Why? Get this; they say that a person’s character can be known by the company he or she keeps. Isn’t that a tad bit prosaic???

Today we live in a multicultural society where different languages are spoken by people of many different races and origins. We Americans hold a vast array of cultural as well as political values. There is no “One” American value. All values must be counted as equally valid. America is not exceptional. America is but one of many nations, and we must take the lead for change in this new hopeful world Obama will help to create. If Obama wants to associate with radical extremists who hate America, that’s all to his credit. He can speak their language and appropriately deal with their cries for justice. He will bring Americans to a fuller understanding of what we must give back to the world. Can we really ask for more in a president?

Today, based on a couple of articles at the New York Times, far-right blogs are supposedly revealing more about the Obama/Ayers association. So what? So what if Obama and Ayers had a relationship going back many years, to the 1980s? So what if the far-right offers “detailed visual and written evidence of the longstanding and intimate relationship between Senator Obama and radical anti-American Bill Ayers?”

What do these “revelations” actually tell us? Only that Obama doesn’t see the same America as the dominant culture sees. But, is this really wrong? Obama isn’t really “like us” because there is no “Us.” That’s the illusion Obama hopes to overcome. Obama is a man of the world – a renaissance man – a man of many cultures – not an American exceptionalist!

The far right is trying to show that Obama’s willingness to have many “dangerous” associations represents a pattern of consistent lack of judgment. They are completely wrong. Obama doesn’t have bad judgment. He’s a brilliant man. He knows exactly what he is doing.

More Kool-Aid anyone?

Technorati Tags: America,American exceptionalism,Obama,McCain,Palin,William Ayres,Bill Ayres,Weatherman,terrorism,left,leftist,Marxism

Trackposted to The Virtuous Republic, http://morewhat.com/wordpress/?p=3247, The World According to Carl, DragonLady's World, Leaning Straight Up, Democrat=Socialist, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe

An “Honest” Terrorist Writes: “No Muslim Can Pledge Loyalty to the Constitution”

The Keith Ellison swearing-in controversy continues to rage. The focus of this controversy should not be about which holy book should or should not be used, or if and when any book should be used, but rather it should focus upon questioning the adequacy of our American Constitution (specifically the two clauses of the First Amendment concerning the relationship of government to religion: the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause). Does our American Constitution, which offers blanket and unquestioning protection of religious freedom, create the very means by which the destruction of American sovereignty can be accomplished?

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Read closely the words of deported terrorist linked Dr. Jaafar Sheikh Idris

Islam cannot be separated from the state because it guides Muslims through every detail of running the state and their lives. Muslims have no choice but to reject secularism for it excludes the laws of God. . . . No Muslim could become president in a secular regime, for in order to pledge loyalty to the constitution, a Muslim would have to abandon part of his belief and embrace the belief of secularism — which is practically another religion. For Muslims, the word 'religion' does not only refer to a collection of beliefs and rituals, it refers to a way of life which includes all values, behaviors, and details of living.

Here’s the bio on the deported Dr. Jaafar Sheikh Idris:
Former professor and director of the Research Center at the Institute of Islamic & Arab Sciences
Jaafar Sheikh Idris was a professor of Islamic Studies and the director of the Research Center at the Institute of Islamic & Arab Sciences (IIAS) in Fairfax, Virginia. The IIAS wasa nonprofit educational institution affiliated with the Wahhabist al-Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Idris was also the president of American Open University in Alexandria, Virginia. Idris was deported in January 2004, along with 15 others affiliated with the IIAS, during a massive crackdown on Saudi extremism within the United States. He also founded the Islamic Foundation of America.
The IIAS was shut down by federal authorities on July 1, 2004 because of its links to terrorism.

Read the words of Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun in the Lee v. Weisman ruling, 1992.

"When the government puts its imprimatur on a particular religion it conveys a message of exclusion to all those who do not adhere to the favored beliefs. A government cannot be premised on the belief that all persons are created equal when it asserts that God prefers some."

I submit that the corollary to Blackmun’s statement might go like this:

(1) When a government fails to define what constitutes a religion it conveys a message to all that any ideology can pass for religion, and that freedom of religious expression supercedes all other freedoms and overrules all duties of government – specifically the primary duty of government to protect its citizens from harm.

(2) When a government fails to define what constitutes a religion, any ideology with intent to destroy the very constitutional protections it enjoys can hide in plain view while actively undermining the very system of government that gives it protection.

Read What is a Religion?

Here’s an excerpt:

If it is unconstitutional to establish a religion, then it might sometimes be important to determine whether something is a "religion" for Establishment Clause purposes. For example, Malnak v Yogi (3rd Cir.) considered whether SCI/TM (scientific creative intelligence/transcendental meditation), offered as an elective course in New Jersey public schools, was a religion. If so, offering such a course--even on an elective basis--might be unconstitutional. Those challenging the course produced evidence that instructors told students that "creative intelligence is the basis of all growth" and that getting in touch with this intelligence through mantras is the way to "oneness with the underlying reality of the universe." They also pointed out that students received personal mantras in puja ceremonies that include chanting and ritual. On the other hand, supporters of the course showed that SCI/TM put forward no absolute moral code, had no organized clergy or observed holidays, and had no ceremonies for passages such as marriage and funerals. Is SCI/TM a religion? Judge Adams of the Third Circuit applied these three criteria before answering the question in the affirmative:
1. A religion deals with issues of ultimate concern; with what makes life worth living; with basic attitudes toward fundamental problems of human existence.

2. A religion presents a comprehensive set of ideas--usually as "truth," not just theory.

3. A religion generally has surface signs (such as clergy, observed holidays, and ritual) that can be analogized to well-recognized religions.

Unfortunately our constitution was not designed to deal with a religion that is also a system of laws (Sharia) as well as a system of government that is inimical to the American Constitution.

Read: The Saudi Arabian Legal and Social Structure is Examined

Excerpt:
By way of the Establishment Clause, the United States has built a system that inherently creates a certain degree of separation between religion and state.47 This degree of separation should not be taken for granted. For example, countries operating under Shar'ia, or Islamic Law, have little to no separation between religion and state, leaving most Islamic nations under a theocratic type of government.48 In order to make a valid comparison of the different degrees of separation and the role it plays in society, a basic understanding of the Islamic legal and social structure must be achieved.

Last month I suggested a proposed amendment to the Constitution in my article Keith Ellison, Islam, American Sovereignty : Should we Amend the Constitution?

Here’s an excerpt:

Perhaps it’s time for a constitutional amendment?I submit for example: “No person shall hold any office or public Trust under the United States who adheres to or gives allegiance to any religion, ideology, or organization which by word, nature, association, or action has shown intent to undermine the sovereignty of these United States!"

Let us all begin to discuss this issue!

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Islamophobia or the Jihad Against American Society?

Although the FBI announced this month that hate crimes reported by Muslims have decreased significantly since the year of the September 11, and that harassment against Jews outnumber incidents against all other religious and ethnic groups, American Muslims have launched a major PR war against “Islamophobia.”

Obviously, the great majority of Americans are not Islamophobic, but they are deeply concerned that moderate American Muslims have failed to step forward to condemn and to end the radical Islamist take over of Islam – at least in America. American Muslims have had five years since 9/11 to stand up and show where their loyalties lay. It is no longer tolerable to most Americans that American Muslims give lip service to the condemnation of terrorism while shielding terrorists within their own communities. It is obscene that American Muslims should choose to play the role of victim while their major mouth-piece, the terrorist linked Council on American Islamic Relations, wages jihad against American society.

Ultimately, the decision about whether America becomes Islamophobic lies in the hands of American Muslims. It is now time for American Muslims to speak out against the Islamists in their midst. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

FYI: Islam is the fastest growing religion in America.

Read “Jihad comes to Small Town, USA”

Must See Video Clips

"Obsession is without exaggeration one of the most important films of our time. " -- Glenn Beck CNN Headline News

"Obsession is required viewing for everyone. " -- Howard Gordon Executive Producer “24”

Click Here to Watch Obsession

Click here to watch Obsession (Abridged Version)

Other important videos you must watch:

Iran Undercover: The Hidden Revolution
In the Name of God
Jihad in America
Relentless
Lifting the Veil: Zarmina's Story
American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us
Islam: What the West Needs to Know
“A Great Series On The History Of Jihad”

Cross posted excerpt from Spruce Goose

Iran Press News: One of the many regime-run news agenciesAyandeh’yeh Roshan reported:
“Those who obstinately refuse to accept religion will have the sword of the Imam will decisively come down on their neck.”

Update: Read all about the
Transportation Security Administration's "Muslim Sensitivity Training" program.

Tracked back to:
Woman Honor Thyself
Iowa Voice
Foundation For The Defense of Democracies
Jihadi Du Jour
TZI198
American Patriot Journal
E.O.