Leftism

Yes or No?

by

Baron Bodissey at Gates of Vienna has a post regarding a counter-protest by Gathering of Eagles, an “organization that has dedicated itself to guarding America’s war memorials against desecration by anti-war activists and countering the smears against our military by traitors on the Left.”

At the Gathering of Eagles site I found this post, entitled Pittsburgh: Antiwar Leftists Plan to Confine Recruiters in a “Movable Cage”. A Leftist Pittsburgh-area group, which I won’t link, to stated that it plans for a protest at local military recruiting station on March 19, 2008:

If the station remains open, we intend to evict it and everything inside of it, occupy the location, and transform it into something useful for the community. We’ll also be bringing a movable cage in which to confine military recruiters until they no longer pose a danger to our friends and neighbors.

These people intend to place our military personnel in a “moveable cage”. Our military personnel are not in a position to respond to this illegal, degrading and abusive treatment with gunfire. This is occurring here and now in the United States. It is 1968 again in the minds of the Left and our military personnel are being treated like dirt by the Left due to an unpopular war.

Here is my suggestion. It is the practice of leftist community activists to loudly and stridently demand yes or no answer to simple questions from the victims of their protests, and to shout down any answer but a yes or no. This method is effective.

The American public needs to know.

Senator Clinton? Senator Obama? Do you condemn this protest in Pittsburgh? Do you condemn all protests which attack and degrade and insult our military personnel who are recruiting for our all-volunteer armed forces? Yes or No?

No speeches. No flatulence. No blather. You want to be Commander in Chief.

Yes or No.

Tell us.

A Little Positive Reinforcement

by

Glenn links to a lengthy essay in The National Journal which calls into question the veracity of two studies. The studies in question were published in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet, and they supposedly showed that civilian casualties had soared since the US led invasion. In fact, the studies claimed that civilian deaths were ten times greater than anyone had thought!

Our own Shannon Love picked the first of these studies apart when it was first published, and he received a lot of abuse in the comments for it. I’m glad to see that my fellow Chicago Boy is getting some small measure of vindication for all of his hard work, even if The National Journal is incredibly slow out of the starting gate.

[From Jonathan: A list of links to Shannon’s Lancet posts is here.]

Sometimes it Takes a Marxist

by

…to really appreciate capitalism.

(link via Five Feet of Fury)

How Time is Valued…or Not

by

I value time more than most. I will always exchange money for time if the amount of time I save by hiring something out looks to be a good deal for me. An example of this just took place a couple of days ago. We have had a lot of snow here in Madison and I basically have two options. After work I can get the shovel out and clear it myself off of my driveway and sidewalk or hire someone to plow it. This time I chose the latter since the snow was pretty heavy and wet to boot. On top of that I have been extremely busy at work and am pulling more hours than usual. Sometimes I just want to come home, see my daughters, have a nice scotch, and kick back.

Read more

The Laissez-Faire Left

by

Historically, one cannot find more passionate and consistent defenders of laissez-faire capitalism than most leftist, articulate intellectuals.

Throughout the last two centuries, leftists fought ardently to protect the freedom of producers to create and sell as they thought best, and the right of consumers to purchase the products they thought best served their needs, without fear of government coercion or even informal social sanction. Whenever the unenlightened or economically naive threatened the voluntary choices of producers and consumers, leftists have always been the first in the fight to protect this most basic of human economic rights: the right to choose what one creates and the right to consume what one wishes.

Read more