Never before have I walked into a church to be greeted by a barrier of armed police with metal detector wands. Nor have I had to let officers open my purse to search for weapons before I could enter a sanctuary—that is, until now.

That was when Geert Wilders came to speak at Cornerstone Church in Nashville, Tennessee. He came to warn America, to warn Christians. He came to wake up the Bible Belt to the threat of Islam. But before a single word was spoken, these ominous signs foreshadowed the truth of what was yet to come.

Geert Wilders is not a president, royalty, or anyone most of us would recognize on the street. And yet, as he took the podium to a loud applause and standing ovation, Wilders stood flanked with security constantly scanning the crowd, reminiscent of our own presidential secret service.

Why all the fuss for a representative from the Netherlands—a politician? Because he is a rare and endangered species; he is willing to speak the truth about what is happening in Europe. He refuses to submit to Islam or be bound and gagged by the power of the politically correct.

For this, he is facing a 16-month jail sentence by his own government for the high crime of “hate-speech.” Even more profound is that he is the constant target for assassination from the “misunderstanders of Islam.”

Wilders opened by telling the crowd he was happy to be there — happy to be able to speak freely, without the fear of being carted off to jail once he stepped out of the door. A concept hard for us here in the U.S. to grasp, but it is the stark reality of Europeans today.

He came with a very sobering warning, and a list of five things we must do now without fail, if we are to save our western culture and values.

“My friends, I am sorry. I am here today with an unpleasant message. I am here with a warning. I am here with a battle cry: “Wake up, Christians of Tennessee. Islam is at your gate.” Do not make the mistake which Europe made. Do not allow Islam to gain a foothold here.”

“My dear American friends, you cannot imagine how we envy your First Amendment. The day when America follows the example of Europe and Canada and introduces so-called “hate speech crimes” which is only used to punish people who are critical of Islam, that day America will have lost its freedom.”

Next page: How Europeans got into this mess.

President Barack Obama wants Israel to return to its pre-1967 borders, with a few minor agreed upon swaps. He might as well have told the Jews living in Israel to pack up their belongings and leave or take their chances in the Hell that Hamas has waiting for them.

In his stab-Israel-in-the-back speech delivered on Thursday at the State Department, Obama declared:

The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states. The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state.

Obama waited towards the end of his speech on the Middle East and North Africa to throw our most reliable Mideast ally, and the region’s only true democracy, under the bus. His timing, on the eve of his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House on Friday, could not have been more provocative.

Prime Minister Netanyahu did not waste any time in reacting to Obama’s gambit. He said that Israel would object to any withdrawal to “indefensible” borders, which the pre-1967 borders would most certainly be.

A future attack launched from the pre-1967 lines against Israel’s nine-mile-wide waist at its narrowest point could easily split the country in two.  Most of its national infrastructure (airports, industries, and inter-city highways) and population centers would be fully exposed to hostile fire from military forces deployed along the adjacent West Bank hill terrain, which would serve as an ideal platform of attack for Arab military forces. The Golan Heights would provide the Syrians with the same strategic military position to threaten Israeli civilians living below. Protecting against infiltration by Palestinian terrorists would be virtually impossible.

Obama’s inclusion of a demand for a “contiguous” Palestinian state encompassing Gaza and the West Bank would also have the effect of splitting Israel in two.

In short, the pre-1967 borders are not defensible because they do not provide Israel with sufficient buffer depth to enable Israel to protect itself against terrorist incursions, as well as to ensure a defeat of conventional military assaults if Israel is once again attacked.

To illustrate Israel’s profound vulnerabilities if it returned to the pre-1967 borders, here is a map of what those borders would look like:

Israel has returned Sinai to Egypt.  Under the terms of the peace treaty Israel signed with Egypt, there has been more than thirty years of relative peace between the two countries. However, that peace is now threatened as a result of the so-called Arab Spring Obama is so proud of, which swept Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak from power and left a vacuum that is likely to be filled by the Egyptian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

And what does the Muslim Brotherhood have in mind for Israel? A leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Muhammad Ghannem, provided the answer to the Arabic-language Iranian news network Al-Alam:

the people should be prepared for war against Israel

Israel withdrew from Gaza unilaterally in 2005, after entering into detailed security arrangements with the Palestinian Authority. When Hamas took over Gaza completely in 2007, the agreed upon security arrangements fell by the wayside as the terrorist organization launched thousands of rockets into populated areas of Israel, targeting and killing civilians including children.

At least President Obama recognized in his State Department speech that Hamas is not to be trusted. He criticized the ongoing rocket attacks and other terrorist acts by Hamas and its allies and the long-standing Palestinian culture of hate. Israelis, he said, have had to live

with the fear that their children could get blown up on a bus or by rockets fired at their homes, as well as the pain of knowing that other children in the region are taught to hate them

Obama even acknowledged that Hamas’s participation in the new Palestinian government

raises profound and legitimate questions for Israel

And he asked rhetorically

how can one negotiate with a party that has shown itself unwilling to recognize your right to exist

Yet, rather than first insist on the logical condition that such a terrorist party – namely, Hamas – be excluded from the Palestinian government and repudiated by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Obama told the Israelis to never mind and just turn the clock back to pre-1967.

Obama seeks to define in advance the Palestinian-Israeli borders, after which the “emotional issues” of Jerusalem and return of the Palestinian refugees would be negotiated. What kind of leverage would Israel have then, especially when the Obama administration has declared previously that East Jerusalem belongs to the Palestinians?

Obama is essentially telling Israel:  Give up all defensible borders first — then take your chances on Jerusalem and the Palestinians’ claim to a “right of return.”

All of these issues are inextricably linked. Why didn’t Obama insist, in his same speech telling the Israelis what they must do for “peace,” that the Palestinians must renounce once and for all their bogus claim for the right of millions of descendents of the original refugees to return to their so-called “homes” within Israel’s pre-1967 borders?

As Prime Minister Netanyahu’s statement, issued in response to Obama’s speech, pointed out:

Without a solution to the refugee issue by settling them outside of Israel, no territorial concessions will end the conflict.  Equally, the Palestinians, and not just the United States, must recognize Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people, and any peace agreement with them must end all claims against Israel.

Whatever intentions Obama may have had in making his reckless proposal, his meddling where he does not belong will likely make the Jews’ historic and legitimate homeland a living Hell.

Joseph Klein is the author of a recent book entitled Lethal Engagement: Barack Hussein Obama, the United Nations and Radical Islam.

It is impossible to understand the world around us, or to cultivate a coherent set of core principles, if our use of language is fraught with sloppiness and imprecision. Nowhere is this truer than in the realm of politics, where emotionally charged terms are routinely bandied about with scarcely any conception of what they actually mean. “Liberal” and “conservative” are perhaps the most significant of these.

Many people who describe themselves as “liberal” typically use the term as a synonym for all things noble and morally pure. The late newsman Walter Cronkite, for instance, equated liberalism with a “broad-minded,” “unprejudiced,” and “beneficent” mindset. Author and radio personality Garrison Keillor – who views “conservatives” as people of “ugly and rancid” political beliefs  – proudly declares: “I am a liberal, and liberalism is the politics of kindness … tolerance, magnanimity, community spirit, the defense of the weak against the powerful, love of learning, freedom of belief, art and poetry, city life, the very things that make America worth dying for.” And the revered “Liberal Lion” of the U.S. Senate, the late Ted Kennedy, defined a liberal as “someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions” and “someone who cares about the welfare of the people.”

But if one merely equates liberalism with what is “good,” and conservatism with what is “bad” – or vice versa, for that matter – he or she cannot lay claim to any authentic understanding of either term. Thus we need an operational definition for each term, just as we need definitions for any other words we employ in our daily lives. Regardless of how we feel about “liberalism” or “conservatism,” we need to know specifically what qualities give each of them their respective identities.

When the term “liberalism” (from the Latin word liberalis, meaning “pertaining to a free man”) first emerged in the early 1800s, it was founded on an unwavering belief in individual rights, the rule of law, limited government, private property, and laissez faire economics. These would remain the defining characteristics of liberalism throughout the liberal epoch, generally identified as the period from 1815-1914.

But many who call themselves “liberals” today are in fact leftists – i.e., the very antithesis of liberals. The modern Left – which traces its roots back to a faction of early-19th-century French liberals who proclaimed that capitalism and private property were agents of inevitable moral decay – is animated by a desire to topple the existing capitalist order and to replace it with a socialist regime where the utopian ideal of perfect equality will reign. Disingenuously portraying itself as an agent of enlightened commitment to “liberal” causes, today’s Left in fact rejects each of the liberal ideals enumerated in the preceding paragraph. We can readily observe, for instance, that the modern Left is the stalwart champion of:

• group rights and collective identity, rather than of individual rights and responsibilities (e.g., racial preferences, notions of collective guilt and innocence, and a devotion to identity politics generally);
• the circumvention of law rather than the rule of law (as exemplified by the flouting of immigration laws and nondiscrimination laws, and by a preference for judicial activism whereby judges co-opt the powers that rightfully belong to legislators);
• the expansion of government rather than its diminution (favoring ever-escalating taxes to fund a bloated welfare state and a government that oversees — and intervenes in — virtually every aspect of human life); and
• the redistribution of wealth (through punitive taxes and, again, a mushrooming welfare state), rather than its creation through free markets based on private property.

By calling themselves “liberals,” leftists have entirely redefined the terms of debate. The media and the general public have largely gone along with this fraudulent self-identification, as evidenced by the fact that few people nowadays draw any distinction between liberalism in its original and authentic sense, and leftism — or socialism posing as “liberalism.” Indeed the terms are generally used interchangeably by people at every point along the political spectrum. Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, for one, calls Barack Obama “the most liberal president ever.” Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly similarly calls Obama ”the most liberal president I’ve seen in my lifetime,” and then, in the next breath, says Obama “may well be the most left-wing chief executive in American history.” As a consequence of such imprecision, we witness the travesty of the “liberal” label being widely attached to leftists like Obama, Michael Moore, George Soros, Noam Chomsky, Al Sharpton, Jane Fonda, Ted Kennedy, and Hillary Clinton. In the process, the noble values and ideals that are genuinely “liberal” in the true sense of the word are wrongly conflated in the public mind with the socialist, revolutionary, and anti-American agendas of the foregoing leftists. As a result, the definition of “liberalism” continues to drift inexorably leftward.

The David Horowitz Freedom Center has created a website, DiscoverTheNetworks.org, to help explain exactly what, and who, the Left is – and how it utterly rejects every major principle that can legitimately be classified as “liberal.” This NewsReal blog post will be followed in the coming days and weeks by a series of additional posts taking you on a guided tour of DiscoverTheNetworks and its multitude of special sections and features. We invite you to come along for the ride. If you do, you will understand the Left, its agendas, its tactics, and its key players in a profound and illuminating way. And you will see clearly how the Left has fraudulently draped itself in the vestments of a noble tradition — liberalism — thereby giving the false appearance that its own socialist objectives are somehow consistent with that tradition. They are not.

For today, why not visit DiscoverTheNetworks’ section titled “Defining and Understanding the Left”? It’s a great starting point if you’re not yet familiar with this vast and informative website.

Obama has gone Old School. Literally. Back in 1967, he was living in Indonesia and attended “Koran class”, where a negative attitude towards Jews and Israel was no doubt instilled in him. (See also here.) Today, he “suggested”, drawing on the Full power of the office of the President of the United States, that Israel pull back to its 1967 borders. Especially today when we have Facebook groups calling for a massive invasion of Israel tomorrow, Obama’s words are particularly inexcusable.

On Tuesday, we received this critique from someone called Robson who didn’t care for Calvin Freiburger’s foray into the debate about whether it’s appropriate for the Obama White House to honor the racist, pro-cop killer rapper Common:

Seriously  Calvin Freiburger i think you the man who needs to look at this in a different perspective. I don’t why all you americans bother about such a small thing but fox news of course trying to make it big. This matter is not a biggie. Lets start with Johnny Cash a man you totaly defend in your oeace  of writing. This Man whoin his younger years did write some really rough lyrics is given a National Medal of arts BY PRESIDENT BUSH. Okay fairly you say it wasn’t the whitehouse giving to him but President Bush was just presenting it to him, But as a President it’s your choice whether to endorse it or not, and what does the President do? he endorses it because he thinks the man deserves it. What does fox news and america say? nothing because they also conquer. Now Michelle Obama Invites common for a poetry slam, Common having some rough lyrics and has supported certain activists against cops. For the activists i will take Jon stewart position of saying maybe he supports them
because he thinks they were wrongly accused. But on the rough lyrics, on your blog you only have little extracts of his poem. Only getting the parts which are really rough and i think that is really not being a good analyst or critic. I think in your blog you start by defending Johnny cash and criticize common. Tell me what is really different about Common and Johnny cash? Jon stewart is simply just saying really why criticize Common invitation when other regimes have also invited and endorsed people with the same rough lyric. And if you take a look again at common’s poetry at the white house he is simply saying like the world is in a bad condition, full of corruption and corrupt leaders but lets make an end to this and live in peace. Poetry needs time to analyze, if you don’t analyze it and try to understand it from what you first read then truly you have high chances of misinterpretation.

I responded:

What Johnny Cash lyrics are comparable to Common? And why do you think the White House should be honoring racists who oppose interracial marriages?

Robson provided “evidence” to back up his claims:

http://www.metrolyrics.com/cocaine-blues-lyrics-johnny-cash.html

http://www.lyrics007.com/Johnny%20Cash%20Lyrics/Ship%20Those%20Niggers%20Back%20Lyrics.html

I don’t know is you got me properly.  But What am saying the whitehouse should not honour racists nor those who disagree about interracial marriages. The links i have sent on top, is johnny cash lyrics one of them being really racist. I don’t know why fox can’t pick up on that and now compare him and common. If johnny cash was accepted in the whitehouse and no drama was caused out of the visit then the same should be done for common.

I responded (and have yet to receive a reply):

I haven’t heard back from Robson yet but if anyone would like to check up on him his email is robsonchimenge@yahoo.com

And in memory of Cash — one of America’s greatest musicians — here’s the greatest music video ever made, which happens to be of the greatest cover ever recorded:

In the wake of IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s arrest for sexual assault (he is now former IMF chief), DSK and his friends have offered numerous defenses on his behalf—most of which have been ridiculed, and rightly so.

Here are a few of the best of them, all rejected immediately by the American public.

There’s the pretrial conviction complaint:

Well, clearly, the entire system is flawed. I mean, you have a case, a prosecution, that doesn’t care about the rules of justice… And makes it near impossible to defend ourselves. I mean, it’s basically, like convicting us today.

Questioning why we take the victim’s word for what happened:

But what was shocking is the fact that [the judge] chose to come up with a decision of prima facie, to come up with virtually a judgment, confirming and strengthening the entire case of the prosecution; credibility of the witness, all the ingredients have been supported.

And, of course, the political conspiracy:

Well, I’m not surprised by the decision of the judge, because I understand the system. This is a trumped up charge, politically motivated, there’s no basis in fact and law.

I’m sorry—my mistake. Those were all quotes from another high-powered opposition candidate charged with sexual assault. This guy—unlike DSK—has been fortunate enough to have the Western elite buy his story wholesale. It’s Malaysia’s Anwar Ibrahim, a media darling.

Anwar is currently on trial for sexual assault—for forcing himself on an aide. Of course the presumption of innocence until proven guilty is an important pillar of justice, and should not be discarded. Anwar’s accusers should have to prove their case, especially because Anwar is the opposition leader and he was once jailed on trumped-up charges for political reasons. But Anwar’s argument has not been that he is innocent so much as he doesn’t think there should be a trial at all—that he should be taken at his word, and that the public should assume all charges against him are political in nature. That is, to be sure, incompatible with our conception of a fair trial.

Furthermore, if there is reason for skepticism of Anwar’s accusers, there is also reason not to take Anwar at his word. Anwar professes the values of freedom and democracy, but how does that square with his decades-long involvement with the Muslim Brotherhood, or his sinister anti-Semitism—strong enough that B’nai B’rith urged American officials to cut ties with him?

Anwar’s defenders, like Paul Wolfowitz and Al Gore (“the timing of these new charges carries the strong odor of political manipulation”) as well as Joe Klein (“He is a wise, decent and courageous man”) sound an awful lot like DSK’s defenders Ben Stein (“Can anyone tell me any economists who have been convicted of violent sex crimes?”) and Bernard-Henri Levy (“the Strauss-Kahn I know… bears no resemblance to this monster, this caveman, this insatiable and malevolent beast now being described nearly everywhere”).

The point is not that DSK deserves the Anwar treatment, or vice versa. It’s that Anwar doesn’t deserve the Anwar treatment. And certainly Anwar’s accuser has earned the right to make his accusation without the international community putting him on trial in the court of public opinion.

It’s official. A controversial petition effort has succeeded in San Fransisco. This November, the city’s voters will decide whether or not to ban infant circumcision.

If the measure passes, circumcision would be prohibited among males under the age of 18. The practice would become a misdemeanor offense punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 or up to one year in jail. There would be no religious exemptions.

This would be the first ban of its kind in the United States. It would undoubtedly trigger litigation from religious groups alleging a First Amendment violation. Circumcision has religious significance for Jews and Muslims.

While religious freedom is surely threatened by the San Fran proposal, the larger threat is against parental rights. The vote evokes a question which serves as a litmus test separating libertarians from communitarians. Are parents the natural custodians of their children, or mere civil guardians beholden to the judgment of others?

“Parents are really guardians, and guardians have to do what’s in the best interest of the child. It’s [the child's] body. It’s his choice,” said Lloyd Schofield, the measure’s lead proponent and a longtime San Francisco resident, who said the cutting away of the foreskin from the penis is a more invasive medical procedure than many new parents or childless individuals realize.

Schofield’s view of the parental role is instructive of the Left’s war against parenthood. Unfortunately, the emotions evoked wherever children are concerned drive many well-meaning conservatives toward the same line of thinking.

Opponents of parental rights like Schofield imagine some esoteric distinction between individual rights and parental authority. If an adult wants to [fill in the blank], that’s one thing. But they don’t have the right to force it on their children.

This position is extremely problematic. It betrays a flawed view of individual rights, if not an outright rejection of them.

Who gets to determine what is in the best interest of a child? Surely, children cannot be expected to make such decisions on their own. So who may act in their stead? Parents are the only individuals with any natural claim upon that role.

In a free society, the only prohibition is against harming another. The mistake opponents of parental rights make is regarding children as that other, as if they are distinct from their parents, as if they are mere roommates whose agency is violated by parental intrusion. Of course, children are not independent agents. They are wards subject to the judgment of their custodians. Evoking their rights is therefore evoking parental rights. The threshold for state encroachment upon parental judgment is no different than the threshold for state encroachment upon individual judgment. They are, quite literally, one and the same.

This is not a frivolous issue. It strikes at the core of fundamental American values – religious freedom, natural law, and individual rights. What is the principle which informs our regard for those rights? Do we let people act upon their own judgment because they always make rational decisions? Do we let people act upon their own judgment because they agree with us? Or do we let people act upon their own judgment because it is their inherent right to do so, whether they are rational or not, whether their judgment aligns with ours our not?

The answer is well established. The entire concept of religious freedom proceeds from it. Your religion does not have to make sense to me. Your decisions do not require my approval. Your actions are not subject to my judgement. How quickly that falls by the wayside once we imagine the state as parent.

In Islam, polygamy is practiced according to the Koran for the purpose of breeding as many warrior killers as possible.  And breeding warrior killers is just what Osama bin Laden did with the wives who were gifted to him. The women were on call at all times to gratify his sexual desires and produce male heirs, taught from early childhood to commit murder in the service of jihad.

Najwa Ghanem, first cousin and wife of bin Laden, married him when she was only 15 and he 17.  Najwa gave birth to 11 of bin Laden’s children, one of whom is the fourth son, Omar bin Laden.  Najwa says her “tyrant” husband forced her to have as many children as possible to create “Islamic warriors.”  The children were raised and trained–against Najwa’s will–to be suicide bombers. The training included teaching his children to murder their pets as preparation for what they would do to human beings.

Despite the child abuse and tyrannical marriage, Najwa says she never complained:

I reminded myself that my husband knew much more about the big world than any of us.  We were all pearls to my husband, and he wanted to protect us.

The anti-woman beliefs and values of Islamic religion and culture have made these so-called “pearls” into fool’s gold. Muslim women may consider themselves “pearls,” but Najwa says, “few women dance with joy when they contemplate sharing their husband with other women.”

Despite Najwa’s complaints about her “tyrant” husband and polygamist marriage, both of whom she fled after 9/11,  she says she remained married to bin Laden, living in an undisclosed location but not in contact with her husband.

Not all Muslim wives come to reject the polygamist life and jihadist child rearing as Najwa bin Laden did.  Many girls embrace jihad because, like boys, they are also bred for terror. One such woman is bin Laden’s fifth wife.

The youngest wife of bin Laden, 29 year-old Amal Ahmed Abdul Fatah, who was with him when he was killed, was gifted to bin Laden by her Yemeni family when she was only 18.  Bin Laden demanded the girl “be of high moral value,” (these wives must be virgins or they’re useless), and she, like all bin Laden wives, “would be called to do almost anything bin Laden wanted.”

That included murder.

My nightmares—what I knew could happen—is apparently happening.

The Third Palestinian Intifada on Facebook seems to have at least twenty different groups or pages, each with hundreds or thousands of fans. One group has 365,000 fans. According to Yedioth Ahronoth (YNet), these sites are now urging all Arabs to “rush the Israeli borders” after Friday prayers on May 20.

Look: This could be the work of one nerdy Palestinian in a basement in Ramallah. The fans could also be people who exist only in cyberspace.

But, these Third Palestinian Intifada websites could also be the work of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hizbullah, Syria, and the Palestinian Authority, all of which have problems of their own and for whom a diversion would be mighty fine. In fact, I think they are. Thus, this promised new aggression must be taken seriously and stopped in its tracks.

In any event, these Third Intifada facebook websites are suggesting that armed and unarmed hordes, masses, mobs of incited and hate-filled Arabs invade–“surge”–into sovereign Israel (as they have done for years to India.) The Indian press and police are too afraid to report it or to stop them. Israelis have no choice but to do so.

If and when they re-create their failed Nakba Day aggression, public opinion, the Arab “street,” the Arab League, the world’s intellectuals, journalists and progressives, the human rights organizations and the jihadist friendly United Nations, will probably view such an invasion as an act of “righteous resistance” and Israeli self-defense as an act of “unprovoked aggression.”

Facebook, to its credit, has removed one Third Palestinian Intifada site in the past. Clearly, others quickly sprang up, and Facebook has its work cut out for it. Just as the Civil Rights movement in America was initially and brilliantly non-violent, perhaps all the earth’s peace-loving people might now congregate peacefully on all of Israel’s borders to be the human wall that finally says no to jihadic barbarism.

For all those pacifists who genuinely believe in the non-violent teachings of both Gandhi and Martin Luther King, let them congregate and bear witness with their bodies at all of Israel’s borders that human courage and goodness is ready to stand against barbarism and evil.

For all those who believe that barbarism must be met with Navy SEALs, let them, too, gather at Israel’s borders to defend innocent Israeli civilians.

For all those who believe that a nation has the right to defend its people, let them now volunteer to join the IDF or raise money for it.

On the other hand, all those who invade sovereign Israel with malevolent and lethal and genocidal intentions should know in advance that they will be met with force. Israel should immediately begin announcing this, both day and night.

Of course, jihad is always seeking martyrs. This time, the Western media should not fall for the tricks of “Pallywood” (the al-Dura hoax, the “massacre” in Jenin, the “starving” masses in Gaza, etc.). The Western media should report the truth.

I am such a dreamer.

Of course, Israel can always start building walls up to the very sky in order to keep the barbarians out.

What’s the newest trend in feminism today?  SlutWalks are all the rage, where women dress like sluts and proudly embrace their sluthood. This will apparently have the double effect of fighting back against blaming the victim for being raped, as well as being empowering for women — because being a slut in modern feminism is supposedly empowering. Of course, all that these SlutWalks are really doing is proving that the death knell for femisogynists is continuing to ring.

Pseudo-feminists advocating for sluthood is nothing new. Instead of being looked down upon, sleeping around is considered to be embracing sexuality. It’s healthy, empowering, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a misogynistic anti-feminist prude (and probably a right-winger to boot!) So the comment made by a Toronto policeman that “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized” naturally meant that femisogynists should revel in sluthood! And while the Toronto cop’s comment may have been what kicked the event off, fighting back against victim-blaming is nowhere near the only goal of these SlutWalks. Unsurprisingly, organizers want women to be proud of their sexuality and to reclaim the word slut.

Historically, the term ‘slut’ has carried a predominantly negative connotation. Aimed at those who are sexually promiscuous, be it for work or pleasure, it has primarily been women who have suffered under the burden of this label. And whether dished out as a serious indictment of one’s character or merely as a flippant insult, the intent behind the word is always to wound, so we’re taking it back. “Slut” is being re-appropriated.

We are tired of being oppressed by slut-shaming; of being judged by our sexuality and feeling unsafe as a result.

Ah, yes, the ever-present threat of slut-shaming. Why can’t more people be supportive of sleeping around with a different random guy every night? Clearly, if more people were supportive of being a slut, there would be less rape. Or something.

So far, there have been SlutWalks in Toronto, Dallas, London, Ottawa, and Boston. There are many, many more planned, all around the world, in cities like Montreal, Orlando, Tucson, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Philadelphia. This is all to the liking of many noted femisogynist leaders. Jaclyn Friedman appeared at the Boston SlutWalk as a featured speaker. Feministing has multiple posts glowing with approval of the SlutWalk. Jill Filipovic said she was with the walkers in spirit. And Amanda Marcotte offers up the most common defense of the SlutWalks: it’s, like, supposed to be funny, you humorless prudes:

I’ve been broadly supportive of this, because it brings together two of my favorite things in the world, feminism and humor.

… Of course, since Slutwalk is built around humor, it baffles the humorless. And so defenders of Slutwalk have entered into this maddening space that is the equivalent of trying to explain a joke to the humorless, and if you’ve ever tried to do that, believe me, it may be the biggest waste of time on the planet.

Oh, I get it! Debasement of women as humor! Hilarious! And it’s progress, too. It’s just what the original feminist leaders envisioned when they were fighting for equality: the right for women to be called sluts and be proud.

Leftists still don’t get the Tea Party, and neither does the Republican party establishment. Reuters recently reported on a private meeting which took place between several Tea Party activists and House Speaker John Boehner. The mood was less than cordial.

One of the 25 or so [Tea Party] leaders, all from Boehner’s district, asked him if Republicans would raise America’s $14.3 trillion debt limit.

According to half a dozen attendees interviewed by Reuters, the most powerful Republican in Washington said “yes(…)”

That answer incensed many of the Tea Party activists, for whom raising the debt limit is anathema.

From the sidelines, the Left snickers and wags a finger.

Boehner, along with much of the GOP, is “stuck between the Tea Party and a hard place.” But, he only has himself to blame for bringing the activists into the fold and over-promising what he could deliver with control of a single chamber of Congress.

Surely, there are Tea Party activists with unreasonable expectations of what Republicans can accomplish with control of the House. However, the major beef Tea Partiers have with Republicans is not their lack of accomplishment. It’s their unwillingness to stand and fight, their apparent lack of principle, and the resulting impotence toward shifting the narrative in Washington.

The crux of the conflict between the Tea Party and Republicans is a choice between short-term pragmatism and entrenched political warfare. Too often, the questions Republicans ask themselves are. Will this work? Can this pass? Will we win?

The Left never asks these questions. They never concern themselves with whether a course is practical. They focus on controlling the narrative, framing the debate, then dominating the conversation. Doing so enables them to affect whether a future gambit, which may not work today, works tomorrow. They’re willing to double-down when the long-term benefit is worth the risk.

Just look at the lengths Democrats were willing to go to in order to shove Obamacare down our throats. They didn’t care how much it cost them in 2010. They only cared about affecting a fundamental transformation which would benefit their cause in the long-run.

That’s what the Tea Party demands of Republicans. Will the debt ceiling be raised? Almost certainly. The point is how. What will Republicans get in return? What will Democrats have to concede? How will the debate be framed? How will conservatives control the narrative? How will Boehner put the Left on the defensive, and strike a counter-blow that will sour their comparatively small victory?

Ron Musilli, 62, a native of Troy, recalls asking Boehner what leverage points the Republicans planned to focus on in debt limit talks with the White House and Senate Democrats.

“We haven’t figured that out yet,” he recalls Boehner replied.

That’s unacceptable. The fear is that Republicans haven’t concocted a strategy against the White House because they are more focused on “managing expectations” among conservatives. That leads the Tea Party to the conclusion that serious changes are due in 2012.

“The Tea Party will almost certainly primary those they want to get rid of,” said Larry Sabato, a politics professor at the University of Virginia. “They are not out to rebuild the Republican Party. They are out to take over the Republican Party and make it more like the Tea Party.”

“If it takes some Republican defeats along the way to make that happen, then that is what they’ll do,” he added.

Believe it. There is a place for pragmatism in political calculations. But like a shield absent a sword, it can’t do much against a fully armed opponent. If Republicans are unwilling to fight, if they lack the courage of their espoused convictions, if they can’t stomach hardcore political warfare, they’ll be replaced by those who can.

It seems another demographic group Democrats once took for granted is snapping out of Obama fever. At the Daily Beast, David Graham reports that American Muslims don’t think the president’s actions match his pro-Islam rhetoric. Aside from insisting that Islam is a religion of peace and appointing a few Muslims to important positions, Obama hasn’t met enough with American Muslim groups or “remade the political landscape for Muslims”:

“Just like the last time, we’re quite happy if any president offers positive rhetoric toward the Muslim world or Islam, but it really needs to be backed up with concrete policy initiatives,” says Ibrahim Hooper, communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a leading American Muslim group. “We’re still in Afghanistan, we’re still in Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian situation has gone south. We’re not there—we’re just continuing with the previous policies.”

It’s not just foreign policy. Across the board, Muslims are expressing disappointment with Obama’s progress on issues relevant to them in the domestic policy realm. What they express is not so much anger as disillusionment, a recognition that the president hasn’t remade the political landscape for Muslims. (American Muslim opinions mirror international opinions. A Pew survey released Tuesday finds that citizens in majority Muslim countries remain skeptical of Obama.)

[…]

Exhibit A is the Park51 project, the proposed mosque and Islamic center in Lower Manhattan that opponents dubbed the “ground zero mosque”. After delivering what appeared to be a full-throated defense of the project, he walked back his comments the next day, saying, “I was not commenting, and I will not comment, on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there.” It was a crucial litmus test for many American Muslims—and one that Obama failed. “He’s still missing the political courage to stand up for communities, and not just Muslim communities,” says Shireen Zaman, the executive director of the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, a think tank on Muslim issues.

As the Left always does when discussing different ethnic groups, it’s simply assumed at the outset that the positions cited are intrinsically anti-Muslim.

Whatever you think of the wisdom of starting or continuing the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, both conflicts were waged against specific governments the United States determined to be enemies, not against Muslims generally; indeed, both wars liberated their Muslim populations from nightmarish despots and gave them a genuine shot at liberty, so one could just as easily call a premature withdrawal from either theater anti-Muslim for enabling a descent back into totalitarianism.

Similarly, supporting the Ground Zero Mosque is only “pro-Muslim” to the extent that we associate that particular mosque with the radicalism of its organizers. Do Graham and Zaman mean to suggest that most American Muslims want sharia to be preached from a bloody site of Islamic conquest? The implication is far more Islamophobic than anything the average conservative has to say on the subject. And yes, that is the implication—considering that over 100 mosques have gone up in New York City without a peep from right-wing hatemongers, why make this particular mosque the litmus test for American tolerance?

Aside from CAIR-approved action on the preceding issues, just what are these groups looking for? What would a “remade political landscape for Muslims” look like? I submit that the United States doesn’t need to become more pro-Muslim. Polls indicate that the American people overwhelmingly distinguish between peaceful Muslims and jihad sympathizers, and a comprehensive study from the Center for Security Policy reveals that Muslims are targeted by hate crimes at comparable levels to Christians, and to a much lower degree than Jews. If anything, we go overboard in our fear of offending Muslims, as in the case of Ft. Hood shooter Major Nidal Hasan. We bend over backwards to avoid discussing the theological roots of our terrorist enemies.

For Obama, this is another demonstration that it takes a lot more than the sparkling personality of The One to satisfy people—responsible policymaking can’t help but offend somebody, and not every special-interest demand is susceptible to reason.

For the rest of the country, this should highlight the folly of leftist identity politics. Human beings are first and foremost individuals, and should evaluate political issues based on the facts and principles involved, not on superficial affinities for particular stances and groups that have been imposed by the Left.  The Founders warned us about such exploitation of factional impulses—it not only confuses and oversimplifies issues, all but guaranteeing worse policy, but it also conditions us to divide into insular cultural camps and practice the very us-vs-them thinking the Left claims to oppose.