The Mean Girl Faces of Islamo-Fascism

Today I received "An Urgent Message From the Desk of David Horowitz" in my email in-box. Although I receive "An Urgent Message From the Desk of David Horowitz" almost every week, this one seemed urgenter than the others.

"Even before our Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week began, we were being attacked by radical leftists," it began. "The entire political left, from the Revolutionary Communist Party to the Young Democrats, is up in arms against us," he continued. Horowitz is Jewish and Jews are not known for being paranoid that everybody is against them so this certainly did seem very worrisome. And if the entire political left is joining with Islamo-Fascists to support the subjugation of women, the execution of gays, the annihilation of the Jews and the installment of theocratic governments and Sharia law, then things are truly dire. You might think that liberals would be against these these things, too, but apparently the Left has decided it would rather be on the side of the Islamo-Fascists rather than on David Horowitz's side for some reason so we have to treat them as the enemy. Horowitz declared this week National Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week in order to fight what he calls "the unholy alliance between American leftists and our enemies in the war on terror." Among the goodwill ambassadors he has sent to speak on campuses around the country is Ann Coulter, who believes that Horowitz is an unperfected Jew, though she has apparently set her perfectionist feelings aside to make something of an unholy alliance herself with Horowitz.

Unfortunately, goading the radical leftists and the hordes of radical Muslims overrunning our campuses is very expensive and Horowitz was writing to tell me he needs money to pay for security guards. It seems to me the last "Urgent Message From the Desk of David Horowitz" I received also begged for money and the one before that, too. I always thought Jews, despite their imperfections, were very good with money so I am surprised that his organization always seems to be in dire financial straits.

Luckily, Horowitz didn't need security guards when he spoke at the University of Wisconsin. According to radical leftist Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive Horowitz's attempt to goad the left into attacking him by accusing them of being too stupid to understand what he was saying (apparently a common tactic at the University of Wisconsin) did not have the desired effect because students were so bored by his soporific style that they all fell asleep. The only exception was a 9/11 Truther, though from the looks of these Truthers, they apparently never sleep, other than to take short naps fully clothed in steel, nonflammable bunkers while another 9/11 Truther stands guard on the look-out for any "controlled explosions" in the vicinity.

Unfortunately, Nonie Darwish was not so lucky. Darwish is a former Muslim whose father was assassinated by the Israelis, which really broke her up at the time, though she now believes that he probably deserved it and has embraced Israel. (The anti-Communist Horowitz's parents were Communists. I'm not sure if they have the same therapist.) Speaking at Wellesley College Darwish faced the newest weapon in the terrorist arsenal, one that is so chilling my hands shake as I type this. A number of Muslim women in headscarves showed up to hear her speak. As Darwish recounted to Pajamas Media's Phyllis Chesler (who I certainly wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley judging by her picture), "the female students in head-scarves did the following: As she spoke, they made exaggerated, 'mean girl' faces at her. They rolled their eyes, practiced 'disbelieving' facial expressions -- did everything but stick out their tongues."

I knew Muslims were bad but I never thought they would stoop to the level of making "mean girl faces," which I believe may be against the rules of the Geneva Convention. Is Western Civilization prepared to fight an army of Muslim Heathers? I guess we can be thankful they still had some humanity left. If they had stuck out their tongues, Darwish might not have lived to tell the tale. But that's not all. The Muslim women then got up one by one to go to the bathroom -- right in the middle of Darwish's speech! And where did these Muslim girls, whom Darwish describes as "gangsters," learn these cruel and, not to mince words, really quite rude tactics? "They are Hamas-trained," said Darwish.

The other students reacted as you might expect: with sheer terror. Darwish told Chesler, "'the Jewish students cringed and cowered, so afraid that they might have hurt Muslim feelings.' (Or rather, that the Muslims might physically hurt them afterwards. According to Darwish, one Jewish student told her that 'she "was locking her door. I am scared.'")" For some reason, fascism, whether Islamo or Nazi, seems to bring out cringing and cowering in Jews, which is something that Jews might want to work on. Even though I am a former (that is, perfected) Jew, I don't think that I will ever again be able to pass a headscarved Muslim girl in the street again without panicking that she might make a "mean girl face" at me.

I certainly appreciate the intent behind Horowitz's Islamo-Fascism Week. It is important that we all be aware of the truth behind Islamo-Fascism, though I'm not completely convinced "that awareness about Islamo-Fascism means the end of their homicidal enterprise," as he claims. But can we handle the truth? I am more terrified now than I have ever been before and it just makes it worse to know that the entire left-wing is on their side. What if Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton get Hamas training and learn how to make "mean girl faces" of their own? There might be nothing we can do to stop them.

Update: Thers informs me that Phyllis Chesler is concerned that some people are not taking the danger of "mean girl faces" seriously enough. Apparently, she has done "research" connecting mean girl behavior to "female-female slander, gossip, ostracism . . . female honor killings, dowry burnings, acid-attacks, and female genital mutilation practices." Unfortunately, many of us men are just not going to "get it." It's a girl thing; you wouldn't understand.

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Jon Swift, David Horowitz, Islamo-Fascism, Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, Ann Coulter, Islam, Politics
Carnivals: Christian Carnival CXCVI, Carnival of the Vanities

Swift Reactions 3

For the third edition of "Swift Reactions" (in which I highlight what you, the reader, have to say and feign interest), I would like to talk about our nation's youth. Like President Bush I've been thinking a lot lately about America's young people and the future of our country. In my pieces "Are We Tasering People Enough?" and "Bush to Kids: Grow Up!" I pointed out how spoiled and disrespectful many of our children are and how ill-prepared they are to fight the wars of the 21st century. And judging by some of the comments I've gotten here and reactions to my pieces in the blogosphere my fears are well-founded.

I've been writing about how lazy and coddled students are from the earliest days of this blog. One of the first pieces I wrote for this blog, "Financial Aid: Welfare for Students," in which I described how schools are turning kids into taxpayer-leeching liberals, is still getting a response. It received a comment just this week from someone named Jared, whose disrespect for his elders is equaled only by the arrogance of his youth. In response to my question "The better educated you are, the more likely you are to be liberal. What does that tell you?" Jared responded: "What it tells me is that die hard conservatives like your self just aren't educated enough to understand something as complicated as student aid."

But Jared's deep-seated, Supreme Court-worthy anger and lack of respect are nothing compared with that of the young Harry Potter fans who recently found their way to this site to excoriate me for writing "Harry Potter Is a Brat." (For a very thorough point-by-point denunciation of my piece, see this post at Ioannus de Verani's blog.) "Many thanks for the unintentional humor," said a cheeky commenter named Alyssa. "ITS A FRIGGEN BOOK! probably the best and most interesting book ive ever written, i saw harry potter when i was 5 and you dont see me doing witchcraft? i was young? CAUSE I WAS SMART ENOUGH TO NO IT WAS FAKE! and unless you think the world is entirely stupid to understand this you have a problem, and must be a sh---y writer for picking on an innocent book," said another young fan who apparently thinks she's J.K. Rowling, while another fan concludes, "I've always been told that conservatives were stupid ignorant prats, of course i've never belived them but now i do. You are downright stupid." Of course, I deeply regret giving anyone the wrong impression of conservatives, but my biggest concern is with the torturous relationship these young readers have with the English language, as I pointed out in a comment on a post by Two Knives. Harry Potter fans are apparently literary geniuses compared with Bratz doll fans, and Bratz doll lovers had Two Knives contemplating censorship of tween comments to spare the illiterate tykes embarrassment, though I think a little embarrassment might do them some good -- if they are able to feel embarrassment.

Who is to blame for the poor language skills and potty mouths of our nation's tiny tots? Perhaps Samuel at Desk Full of Clutter, who is an advocate of homeschooling, might know the answer. Here is his response to "Bush to Kids: Grow Up!" edited slightly to make it safe for the reading enjoyment of the entire family: "Assuming this [expletive deleted] is serious, I've got a nominee for the world's biggest [expletive deleted]. Go here, bring a garbage can up next to the computer in case you need to vomit. I really wish I could convince myself it's a spoof, but sadly, I think he actually thinks all this [expletive deleted] that tumbles out of his cold, bastard soul. Thanks to Daryl [Cobranchi at HE&OS] for linking to this [expletive deleted] and making my night less pleasant than it might otherwise have been."

You can imagine what a relief it is after reading such a vituperative attack to return to the protective bosom of my own blog and my (mostly) supportive readers who are coming up with real solutions to the problem of our wayward youth. "All kids should be left 'Home Alone' and they will learn how to fight off burglars using only household tools. Later these skills can be applied to hold terrorists outside the entire country!" Roderick suggested helpfully.

Malagent lent support to my argument that more young people should be tasered by pointing out that tasers don't kill people, people kill people. "It's kind of like saying automobiles caused the death in car accidents, it may be a factor but it's not the cause," he wrote. And they only hurt for, like, a millisecond, he added. Thank you very much for bringing your "aggressive common sense" (as your blog's tagline puts it) to my blog, but I hope I am not being too rude if I say that the even more aggressive feature on your site which redirects you to a page that tries to force you at virtual gunpoint to download Firefox if you happen to wander over there using Internet Explorer is not only extremely annoying but quite possibly un-American.

However, perhaps all this talk of bratty children has had a deleterious effect on some of my adult commenters, who appear to have regressed into attention-starved two year olds. Lord Higham-Johnson of the always fun to read blog Nourishing Obscurity was quite enthusiastic about the first edition of "Swift Reactions," calling it a "nifty scheme." But by the second edition of "Swift Reactions" he seemed miffed that I hadn't yet mentioned him: "Eagerly having written about you last week, Jon, I eagerly came over to look at the second edition and zilch - nicho, nix, not a sausage. Sigh. And it was a labour of love too," he wrote. Apparently, it all comes down to "me, me, me" (and by "me, me, me" I mean "you, you, you") for His Grace, or however one is supposed to address a Lord. But never let it be said I don't give my readers what they want and so this edition of "Swift Reactions" is dedicated to him, with my apologies for depriving him of the attention he craves. I wonder if I should start a new series consisting solely of reactions to "Swift Reactions," which I could call "Swift Reactions Reactions."

Before I leave you, I just want to point out that this modest blog has had the great fortune of selling three ads this week instead of the usual zero, although no one has bought the special discounted $65,000 ad yet (which I only need to sell one of, as MW astutely points out). I hope you will all take a look at what our fine sponsors are proffering, which must be worthy since they have had the good taste to support this blog. And if you have even more time to while away this week, head on over to the 2007 Weblog Awards site and reward some of your favorite blogs with a nomination.

Let's Show Ahmadinejad What America Stands For

The visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to New York has stirred up a lot of controversy and emotions. It has forced Americans answer some hard questions about what kind of country we are and what message we want to send to the rest of the world.

Ahmadinejad's plans to visit Ground Zero and lay a wreath there evoked outrage from many. "Assisting Ahmadinejad in touring Ground Zero -- hallowed ground for all Americans -- is outrageous," said former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani. If anyone should know how sacred Ground Zero is to Americans, it would be Giuliani, who was there just as much as, if not more than, the rescue workers were, taking such dignitaries and celebrities as Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdul Aziz, Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov, Donald Rumsfeld and many others on guided tours of this consecrated burial ground. Of course, it is unconscionable for a politician to use Ground Zero for a photo op or to try to score political points on the tragedy of September 11 and I am glad the New York Police Department listened to Giuliani and denied Ahmadinejad permission to go there. What kind of a message would it send the world if we let someone like that use Ground Zero for a publicity stunt? Even though most of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia and Iran has not been conclusively linked to the 9/11 attacks, I am sure that there are people working on making a connection and one will be revealed before we declare war on Iran.

Then Columbia University sparked new outrage by inviting Ahmadinejad to speak there, defying President Bush's stated policy of not having any dialogue at all with our enemies. Although Columbia President Lee Bollinger said that he would "introduce the event with a series of sharp challenges" about Ahmadinejad's views on the Holocaust, Israel and terrorism, many people believe that a university, which is full of impressionable young minds, is not the place for this sort of discussion. Michelle Malkin pointed out the hypocrisy of Bollinger's refusal to punish students who stopped a member of the Minutemen from speaking by rushing the stage and allowing Ahmadinejad to speak. How could the university let one group stop someone from speaking and not let another group stop someone from speaking? That kind of double standard makes a mockery of the First Amendment.

In what might be the most rapid fulfillment of Godwin's Law on record, some compared Ahmadinejad to Hitler. "Why are they inviting the Persian Hitler to Columbia?" said Columbia alumnus and conservative writer David Horowitz. "Would Columbia have invited Hitler to speak?" asked others.

Although I believe this was probably intended as a rhetorical question, Columbia Dean John Coatsworth decided that he would try to tamp down some of the heightened emotion surrounding this debate by going ahead and answering the question on Fox News: "If Hitler were in the United States and he wanted a platform from which to speak he would have plenty of platforms to speak from in the United States. If he were willing to engage in a debate and a discussion, to be challenged by Columbia students and faculty, we would certainly invite him."

But Coatsworth's attempt to inject some thought and rationality into the debate over whether Columbia should let Hitler speak (for the second time--well, almost) just raised more important questions: If you were a doctor and Hitler had a life threatening illness, would you treat him? If Hitler knocked at your door and he was bleeding and he said he had been in an automobile accident, would you invite him in to use your telephone? If you were a Catholic priest and Hitler told you in confession that he had killed six million people, would you keep your vow of silence or report him to the authorities? And finally, a question that I think would stump a lot of conservatives, if Hitler's mother wanted to abort him, would you drive her to a Planned Parenthood clinic or counsel her to keep the baby?

Although Ahmadinejad's visit has forced us to confront a lot of difficult questions, it has also given us a chance to show the rest of the world what kind of a country we are. If some people in the world have gotten the mistaken impression that America can be pushed around, I think our response to Ahmadinejad's threat to visit Ground Zero shows that we are not as weak as they may think. And though Columbia continues to defy the government by giving Ahmadinejad a forum (we'll see how they feel when they lose federal funding and alumni donations), the protests that will greet him and the number of people who called for Columbia to deny him an opportunity to speak shows that though we value the First Amendment in theory, it is not a suicide pact. Maybe they just let anyone speak at universities in Iran but that's not the American way. In America if our enemies want to spout their propaganda, first they have to get through a phalanx of very loud protesters who will try to shout them down.

People in the Middle East respect strength not weakness. By insulting Ahmadinejad and rebuffing his attempts at dialogue, we gain his respect. If we want to have peace in the Middle East, humiliating their leaders and refusing to talk to them is a good first step.

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Technorati Tags: Jon Swift, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran, Giuliani, Columbia University, Michelle Malkin, Politics

Swift Reactions

Because I think my esteemed commenters don't get enough recognition for the contributions they make to this modest blog, I have decided to start a new weekly feature, "Swift Reactions," which will focus on some of the more interesting comments, emails and mentions of my blog in the blogosphere that you may have missed. So, without further ado, here is this week's inaugural edition of "Swift Reactions":

Lest you think I am only going to feature comments from people who agree with me, the first comment comes from my most frequent commenter, Anonymous, who writes in reference to my piece "John Kerry Goes Nucular": "Just a bit of advice, you f---ing idiot. You might want to do a spell check before posting your moronic opinions on the web. It's spelled nuclear, buttf---!" As always, thank you very much for your helpful comment, Anonymous.

Although some readers agreed with me that we are not tasering people enough, Stan was so upset with my piece that he wrote, "I swear I thought this was a parody" and called my post "obnoxious," implying that I deserve tasering myself. Then he apparently had second thoughts and awarded himself the "idiot of the day award." It takes a big man to admit when you are wrong, Stan. Of course, my pieces are not parody as you originally thought and I am glad you corrected yourself.

LoneWacko makes a too rare appearance at my blog, writing, "It wouldn't be a classic Jon Swift post without at least a couple lies." I must say I am touched that anyone believes there is even such a thing as "a classic Jon Swift post," as classic is an adjective I thought only applied to very old and boring books and rock music.

Unfortunately, my piece offering MoveOn.org and other traitors adspace on my blog at the discounted price of $65,000 seems to have brought out the worst in some of my commenters. My dear friend Kathleen Maher, whose delightful fiction blog Diary of a Heretic recalls the days when writers like Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins serialized their stories in magazines, tries to hit me up for a free ad. As Lou Grant once told Mary Tyler Moore: "You've got spunk … I hate spunk." I do appreciate the backhanded compliment, however, she gave me on her own blog. Even worse MW at Divided We Stand, United We Fall not only tries to sell ads for his own site, he undercuts my price by $15,000.01! I would seriously consider reporting him to the Blogger Ethics Board if I did not think it would just give him the attention he so desperately craves.

Around the blogosphere, I was very relieved to discover that some Warcraft 2 players do not spend all 24 hours a day online playing games. Apparently, they spend some hours in the day reading blogs such as mine. Quite a debate ensued over the merits of my work.

And I was very flattered to find out that a teacher in Hawaii had assigned my blog to his high school class. Of course, it was very humbling to know that impressionable young minds were being exposed to my ideas and would soon resent being forced to read my writing the way I resented having to read The Old Man in the Sea and The Scarlet Letter when I was in high school. "The assignment is difficult and will require better reading than the classes have shown so far," the teacher scolded, words that I hope some of my readers will take to heart. Apparently, the students did not do very well at all on the assignment and were forced to read my blog yet again, no doubt making them hate me even more. "All three classes agreed that the blog of Jon Swift on second look was far more like a research paper than it looked when they studied," the teacher reports. I think having my work compared to a high school research paper may be the highest accolade I have ever received. Your homework assignment for tonight, dear readers, is to read my blog again.

I can't feature every comment here so I hope none of you will be disappointed if I haven't cited one of your comments this time. I'm sure I will get to you in a future edition of this roundup. Of course, all of my commenters are very special to me and I wouldn't want anyone to think otherwise.

Are We Tasering People Enough?

The tasering of a student at a John Kerry speech at University of Florida has many people confused. At first conservative bloggers seized on the story of Andrew Meyer's tasering at the UF forum as another example of the unjust treatment of conservatives in our society, not to mention another chance to attack John Kerry. As usual Michelle Malkin led the way. She likes to get on top of a story and draw conclusions as soon as possible because she can always backtrack later.

"You know what the lamest part is? Listening to impotent John Kerry's voice droning apathetically during the entire incident," wrote Malkin. If it had been her giving the speech and a liberal had asked her rude questions and been tasered by police, she no doubt would have leapt into the audience and come to the obnoxious questioner's defense, even at the risk of being tasered herself. That's the kind of person she is. Kerry did later condemn the arrest, saying that he and Meyer were engaged in "a good healthy discussion," apparently not realizing that the reason their discussion seemed so one-sided was because his discussion partner was being electrocuted.

But according to Ace of Spades the police would never have tasered a liberal disturbing a speech by a conservative. Because conservatives are treated like second-class citizens in our society and women refuse to date them, at least judging by his experience, conservatives are the only people who ever get tasered. Stop the ACLU joked delightfully that the ACLU should get involved, knowing, of course, that the ACLU never defends conservatives, other than Nazis, that is. Conservatives were outraged that the civil liberties of one of their own were being trampled.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the blogstorm. It turned out that the student was not conservative but was in fact so liberal he was to the left of Kerry. The initial enthusiasm for Meyer began to wane with this revelation. "No, he isn't one of ours," wrote Dan Riehl, saving his long, self-pitying treatise on how unfair the world is to conservatives, which we are all looking forward to reading, for another day. "Good for the campus police because Meyer deserved what he got," said John Hawkins at Right Wing News. Somehow the idea of a liberal getting tasered didn't seem quite so outrageous after all. And certainly no one minded all that much when a Muslim student got tasered last year in the UCLA library where he may have been reading books on bomb making or something. Eventually, Malkin would change her position 180 degrees and start attacking Meyer. In the midst of reconsidering her initial reaction to the tasering, Malkin even managed to find an anti-immigrant angle. "Speaking of tasers, did you know that immigration officers cannot use them against illegal aliens in federal detention facilities?" she said, pointing out that Tom Tancredo (who is opposed to immigration despite his suspiciously foreign-sounding name) is doing something about this unfair "differential treatment." When the victim of tasering is an illegal immigrant, suddenly it doesn't seem so bad.

You might think that at this point the liberal blogosphere would have rallied to Meyer's defense. At first they seemed to be ignoring the story or even justified the police conduct because the idea of a conservative activist getting tasered at a Kerry speech didn't seem like anything to get worked up about. Plus, liberal bloggers are just as happy to bash Kerry as conservatives are since they blame him for botching the election. Although some liberal bloggers are now tentatively saying that the police may have gone a bit too far, they don't seem quite so outraged as the conservative bloggers almost were. Something seems to be holding them back. Sure, the First Amendment sounds good in theory, but perhaps tasering some annoying people might not be such a bad idea and it wouldn't be prudent to come out against tasering per se. There are a few conservative bloggers, some liberals must be thinking, who could use a good tasering.

While many conservatives and liberals seem to be shifting their positions so quickly it would take a quantum mechanic to sort it all out, I have maintained a very consistent point of view ever since I first heard about the incident. I am 100% in favor of tasering obnoxious people, whether they are conservative, liberal or radically moderate. In fact, I don't think we are tasering people enough and that this country would be better off if we had more tasering not less.

I think we have all seen political events where someone talks on and on or is irritatingly impassioned about their narrow agenda. If we armed security at all of these events with taser guns, I'm sure people would think twice about hogging the microphones and boring us with their speeches about issues we don't care about. Tasering has a remarkably calming effect on people as you can see by the reaction of the crowd at the UF event. Instead of becoming angry at the police or trying to intervene or speak out about the treatment of Meyer, they all became quite docile.

If only we had had tasers in the 1960s, I think we might have avoided a lot of the campus unrest during that turbulent decade. They seem to be much more effective at pacifying people than tear gas, German shepherds, firehoses and bullets. If the police had tasered a few anti-war protesters during the 1960s, we might not have lost the Vietnam War.

Although tasers do reportedly hurt -- a lot -- they are an effective means of nonlethal force, if you don't count the 148 people who have died from being tasered, and their effects are not permanent, the way shooting people sometimes is. If more people were tasered at public events, it would have a big impact on lessening the coarsening of our culture.

Throughout the 2004 presidential campaign, for example, President Bush had to screen the people attending his events to make sure that no one would ask him a rude or difficult question. But it would have been much easier if the Secret Service were armed with tasers and simply tasered anyone who got out of line. I don't think anyone would have asked any impolite questions if they saw that all the Secret Service agents carrying stun guns. The judicious use of tasers might make the 2008 election a lot more tolerable.

But tasers would not just have a calming effect on our political discourse. Just as concealed carry laws reduce crime as criminals become aware that anyone could shoot them, making tasers more available to the general public would make people think twice about being discourteous. Taser International is marketing a fashionable pink taser for women that should keep overly flirtatious men in check. And widespread use of tasers would reduce the number of both surly waiters and annoying customers arguing over every little charge on their restaurant bills.

Tasers also have the potential to transform future generations in a way that could be even more far-reaching than drugging our kids with Ritalin. If our teachers had tasers, students would be much better behaved and we might avoid incidents like Columbine and Virginia Tech. And I can't tell you how many times I have wished that parents had tasers to discipline their unruly kids. In New York they are actually doing something about this problem. Teenagers there are going to think twice about disturbing the neighbors with rowdy barbecues after the 17-year-old son of a retired policeman was tased four times last month after beating him and choking him was not having the desired effect. In Great Britain police are pioneering the use of tasers to pacify impudent little tykes, having just been given the go-ahead to use tasers on children.

No one wants a return of the campus unrest we witnessed during the 1960s and I'm sure everyone was pleased with the very passive reaction of the students at the UF event. Imagine a society where everyone was as calm and peaceful as the very well-behaved UF students were. It's easy if you try.

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Technorati Tags: Jon Swift, Andrew Meyer, John Kerry, Tasers, Michelle Malkin, Politics
Carnivals: BOMS, Carnival of Principled Government, Carnival of Injustice, Educational Technology Carnival, Carnival of the Liberals