It was a formal and solemn ceremony, coming weeks after atomic bombs had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, concluding six years of warfare, with some 70 nations fighting on three continents.

Today, we find ourselves in another global conflict, and it is broadly understood that there will be no such official declaration if and when we win.

Who would sign the surrender, and where? Would Osama bin Laden apply his imprimatur to some document at Ground Zero, perhaps in the Great Hall of Faisal Abdul Rauf’s planned “community center”?

In 1945, Japan’s leaders, like countless signatories to surrenders of centuries past, were agreeing on behalf of an entire population that hostilities would cease. In today’s war, where terrorist cells attack civilian and military targets all over the world, no leader is empowered to make that peace, even if he cared to.

Without a surrender, how will we know when we have won? Victory will take years, if we can manage it, but what will it look like and how do we achieve it?

Military might alone cannot win this war. And so, the adage goes, we will conquer by the strength of our ideas. Swell – but what’s that mean?

Often, the delineation of “our ideas” takes one of two forms. First, there are people like me, banging on about “freedom,” whatever that might be. Or, we are told, standing up for “our ideas” means making some absurd concession to antagonistic forces, in hopes our good intentions and intellectual bio-diversity will green the souls and stay the hands of our enemies (Mayor Bloomberg, call your office).

Political correctness is no match for radical Islam. The latter has shown its commitment, time and again in locations around the world, to winning this conflict. The former, meanwhile, is a tiresome modern reflex, whereby poseurs take a quick assessment of common sense, then put all their energy behind the contrary view. This tic can manifest itself in straightforward fashion – as in, when people aver it is offensive to erect a nativity display at Christmastime – or abstractly – such as, you demonstrate how a cut in capital gains tax rates spurs the economy, then someone calls you a racist.

In either case, this is no way to win a war.

That brings us back to freedom. But the question remains: Just what would the victory of “freedom” mean to us? Would we breathe a little easier? Would the Kabuki dance of airport security be curtailed? Most important, would the brave members of our armed forces be spared from injury and death on foreign soil?

Intelligent and experienced people have struggled to define victory in Iraq, where the US combat mission has just ended, and Afghanistan, where human rights abuses abound and military casualties continue – to say nothing of the almost-nuclear, terror-sponsoring Iran. What does “freedom” look like for Afghans, Iraqis, Iranians, and others?

There will be no top-hats and ceremonies when this war ends. And so I put the question to you, gentle readers – what does victory in the war on terror look like?

Here are some of my ideas:

I propose building a mosque at Never Land ranch, the former home of Michael Jackson. I would then defend the building of the mosque by reminding opponents that people have been making pilgrimages to Never Land in order to worship a mentally deranged pedophile for years. Putting a mosque there would not change things substantially. Plus, one can reach California from Dearborn, Michigan in a couple of days. The same cannot be said of Mecca.

I propose building a large bomb filled with bacon grease, which would be dropped on the new Ground Zero mosque during the ground-breaking ceremony. Dubbed the “Mother of All Bacon,” or MOAB, this bomb would not actually hurt anyone. It would just permanently defile the location so that no one could worship there. That would take care of any Separation of Church and State issues in the event that Obama tries to use any future stimulus money during site construction. My bomb would also have a picture of Mohammed painted on the side with the caption “Mr. SOB” printed below.

In case you were wondering, “Mr. SOB” is short for “Mr. Scared-of-Bacon.”

Finally, I would propose setting up a vending area that fully surrounds the Ground Zero mosque. I would then gather a number of my redneck friends from South Carolina for a massive hog hunt. We would then sell the smoked hogs at vending locations near each entrance to the Ground Zero mosque. I would offer a “Boar-doba” special all-you-can-eat pig pickin’ platter for $9.11.

Before anyone gets too upset with my proposals and tries to behead me for my remarks on Islam, please remember two things:

1) I am writing this column with a loaded double barrel shotgun to my right and a loaded .357 magnum to my left. If you are a sword-wielding jihadist, please don’t bother. You’ll only annoy me and make me spill my coffee.

2) I am writing this column with tongue firmly planted in cheek. No follower of Jesus would take even one of my proposals seriously. They are meant to remind readers of just how crude, barbaric, violent, and intentionally insulting the followers of Islam really are. Religion of peace, my backside!

It may well surprise my readers when they hear me say that I will not join the efforts of those who seek to block the building of the new mosque at Ground Zero. I take this position for the same reason that I have refused to support legislation banning the burning of the American Flag.

John Stewart Mill once said that censorship is wrong for two reasons. First, it deprives people of the truth. Second, it deprives people of a greater appreciation of the truth via its juxtaposition with falsity.

When someone burns an American Flag we learn the truth about the extent of anti-Americanism among the ranks of our own. We also develop a greater appreciation of those who have fought for our freedoms. When I see my neighbor burning a flag I can boycott his business. I can then give my business to a veteran who has fought to defend the hateful idiocy of flag burners everywhere.

We cannot punish anti-Americanism if we engage in the prior restraint of its expression. We must allow it to flourish for a time if we are to mobilize a more effective response. The application of this reasoning to the controversy over the present Ground Zero mosque is obvious.

By not standing in the way of the construction of this mosque we will allow its supporters to exercise fully their constitutional right to make fools of themselves. When the mosque is completed I look forward to retracing the trail of its financial supporters to the very beginning. I have no doubt that such a search will lead us into the halls of the Obama White House. Nor do I have any doubt that Obama’s affirmative support of this project will lead to his permanent political downfall.

In the end, members of the Obama Administration may decide that the complex housing the mosque at Ground Zero would be a good place for an Obama Presidential Library. Either way, it is a good place to celebrate anti-Americanism for the free world to see and the sane world to judge.

Leave aside Obama’s fanatical opposition to allowing Illinois hospitals to save the lives of babies with God-given souls inadvertently born alive during abortions. Also leave aside the fact that neither of his parents were Christians. And leave aside his current crop of “spiritual advisers,” which is a collection of Mother Earth worshippers, polytheists and other nonbelievers.

Now rest from all that “leaving aside.”

The only evidence for Obama’s Christianity is that he faithfully attended the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ for 20 years.

Yes, the guy bellowing “God damn America!” is the one vouching for Obama’s Christianity. That’s like saying you got sober with the help of your A.A. sponsor Lindsay Lohan.

It is a fact that any non-retarded person (thank you, Rahm Emanuel!) sitting in the Rev. Wright’s church for 20 minutes, much less 20 years, does not believe in God. Even stepping inside Wright’s church for a moment to get out of the rain is borderline racist.

Going to Trinity United Church of Christ is even stronger evidence of nonbelief than Bill Clinton returning from Sunday services to receive oral sex from Monica Lewinsky. This isn’t mere sin—everybody sins (though some with more frequency and less remorse than others).

Attending Wright’s church is the conscious, calculated decision to immerse yourself in hate-filled demagoguery and call it “Christianity.”

But according to North Korean TV’s Chris Matthews, it is a provable, scientific fact that Obama is a Christian because he says so. “Everybody watching right now,” Matthews said to his several viewers last week, “gets credit for being of the religion you say you are. ... We accept that in America. It’s called freedom of religion and respect for religion.”

That would make professions of religious belief, unlike all other self-professions, unchallengeable. Liberals say conservatives don’t believe in civil rights. I say liberals are godless traitors. Why is one statement debatable and the other not?

Doesn’t anyone question the Christianity of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker? How about the Satanists claiming to be Christians who stand outside soldiers’ funerals with signs that say “God Hates Fags”?

And, for the record, the allegedly inviolate assertion of one’s own religious belief wasn’t so inviolate when it came to Ronald Reagan.

Tip O’Neill used to question President Reagan’s Christianity all the time, taunting the president for not attending church regularly. Matthews might remember that: He was working for O’Neill at the time.

In fact, parading to church in front of the TV cameras carrying a 10-pound Bible—like a certain serial adulterer, impeached president I could name—is strongly discouraged by the creator of the universe. (“Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 6.1)

Some conservatives have cited Obama’s near complete refusal to go to church to suggest he’s not the “devout Christian” who “prays every day” as the White House claims.

But that’s not your proof, Christians. To the contrary, it’s Obama’s church attendance—back in Chicago—that proves he’s an atheist.

This was inadvertently admitted by Obama’s leading butt-boy, Richard Wolffe, on North Korean TV Monday night. Wolffe acknowledged that Wright’s liberation theology was not Christianity, but then forcefully distinguished Obama from the Rev. Wright –- i.e., Obama’s sole character witness for his alleged Christianity.

Of Glenn Beck’s denunciation of liberation theology as a false religion, Wolffe said: “Is he debating Jeremiah Wright or Barack Obama? They’re two different people. If he wants to debate liberation theology with Wright, he’s got something to talk about. But liberation theology hasn’t been anything espoused by this president.”

But it was espoused in the only church Obama ever attended regularly—for 20 years, no less—was married in and had his daughters baptized in. The title of Obama’s autobiography came from the title of one of Wright’s sermons and snippets from Wright’s sermons have appeared in Obama’s work.

So the sole evidence of Obama’s supposed Christianity is his longtime pastor, who everyone admits is a racist nut.

No sentient human is required to take Obama’s profession of Christianity any more seriously than if it were coming from a 1980s blow-dried, money-grubbing televangelist with a mistress on the side.

All liberals are atheists. Only the ones who have to stand for election even bother pretending to believe in God.

Not being acquainted with any actual Christians, they aren’t particularly good bluffers. That’s why Democrats babble incoherently whenever the subject of religion comes up. Liberals acting devout always looks like the love scenes between Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis in “Top Gun”: awkward and unconvincing.

Former divinity student Al Gore famously botched a biblical verse, switching God’s instruction that we put heaven before earthly things (“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” Matthew 6:21) by saying we should make the Earth our treasure. (In the druidical religion of liberalism, not separating your recyclables is a sin, but abortion is just a medical procedure.)

Howard Dean told a reporter his favorite book of the New Testament was Job.

It took the Democrats’ born-again Christian Jimmy Carter three decades to announce, in 2005, that he didn’t think Jesus would approve of abortion (“unless the mother’s life or health was in danger or perhaps the pregnancy was caused by rape or incest,” etc. etc.).

There’s only one true Christian liberal in the country and that’s Mike Huckabee.

Conservatives are all about the law and order, and the ordinary people, and families.  Let’s get that typed out properly though:  Actual conservatives are about that.  Big-C Conservatives apparently shun the petty little things that get in their way, like law and order, ordinary people, and families, and neighborhoods, and their community, and they trample all over those small annoyances in their ever-so important rise to power. 

So here’s a real-life example:  Here in my home town, there’s currently an election campaign for a city councilor seat left vacant by a councilor who passed away mid-term.  Among the many candidates is a failed federal Conservative Party candidate by the name of Sandeep Pandher. 

As soon as campaign lawn and street signs were allowed to be erected, Pander’s family-loving and law-respecting crews were out — at five in the morning— hammering nails and pounding posts into the ground with giant sledge hammers, waking up unknown numbers of entire households.  Above left is the one in our otherwise picturesque vista right behind our house, mere feet away from our bed.  That was two weeks ago.

Last night, at 1:10 AM, following a wind storm, his crews were out again, pounding nails and waking up unknown numbers of people and households — families and neighborhoods in our community — including ours.  Once again proving that he couldn’t be less interested in the community’s people and families and neighborhoods in our community, nor our noise bylaws, and that he is above all that —he’s far more important than us and our idiotic interests like sleeping — and beyond those annoying details that get in the way of his sacred rise to power (if you can call being a councilor in a small town like ours “power”). 

And here’s a snapshot of his possibly hilarious website:

After he’s elected, we are to presume, he’ll magically and instantly regain his respect for the people and families and neighborhoods in our community, and for our noise bylaws. 

But for now, all we know is that he sees himself as more important than the people and families and neighborhoods in our community, and our noise bylaws.  He rises above that pettiness. 

So of course I’ll vote for anybody but that guy.  And I’ll view with the greatest of suspicion any “Conservative” Party candidate running anywhere for anything.

And as even liberals know, respect for people, families, neighborhoods, and our community in general are demanded 24/7.  And this little nugget:  You would be working for us.  Serving us.

That word "empower" is replete with divisive, feminist, and almost always left-wing zealotry.  For example nobody ever wants to "empower" self-employed business folks (...unless of course they're women); or "empower" pro-life folks (even if they're women).  The only people who ever seek to be "empowered" are women, or those who subscribe to and fight for an unmistakably left-wing cause. 

Aside from "empowering" women, Minerva seeks to help grow and nurture and mentor women who so desire it, into strong leaders in our nation, in whatever facet of life they choose to be leaders.  It's a reasonable enough cause on its face, and they're a private organization, so you know, good luck to 'em.  As a private organization, if for that reason alone, my hat's off to them… bbbbut then just as quickly, they force me to put my hat right back on.  Actually it's an army helmet these days.  Ya need a helmet.  It's like a war.

The government — the "Conservative" government — announces with great fanfare in an utterly uncritical liberal media, that it is getting itself involved.  With our taxpayer cash, of course.  In an otherwise already successful private organization, already replete with corporate and individual sponsors, as it should exclusively be.  And the foundation happily accepts the government — our — money. 

That's not "leadership" on any level, by anybody.  That's the opposite.

That, to me, is like declaring war against the strong principles (and the folks who all learned on their own how to lead) that built our nation.  So too, against conservatism, which makes it personal for me;  and it’s actually against Canada itself, as I see it, because when the government tries to make itself indispensable and causes people and private groups and private organizations to become crack-whore-reliant upon the government, as all governments and the major political parties in Canada perpetually attempt to do, it harms Canada and all the foundational ideals upon which it was built.  It's nation-wrecking.  And it’s anti-leadership.

And it's taking sides with liberals, leftists… progressives.  Against me and my nation.

All that, from a "Conservative" government.  I can't stress my use of air/scare quotes around "Conservative" enough.  These people aren't conservatives.  They're progressives.

Only liberals and leftists and progressives generally would see the funding of private organizations such as this for the purpose of "empowering women" and mentoring them into leadership roles, as a fundamental, core function of government.  And only progressives and socialists (etc) would glibly expend our extremely scarce tax dollars (to the point of near national economic catastrophe and virtual bankruptcy, in the midst of a massive recession, deficit, and historic national debt) to do it.  It's exactly anti-conservative.  It's certainly war against my core beliefs and principles as a Canadian.

After already making the case hundreds of times over, I hardly need to reiterate how the liberal-left media is always utterly uncritical of big-nanny-state-government moves such as this, even when the government is called "Conservative" and which otherwise gets the media's breathless, endless criticism, and nasty critical nuance, piled up upon every other announcement and policy idea like cutting taxes, or cutting "arts" or the state-owned CBC’s funding.  Dump the long-gun registry?  For shame!  Fund abortions and "empowering" women?  No questions.  It's just perfect.  Keep it up.

"Rona Ambrose, politically progressive non-leader, gives women's group our taxpayer cash so they will follow" —that would be my headline.

Real women "leaders" in government (particularly a real conservative one) would tell the lassies at the Minerva organization, under no uncertain terms, to find their own damn way.  Lead, damn it!  "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime," and all that.  See, it works for women too.  But ironically, this "Conservative" government shows "leadership" by giving them a huge fish, and making the organization servants of the state's largess, and the women "leaders" accept it.  It's progressivism writ large.  And it's exactly dis-empowering.  To all.

So there she was yesterday: federal "Status of Women Minister" Rona Ambrose ("Conservative") in the liberal newspaper, announcing with great fanfare and absolutely no critical analysis from the media that it is granting the Minerva "leaders" well over a third of a MILLION taxpayer dollars in order to help the them in their goals of helping women in their quest to become leaders.  Because apparently Canadians couldn't decide on their own how best to spend their own money.

It all sounds like the Soviet Union, as run by Libby Davies, and reads like a story in PRAVDA.

AMONG THE MANY "CORPORATE" SPONSORS LISTED BY MINERVA:

• BC Hydro —a 100% government-owned and controlled monopoly non-corporation.  It's a branch of The Government.
• B.C. Institute of Technology (BCIT) — a 100% government-owned and government-funded public post-secondarty instutution.  Minerva lists them as another one of their "corporate" sponsors.
• University of Victoria—a 100% government-owned, government-funded public university.  Minerva lists them as another one of their "corporate" sponsors.

...And now the taxpayers of the entire country as well.

Someone should tell the “Islamic State of Iraq,” a.k.a. “al-Qaeda in Iraq,” and many other cells and fronts, that the “occupation” is over. They can stop blowing up innocent civilians now. Alas, owing to some misunderstanding (and I am being facetious), terror incidents have spiked in the past two months and the Islamists are on something of a bender.

One is reminded of the wonderful peace that was achieved in Gaza when the Israelis finally did what the international community had been demanding for a long time, pulled up all stakes, and left that “occupied Palestinian territory.” For some unaccountable reason (and I am still being facetious), Hamas did not get the message, quickly took over the lame local PLO administration, and attacks on Israel stepped up.

The situation in Iraq is different at one level. If the Islamists take over, there may be no immediate, additional external threat. It is a unique domino, and, when it falls, it just falls.

Will this happen? After seven-plus years of foreign engagement in Iraq, which went well beyond military incursion into extravagant “rebuilding” programs (the quotes because most of what was “rebuilt” was never there in the first place), we really don’t know.

We do know, or should know, that the vast majority of the Iraqi population, including those in the politically-dispossessed Sunni minority, hate the Islamists even more than we do. We know that, long before the invasion, the Iraqi people had the most secular-minded and “post-Shariah” outlook of any of the Arab peoples. And indeed, President George W. Bush and his so-called “neo-conservative” advisers were banking on this to make Iraq a regional “showplace of democracy.”

But the great majority of any people would rather not be governed by violent psychopaths with apocalyptic visions. They don’t always get a choice in the matter, and, even when they have more power than they realize, may still surrender to totalitarianism, in the false belief that this “will bring an end to the violence.” Ask the Germans how it works out.

Perhaps the greatest accomplishment of the Islamist totalitarians, in the West, has been to convince a growing share of our population that Muslims are all insane (as we once thought Germans were); whereas, I know at first hand that this is not the case. It does not follow, as Bush came close to arguing, that the inhabitants of the Muslim world are “just like us,” or even that they want to be. Many mistakes were made in Iraq by taking naive assumptions too far.

Americans have never quite mastered the Art of Imperialism for reasons that touch deeply on America’s own “exceptionalism” among the nations of the world. This art begins with realizing that the people you are trying to rule, or at least influence, are much different from your own and have their own preferred ways of doing things. And yet they are sane for all that, and some mutually satisfactory accommodation can be achieved, so long as you retain the guns.

I am not advocating Imperialism. I am merely pointing out that if, as in this situation, one finds oneself cast in an Imperial role, one should try to play it well. But I should add that the Americans were playing it better and better as time went by, and they stopped insisting on doing everything the American way.

This included the big “infrastructure” spending. Yet we have now learned that the entire American effort in Iraq, from beginning to end, in all of its ramifications, cost substantially less than last year’s single-shot Congressional “stimulus” package (and was probably much better for the U.S. economy).

Iraq is stronger today for the length of time U.S. and allied forces stayed: not only because they were able to root out more of the Islamist domestic enemy, but also because the country as a whole had more time to find its equilibrium and restore many of its own pre-Saddam civil traditions.

Iraq is now alone. It is, by regional standards, a kind of model, but no longer a model that might be copied, as it was at the height of the U.S. incursion, when even Libya’s Gaddafi was voluntarily offering to make mutually satisfactory accommodations with the West.

Except for Israel, and Turkey for a while, Iraq is now the only regional state in which the rule of law has some traction against the rule of tyrants, but, for that very reason, it is now the principal target of the region’s most evil powers, and they are volubly encouraged by the U.S. departure.

I agree with America.  I usually do.

I’ve written before that I think federal politicians here and in the U.S. should be paid according to a formula something like this:  They should be paid roughly whatever small business people — entrepreneurs — are earning on average in any given year.  Net, and after their taxes.  Minus expenses (not plus lavish expense accounts and travel compensation and gold-plated benefit plans and Cadillac pension plans and…). 

Since that’s how small business people and their families live, and they’re at least as valuable as politicians to a nation — or more valuable on so many levels — then why should politicians be treated and paid as if they’re better, or more special, or more highly valued by society?  Nobody works harder or is more beneficial and valuable to the economy than small business people who innovate and create jobs, and find efficiencies in everything they do, and provide every good and service a nation needs and wants, and more.

MY BUILT-IN FORMULA FOR PAY RAISES:
The Rasmussen survey also question folks about how pay raises should occur in Congress.  78% of folks said pay raises should first be voted on by the public.  Spot on. 

Using my own formula, however, it works out naturally.  Liberals: you could go ahead and call this “organic” if you want.  If small business people make more money, the politicians will make more money.  So there’s your formula for government “pay raises”.  I imagine that would have an effect upon politicians roughly similar to a bolt of lightning up the gravy-filled butt.  This is the desired effect.

Suddenly politicians would find ways of helping create an environment that would encourage small business, induce higher incomes, help create more productivity, more innovation, more employment, and so much more.  They sure as heck wouldn’t prop up businesses or give them federal grants and loans. My formula would force politicians to see how they are in the way, and force them to get out of the way.  Just watch as those business and employment taxes come down, baby!  And you think they’d take most of the summer and winter off?  Not a chance. 

Some say this pay formula would discourage good folks from running for office.  Well that’s just another added benefit.  Downsizing government by 50%, even if it’s because they were forced to through a shortage of “employees”, would be just what the doctor ordered.  They’re loath to do it on their own.  So that’s fantastic.  We’d end up with a government consisting of folks who actually want to perform a civic duty and serve the public, rather than useless career politicians who make a fabulous living and unreal pensions as they find more and worse ways of getting in the way, creating more stupid laws and regulations and policies and grow government bigger and bigger and more useless, and serve as more a hindrance to progress and innovation than anything else.

The only downside is that the nation would suffer some sort of temporary economic shock.  I mean it would be positive — people not knowing what to do with all the extra money and what not — but this would serve as a re-awakening of sorts.  The economy would suddenly start to turn all, you know, good and capitalist and free-market-y.  People will get used to it, and demand even smaller governments, fewer intrusive regulations and idiotic taxes and reliance on governments….that sort of thing.  Liberals will call it the new dark ages. It will be awesome.

So everyone benefits.  I say let’s get on it.

There is no better way to conclude this blog entry than by including this quote from the same Rasmussen survey:

Voters are evenly divided as to whether a group of people selected at random from the phone book would be better than the current Congress.

Plain old Americans.  Ya gotta love ‘em.

Some of you may remember Ilario Pantano from his appearance on The Daily Show with John Stewart. He was promoting his book Warlord: No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy. I will never forget the interview because I have never seen John Stewart behave in such a respectful and professional manner while interviewing someone so diametrically opposed to him politically.

And there was plenty of potential for fireworks in the interview. Pantano had been accused of murder after killing two insurgents during intense fighting near Bagdad. But Ilario Pantano was cleared of all charges in an Article 32 Hearing, which is the military equivalent of a preliminary hearing. No trial was ever convened.

Ilario Pantano also acquitted himself well in the court of public opinion. Even when dealing with tough adversaries like John Stewart he overwhelmed them with a sharp mind and an articulate tongue. When I saw his interview with Stewart I knew Ilario Pantano was congressional material.

And now the Warlord is running for Congress against Mike McIntyre – a Democrat who voted against the surge in Iraq.

It is fitting that Ilario Pantano gunned down two Iraqi insurgents on April 15th – the day we are all reminded by the IRS that our freedoms in America are in grave jeopardy. The Warlord favors either the Fair Tax or a flat tax over the present income tax system. He promises a very different kind of change than what we have seen under the current administration.

Maybe that is why just last week Democrat Mike McIntyre opened their debate with a lie about the intentions of candidate Ilario Pantano. The entrenched incumbent claimed that the Warlord intends to raise taxes by 23% - an allusion to his opponent’s openness to the Fair Tax bill.

Mike McIntyre knows the Fair Tax replaces the income tax rather than adding 23% to the existing income tax. He is not ignorant. He is being willfully dishonest. Apparently, there is greater honor among Marines than among career politicians.

But Mike McIntyre’s Fair Tax dishonesty pales in comparison with the dishonesty of our local New York Times affiliate, the Wilmington Star News. The paper previously won awards for its coverage of the Pantano Article 32 Hearing. That coverage was instrumental in conveying to the public that the principal accuser against Pantano was a disgruntled Sergeant whom Pantano had demoted. That Sergeant’s testimony was so riddled with inconsistency that he was yanked from the stand and read his Miranda warnings in the midst of the proceedings.

But, now, after one of its reporters has collected an award for his coverage of the Pantano hearing, the New York Times affiliate has turned on the war hero. He threatens to unseat their Democratic candidate. So the paper is now printing numerous Letters to the Editor, which accuse Pantano of a lack of judgment for shooting two “unarmed” men – who, incidentally, ignored his warnings in both English and Arabic.

The liberal writers of Letters to the Editor don’t have the kind of psychic powers required to discern whether a silent man is armed. But their pompous comments reveal that they are both intellectually and morally unarmed.

These letters do indeed show a dark and disturbing side of the liberal mindset. When a civilian is accused of murder he is innocent until proven guilty. When a Marine is accused of murder he remains guilty after proven innocent.

But war heroes like Ilario Pantano should not be discouraged. It isn’t anything personal. The people who read our local New York Times affiliate don’t hate Ilario Pantano. They just hate America.

In the end, this will all play out nicely for the decorated Warlord. People will only remember that he killed two Iraqi insurgents. Most people don’t think that disqualifies someone from serving in Congress. Most of us wish it were a requirement.

Author’s Note: Please take the time to log on to www.PantanoForCongress.com

This is not the only proverb I imbibed, nor even the most serviceable. Nor is it quite compendious; for no proverb can be, in itself, the source of all wisdom. Other proverbs will be needed to flesh it out; which is why, in the Bible, you will find a whole Book of Proverbs, designed to cover the whole ground.

In the case of name-calling, I would like to acknowledge, for instance, the truth of another and related proverb learnt in childhood, which I have often watched being applied: “Put it on thick, a little will stick.” I feel for middle-class, urban children today, who must come to adulthood almost proverb-free, and often enough with asthma, too, for they were exposed to neither wisdom nor dirt.

Efforts made to sterilize both the intellectual and material environment, through political correctitude and hand cleanser, have left them unable to cope with the slightest exposure to the rich manure in which a civilization grows and flourishes. They’re left with nothing to hurl except the occasional spit-ball.

They are taught, for instance, that “words are deeds.” This is almost the essence of post-modern etiquette: that one must avoid not only violent deeds, but even violent thoughts. Yet the person who suppresses all violent imaginings is left without any kind of insight into nature or society. He becomes, perforce, a prig.

The sort who, for instance, took offence the other day, when I privately, casually, and I thought, good-naturedly, referred to some of my opponents as “commies and perverts.” How dare I hurl such vile epithets? But note, I wasn’t hurling, merely lobbing into play. Moreover, said opponents had thought nothing of calling me a “fascist”—and in public, too! This hardly distressed me, because it missed by miles. As the son of a Spitfire pilot, taught at his knee to reject Statism and Socialism in any combination, the epithet “fascist” has no terrors for me, especially when uttered by people who embrace Statism and Socialism in every combination they can buy.

Ditto for such epithets as “racist,” and “sexist,” when employed by persons who specify that I am white and male. Reviewed in serenity, it will be observed that they have scored own-goals.

Conversely, I don’t think I could have raised such a howl, had some part of my own name-calling not hit something. For here we come to a great secret in the art of name-calling: that the outrage increases with the accuracy of the epithets. It is why only epithets with some truth in them are likely to be banned.

But, did you know that all human language is based on name-calling, from the most tangible to the most abstract? Verily, I have sometimes speculated that the first human word was an expletive, uttered when a cave man, who’d been breaking clam shells open with a big rock, mindlessly dropped it on a toe. Perhaps his mate found pleasure in his choice of phoneme, suddenly grasping its potential for analogy. (Beauty and truth are allied in this way.) The notion of philosophy spread from there.

Consider the following magnificent opening to an article in the journal, World Affairs, by the novelist and essayist Claire Berlinski: “As the First General Law of Travel tells us, every nation is its stereotype. Americans are indeed fat and overbearing, Mexicans lazy and pilfering, Germans disciplined and perverted. The Turks, as everyone knows, are insane and deceitful.

I say this affectionately. I live in Turkey. On good days, I love Turkey. But I have long since learned that its people are apt to go berserk on you for no reason whatsoever, and you just can’t trust a word they say.” It happens that I disagree with Berlinski—who incidentally has a doctorate in international relations from Balliol College at Oxford—about many things. At the root of them, I do not think psychotic radical Islam can be defeated by Western secularist consumerism. But when I read that passage I smiled, very wide, for I realized that we were observing the same world, and with the same tendency to eschew tinted lenses.

And while I haven’t read her novels, I might honestly shill for her non-fiction book, Menace in Europe. It is at least lively.

Now, “liveliness” is in itself the enemy of the politically correct Left. Any incautious propensity toward truth-telling subverts their whole agenda; which is among the reasons I am in favour of doing that whenever an opportunity is presented. As George Grant used to say, the place to discuss abortion is at a polite academic sherry party.

That would be rude, I can hear my reader thinking. And I agree with him, that civility requires “nice language” in almost all circumstances. Much hinges on that “almost,” however, for when civility has grown into a shell around a lie, we need a rock to break it open.

If you don’t believe me, check out Melanie Phillips’ heavily footnoted book, Londonistan, which spells out with Windex-like clarity how our cousins across the pond fell under the PC spell, got neutered and now have a Muslim mess on their hands. This book will wake you the heck up regarding what’s going on right now in NYC … I ga-ron-tee!

Allow me to continue. Islam, surfing pluralism’s chipper wave of “tolerance” in the former Great Britain, effectively bullied the Brits into submission simply by calling them names. Unbelievable.

Indeed, what Adolph couldn’t do by might Islam has done to the UK by sleight. I’m sure Churchill is turning over in his grave so fast that he could light up South Beach, as the British bulldog has morphed into a capitulating poodle. And y’know what? We could be next. Our bald eagle could become a plucked chicken if we don’t play our cards right.

Check it out: Now in merry old England the Muslims have sharia courts, gargantuan enclaves, and radicals galore. They’re even having Brits’ pet dogs tossed off buses because they’re “unclean” and have just recently had history lessons about the Holocaust tossed from the public school curriculum because the topic is offensive to the Muslim youths who were taught it never happened.

The Muslims who effectively screamed that England was intolerant rose to prominence and, oddly enough, became rabidly, violently—one could say bigotedly—intolerant of the UK’s laws and liberties once they established a cultural beachhead. Golly, who’d a thunk it?

We are currently where GB was: Namely, we are being told that we cannot trust our BS detector when it comes to their reasons behind the Ground Zero Mosque or … or … we are … wait for it … we are … bigots! That’s it. We’re mean ol’ bigots.

I’m sure the Imam is thinking, Hell, the UK fell for it. Maybe, just maybe, the USA will fold like a cheap lawn chair under the weight of a false charge, as well. So, here it comes, America: The stealth jihadists have their label maker ready to go and in full spin mode. Yep, if we don’t bend over backwards and now forwards for this Ground Zero Mosque and whatever else they happen to come up with both now and forevermore then we’re haters, xenophobes, and bigots! You might as well get used to it, people, as these pathetic truth-twisters and their Blame Stream Media are not going to stop vilifying us until we cave.

According to Ground Zero Mosque’s Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and his wife Daisy Khan (or is it Con?), we have learned this week that:

- If you scream “bull——” every time you hear Rauf say the Ground Zero Mosque is all about “bridge building” and “healing”… then you might be a bigot.

- If you think caring about the 3,000 Americans slaughtered on 9/11 and their families’ feelings trumps being sensitive to these Mosqueteers … then you might be a bigot.

- If you think St. Nicholas’ Greek Orthodox Church, the Twin Towers and a memorial to those brutally killed on 9/11 should be built way before we even discuss this Mosque … then you might be a bigot.

- If you think turnabout is fair play and that churches and synagogues ought to be erected in Mecca … then you might be a bigot.

- If you yelled, “That figures!” when you heard Obama’s admin sent Rauf, on our dime, to the Middle East on a “Goodwill Tour”… then you might be a bigot.

- If you think it’s really weird that Rauf says he’s a moderate and yet praises Iran’s brutal regime, supports Hamas, and says that America is worse than al-Qaeda … then you might be a bigot.

- If you say “sharia this” when you hear they want our courts sharia-compliant … then you might be a bigot.

America, if being a bigot means that:

- I can’t listen to my gut,

- or suspect their motives,

- or wonder aloud how wrong it is to have a Mosque built in close proximity to such a calamity,

- or I’m disallowed to question and connect the dots with Rauf’s radical associations and statements,

- or if I do not want what has happened in Europe to ever happen here where we lose our national identity and liberties by propping up their preposterous wishes

… then I guess I might be a bigot. However, I prefer a tag of my own choosing, namely, “Islamo-nauseous,” as I am sick of them talking smack about our country while demanding everything from it.

So, just go ahead and add that baseless moniker “bigot” to the mounting and specious list of names you and the BSMedia have already saddled me with (and plenty of others who love this country). I’m cool with that because I’d rather have the pain of being called an unsubstantiated name than the pain of realizing I bought a bunch of PC radical Muslim spin 20 years from now.

Check out my latest video, Sharia Law Meets Shania Twain: Imagine!

In generating this controversy, and then pushing hard on it by insisting on the constitutionally protected right of freedom of religion to build this mosque in the vicinity of Ground Zero in New York City, Islamists behind the project have masterfully succeeded in greatly dividing Americans as the ninth anniversary of 9/11 approaches.

What we are witnessing here is radical Islamists once again, as in the Danish cartoon controversy — or the controversy surrounding the wearing by some Muslim women of niqabs or full-face coverings, or the push for censorship on grounds of hate speech — taking hold of the legal-political framework of liberal democracy to secure grounds for their anti-liberal agenda of advancing acceptance of Sharia in the West.

Through indiscriminate violence, radical Islamists have succeeded to define Islam in terms of Sharia — Islamic law constructed more than a millennium ago by legal scholars that is, putting it mildly, entirely obsolete in the context of modern philosophy, science, democracy, gender equity and individual rights and freedom — and jihad, or sanctioning of violence, in the name of religion.

Mosques for radical Islamists are centres for preaching, recruiting, fundraising, networking and engaging in the political work of advancing their strategic interests.

Once it becomes clear who the people are behind the Ground Zero mosque — variously known as the Cordoba House or Park51, which Stephen Schwartz of the Center for Islamic Pluralism in Washington, D.C., among others, has been painstakingly assembling for Americans to judge for themselves — then there should be no mistaking about its political nature disguised as religion.

Feisal Rauf, wearing the title of Imam or a Muslim religious leader, is deeply embedded in the global Islamist network of activists and organizations.

One of Rauf’s closest associates, for instance, is the former prime minister of Malaysia, Mahathir bin Mohamad, and a virulent anti-Semite on public record.

Rauf is another soft-peddler of Islamism in the West associated with the politics of Muslim Brotherhood.

Those who are familiar with Tariq Ramadan will recognize how greatly Rauf is cut from the same cloth as this grandson of Hasan al-Banna who founded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt during the early decades of the last century.

Since religion is all politics for radical Islamists, Islam as faith is absent from their hearts. They are Muslims with hearts as black as their politics.

A black heart cannot be a receptacle of God’s mystery. If Islamist extremists had God in their hearts they could not bring so much grief in the name of Islam.

But Islamist extremists are contemptuous of the golden rule. It is this contempt in full display when they insist God is their accomplice in whatever they do.

If Rauf and company were truly men of God and not radical Islamists, their hearts would choke with remorse for the controversy they have fuelled over their project.

And then they would do the right thing, renounce building the Ground Zero mosque and apologize to the American people.

The pair, both in their 20’s, were hauled into a crowded marketplace and murdered. The woman, named Sadiqa, was brought out first. Taliban thugs threw rocks at her for half an hour, at which time the man, named Qayum, was pulled into the bazaar to suffer the same fate.

Apparently, the couple had run away together. Sadiqa had been betrothed to someone else, while Qayum was already married. This dreadful story conjures a number of thoughts.

First, there is the sheer horror of the scene. Consider, if you can, what it would be like for you and the person you love most to be in such a circumstance. Your own torturous death is compounded by the inability to protect someone you adore.

Next, there is the frequency with which Taliban forces are inflicting brutality in areas of Afghanistan that fall under their control. I wrote recently of Aisha, an 18-year-old girl whose nose and ears were cut off on the order of Taliban authorities for the crime of running away from her husband. There are reports that the Taliban flogged and killed a pregnant widow in the western province of Badghis this month.

In early August, ten medical aid workers were lined up and shot, one at a time, by Taliban terrorists in the northern province of Badakhshan. The chief crime for which these noble souls were tried and executed on the spot was, “preaching Christianity.”

Writer P.J. O’Rourke, having just returned from Afghanistan, quotes a female MP who says Taliban forces make a simple demand of villagers they subjugate: “Son or money.”

The reaction of Afghanistan’s government to the stoning deaths of Sadiqa and Qayum is disconcerting. Waheed Omar, a spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai, is quoted as saying, “Even in Islam this [stoning] has to be done through proper judicial systems.”

While Omar suggests the government would condemn the incident, his comments imply that their chief objection would be that the Taliban did not complete Form Z-914B Rock-Hurling Requisition in triplicate before proceeding.

This raises the much larger concern of the Karzai government in general. Western forces are forever picking the wrong allies in regions they don’t understand, then clinging to them like grim death.

Finally, one wonders about the 150 or so people in that marketplace who watched as Sadiqa and Qayum were slowly killed. Those are 150 of the “hearts and minds” we hear so much about. Reports are that the Taliban did the actual stoning (they finished Qayum off with bullets), while villagers were made to observe and contemplate the fate of those who behave in “un-Islamic” ways.

Those villagers have seen the face of evil. And as human beings, they must want something better for themselves and their families. One has to think that in this battle for hearts and minds, forces of freedom and dignity can outdo the stone-throwers, nose-cutters and son-snatchers.

For the sake of those people – and for Sadiqa and Qayum and for every person in Afghanistan who does not share our good fortune – let us show them a better way.

Tautology seems as good a place to start as any, in dealing with the security problem presented by “Islamism,” of which we have all been reminded by the arrest of more alleged, semi-home-grown bomb plotters in Ottawa this week. If, as wags have suggested, even the flat-footed Mounties could capture these guys, think what else is out there.

To be fair to the police, who necessarily start from a position of no knowledge, and work within the tight constraints of political correctness—so that the spontaneous arrest of a known

Islamist ideologue merely “suspected” of being up to no good, would be a career-ending move—they are doing their best.

My impression is that their outwardly naive-looking schemes of “outreach” to Muslim communities are, modestly, paying off; that they do find help from “moderate Muslims” when they ask for it.

Reasonable Muslims and their children—trying to get on with their lives; who often came to Canada to escape this sort of violent nonsense—are the targets of a very sick propaganda, designed to persuade the psychologically unstable that Allah loves to kill infidels gratuitously. And over the world at large, Muslims are by far the most numerous victims of Islamist acts of carnage: quite literally tens of thousands killed and maimed in the time we’ve been counting since 9/11.

But when they look outside the community, they feel themselves being held responsible for a murderer’s creed. And this is the case whether or not outsiders admit to the “prejudice.” Ask the right poll questions, and you will find that a great majority of people in the West have “had it up to here” with Islam generally, even if they are outwardly maintaining the smiley-face of universal multicultural tolerance.

This is how things are, and as we can see from such European constituencies as Holland, that tolerance finally wears thin. Nor is it clear what the way is heading forward, when it does wear thin.

Actually, the problem is worse than this. For reasons, both material and spiritual, too deep to be adequately conveyed through conventional journalism—intensely political, ideological, “Islamist” interpretations of Islam are advancing almost everywhere that Muslim communities exist. Perhaps the biggest single exception is Iraq: but there the reverse tide may not be sustainable.

The chief material cause is Saudi Arabia, and the extraordinary funding that has gone, internationally, into promoting a Wahabi, “puritanical,” strictly Shariah-based, fanaticism. That’s where most foreign money for mosques and imams comes from, and the oil wealth behind it shows no sign of evaporating. Nor have our statesmen (or their electors) the guts to confront this issue, and express Western revulsion for a polity abhorrent to every Western principle of freedom.

The chief spiritual cause is the disappearance, on nearly a planetary scale, of sane and effective religious authority. Muslims are responding in their own way to the apparent triumph of atheism, manifest almost everywhere in a tawdry and meaningless consumerism. It is no coincidence that the terrorists recruit almost exclusively from Muslim households with all the material advantages.

Their appeal is to the young, who have had that material advantage, and know it is nothing. If we think they can be bought off with more consumer goods, we are fools indeed.

Compounding this is the universal fact of “us/them.” Put yourself in a Muslim’s shoes and ask: Who are “we” and who are “they”? It is human nature to identify with one’s own, even when one’s own are behaving reprehensibly.

Moreover, the very strategy of the Islamists is to isolate Muslim emigrant communities; to prevent their assimilation into the West and its (truly corrupted) values. In other words, to put every Muslim in a position where he is either with the Islamists, or against every aspect of his own identity.

This strategy is working. In both Europe and America, the trend is towards less, rather than more interaction between Muslims and non-Muslims.

The mosque insistence on distinctive Islamic dress contributes more to this separation, day by day, than isolated acts of terrorism.

Our media insistence on publicizing the more radical Islamic spokesmen, at the expense of the more reasonable, also contributes mightily to this by enhancing and promoting the radicals’ prestige.

It would be a different story if Muslims emigrating to the West encountered a society that was still overwhelmingly and confidently Christian in its beliefs, culture, and instincts. There would then be, for better and worse, reciprocal influence, and a “dialogue between civilizations.”

Instead Muslim immigrants find a dialogue with the deaf: with a society that still says terrorism is wrong, but can’t even explain why.

http://www.youtube.com/news?lg=EN&s=mp&t=a 

Although it’s not a “home-grown” or in-house PTBC creative effort, I put a video clip of a simple Fox News Channel story up because I knew that over time, the story would get lost in all the liberal, left-wing, progressive bullcrap, mired in history re-writes, particularly in the liberal media. I couldn’t have been more right.  We’re still being instructed by desperate liberals to blame “Bush” and “capitalism” and “conservatives” for the economic meltdown, despite the real blame resting on the shoulders of left-wing, big-government progressives and liberals who live to meddle in free markets and seek to regulate it, control it, and even wreck it, rendering it anything but free.  Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and others in the Democratic Party spring to mind.  Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid and all their supporters are taking it all to new and higher heights (or more accurately, lower lows).

Thankfully, though, millions have viewed that little video, so doubts about the Orwellian claptrap constantly and repeatedly broadcast by the left will linger.  We’re closing in on six million views.  And there have been several thousands of comments submitted.  I actually moderate the comments at YouTube, and have exercised my awesome power to screen-out the worst of them.  There have been thousands of absolutely horrid comments — usually from liberals — who expressed absolute, rabid, indiscriminate hatred and death wishes against anyone who disagrees with them and whom they fear is exposing the truth — the truth about them or their party’s political record, or about progressives or liberalism in general.  Some of them are as bad as the comments you see on the state-owned CBC’s web site of hate and intolerance.  So what’s left are the comments you see there — around 2,600 of them. 

PTBC’s YouTube Channel is located HERE (http://www.youtube.com/user/ProudToBeCanadian). 

I bring this up because I’m finally closing in on the last leg of the big changes I’m going to make to this site, and I want you to keep supporting the efforts I have made over the years in exposing liberals and progressives for what they are and what they really stand for, and my efforts at promoting true conservative thoughts and ideas, in bold colors. 

McConnell said: “We all have to rely on the word of (Barack Obama)—something about as reliable as a credit default swap.”

No, I’m sorry, that’s what The Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan said about whether Trig Palin was really Sarah Palin’s child.

McConnell responded by demanding that Obama be fired—or at least have his security clearance suspended.

No, no—wrong again: That was Sen. John Kerry and Sen. Chuck Schumer, respectively, not taking Karl Rove at his word when he said he had not released Valerie Plame’s name to the press. (It turned out Rove was telling the truth; it was Richard Armitage, and it wasn’t a crime.)

What McConnell actually said in response to the Muslim question was: “The president says he’s a Christian. I take him at his word. I don’t think that’s in dispute.”

Over at MSNBC, that’s Republican code for: “He’s a Muslim!”

North Korean TV’s Ed Schultz hysterically babbled: “McConnell gave cover. That’s what he did. He gave cover to all those low information voters out there who still believe this garbage about President Obama being a Muslim. ... The Republican leadership just loves to feed the fire.”

Chris Matthews was so impressed with Schultz’s nonsensical argument that he spent the entire hour on NKTV’s “Hardball” making the same one: McConnell had expressed insufficient fervor when he said he believed Obama was a Christian! (Perhaps if McConnell had added something about a thrill running up his leg ...)

The statement “I take him at his word,” Matthews said, was a “pitch-perfect dog whistle to the haters.” He continued: “Yes, sure, whatever he says. Right. This is not about belief. It’s an accusation that President Obama is not one of us. The right wing’s attempt to de-Americanize the president.”

What else is there besides Obama’s word? If Obama suddenly announced that he was a Muslim—or a Buddhist—what evidence would Matthews cite to prove him wrong?

Meanwhile, liberals absolutely refuse to take Republicans at their word when they identify their own children. Or deny leaking a low-level CIA functionary’s name to the press. Or when they deny they are racists.

Indeed, Matthews’ guest, Howard Fineman of Newsweek, accused the entire state of Kentucky of bigotry to explain McConnell’s “crafted” words.

Kentucky, Fineman said, is “a state where the nativist appeal outside of Louisville really works big-time.” The Republicans, he said, are “going to use whatever fear message they can. It’s aimed at Kentucky, for sure.”

I believe the Bluegrass state has just been called “nativist” without any evidence at all! Was Kentucky’s father a nativist? Was it educated in a nativist madrassa as a child? Did Kentucky just endorse the idea of a nativist cultural center at Ground Zero?

On the following night’s “Hardball,” Tuesday, Matthews and his guest, The Chicago Tribune’s Clarence Page, refused to take Glenn Beck at his word when he said that he picked the day for his Lincoln Memorial rally without realizing it was the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. (Everybody knows the 47th anniversary is the big one!)

Accusations of racism apparently do not require the ironclad proof demanded for accusations that someone is a Muslim.

And there’s a lot more evidence that Obama’s a Muslim than Republicans are racists. Let’s compare:

Evidence for the Proposition That Obama’s a Muslim: His father was a Muslim; his mother, an atheist, married two Muslims; he attended a Muslim school in Indonesia from age 6 to 10; and, during the campaign, he proudly posted on his webpage his statement that America is “no longer” a Christian nation, a statement he has repeated as president, while announcing on French TV that America is “one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.”

Evidence for the Proposition That Republicans Are Racist: (Nothing so far.)

Evidence for the Proposition That Liberals Lie About Republicans Being Racist: Video of a supporter of Rand Paul’s opponent pretending to be a racist Paul supporter; Oregon public school teacher Jason Levin caught operating a website asking liberals to show up at Tea Parties pretending to be right-wing racists; The New York Times’ Maureen Dowd claiming she heard Rep. Joe Wilson shout, “You lie, boy!” when he shouted “You lie!” during Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress; and the mainstream media lying about civil rights hero John Lewis being called the N-word 15 times at an anti-ObamaCare protest, with no one ever being able to produce a videotape, despite a $100,000 reward.

If Republicans played by liberal rules, they’d just call Obama a racist, who leaked Valerie Plame’s name to the press, is not Sasha’s father, and smokes Newports, not Kools.