Crimnals use many tools to aid in the commission of crime. One such tool, apparently, is body armor. New York has decided to do something about it.

Prohibits the purchase or sale of protective body vests except to law enforcement or military personnel; provides for registering of such sales by vendors; establishes unlawful purchase or sale of a body vest as a class A misdemeanor.

. . .JUSTIFICATION : Body vests are utilized as a component of law enforcement uniforms as well as for military personnel. They are designed to protect police officers, peace officers and military personnel from the gun fire of suspects or other acts of gun crime. In many communities throughout the state, law enforcement officials have seen a rise in the sale of body vests to protect drug dealers and other criminals as they conduct their illegal activity. By wearing a body vest criminals pose a larger threat to law enforcement because they are more likely to flee the scene of a crime or in some cases, fire upon law enforcement. It has been brought to the attention of the Legislature by district attorneys and law enforcement officials that a rise in the sale and distribution of body vests is occurring amongst drug dealers and others involved in the regular commission of crimes. This bill attempts to protect our law enforcement officials by preventing criminals from obtaining body vests thereby making them more dangerous and more difficult to apprehend.

The justification is a lot longer than it needs to be. All it really says is that body armor makes commission of certain crimes easier and therefore should be disallowed. But is that enough to justify restricting the freedoms of all citizens? No, it's not.

Criminals use knives to stab people. Drug dealers use cars to shoot people who have crossed them. Other criminals use cars to flee a scene, such as bank robberies where bags are also used to stuff money in. Cell phones can be used to watch for the police and warn other criminals of their proximity. By this justification, all these items should be banned.

I know what some of you want to say. "What about the fact that nobody really needs to use body armor, while all those other things have legitimate uses?" First of all, no where does the bill attempt to assess whether or not body armor has significant "legitimate" uses outside of criminal activity. As far as we can tell from the content of the legislation, no such consideration was ever made. The closest it came was in its self serving definition of body armor as something only police and military use. But this is not an argument, this is assuming the conclusion. Even if they did address the issue, however, the mere act of attempting to determine what items have and do not have "legitimate" uses is itself an abridgement of freedom. That decision, ultimately, should reside with the individual.

If I'm traveling to a dangerous country, I may wish to purchase body armor as a precaution. If I have significant reason to fear an attempt on my life, I might wish to protect myself in public. Or, even if I were merely crazy and paranoid, the option to purchase body armor should still be mine.

But not only does this bill fail to adhere to American principles, it has no practical chance of accomplishing its own state purpose anyway. If you outlaw body armor, only outlaws will have body armor. Do we really expect drug dealers and other major criminals to care about racking up one more misdemeanor? Sure, criminalizing the sale of armor will make it harder for criminals to acquire, but ultimately all it will do is make it cost a little bit more as they turn to alternative sources. Meanwhile, the rest of New York's citizens find themselves less one choice and a little less freedom, as the list of prohibited actions continues to grow exponentially, all for a goal that is unlikely to be achieved.

Cross-posted at Conservative Compendium.

Andrew Newman at American Spectator is worried by people who don't make New Year's resolutions.

People who don't make New Year's resolutions worry me. Are they perfect? Are they simply waiting for the great up escalator to descend from the sky? Are they biding their time until Barack Hussein Obama delivers us from this red-blue valley of tears and into that promised and purple land of prosperity and plenty? Or are they simply lazy?

His questions fly very wide of the mark. He fails to grasp the key point that many people do not make New Year's resolutions because they make resolutions every day. Those of us who practice continual self improvement do not think we are perfect. Far from it, in fact. Rather, we are simply more serious about self correction than your typical News Year's resolution practitioner, who is using a training-wheels approach to self improvement.

If I determine there is something in my life worth doing better, it behooves me to start doing it better immediately, rather than waiting for some special day to declare my intentions to fix identified problems. In fact, those who would put off such corrections are typically just using the idea of New Year's Day as a time for resolutions as an excuse to continue their behavior, guilt free, until Jan. 1st rolls around again. The problem with this approach is that it erodes the will to improve altogether, resulting in your average resolution lasting about a month.

So, Mr. Newman, you need not worry about me. I suggest you worry about your fellow New Year's resolvers, as their resolutions may be evidence of a personality incapable of correcting bad behavior, even when they know they should.

Every now and then a story comes along that so defines a topic of discussion as to lift it beyond the reach of petty debate. With regard to the threat of Islamic Jihad, this is one of those stories.

Men claiming to be local Taliban bombed a girls school in Noor Ali village in Darra Adam Khel on Monday night and threatened further attacks if the students did not wear veils. The militants also left Urdu pamphlets at the school saying, “Be veiled, otherwise we will bomb you again.”

If ever a story could end the useless "debate" over the issue of jihad, this should be it. There is no amount of talk that will appease these people. There is no single issue driving their behavior, as James Baker would have us believe. Simply, it is their nature. There truly is but one solution, the Islamic Jihadists must be destroyed. Annihilated. Wiped out. It cannot be made any clearer.

It is incumbent upon free peoples to take the actions necessary to end this assault against human decency. Yes, that will involve suffering casualties. Yes, that will involve being the target of reprisal attacks. It is the right thing to do. It is time we get into the ring and fight. Really fight, not sort-of-maybe-pretend-to-fight like we have done thus far. Everywhere these people show themselves we must strike with righteous fury. They can be allowed no quarter and, most importantly, no mercy. All the Jihadist understands in this world is death. It is time we deliver it upon him.

Cross-posted at Conservative Compendium.

A Chicago group is claiming that area homelessness is higher than previously recorded, because "invisible" groups of homeless, living with friends and relatives, were not counted by City Hall.

Chicago’s nightly homeless population stands at 21,078 — nearly four times higher than the count compiled by City Hall — because of an "invisible" group that includes those "doubled up" with relatives and friends, homeless advocates said today.

The city’s last homeless census — on Jan. 27, 2005 — counted 6,715 people.

. . .The Chicago Coalition for the Homeless conducted its more exhaustive count in conjunction with the Survey Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Using Chicago Board of Education figures of the 8,461 students living "doubled up" in the homes of family and friends, they counted 21,078 homeless on any given night with just 22 percent of them served in shelters.

Students living with friends and family while attending school are not homeless. Nobody wants to have to rely on friends and family for shelter, but sometimes it has to be done. Living in such a state is a far cry from homelessness. Thankfully, the city has rejected this redefinition of homelessness.

I think this issue reflects a larger philosophical disagreement. Conservatives tend to believe that government should be used as a last ditch solution to problems. If someone is homeless, they should look to friends and family for help first, and only if none can be provided should they be assisted.

Liberals, on the other hand, discount altogether that there can even be a solution that does not involved government. Thus, someone who has a place to live thanks to the generosity of friends or relatives is illogically considered "homeless." Not to do so would be an acknowledgement that problems can be solved without government, an idea which could spell doom to liberal candidates if it ever caught on, and therefore must be resisted.

The group even went so far as to argue that living "doubled-up" must be counted because it is "unstable" and "insecure". To these people a person who has legitimate concerns about their future must immediately succor at the big government teat, as the very worry itself - regardless of whether or not the cause of concern ever comes to fruition - is itself a reflection of societies failure and the need for government intervention. This view is as dangerous as it is naive.

Cross-posted at Conservative Compendium.

In an audacious Newsweek column, former Bush speechwriter and policy advisor Michael Gerson offers the wrong prescription for the Republican Party. His article is rife with leftist-type appeals to emotion and faulty assumptions. That his brand of pseudo-analysis was taken seriously in the Bush White House goes a long way towards explaining Bush's failed experiment in big government Republicanism.

He opens the piece with an emotional appeal regarding the Katrina victims. He describes them as "disconnected from the mainstream economy," then quickly offers up the big government silver bullet, demanding "an active response from government to encourage economic empowerment and social mobility."

What Mr. Gerson fails to understand is that government activism is what has disconnected these people in the first place. The true lesson of Katrina should be recognition of the overwhelming failure that is the welfare state. Seventy years after FDR redefined government as a welfare provider, and thirty years after Johnson declared a "war on poverty", tens of thousands of New Orleanians lived so poorly they couldn't even leave town in face of a foreseeable disaster. For how many decades must a policy fail before it is abandoned? The underlying problem here is systematic government dependence, the solution to which is most certainly not more dependence - but that is exactly what Mr. Gerson is offering.

Next he attempts to wipe away Bush's failure to control spending by first distorting Reagan's legacy and then pointing to Reagan as an example for Bush. What he ignores is that Reagan knew his tax policies could not immediately solve the problem of big government, but that it would enable the economy to catch up with, and eventually overtake, federal spending. Lo and behold, this happened less than a decade after Reagan left office. That Reagan's policies could not immediately reach his goals is not now an excuse for giving up what he started and believed in though didn't see finished on his watch.

Underlying the rest of the article is a fundamental misunderstanding of why conservatism opposes big government. He refers to small government advocates as "radical", "antigovernment", "reflexive" and "unbalanced". Well, I have a name for Mr. Gerson. Ignorant.

We are not antigovernment, we merely realize what Mr. Gerson does not - "that government is best which governs least," to quote Thomas Paine. He falsely attributes our stance as "abstract antigovernment ideology," but the truth is that small government advocacy is entirely practical. Our goal is efficiency.  Smaller government works better than bigger government, and consequently serves its people better - which Mr. Gerson atleast implies is his primary concern. Unfortunately, if his ideas were to actually be listened to - which apparently they have been over the last few years - the results would have little in common with his stated goals. Such is always the result of big government activism.

Cross-posted at Conservative Compendium.

I'm a fan of Rudy Guiliani. He's not my first choice for the 2008 nomination, that's Newt Gingrich hands down, but he's near the top of the list. I know that he would be a strong leader in the war against global jihad, which is the single most important issue in my opinion. But there are still some issues where I'm concerned about Rudy and I'm waiting to here more details on his positions. One such issue is campaign finance.

Recently, on the Dennis Prager radio show, Rudy gave what I thought was a very weak answer when asked his position on McCain-Feingold. Here's the relevent section:

DP: My listeners know this, that this is actually rendered [McCain], unfortunately, unvotable for me. And if I have him on, I will tell him that, and that is campaign finance reform, which has ensured that essentially, only multi-millionaires run for office in the United States of America, especially to the Senate, because I cannot...if I, Dennis Prager, who doesn't have any money, wanted to run, no millionaire could give me a million dollars. They could only give me $4,000 dollars. So you have any views on campaign finance reform?

RG: I think there's no question that the present McCain-Feingold law has had tremendous loopholes in it, that people have taken advantage of. And it needs to be corrected. It needs to be cured.

At this point red flags are going up. Loopholes? That sounds a lot like the recent spat over 527's, which formed as a counter to the law's assault on free speech and wouldn't need to exist at all if people were free to spend their money how they please.

DP: So you would like to see it in place as well? You're also for...

RG: I would like to...but I think, in fairness to Senator McCain, that he has recognized some of the problems that maybe weren't foreseen in McCain-Feingold, and has promised to try to fix it. I don't know that that's happened.

DP: Well, let me then be specific. Why shouldn't people just be allowed to give any amount of money they want to any candidate, and just have it publicly known? Why should there be a law limiting that freedom?

RG: Well, I mean, there...I think there are very good arguments on either side of that. I've always lived under a campaign finance law that had limitations on it, so I'm sort of pretty comfortable with it. But the reality is that the Supreme Court has so far ruled on that, and I guess found McCain-Feingold...

DP: Unfortunately.

RG: ...found it Constitutional, although that was a pretty close vote.

DP: All right. We need to spend some time alone together.

RG: But I mean, I grew up in a system in New York where we had campaign finance, and we had matching funds, so I got pretty used to it. But it's the law, unfortunately, the campaign finance law has become so complex and so difficult.

Rudy's position is that, basically, he's always had to deal with campaign finance laws so the thought of not having those kind of restrictions on free expression is beyond him. This certainly does not encourage one to believe Rudy is a deeply principled thinker. However, his strong fiscal record, support for school choice and firm stance in the war make him a net positive candidate in this bloggers opinion. And hopefully he'll be influenced by the right policy people.

Cross-posted at Conservative Compendium.

The RINO's are raging, and not surprisingly their anger is directed at all the wrong places. Of course, since it should all be directed at themselves, anywhere is a wrong place. But they somehow managed to find the most wrong place of all to fume at: conservatives. In a rambling diatribe of a press release that could only have been written by a high school sophomore in a state of confused delirium, RINO group Republican Main Street Partnership declares, "Far Right Soley Responsible for Democratic Gains". Aside from the fact that these intellectual heavyweights can't even spell "solely" correctly, the memo reads like your typical lefty blogosphere brain dump full of hate and half-baked nonsense.

"Tonight the American people made it clear that our party’s decision to ignore the middle of the American electorate was a disastrous one," said Sarah Chamberlain Resnick, Executive Director of the Republican Main Street Partnership. "For the last two years centrist GOPers have warned the leadership of our party of the consequences of pushing a legislative agenda cow-towing to the far right in our party. Our warnings were ignored, and now our party is paying a devastating price."

"Republican candidates all across the country were hit by Democratic ads attacking the GOP for failure to raise the minimum wage, failure to advance embryonic stem cell research, and failure to pass strong ethics and lobbying reform," continued Resnick. "If leadership had listened to our centrists members, we could have taken issues like this off the table. Centrist Republicans in the House and Senate pushed all session for an increase in the minimum wage, for expanded embryonic stem cell research, and for real ethics and lobbying reform."

Since when has the content of Democratic attack ads been the measuring stick of Republican success? Should the Republican party really be rated on how well it adopts Democratic platforms? The press release concludes with this bit of moronic double-talk:

"What the extreme right of our party has worked to destroy – centrist Republicans will now step in and rebuild," continued Resnick. "The Republican Main Street Partnership is committed to bringing back Ronald Reagan’s Republican Party. The extreme right has had their turn at the wheel and the results have proven devastating for our party and our country."

That's funny, I seem to recall Reagan's party as one that stood for principled conservatism, not liberal appeasement. If you want to know the real truth on why Republicans lost, look no further than these disheartening poll results from The Club for Growth.

Q: In the last four years, do you think the size and cost of the federal government has gone up, gone down, or stayed about the same?

A: Gone Up 73.0%
Gown Down 5.5%
Stayed the Same 14.4%
Don't know/Refused 7.1

Q: All other things being equal, which type of candidate for Congress would you be more likely to vote for? A candidate who wants to reduce overall federal spending, even if that includes cutting some money that would come to your district; or, a candidate who is willing to increase overall spending on federal programs and grow the federal budget, in order to get more federal spending and projects for your district?

A: Cut spending 57.3%
Bring home projects 27.6%
Don't know/Refused 15.1%

. . .

Introduction to Questions: Now, I'm going to read a list of issue topics. When you look at Washington today, please tell me whether you think the Republicans or the Democrats are doing a better job on each issue. If you see no difference between the parties on these issues, just say so.

Q: "Eliminating Wasteful Spending";

A: Republicans 24.6%
Democrats 39.1%
No Difference 30.3%
Don't know/Refused 6.0%

. . .

Now tell me whether you think the following phrases better describe the Republicans or the Democrats in Washington.
Q: "The Party of Big Government";
A: Republicans 39.3%
Democrats 27.9%
Both 16.3%
Neither 9.3%
Don't know/Refused 7.4%

Q: Would you agree or disagree with the following statement: "The Republicans used to be the party of economic growth, fiscal discipline, and limited government, but in recent years, too many Republicans in Washington have become just like the big spenders that they used to oppose."

A: Agree 65.8%
Strongly Agree 43.4%
Somewhat Agree 22.4%

Disagree 26.4%
Strongly Disagree 13.4%
Somewhat Disagree 13.0%
Don't know/Refused 7.9%

Not surprisingly, the RINO's sent out another press release attacking The Club for Growth and praising Lincoln Chafee.

“Tonight the Club for Growth’s dishonest campaign against Senator Lincoln Chafee may very well have cost our party it’s majority in the U.S. Senate,” said Sarah Chamberlain Resnick, Executive Director of the Republican Main Street Partnership. “Harry Reid and the Democratic leadership in the Senate should call Pat Toomey and thank him for working hard to undermine the Republican majority.”

A Republican majority that counts on liberal Lincoln Chafee is worthless. This is the same Lincoln Chafee who refused to vote for President Bush. This is the same Lincoln Chafee who bragged about bringing home the pork. This is the same Lincoln Chafee who voted against Samuel Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court. This is the same Lincoln Chafee who is now promising to oppose John Bolton's nomination as UN ambassador. Why the hell is this moron in the Republican party in the first place, and what does it say about a group of people who think Lincoln Chafee is where we should be pinning our hopes for majority control?

These idiot RINO's are agitating for even more of everything that the voters are rejecting. Give it up. Your brand of big government Republicanism failed. If you RINOs really want to restore the Republican party to Reagan's values, you can start by leaving it.

Cross-posted at Conservative Compendium.

First, their agenda is rather obvious. Investigate everything. Expect the same battles, WMD's and the reasons for the Iraq war, to be fought all over again for the umpteenth time. The upside to this massive waste of time is that it's a massive waste of time. The more time spent investigating, the less time spent enacting bad liberal policies.

What little time they do leave themselves for legislation will be spent pulling the emergency brakes on the economy by increasing taxes and advancing socialized health care. However, neither effort is likely to gain serious traction. The question many conservatives are probably asking, however, is whether this means the end of the Republican revolution. In no way, shape, or form does this result indicate an end of the rightward track of the country.

Contrary to what media is going to sell you, this is not an historic election. In the long run it will have little impact. It doesn't signify a u-turn in the gradual rightward shift of the electorate, more like a speed bump. Europe is pleased to see a Democratic victory. This is no surprise, as the Democrats offer little more than the European model of secularization and self-destruction by indulgence that comes with big welfare states. But the American people aren't buying that. A recent poll by CNN found a majority believes the government is too big and is doing too much. Two years of a Democrat Congress is almost certain to be more than this small-government majority is willing to stomach.

Thankfully, Democrats can be counted on to expose their true agenda to the public before 2008. While in order to be competitive in redstate America, Democrats had to field an array of conservative candidates, their leadership is full of old liberals. Charlie Rangel, John Conyers and Nancy Pelosi are the face the public will see. With new found power, the left will make strong demands on Democrats that they won't be able to deliver without alienating the vast majority of the electorate. Gaining power may, in fact, exacerbate the severe problems already showing under the Democratic tent. The Democratic party is really still just a collection of special interests fighting for their piece of the pie. Until they find a core ideology that appeals to more than just fringe leftists, Democrats will find themselves outside looking in very soon.

In the mean time, small-government conservatives need to regain control of the Republican party. We lost some good people today, but we also trimmed some fat (Lincoln Chafee) that we can do without. It's time to start looking for new control of the party. Mike Pence, of the conservative Republican Study Committee has indicated a desire for the minority leader spot. I think he would be a good choice. A re-energized Republican party with a new found resolve for conservative principles has the potential to set the agenda, even as the minority. By appealing to the public, as well as many of the newly elected blue dog democrats, on popular conservative issues such as spending and immigration we can work to solve important issues in spite of Democrat gains. We need forward thinking and principled leadership from someone like Newt Gingrich to lead us into '08.

Cross-posted at Conservative Compendium.

It's quite obvious that many haven't the foggiest idea of what's really going on in the world today. They are still operating under some mistaken notion that all these regional conflicts currently underway have little relation to each other; that the factors contributing to these fights are local, and can be solved independently in each case though some sort of diplomacy or other kind of capitulation. Oh, you're upset about land in Gaza? We'll pull back. You can't find jobs in France? We'll expand the nanny state. You can't preach your intolerance in Britain? We'll go ahead and let you do it anyway. This approach is fundamentally flawed, as each and every situation has shown. Almost every conflict the Western world is engaged in right now has one thing in common, the clash between Islamic expansionism and the ideals of Western Liberalism. Local conditions and complaints are coopted by the Jihadists for convenience, they are not the cause of this global strife.

Some seem to think that, whatever happens, it's guaranteed the world will be basically the same tomorrow as it is today. That's wrong. They think we have somehow been anointed the worlds one true society, that Western values and tolerance and all that wonderful jazz will perpetuate itself forever, without any effort from us. In short, they think we can't lose. They're wrong; we can. And we are.

We aren't losing because Rumsfeld screwed up and disbanded the Iraqi army, multiplying the pool of potential insurgents by tens, if not hundreds, of degrees. We aren't losing because he okayed an American administration over Iraq instead of immediately turning it over to Iraqi's, even if it were just exiles who hadn't been there in years. These mistakes were costly. But they are setbacks, albeit major ones; just not the kind of mistakes that bring civilizations down.

No, we are losing for a much simpler, and yet much more devastating reason. We are losing because our ideology has turned on itself and is paralyzed into inaction. Europe as it exists today, or as we conceive it to exist as a bastion of Western Liberalism founded on the basis of Judeo-Christian beliefs, is done. It is unsustainable. Too many in the West don't even believe in the righteousness of their own side. How can a people survive that way? They can't. They say, "why not something else? What right have we to assert our beliefs?" And so they tolerate intolerance, their multiculturalism compels them to unquestionably accept uniculturalists. Europeans no longer have a solid conceptualization of their own existence. They don't know who they are, nor how they got there. This is a recipe for disaster. Now they are being taken over by the beliefs of others, swept aside into the historical trash bin.

The transformation is already underway. Many European locations are already seeing near as much emigration as they are immigration. Those that see the writing on the wall are leaving. The world of government dependence was unsustainable from the get go. The promise of American military protection bred a European society unconcerned about first order problems. Protection? Leave that to America. Health care? Leave that to the government, just so long as I can party in Amsterdam. Mass immigration was sold as the solution to the overgrown welfare state, but it turns out no one ever told them they had to accept a radical transformation of their society as a consequence. And now many are starting to realize that is exactly the price they are paying.

Nonmuslim women in many British neighborhoods will only go out wearing veils because it's unsafe not to. 2,500 French police have been injured in the last year fighting roving bands of "youths". Frenchmen are as frightened of using their own public transportation system as if they were in Baghdad. As the demographic gap closes, it will only get worse. Those that don't outright convert to the new dominant belief system, one whose follows actually are convinced of their own superiority and carry a desire for self perpetuation, will flee. Western Liberalism is crumbling, and soon it will only be found in America, if even here.

Iraq was an opportunity at a back door solution. A chance to temper the new and reformed Islam. Many promote "moderate" Muslims and the chance at "reforming" Islam as a viable solution. But they missed the boat, Islam has already reformed. The Jihadists are it. These aren't first generation immigrants signing up en masse to join the Jihadists, these are second or even third generation Frenchmen, English, Canadian, Dutch and American citizens. But they hold little loyalty to their native countries. That comes second, a very distant second, to the new pan-Islamic Jihadism sweeping the globe. Iraq, or someplace like it, was our hope; a chance to draw potential Jihadists away from expansionism and encourage more desirable and tolerant governments, ones that could live together with the West, even with their differences. It was, and still is, worth the price to try, even if it doesn't work. But we can't keep worrying about the little stuff, all the while ignoring the tidal wave of history that's moving sweep us aside like yesterdays dirty dishes.

It's time to make decisions. The "blame America first" crowd that thinks America is the principle agent behind all the world's ills and the European worshippers of multiculturalism who refuse to condemn even those views that threaten to destroy their own need to decide whether they want to fight or not. Is Western Liberalism worth fighting for, or is it not? Decide. Because if they don't want to defend their own ideological core - the principles that have allowed Western civilization to soar to unprecedented heights - they might as well go get fitted for their burqas.

Cross-posted at Conservative Compendium.

That's what could happen to the Democrats on election day. "Democrats Fear Disillusionment in Black Voters"

For Democrats like these in tight races, black voter turnout will be crucial on Election Day. But despite a generally buoyant Democratic Party nationally, there are worries among Democratic strategists in some states that blacks may not turn up at the polls in big enough numbers because of disillusionment over past shenanigans.

“This notion that elections are stolen and that elections are rigged is so common in the public sphere that we’re having to go out of our way to counter them this year,” said Donna Brazile, a Democratic strategist.

...Democrats’ worries are backed up by a Pew Research Center report that found that blacks were twice as likely now than they were in 2004 to say they had little or no confidence in the voting system, rising to 29 percent from 15 percent.

When you make it the corner piece of your electoral strategy to boogeyman the opponent into evil vote stealers, the danger is people might actually believe you. Deliciously ironic.

The War Against Global Jihad is broader and will last longer than most anyone cares to realize. The virulent ideology that fuels jihad, Wahhabism, has long been spreading its tentacles across the world, primarily through the spending of oil revenues. The modern age, however, allows this vicious ideology to spread faster, farther and cheaper than ever before.

Below the radar screen of Western intelligence and security services, there is a global re-education process on the Internet to proselytize on the true meaning of an Islamic state. This "cyberwar" is transforming the political landscape of the Middle East. It is a slow, stealthy but massive campaign.

... More important than the recipes for homemade bombs -- e.g., hair dye mixed with nail polish remover detonated by the flash mechanism on a throwaway camera -- are the Web sites hosted by university servers, which direct them. MI5 keeps close tabs on 1,000 known extremists, tying up some 6,000 agency personnel. But what about those who conceal their thinking, or confine their traffic to the doctrine of jihad?

Liberal intellectuals on college campuses -- the majority of the faculty in almost all universities -- dismiss the now irrefutable evidence of the link between Islamism, radicalization and terrorism.

Nada Farooq, wife of one of those "broad strata" Canadian terrorists that just happened to have one apparently unmentionable trait in common with all his fellow conspirators, was involved in internet jihadist forums long before the terror cell her husband led was uncovered. "We hate Canada," was a statement she was known to have made on her internet forum. Before she married, she considered requiring her husband-to-be to sign a prenuptial that would allow her to divorce if he did not engage in Jihad. The myth of Westernization needs to be overcome. Farooq's father was not militant, she was not raised this way. Her family is not poor, her motives were not economic. The internet provides a new means to spread virulent ideologies, and it is a methodology security experts find exceedingly difficult to defend against.

The media will continue to make all sort of excuses for the jihadists because their multicultural credentials prohibit them from identifying the true cause - radical, militant Islam. How many engineers must fly themselves into buildings? How many surgeons must we see running global terrorist networks before we drop the self serving delusions about the nature of who and what it is we are fighting?

Cross-posted at Conservative Compendium.

The rise of Western Liberalism is not often contemplated by those who most enjoy its benefits. Few in the West are inclined to compare the presently favorable circumstances of their lives to those who have come before. They blithely assume that the freedoms and rights shared today by "civilized society" will continue on into perpetuity. Reasoning that no people would choose to deviate from that course once set on it, they are smug in their assumption that their world cannot be transformed from within. The reality of the situation is unfortunately much bleaker.

In his new book, America Alone, Mark Steyn lays out the shocking facts on the future of the West. In short, there isn't one. More accurately, whatever emerges from the rubble will be unrecognizable by modern Liberals. The citizens of the developed world have inexplicably given up. They don't want to play anymore, and the world will be left for someone else to deal with.

A stable population requires 2.1 births per woman. The United States has a rate of 2.11. Canada's is 1.5. Europe, as a whole, has a rate of 1.38, with Spain leading the way to the grave with a fertility rate of 1.1, half replacement level. That means that every generation - approximately 35 years - the population of Spain will halve.

Obviously, societies that do not produce enough children will have to import labor from somewhere else. In short, they have to outsource their future. What's wrong with that, many ask? Nothing need necessarily be wrong with it. Yet, in practice, if those that are imported do not share the values that make up the foundation of Western Liberalism, then it's little more than willful selfdestruction - suicide by contraception.

There is no single cause to explain this behavior. Over generations, an increasingly prominent school of thought has emerged that is inherently self destructive. This school of thought holds that we are to blame for all the troubles of the world, whatever the crisis of the time happens to be. Whether it's the "population boom" of the 70's - my how wrong that turned out to be - the diminishing resources of the world, global cooling, global warming, and on and on. With every generation this indoctrination of self-loathing has further permeated Western society, growing in influence to the point that reproduction is no longer seen as desirable, but instead as part of the problem. If you've ever had someone tell you that they don't want to have children because it would be "cruel", you know what I mean. And I'll take any odds that person is a leftist.

At the same time, the West's aging population has grown increasingly dependent upon its children. Government entitlement programs are making the demands for new labor, to support those on the public dole, ever more pressing. When none are to be found, it must be imported. These immigrants naturally come from those places that are producing the most human capital. But who are they? According to the CIA World Factbook, five of the top ten countries by fertility rate have populations that are 90% Muslim or more. That includes Niger, Mali, Somalia, Afghanistan and Yemen. The populations of Muslim countries are growing by leaps and bounds, what better place for them to expand to then an increasingly abandoned Europe? In 2005, Mohammed was the fifth most popular boys name given to newborns in the UK.

So what, the multiculturalists insist. There's nothing wrong with being Muslim. On that they are right, there is nothing necessarily wrong with an individual of the Islamic faith any more so than an individual believer in Christianity or Buddhism, but what is the track record of government by Islamic societies? Can these soon-to-be Europeans be counted on to accept the tenets of Western Liberalism? After all, there's no golden rule of existence that declares that Europe will stay free and embrace Western Liberal values for all time whether we fight to keep it that way or not. If they don't accept these values, they will replace them with something else. A list of the world's least free countries reads like a who's who of Islamic society. Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, Iran, Pakistan, Oman, Qatar...etc. etc. But we are not allowed, the multiculturalists insist, to question whether or not these new generations of Europeans will accept the traditions which have made the West so free.

It seems to me a prudent question to ask just who it is we are handing the reigns to and whether or not they accept our values and the best traditions of free society, but multiculturalists are incapable of posing this question. They are paralyzed by their own ideological dissonance. On the one hand they face an ideology that threatens their freedoms, and on the other they must follow their core belief that all cultures are equal, leaving them incapable of even considering newcomers as potentially threatening. But Western Liberalism has not been anointed the one true system of the Earth. It can be defeated. Quite easily, apparently, as modern Liberals - conditioned to accept all cultures - largely welcome with open arms even those who mean their destruction. In one of his many speeches following the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden listed the 1492 expulsion of Muslim conquerers from Spain as one of the many supposed Western grievances he uses to justify jihad. Islam has a very long memory. Spain, apparently, does not. Thanks to Spain's incredible disappearing populace, Osama bin Laden's successor will one day be able to cross that particular complaint off the list; Spain will be Muslim once again.

Europe is nearly beyond the point of no return. It will either have to accept its gradual Islamic conversion or suffer the destruction of its economies under the unsustainable stresses of bulging government entitlements. Yet all is not lost for supporters of the Liberal tradition, so don't start burning your John Locke books just yet. As the gulf between European and American geopolitics grows, new allies will need to be found. And if such a counter to the emerging pan-Islamic influence is to be found, I believe it will come primarily from South America.

Most South American countries are still expanding at healthy rates. The continent has the force of will and youthfulness that has left Europe. The roots of traditional Liberal values, however, have not fully taken hold on the continent as we see with the recent emergence of populist demagogue Huge Chavez. Nevertheless, opposition to his movement is growing. In the meantime, we need to renew our efforts in the region and bring more serious attention to working with regional leaders to ensure a strong relationship between the Americas as we enter this new age.

Cross-posted at Conservative-Compendium.

Bush and Rove are saying exactly what one would expect them to say: that they are confident Republicans will win etc etc.

Amid widespread panic in the Republican establishment about the coming midterm elections, there are two people whose confidence about GOP prospects strikes even their closest allies as almost inexplicably upbeat: President Bush and his top political adviser, Karl Rove.

Some Republicans on Capitol Hill are bracing for losses of 25 House seats or more. But party operatives say Rove is predicting that, at worst, Republicans will lose only 8 to 10 seats -- shy of the 15-seat threshold that would cede control to Democrats for the first time since the 1994 elections and probably hobble the balance of Bush's second term.

In the Senate, Rove and associates believe, a Democratic victory would require the opposition to "run the table," as one official put it, to pick up the necessary six seats -- a prospect the White House seems to regard as nearly inconceivable.

Normally I wouldn't bother covering something like this, as the White House is playing the role they must, that of upbeat optimists. The real story here is the batshit insane response by the leftist blogosphere over this simple story.

The MahaBlog asks, "what does he know that we don't," then reminisces about all those oh-so-fishy past Bush victories.

Flashback: As I remember it, on election night 2000 the extended Bush clan watched the train wreck from the Texas governor’s mansion. From time to time they’d appear on television, watching television. And at some point someone told them Florida had been called for Gore, and they shrugged it off. They weren’t worried about Florida. They knew they had Florida, one way or another.

Suburn Guerrilla says, "No big deal when Diebold is your friend".

Booman Tribune ponders, "Is this bravado, or is it something more sinister?"

I've got to be honest. I don't like the sound of that. That kind of rhetoric seems to be setting the groundwork to steal votes. What are we going to do if the GOP defies the polls all over the country, or in key Senate races, and they try to explain that have mastered the art of turnout?

The Left Coaster offers up the article thusly: "For those of you who think I am crazy for thinking that the GOP may have already planned to steal this election, I give you this from Sunday’s Post."

These people, ladies and gentlemen, are crazy. And they are the new base of the Democratic party. Republicans have made many mistakes, but atleast they aren't crazy. That's something.

Cross-posted at Conservative Compendium.