Liberals Fail…but it doesn’t matter

Soft Power

Liberals don’t see failed liberal policies as “failed,” any more than people of faith think that unanswered prayers are “failed” prayers. The difference is that people of faith abnegate themsevles in prayer to a wholly-other divine person, while liberal poster-children subject the world to the narcissistic demands of their own spiritual needs. Jody isn’t the first to make the point. “Remember the war against Franco/That’s the kind where each of us belongs,” sang Tom Lehrer. “He may have won all the battles/But we had all the good songs.” But he makes it in a theologically-informed way that exposes the phemonology of liberal self-worship.

The slaughter in Syria is a minor annoyance to the poster children, whereas peace and prosperity in Israel are cataclysmic disasters. That sounds funny, but it isn’t to the liberals: bringing a liberally-conceived peace to the Middle East is one of those Great Opportunities for Redemption, and to miss it is a tragedy of unimaginable proportions. Darwin forbid that Israel might carry on as a pocket superpower in science, business, and the arts, educating and empowering a new Arab middle class, without submitting to the demands of liberal theology. It’s not only John Kerry who stands to lose his last shot at a Nobel Prize. Liberals of all stripes stand to lose the chance, to demonstrate that particularity (or example, Zionism) is inherently wrong and that liberal universality is right. Spengler, PJ Media

The disaster that is Obama’s flight from the real world no longer even has the virtue that it might prevent war. The Assad regime is back to gassing children , the Russians are playing cat and mouse in Ukraine, there is a full scale civil war in Iraq and the Taliban are simply flowing back in Afghanistan.

And why not? The Rices and the Powers and the excretable Kerrys of the Administration have taken it upon themselves to make America loved rather than feared. To no one’s surprise this has meant America is mocked, ignored and rendered incapable of intervention where intervention is needed. The Syrian red line’s erasure marked the end of the Obama regime’s international credibility.

Unfortunately, there is nothing to do but to wait out the term of this sorry little man and the midgets who surround him. The best America and the rest of the world can hope for is that the damage he is doing is reparable.

Nordic Muddle: Squaring the Canadian Prostitution Circle

With the destruction of Canada’s prostitution laws by our Courts the political classes have decided “something must be done”. And being dummies they are looking to feminist/socialist paradises like Sweden in an attempt to square the circle.

The Nordic model decriminalizes the prostitute – which is already the case in Canada – while going after the pimps, traffickers and, most of all, the clients.

The underlying premise here is that while prostitution should not be illegal per se it should be made, somehow, more difficult to purchase these perfectly legal services. Which is, in turn, justified in the name of protecting the poor, exploited, prostitutes.

What happens if you make an activity more difficult? Well, from drugs to pornography to gambling we actually know the answer: the price goes up. But how that price shift occurs varies across markets.

The advent of the internet has changed the sex business. Even street girls can arrange dates using texts and online advertising. But, if purchasing sex becomes illegal the entire trade will move to the net. (I have to bet there is already an app.) The girls left on the street will be the girls who pawned their smart phones.

Now, it will not take genius cops long to set up stings to roll up the johns online. And it will take even less time for the various “review” sites to start posting sting alerts.

And, within a month, smarter girls will keep payment and dates well seperated – easy to do when a john can transfer money to an unrelated bank account from his smart phone.

And then there is the fun of what constitutes an act of prostitution – cash for sex is not all that straightforward if there is an intervening “counselling” session. And where -as in the long ago days of communicating for purposes of prostitution – a comely police woman is used as the decoy it will make total sense for the customer to ask to a) see the merchandise prior to buying, b) take a few snapshots and store them somewhere in the cloud.

And so on. The law will be rendered unworkable because the political class cannot bring itself to make a hard decision: either prostitution is an evil to be erradicated or it is a business to be, to the degree justified by nuisance and such like, regulated.

Criminalizing a legal act between consenting adults because cash changes hands is philosophically incoherent. Just as you cannot square a circle you cannot frame a law to punish a permitted activity.

Boo Prince, Yeah King

I have often thought Prince Charles was a bit of a lamer…the fact he apparently refused to support Salman Rushdie in the face of the fatwa is just another reason to know he is far out of his depth.

What I was unaware of is what a stand up guy Stephen King was:

The Vanity Fair article says that, in contrast to Charles, novelist Stephen King refused to let stores in America sell his books if they refused to carry The Satanic Verses.

He called the head of one US bookstore chain and said: ‘You don’t sell The Satanic Verses, you don’t sell Stephen King.‘You can’t let intimidation stop books. It’s as basic as that. Books are life itself.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2604406/How-Charles-Martin-Amis-dinner-party-row-Salman-Rushdies-fatwa-Prince-Wales-refused-author-The-Satanic-Verses-thought-book-offensive-Muslims.html#ixzz2ytOnNVuW Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Push Back

The confrontation between the Bureau of Land Management and Cliveden Bundy ended with the Feds retreating in the face of armed, popular, resistance.

In one sense this is a local story played out in Nevada, in another it it the first time the Feds have lost even a skirmish against the militias and, I suspect, may come to hold significance in the future history of the Republic.

Pre-Internet the capacity to rally forces quickly was largely confined to governments. While activists could certainly run phone trees and mailing lists, they could not bring tactical superiority to bear quickly. Pre smart phone, activists had to rely on licensed mainstream media to cover, or more often than not, ignore stories in which those activists faced the government.

As the Bundy confrontation shows, all those rules have changed.

Critically, Bundy has shown the militias, non-militia activists and citizens in general that determined, non-violent, resistance (backed with guns) can defeat the Government tactically.

America is, I fear, headinv into an economically and socially very dark period. The hangover from Quantitative Easing has the potential to destroy what little is left of the American middle class. Mass, immigration – legal and illegal – has the capacity to destroy decently paying jobs. The fiscal distress of local, state and national governments will demand ever harsher taxation and collection. The imbalance between prosecutorial power and defence capacity combined with an ever growing catalogue of felony offences will put every American at risk of a politically motivated prosecution.

Brady signalled the possibility of push back.

American history buffs will remember that The Sons of Liberty was founded in 1765 fully 10 years before the American Revolution began in earnest. The knitting together of Liberty activists in the West may very well have begun with the defence of Bundy’s cows.