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January 15, 2015

PEGIDA, Le Pen, Fascism, and Media Ignorance

By Selwyn Duke

“You’re a fascist!” “You’re a racist, sexist, bigoted homophobe!”

Media bias often leads to the thoughtless hurling of names, but reporters can’t help but exhibit a negative bias when they don’t know what the names mean in the first place. A good example is the reportage on Europe’s burgeoning anti-Islamization movements, such as the German-born Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West (PEGIDA) and Marine Le Pen’s National Front Party in France. And a good example of this good example is a Reuters article by one Jacob Heilbrunn entitled “Charlie Hebdo fallout: Specter of fascist past haunts European nationalism.” And what haunts all of us is the decline in Western education.

We can start with Heilbrunn’s description of Le Pen’s agenda, in which he says she “espouses an authoritarian program that calls for a moratorium on immigration, a restoration of the death penalty and a 'French first' policy on welfare benefits and employment.” Authoritarian? Given the term’s definition, “favoring complete obedience or subjection to authority as opposed to individual freedom,” do the aforementioned policy changes qualify? Heilbrunn seems to be defining authoritarian as “contrary to the leftist agenda.”

Read the rest here.
January 14, 2015

Ex-FBI Agent Calls Eric Holder “Coward” and “Hypocrite” in Stunning Letter

By Selwyn Duke

“There’s a common cause that bonds the black United States attorney with the black criminal.” These words, according to Department of Justice whistleblower J. Christian Adams, were uttered by none other than Attorney General Eric Holder. And now another former government official is blowing the whistle — and blowing off some righteous steam — in Holder’s direction. He is ex-FBI Special Agent K. Dee McCown, currently director of Global Security and Loss Prevention at W.W. Grainger, Inc. He has written a damning open letter to the attorney general, confirmed as authentic by Snopes. It’s a long missive, but worth the read. It follows:

Read the rest here.
January 13, 2015

Patriotic Movements on the Rise: The Anti-Islamist Worm Turns as Europe Burns

By Selwyn Duke

Aside from saying he “vomits” on his magazine’s new supporters, Charlie Hebdo cartoonist Bernard Holtrop lamented in a recent interview that the January 7 attack on his magazine would help Marine Le Pen’s National Front Party (NF). This is nothing new for Charlie journalists, by the way; while they’ve become a symbol of “free speech,” some 20 years ago they lobbied for the NF to be outlawed. And it’s one of life’s poetic ironies: The NF has been advocating policies — opposition to Muslim immigration — that would have saved the lives of a group trying to destroy it, while that group’s opposition to those policies led to its destruction. But Holtrop is certainly right. The massacre at Charlie’s offices in Paris by three Islamic jihadists is further empowering anti-Islamization forces in France — and beyond.

Read the rest here.
January 13, 2015

Je ne Suis pas Charlie — I’m Sane

By Selwyn Duke

It’s so often the case that the best thing a person can do to improve his reputation is die. John F. Kennedy is now a legendary president, but would he be estimated so highly if he’d been able to end his political career as a man and not a myth? Ah, the power of martyrdom.

And so it is with the editors and cartoonists of French magazine Charlie Hebdo (CH). In the wake of the Jan. 7 attack on its offices, millions are showing their support, heroicizing CH and saying “Je suis Charlie” (I am Charlie). On the other hand, there are a few lonely voices, such as Catholic League president Bill Donohue, who have some less than flattering things to say about the magazine. After unequivocally condemning the killings, Donohue called CH’s late publisher, Stephane Charbonnier, “narcissistic” and said that the journalist “didn’t understand the role he played in his tragic death.”

While I usually agree with Donohue, I do part company with him here — somewhat. First, the tone of his statement is a bit too deferential toward Islamic sensitivities. Second, I’m not so sure Donohue himself truly understands the role Charbonnier played in his tragic death. As to this, make no mistake:

Charlie Hebdo was an enemy of Western civilization.

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January 13, 2015

State to Teenager: Undergo Chemotherapy — or Else

By Selwyn Duke

“My body, my choice!” may be a well-known rallying cry, but, increasingly, outside the realm of abortion it goes out the window. And the latest attack on this front involves a 17-year-old Connecticut teen told that she will undergo chemotherapy — whether she likes it or not. Fox CT reported on the story Monday:

She’s only identified as “Cassandra C.” in court papers to protect her privacy, but the 17-year-old’s case could soon become known nationwide.

Cassandra was diagnosed with cancer in September 2014. Doctors said she had Hodgkins Lymphoma, a rare condition — not to be confused with non-hodgkins lymphoma. Physicians recommended chemotherapy.

But the teen refused the treatment, and her mother supported that decision.

According to the National Cancer Institute, side effects of chemo can include hair loss, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fatigue and pain.

This decision didn’t sit well with the Connecticut Department of Children and Families (DCF). As BenSwann.com explains:

Following a hearing at which Cassandra’s doctors testified, the trial court ordered that she be removed from her home and that she remain in DCF’s care and custody,” read court papers according to CBS Connecticut. “The court also authorized DCF to make all necessary medical decisions on Cassandra’s behalf.”

Cassandra ran away from the hospital she was placed in shortly after she had received the first two chemo-treatments.

The case then went to the Connecticut Supreme Court, and just yesterday that body upheld the lower court ruling, saying that state officials weren’t violating the girl’s rights.

Read the rest here.
January 11, 2015

Muslims and the Left’s Death by Tolerance

By Selwyn Duke

Aside from the three Muslim men who perpetrated the deadliest terror attack in France since 1961, there are some other individuals complicit in the Wednesday massacre. They have names such as Hollande, Cameron, Merkel, Löfven and Obama. Their connection to the act will largely go unnoticed and unapprehended — and they likely will never be held to account.

In the wake of the brutality at the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, socialist French president Francois Hollande called for tolerance.

I call for intolerance.

The difference between us isn’t that, relatively speaking, I lack the quality. I have a lot of practice exercising tolerance because I have far more to tolerate — not the least of which is the political power and policies of people such as Hollande, Cameron, Merkel, Löfven and Obama. The real difference is that I actually know what tolerance means.

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January 9, 2015

The Deadly Paris Terror Attack and the Myth of Religion

By Selwyn Duke

“Another attack in the name of religion,” I heard someone say after the vicious and vile Wednesday assault on the offices of French magazine Charlie Hebdo. And there is a huge problem with “religion.” But it’s not what you think.

Question: when the Nazis, Stalinists, Khmer Rouge, the Shining Path or the Weathermen committed violence, did we lament, “Another attack in the name of ideology”? Did we hear “Ideology is the problem”? That would be about as helpful as going to a doctor with a dreadful illness and, upon asking him what the problem is, his responding “Your state of health.”

Like ideology, religion is a category, not a creed. As with states of health, which occupy a continuum from excellent to awful, they both contain the good, the bad and the ugly. But modern man, not wanting to place an onus on a faith or seem a “religious” chauvinist, is a bad physician who refuses to name the disease or the cure. So depending on how he is emotionally disposed, we may hear utterances such as “Children need some religion” or “Religion breeds violence.” Ancient Aztec children had “religion,” and they learned well how to sacrifice thousands of innocents a year to Quetzalcoatl on bloody altars. And Amish children have “religion,” and peace and charity define them.

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January 9, 2015

The Bad Christian and the Good Secularist

By Selwyn Duke

“If not for my faith, I would be barely human.” That was the answer English writer Evelyn Waugh gave when asked, as all Christians will be at some point, how he could call himself a Christian given his behavior. Often rhetorical, the question is sometimes a ploy used to gain leverage and discredit the target by painting him as a hypocrite or to discredit the faith through guilt by association. Yet it can also be sincere, and it is then, especially, that it warrants a response.

The first thing to note about those who honestly ask the question is that they must think very highly of Christianity; if they didn’t, they’d merely assume you were acting wholly in accordance with your faith. This is the only thing that would explain — again, when the question is sincere — the higher standard to which they hold Christians. Others may exhibit the frailties and character flaws plaguing man, but they never hear “Such licentious behavior! How can you lay claim to hedonism?!” or, upon a loss of temper, “You call yourself a communist?!” Yet this raises a question: If Christianity provides this superior model for life, why don’t these secularists embrace it?

Don’t ask me why I’m a terrible Christian. Maybe I’m just a lost soul. Virtues are caught more than taught; actions speak louder than words.

Walk the walk and show me how it’s done.

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January 9, 2015

Fire Chief Sacked for Writing Book With Christian View of Homosexuality

By Selwyn Duke

The Atlanta government may not yet be burning books, but they sure burned a man who wrote one. The Georgia city’s mayor, Kasim Reed, announced Tuesday that he had terminated Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran. The reason?

Cochran expressed disapproval of homosexual behavior in a self-published book.

The chief had already endured a 30-day suspension without pay after the book, entitled Who Told You That You Were Naked?, was brought to light by a retired, openly lesbian Atlanta Fire Department captain named Cindy Thompson. The book, which concerns the importance of Christ’s salvation, expresses many authentic Christian beliefs, including the lines that raised homosexual activists’ ire:

Read the rest here.
January 7, 2015

Racial Bias: Police More Willing to Shoot Whites, Study Shows

By Selwyn Duke

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is notorious for giving his black son “the talk” — a warning about how his race will cause police to react to him. But it now appears his talk should have been in the nature of a reassurance, because a scientific study indicates that police are actually less likely to shoot black suspects.

The study, out of Washington State University (WSU), was conducted by lead researcher Professor Lois James and her collaborators, professors David Klinger and Bryan Vila. First published online May 22, 2014 in the Journal of Experimental Criminology, it was largely ignored but has taken on new relevance in the wake of the recently publicized deaths of black criminal suspects in confrontations with police. As to its findings, WSU News writes:

Read the rest here.