Hayek On The "Reality Based" Community

Check this out at QandO:

It may indeed prove to be far the most difficult and not the least important task for human reason rationally to comprehend its own limitations. It is essential for the growth of reason that as individuals we should bow to forces and obey principles which we cannot hope fully to understand yet on which the advance and even the preservation of civilisation depends. Historically this has been achieved by the influence of the various religious creeds and by traditions and superstitions which made men submit to those forces by an appeal to his emotions rather than his reason. The most dangerous stage in the growth of civilisation may well be that in which man has come to regard all these beliefs as superstitions and refuses to accept or to submit to anything which he does not rationally understand. The rationalist whose reason is not sufficient to teach him those limitations of the powers of conscious reason, and who despises all the institutions and customs which have not been consciously designed, would thus become the destroyer of the civilisation built upon them. This may well prove a hurdle which man will repeatedly reach, only to be thrown back into barbarism.

Hayek is vastly underappreciated, even by conservatives. Of course, the problem is that the "reality based" community isn't actually "reality based" -- it's actually just the "Church of the Left". But I'll get to that in the next few posts. And conservatives aren't blame free either...

Nazi Dhimmi Update

Europe has cast its lot with the enemy of civilization itself. (Hat tip Powerline)

MUST. READ. NOW.

Europe is attracted to nihilism like a moth to the flame.

You know that Strategy Page will tell you what the MSM won't -- don't you?

MSM belly laugh of the day.

A Prime Directive prelude...

And American Nazism -- Just Not As Gruesome -- Yet...

"Anybody who knows me knows I'm not a racist."

Ummmmmmmmm -- I beg to differ Charlie.

Our dissident leader.

Today's Nazi Comment(ary)

Our (still nazi) betters and their progeny come into conflict...

UPDATE: The prize winning comment on this post re an accusation that we have been too pro-Israel:

ahem:

Arabs were slaughtering Jews in the 1920's and calling for fatwas against the British and Jews in the 1930's.

No Israel to blame and the US did not write the Balfour Declaration or parcel things up after WW1.

WW1 the Palestinians sided with the Germans. WW2, Arabs sided with the Nazis and then the Soviets.

The US did not give all that much support to Israel until the 1970's when it appeared it might actually be destroyed. In fact Eisenhower was anything but proIsrael and we had a huge falling out with the Brits in the 50's over Suez and our refusal to go along with Israel and Britain going after Egypt.

The US has not been antiArab and proJew. It is not that simple.

Surely you remember Arafat's mentor, Haj Mohammad Amin Al-Husseini?

Comment Of The Day

Over on Belmont Club:

I would agree that one of President Bush’s strong points is his patience. He also seems to have the ability to ask a question or present a situation, such as Wretchard has done today, without feeling obligated to tell the answer. This demands thought on the part of the listener or reader, something we desperately need in order to win this war.

This jihad and new Islamic revival has been going on for quite some time. Patience at its finest. It is my opinion that the intellectuals guiding it were likely unhappy when bin Laden and his boys prematurely took things into their own hands. I can imagine the headshaking over the impetuousness of youth. The movement was well underway and traveling with great steam throughout Europe and with good seeding in the United States.

The youngsters, the violent impatient ones, have suffered a great loss at Falluja, while the patient ones may have suffered their greatest loss on 9/11 when some of us became aware. Daniel Pipes suggests the youthful terrorists will give up on theatrical violence and use mafia tactics. They already are in Paris and Malmo. Watching blogs and newspapers closely I see a new wave of warfare coming from the patient group. They are returning with a vengeance to the well-marketed psychological PR type moderate rhetoric directed at our desire to get along and our penchant for political correctness. There are plenty of apologetic dhimmis in Europe who will happily accommodate by spewing anything but their fear. You can see it today in a Glenn Reynolds post. What we need to worry most about is whether individually we will be as strong and prepared as our Marines when the silent patient battle comes to our neighborhood, school board and political system.

Yes, it does relate to Nazis -- that would be the dhimmis in Europe. Stay tuned...

Did I forget to mention that I don't always feel obligated to tell the answer either?

UPDATED ALREADY: Wow is Wretchard good. At the same time I was posting this, he elevated part of Jane's comment into his next post. Cool.

And You Thought The Jacques Quote In My Last Post Was Good

Attention Kmart shoppers! The glory of France, she is born anew!

(Hat tip LGF)

A funny sort of empire. And its nuanced opponent.

Back To Nazism

... back near the beginning. And one of the ways it could have been stopped.

Does the recent Fallujan "security round" come to mind?

How's that for an eye-opener?

Humor Of Various Types

Iran pleads for sanctions!

On why Reps need to plead for more recounts...

Feh. Tastes like a bearded chick pea...

The last nail in the coffin. (Warning: Least funny but most satisfying.)

As nutty as Walter Cronkite. (OK, that was a bit of a joke on my part -- you need to read everything on the way to finding it as well -- it's one of James' better days ;)

On shit-clogged noodles. And don't forget the ragged, crusty prophyllactic of the Islamo-Fascist War Machine ... (Hat tip Glenn)

Did I mention that outsourcing may have an unnecessarily bad rep?

I'll Take Dick Cheney's Daughter Is A Lesbian For $1000 Alex!

Who says the French won't fight? Not very well of course...

On The Proper Application Of Squalid

Hitch again. Arafat splayed and eviscerated.

NYeT On The "Church Of The Left"!?

Remember yesterday's WOW? Well, today the NYeT editors must have had a world class brain fart for they have seemingly published something that tops even that! (And don't miss the Captain's analysis!)

It starts this way:

As a young Canadian Muslim who has called for reform in Islam, I've been traveling throughout North America and Europe over the past year. Last week, I toured France and Spain. God help me.

I didn't expect a warm reception from fellow Muslims. But now, I'm also not sure that liberal Muslims like me fit comfortably in a secular European crowd. I say this even after the murder of Theo van Gogh, the Dutch filmmaker, who police officials say was shot and stabbed by a Muslim extremist. Mr. van Gogh had exercised his right to criticize Islam - a right that I, as a modern Muslim, defend unequivocally.

What then gives me the sense that even modern Muslims can't be modern enough for Western Europe? It's precisely that, from Amsterdam to Barcelona to Paris to Berlin, people incredulously ask me one type of question that I'm never asked in the United States and Canada: Why does an independent-minded woman care about God? Why do you need religion at all?

I'll answer in a moment. To get there, allow me to observe key differences between the debate over Islam in Western Europe and North America. In Western Europe, the entry point for this debate is the hijab - the headscarf that many Muslim women wear as a signal of modesty. By contrast, the entry point in North America is terrorism.

And now you know you MUST go read it (you're already nearly half way done).

There ARE moderate Muslims. But they aren't naturally supported by the European "Church Of The Left".

No surprise there.

But how about that NYeT brain fart?

Like I Said -- On Any Other Day...

No sooner is W re-elected and Condi heads for SecState than does the NorKorCom barbarous loon asylum seem mired in a Soviet era portrait tea leaf reading exercise. No doubt the NoKo generals are just a tad more nervous than if Neville Kerry had won...

Tear down that wall Mr. Kim!

On Most Days

this would be a breathtaking WOW. Barbaric misogyny defended as a right of the Islamofascists by our fascifist crowd. Ho hum.

But this is what WOW really looks like. She has my vote. And yes, I would defend her with my life.

Thanks soldiers -- guys and gals.

UPDATE: Roger weighs in.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More on "Moderate Islam".

Of homo economicus, literacy tests and man dating...

Cambodia Update

The evidence just keeps on growing -- soon I'll have to admit that Kerry really was in Cambodia...

I suspect that alert readers may point out my utter lack of nuance -- after all, incompetence can be just one of the symptoms of wearing a tinfoil lucky CIA hat.

Did I mention that the CIA isn't exactly a water-tight organization? I suspect we would have heard from Kerry's CIA buds -- if there were any.

OK -- so I won't have to admit it then.

On Evangelical Darwinism

" ...but since they look the same, no one noticed."

Bwwwaaahahahah!

Yuppers. Dem whipper-snapper libs is sho' 'nuff dang tootin' smarter dan us'uns! (Hat tip BOTW)

The Aztecs are back?

Hypocrisy Interlude: But Kerry Was A Hero Of Course...

Pulling a Kerry. Lib hypocrisy knows no bounds.

Did I forget to mention that the reporter just might have a particular POV? That just might match my theme?

And you need to read Wretchard -- especially his ending:

Salehma Mahmoud, 43, and her four daughters fled Fallujah on Tuesday after her husband was killed fighting against the Americans. They walked 4 miles only to be confronted by Iraqi soldiers who insulted and harassed them, grabbing at Mahmoud's oldest daughter. "He grabbed Fatima's hand and tried to kiss her. I was trying to stop him with all I had," she said. "He beat me and pushed me to the ground, and his friends were laughing at us loud. He tore the right sleeve of my daughter's dress and lay her on the ground."

To Mahmoud's surprise -- because she had been told that US troops would beat and rape her -- a US patrol rescued them. An American soldier pulled the Iraqi soldier away and yelled at him. Mahmoud's daughter, who speaks some English, told her that the American called the Iraqi names and said, "If you had really come to save the people of this city, you would not have done such a thing."

You can bet the Globe's Lib editors had a struggle before they printed this -- for it contradicts the "story line" you see...

UPDATE: They're called "security rounds". Oh, and on top of that 1) no uniform + 2) fighting from mosques = 3) no Geneva conventions any way you slice it. (Hat tip LGF)

AND AGAIN: This is truly eye-opening. And Donald (note the end) and Wretchard need to be read.

CASE CLOSED: Here.

C-BS Programming Interruption

I interrupt the regularly scheduled hoots of derision at the heirs of Nazism to hoot with derision at one of their Reifenstahls:

Sunday’s report on the killing of Emmett Till was an example of slipshod and misleading journalism. The producers have few excuses in this case. They did it with their eyes open. They were warned not just once but several times that their forthcoming report might contain inaccuracies. In a rush to air the story, however, they plowed ahead, instead of following the first rule of journalism: getting their facts straight. . . .

The producers of "60 Minutes" have an ethical obligation to correct their inaccurate information and to corroborate their claims that five participants in the kidnapping or murder are still alive. Given our previous experiences with "60 Minutes," however, we have little hope that they will do so. While the killing of Emmett Till deserves more attention from the media, the producers of "60 Minutes" have failed to fulfill their stated mission to serve the public good.

Theo rests his point.

Nazis Are As Nazis Do

Here are Hitler's heirs at work. (Look over on the right at the "Previous Jaw Dropper".)

QOTD And Fascifism Redux

That would be "Question Of The Day" [check out the third comment]:

Here's a good illustration that hit very close to home for me: After watching some news of the fighting in Fallujah, my reflexively pacifist wife (who voted for Kerry) asked why our soldiers couldn't use tear gas to clear enemy fighters out of buildings--so we wouldn't have to kill people who were trying to kill us. Seriously. I was dumbfounded. I'm still dumbfounded. Where does one even start? "Kill or be killed" is just not a conceivable scenario for 60s antiwar types. Nor is the concept of sworn enemies beyond the reach of reason.

"If you were an officer in charge of 30-40 soldiers, how many of their lives would you be prepared to sacrifice on the off chance that hardened thugs who behead their captives would be prepared to surrender peacefully?"

What? Another question before I answer the last one?

Kept you waiting didn't I? Look at the masthead.

The answer to the previous question is of course GEORGE ORWELL. And you need to go read "Pacifism And The War".

Let's cut to the chase and look at the closing paragraph:

‘Mr Orwell is intellectual-hunting again’ (Mr Comfort). I have never attacked ‘the intellectuals’ or ‘the intelligentsia’ en bloc. I have used a lot of ink and done myself a lot of harm by attacking the successive literary cliques which have infested this country, not because they were intellectuals but precisely because they were not what I mean by true intellectuals. The life of a clique is about five years and I have been writing long enough to see three of them come and two go — the Catholic gang, the Stalinist gang, and the present pacifist or, as they are sometimes nicknamed, Fascifist gang. My case against all of them is that they write mentally dishonest propaganda and degrade literary criticism to mutual arse-licking. But even with these various schools I would differentiate between individuals. I would never think of coupling Christopher Dawson with Arnold Lunn, or Malraux with Palme Dutt, or Max Plowman with the Duke of Bedford. And even the work of one individual can exist at very different levels. For instance Mr Comfort himself wrote one poem I value greatly (‘The Atoll in the Mind’), and I wish he would write more of them instead of lifeless propaganda tracts dressed up as novels. But his letter he has chosen to send you is a different matter. Instead of answering what I have said he tries to prejudice an audience to whom I am little known by a misrepresentation of my general line and sneers about my ‘status’ in England. (A writer isn’t judged by his ‘status’, he is judged by his work.) That is on a par with ‘peace’ propaganda which has to avoid mention of Hitler’s invasion of Russian [sic], and it is not what I mean by intellectual honesty. It is just because I do take the function of the intelligentsia seriously that I don’t like the sneers, libels, parrot phrased and financially profitable back-scratching which flourish in our English literary world, and perhaps in yours also.

Fascifism. Savor that word. It's not clear that Orwell coined it -- but he knows its proper use.

And the Nazi-theme will be extended well beyond this weekend due to a surfeit of material in the queue and far too little time available...