Ground Zero has a new monument to replace the ones that Islamic jihadists destroyed on that clear Tuesday morning of September 11, 2001, and a spire has just been hoisted to signify the building's final height. CNN reports:
The spire brings the iconic building to a height of 1,776 feet -- an allusion to the year the United States declared its independence. It also makes the building the tallest in the Western Hemisphere and the third-tallest in the world.
The company developing the building in partnership with the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey confirmed the installation.
While the building still has significant construction before its scheduled 2014 opening, the installation brought cheers from New Yorkers, and from people around the country.
"NYC is back ... America is back!" Twitter userTheJeffSullivan posted to the social networking site.
Twitter user mattnewby04 called it a "very powerful moment to see the figurative rebuilding of NYC."
Only eleven and a half years later, eh? While I love the idea of an edifice taller than the World Trade Towers and appreciate the effort to imbue its height with American symbolism, you'll have to forgive me for not finding this a marvelous achievement. It's not necessarily that the building itself is underwhelming, it's more a matter of the timing. As Mark Steyn writes in After America:
The most eloquent statement about America in the 21st century is Ground Zero in the years after. 9/11 was something our enemies did to us. The hole in the ground a decade later is something we did to ourselves.
[...]
The Empire State Building, then the tallest in the world, was put up in 18 months during a depression – because the head of General Motors wanted to show the head of Chrysler that he could build something that went higher than the Chrysler Building. Three-quarters of a century later, the biggest thing either man's successor had created was a mountain of unsustainable losses – and both GM and Chrysler were now owned and controlled by government and unions.
[...]
In the decade after 9/11, China (which America still thinks of as a cheap assembly plant for your local KrappiMart) built the Three Gorges Dam, the largest electricity-generating plant in the world. Dubai, a mere sub-jurisdiction of the United Arab Emirates, put up the world's tallest building and built a Busby Berkeley geometric kaleidoscope of offshore artificial islands. Brazil, an emerging economic power, began diverting the Sao Francisco river to create some 400 miles of canals to irrigate its parched north-east. But the hyperpower can't put up a building.
Thirteen years after the towers fell, a new building will take its place. Even with all the symbolism meant by this construction and the pride Americans now seem to take in it, I fear that it's just too little, too late for it to mean a damn thing to the rest of the world which recognizes how far we've fallen from the zenith of American greatness.
Cleric Murgan Salem has some pretty dire revelations for America, seen in the video below.
There is much in this chilling clip that is revealing, and first and foremost is the obvious reminder that, even if the attack in Boston was not an act of Islamic jihad, jihadists see such attacks as a victory. Clearly, he sees the attack as too "amateurish" to have been the work of al-Qaeda and posits that it could have likely been an American who is dissatisfied with American policy, but nonetheless, the bombing sends a message that we Americans can be attacked anywhere, anytime, and by anyone.
Second, we notice that his appraisal of jihad runs in clear conflict with the standard leftist mantra about armed jihad being a fringe phenomenon, only embraced by those who follow the twisted perversion of Islam practiced by the late Osama bin Laden, for example. He assures the world that it is not bin Laden or al-Zawahiri that gave the world the notion that violent jihad is a religious imperative -- that honor belongs with Allah and the Quran. While many Muslims, particularly in the West, have evolved a more progressive view of jihad, the more archaic brand of jihad still courses in the veins of Islamic fundamentalism, pumped by various hearts like al Qaeda. Hence, Islamic fundamentalism remains a global scourge, not a fairy tale made up by right-wing conservatives.
Third, and I thought most interesting (considering the above mentioned items are not necessarily news to me, but reminders), we notice that he believes America to be finished. What is his reasoning, beyond the fact that Islamic fundamentalists will be emboldened and increasingly take the jihad to America's back yard? He cites America's bloated debt and Americans' increased dependence on welfare. In America, millions of the usefully dim refuse to see this as a problem, believing our unfathomable debt to be sustainable, and steadily increasing welfare dependence to be a good thing. In the Islamic world, fundamentalists cheer at our willingness to commit to economic self-atrophy, thereby assisting the jihadists who long for America's demise.
Barack Obama sought to improve relations with the Islamic world through dialogue, insisting that with the right leadership, the Islamic world would respect and accept a relationship peaceful relationship with America. But it appears that our president's candor and domestic policies have done little more than assure the Islamic world that we are weaker than ever, and ripe for destruction.
In a chilling video (apparently sponsored by MSNBC), Melissa Harris-Perry suggests that your children do not belong to you, but to the collective. And the sooner we realize that and relegate ourselves to dumping more money into public education, she says, the better off we'll all be.
I provided some commentary for the American Thinker blog regarding the reasons Americans should find this video frightening. Suffice it to say, her ignorant mindset, however well-intentioned, is universally the framework of ruthless socialistic and fascistic dictatorship. See: History.
Harris-Perry isn't about driving success, any more than education unions are about academic success, or "No Child Left Behind" is about academic success. It seems, rather, that the goal of our current education system is to hamstring any who get further ahead of the pack because they might be differently advantaged.
It's the equivalent of requiring a Kenyan marathon runner to carry weights, because thin Kenyans seem to be just too damn good at marathons and it's making the other, slower marathon runners feel bad.
That's just not how success is driven, and it's an absolute travesty that there is a need to explain that. This, like many of the problems we face today, is a result of American ignorance of the fact that collectivism does not nurture progress, but regression.
Here's an example to explain why, courtesy of the recently deceased Margaret Thatcher. In her last appearance in Britain's House of Commons in 1990, she was confronted by a socialist who laments that, sure, Britain thrived for the most part during her tenure as Prime Minister, but the gap between the richest 10% and the poorest 10% increased during that time. Thatcher reminded him that even the poor had it better in 1990 than they did in 1979, and by focusing on the discrepancy rather than the more important result -- prosperity -- the member was admitting that "he would rather that the poor get poorer, provided that the rich become less rich." That's it. In a nutshell. Why socialism fails. Watch this, it really is thing of beauty:
And we see it in our education system. In Wisconsin (patient zero for the corrupt unionism disease), Racine Unified superintendent Dr. Ann Laing had this to say:
I think Milwaukee is a good example of what will happen on a smaller scale here. In Milwaukee, it’s pretty much been white families who’ve taken advantage of private schools, with a few African-American families. The African-American families are the ones who are most prone to enroll their kids in the fly-by-night schools that cropped up after vouchers existed.
They don’t know how to make good choices for their children. They really don’t. They didn’t have parents who made good choices for them or help them learn how to make good choices, so they don’t know how to do that.
First of all, the racism is in-your-face. For her to sit there and suggest that black people are just bad parents in such broad terms should be shocking. If anyone without union protection, who is not toeing the line for the progressive agenda, were to make such a comment, he or she would be tarred and feathered by the media. But no, this flies undert the radar for the most part, because it advances the narrative of collectivism.
Mikel Holt exposed these comments in the Milwaukee Community Journal, and in response, Laing said the comments were "taken out of context." "Many parents," she says, "don't have access to the information or tools" necessary to make good decisions.
Funny. It doesn't seem like she was taken out of context at all, because her later comments-- that a lack of resources is the problem, not a lack of ability-- sound nothing the previous statements -- that black people just don't know how to make good decisions because black people's parents didn't make good decisions.
If it were really about "information or tools" to help people make good decisions, wouldn't the school district try to provide "information and tools" to people, so parents and children can make good decisions?
That's precisely what the school district would do if it were about grooming successful academics. But no, the point is to demonize those parents who have worked to have the means to pay for a better investment in their children's education. Additionally, she is trying to eliminate competition to the public school option by delegitimizing the "fly-by-night" schools that some parents are exercising via the voucher system, which is the bane of public education unions.
It does beg the question... if the public school option is so wonderful for these children, why are so many exercising the voucher system?
Dr. Laing suggests that it's because they're incapable of making good decisions because they're black, or they had bad parents, what have you. But I think the truth is that parents who care are seeking other options for their children, because they know well enough that many public schools are dangerous, and that their children are not getting a good result from public education.
So public schools are so bad that everyone is seeking alternatives. But advocates of expanding public education, like Harris-Perry, like Dr. Laing, think that we should increase federal funding to public education and that these alternatives should be limited to the public, because the state knows better than parents what is good for their children.
Essentially, the suggestion is that when free-market principles are applied to education and there is competition with public education, there is discrepancy between those who go to good schools (often alternatives to public schools) and those who go to bad schools (often public schools). So since we've more than doubled the investment in public education since 1970 and the results have been regressive (ie, kids are less educated today than in 1970), we should eliminate those alternatives and just have everyone go to public schools to eliminate the discrepancy.
In other words, these social engineers would rather the dumb become dumber, provided the educated become less educated. Just another example of why collectivism fails.
"Some believe atmosphere is safe for a gay NFL player to come out." That is the headline of this CBS article linked on Drudge today. From the article:
Based on interviews over the past several weeks with current and former players, I'm told that a current gay NFL player is strongly considering coming out publicly within the next few months -- and after doing so, the player would attempt to continue his career.
I'm told this player feels the time is now for someone to take this step -- despite homophobic remarks from San Francisco 49ers defensive back Chris Culliver and the controversy arising recently at the Indianapolis Scouting combine, when prospects were asked questions about their sexuality.
This player's true concern, I'm told, is not the reaction inside an NFL locker room but outside of it. The player fears he will suffer serious harm from homophobic fans, and that is the only thing preventing him from coming out. My sources will not say who this alleged player is.
[...]
The Supreme Court on Tuesday will hear oral arguments on California's Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage. Opponents of the proposition say it discriminates against gay men and women.
To Fujita and others, this is an important case that could have ramifications in the NFL. If the Supreme Court overturns Proposition 8, it would send yet another signal to closeted gay NFL players that the environment is changing for the better.
To be sure, this would probably not be as big of a news item, if not for the hubbub surrounding the Supreme Court review of two gay rights cases, one of which is a review of California's Prop 8 vote where Californians voted in the majority to ban gay marriage in the state. Implied in the above mentioned article, if the Court strikes down Prop 8, it will signal an environment in which it might be "safe" for NFL players to be openly gay.
It amuses me that there is such an effort to tie the fate of gay NFL players to a decision in favor of gay marriage. After all, the right to be openly gay in the NFL has little if anything to do with the ability to be married in a state-recognized ceremony. The implication is that if gay marriage isn't given a federal legal allowance, it will signify that America is still just a bigoted nation of homophobes, and a homosexual football player might be threatened with violence daily for his life choice. But if nine lawyers in the Court reimagine current law and overrule California's popular vote, then it will signal that America has somehow changed enough to warrant a gay NFL player safely coming out. It's hard to imagine such a silly presumption being taken seriously by anyone -- but here we are, discussing an article by an author who does.
The funniest thing about all of this, though, is that the author suggests that he hopes, when this gay player comes out, that it will be a non-issue. The truth is, it is already a non-issue to the vast majority of Americans. It is the author, and the pro-gay marriage lobby that he represents, that is making an NFL player being openly gay an issue by tying his coming out to a legitimate and polarizing legal issue.
I'm an avid NFL fan, and when this gay player and others come out, I'll simply do what most Americans will do. I'll say, "Good for him," and go on about my day. Ironically, the people that will undoubtedly make the biggest deal of it are the same ideologues who are invested in the issue of gay marriage -- which, again, is somewhat silly, considering that being openly gay in the NFL has nothing to do with gay marriage as a social or legal issue.
The truth of the matter is that the choice to be gay is broadly accepted in America today, even if the issue of gay marriage is a polarizing cultural matter, and NFL players can, and should be able to be openly gay in the NFL without fear of hatred or violent acts against them. But a state should also not have to forfeit its constitutional right to govern in the manner that its people demand, so long as it's within legal limitations.
A gay NFL player's ability to be openly gay should not be dependent on a state's forfeiture of sovereignty, no matter how attractive it might be for gay marriage advocates to lump the issues together.
Thank you in advance for taking the time to read my concerns.My name is William Sullivan, and I have been a shopper at your [local] locations since I was old enough to buy my own sports/outdoor equipment.My father is an avid fisherman, and he was a customer long before that.I am, however troubled by your recent circulars, which I regularly peruse, that have neglected to advertise the sale of firearms for many weeks now.In the current political context, this troubles me.
I am a financial professional by trade, and as a side business and passion, I am an author who contributes to various political magazines which carry substantial readership.On the topic of the Second Amendment, I am a stern believer that changes to its form and intent should come via legislation/amendment abridging it (if at all), and certainly not shaped via executive intimidation or media/corporate campaigns.
On this, I do not budge, nor should any American who values our laws that grant us this unique right which affords the self-preservation of liberty. (As evidence of the sternness of this belief, I direct you to this recent article I’ve authored: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/01/how_many_bullets_are_enough.html)
Enough time has elapsed to surmise that these omissions of firearm sales in your circulars amount to succumbing to political pressure in our current environment, as a detailed look at previous circulars would show no such omissions for any such length of time, to my knowledge.This makes Academy, either in fear of public backlash or complicit association, an integral part of a public campaign to marginalize firearms in general.
I understand that you have every right to not see it this way, and that your company’s public relations representatives can offer various, yet thoroughly less convincing, criteria for these omissions beyond the conclusion at which I have arrived.And I also understand that the loss of my business, and that of my friends who value and share my opinion, will not alter your chosen agenda.But suffice it to say that my son, now three years old and for whom I will be purchasing his first fishing pole and tackle this year, will be selecting these milestone possessions elsewhere if my concerns are not reasonably addressed.
As stated before, thank you for reading my concerns.I will end my correspondence in asking that you address them, as ending my time as an Academy customer is not something that I do happily, but something I will do as a matter of personal conviction if my concerns are not assuaged.
In an article published at American Thinker last year, I argue that there was a certain magic in Tim Tebow's 2011 NFL performance. From a broad political perspective, I argue, "He is a personification of the traditional American belief that if people work hard, believe in themselves, and have the humility to believe in something greater than they are, they can exceed what the collective believes them to be capable of. That the impossible can become possible, even if only for a short while." In short, a miracle. But not the kind of miracle that only Christians can relate to -- not the kind that specifically require that you imagine it is the result of God's touch. It is something innate in human nature, an indescribable component of humanity that we desire such outcomes, and revel in watching events unfold. I believe that people want to see miracles, as a world where such things can happen is a beautiful world. An interesting world. But then, I am Christian, albeit of the less devout persuasion. Stephen Marchie of the New York Times, an atheist, approaches miracles from a different angle. Though he admits that he was captivated by Tebow's incredible 7-4 record last year and the unexpected success, he describes that he was relieved to see Tebow fail against the Patriots in the playoffs. "My stomach began to relax," he writes. The material world made sense. The Patriots won. The problem of joy was momentarily solved." This is amazing perspective. Where Christians generally want to see miracles, and find them to be an affirmation of their worldview, some atheists, like Marchie, find miracles to be a repudiation of their worldview, and their natural inclination is to be more comfortable in the thought that miracles just don't happen. Nonetheless, he admits that he, too, relishes these unexplained miracles, these gut-wrenching moments of joy -- like the one he relates in the article, in which his friend's 3 year old daughter tumbled down a stairwell in inexplicable, perhaps even miraculous, safety. He explains that when he discovered she was unhurt, he "kept randomly repeating, “That was a miracle.” It was the only phrase I could come up with. I didn’t know how to deal with inexplicable good fortune. Even after my friends returned to New York, the strange constriction in my chest persisted.
He goes on:
Christians famously have the problem of pain: how can a benevolent and omnipotent god permit evil to exist? But atheists like myself have our own paradox to contend with: the problem of joy. Why do randomly good things happen? In Graham Greene’s “The Power and the Glory,” a priest gives the explicit defense of their reality to his Red Shirt captor: “Can’t you see the doctors round the dead man? He isn’t breathing anymore, his pulse has stopped, his heart’s not beating: he’s dead. Then somebody gives him back his life, and they all — what’s the expression? — reserve their opinion. They won’t say it’s a miracle, because that’s a word they don’t like.” C. S. Lewis described his conversion to Christianity as a process of being “surprised by joy.”
Emmy was my confounding miracle, my joyful surprise. How had she survived without a single scrape? It didn’t make sense, and I couldn’t make it make sense.
The article (found here) is simply fantastic, and I urge all readers to give a moment to check it out. Personally, my more recent experience with atheists has been that there is an implied arrogance in their opinion, and an immediate rejection of anything religious, often in the form of anger and ridicule. (For example, Richard Dawkins linked my article, a critique of fundamentalist Islam, to his website, where the mere possibility that I might be a Christian was enough for many readers and commenters to write off my opinion that they might otherwise agree with -- if I were an atheist and anti-religion) This seems to me a respectful analysis, written with a certain humility, deep introspection, and impressive craft. And furthermore, I agree with his conclusion. The Jets should let Tebow play. William Sullivan
Clint Tarver, well known in the Lansing area as “The Hot Dog Guy,” had his hot dog cart- the source of his livelihood- destroyed by frothing-at-the-mouth, stark-raving-mad union thugs who launched a bitter protest in opposition to state legislature measures to implement a “right to work” policy for Michigan workers.
What these protesters seem most opposed to is the fact that a”right to work” policy will give workers the option to not take part in a union, not pay dues, and not have their money fill Democratic politicians’ war chests. This will significantly hamstring the unions’ advantage in negotiating workers’ wages and benefits with the taxpayers who pay for them. And I use the word “negotiating” loosely. In this regard, “negotiation” is more akin to Don Corleone “negotiating” a job for his nephew Johnny Fontane.
Democrat leaders and union bosses understand the danger this portends, so they are warning of “civil war” and “blood in the streets” of Michigan if the unions are not appeased. Likely, that’s why union thugs took to the streets like a gaggle of old, fat Mafioso thugs and raised hell, punching those that disagree with them and destroying a man’s hot dog cart because they arbitrarily judged him to have been part of anti-union efforts.
The extent to which unions should be able to influence public policy is a conversation we need to have, but union thuggery makes that pretty difficult. The most aggravating thing, for me, is that unions accuse their opposition of being in the wrong, when they are patently guilty of extortion, intimidation, assault, and in some cases, like AFL-CIO leader Richard Trumka, curiously implicated with a non-union agitator being shot in the back of the head.
But amidst all this, there is hope. Lorilea Susanne has created a webpage to help Mr. Tarver replace his hot dog stand that the union drones destroyed. As she’s made perfectly clear, it is not political for her. It is just an effort to show solidarity to support a good, hard working man who was clearly wronged. And America responded in spades. The initial goal was to raise $2,000. In just a day, the webpage accumulated over $28,000, and has already linked the funds to Mr. Tarver’s account. (You may donate here, if you please)
To me, there could not be more a more stark contrast to union “solidarity” on display in Lansing. Americans don’t identify with Mr. Tarver because he is a member of their club and agree with their politics. I don’t know his political affiliation, nor do I care. But as is my right, I will offer my rather political opinion on why he has garnered so much support from Americans everywhere.
It is because he is an industrious entrepreneur, and he adds value to his community by doing a good job that warrants voluntary, repeated business. He does not demand that his community pay a specific price for his hot dogs, and then become violent when they counteroffer with a lower price. This is precisely why he is worthy of admiration, and precisely why union goons like those in Lansing are not.
Furthermore, by all accounts, he is a good man. His reaction to the incident, as recorded on the Dana Loesch radio show, is evidence of that. Honest. As understanding as could be expected. And most of all, civil.
Thank you, Mr. Tarver. Thank you for showing America the yin to the yang of union thuggery. And may you and your family have a Merry Christmas.
This post authored by William Sullivan, first published at Red Pill Report, found here.
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