The Solid Surfer.com

Outrageous: The ACLU's Attack on Terror Prevention

Does leftist idiocy have no end? A mere week after surveillance and wiretapping greatly contributed to the thwarting of a major terrorist attack, a federal judge ruled against America's conducting such methods. The ACLU, which brought the suit, argued that wiretapping without a warrant violates the rights to free speech and privacy.

Well, guess what - that's exactly the point. Wiretapping certainly does violate privacy, and that's precisely what's needed against would-be terrorists. These aren't ordinary Americans; they are jihadists who wish to destroy this nation and replace it with a Taliban-style theocracy. Anyone holding these aims deserves to be expelled from the country, much less have their privacy respected. The ACLU's disgusting lawsuit does nothing but aid America's genocial enemies.

Don't get me wrong - government wiretapping powers must always be watched to ensure that bounds aren't overstepped; the warrantless taps should certainly be limited only to jihadist terrorists. But to eliminate it entirely is idiocy bordering on treason. The ACLU should be deeply ashamed of themselves, and the suit thrown out immediately. (The U.S. government has appealed it to a higher court, with the outcome to be determined.)

For anyone who opposes wiretapping, imagine the privacy constraints the government would impose if another massive terror attack (one which likely could be prevented by surveillance) occurs. Suddenly, wiretapping doesn't seem so bad after all.

Update on Israel Conflict at Brandeis University

Arguments over the controversial removal of Palestinian artwork at Brandeis University have continued into recent days, with Law and Politics professor Jeffrey Abramson supporting the artwork and University President Juhuda Reinharz defending his decision to take down the exhibit.

Abramson rests his support on the contentions that 1) it doesn't matter that the artwork wasn't balanced, as this should not be a requirement for free expression, 2) the exhibit was indeed educational, and 3) the exhibit was not hate speech against Israel. Reinharz, however, while generally agreeing with Abramson's first two assertions, strongly disagrees with him on the third, and defends his actions as such.

So where do I stand? I fully agree with Dr. Reinharz. Student artwork need not always present counterbalancing points of view, and one could certainly argue that the piece was educational. But as for not being hate speech - that's pure hogwash.

Take a look at one of the drawings in the exhibit. The map of the state of Israel is dripping in blood and represented with a Palestinian flag. It is clearly symbolic of the Palestinian desire to violently destroy Israel and kill Jews.

Not hate speech? Message to Dr. Abramson: This drawing could stand in as the direct definition of "hate speech" in the dictionary. Dr. Reinharz and his administration made the absolutely correct decision in removing the artwork.

Brandeis University should be proud of its decision. Now if only they could get better graduation honorees than Tony Kushner. My suggestion for next year: passionate Arab Zionists (yes, they do exist) Walid Shoebat and Brigitte Gabriel.

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict at Brandeis University

Brandeis University, located in suburban Massachusetts, has somewhat unexpectedly found itself at the center of the debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After the university decided to pull a bloody one-sided pro-Palestinian art exhibit that had been displayed on the campus, Israel supporters cheered while anti-Israel radicals came out to demonstrate.

Was Brandeis correct to shut down the artwork? New guest contributor "Mini-Me", a student at the university (and a familiar name on this site thanks to his many fine reader comments), checks in with a first-hand report:

The past few days have been quite interesting here at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. For those who have not yet heard, Brandeis has recently been in the news as a result of the administration's decision to pull an art exhibition entitled “Voices of Palestine,” ending the scheduled two-week exhibition just four days in. The exhibition was not organized by the University, but rather by Lior Halperin, a Brandeis sophomore who is both Jewish and Israeli. To set the scene: the artworks were located in the school’s library, not in the on-campus prestigious Rose Art Museum. Also, because this was simply a class project, and not a school sponsored event, the exhibition, consisting of seventeen paintings by Palestinian children, was not publicized on campus. For this reason, neither I nor most other students actually saw the paintings in person. However, in an article by the Boston Globe’s article, three of the works are detailed as follows:

"A bulldozer menaces a girl with ebony pigtails, who lies in a pool of blood. A boy with an amputated leg balances on a crutch, in a tent city with a Palestinian flag. A dove, dripping blood, perches against blue barbed wire."

According to the article, shortly after the works were hung Brandeis received up to a dozen complaints, and school officials reacted by taking down the art. Brandeis official Dennis Nealon explained the reasoning behind the University's actions: “It was completely from one side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and we can only go based on the complaints we received…'People were saying: (a) what is this; (b) what is it trying to say; and (c) should there be some sort of balancing perspective here?"

While the majority of the student body is oblivious to the situation, some who are aware staged a protest on Saturday, which approximately fifty students attended, insisting the artworks stay. Art critic Tyler Green, one of those against removing the exhibition, stated on his Modern Arts Blog: “Memo to university officials: Art does not equal journalism. An art exhibit is not a newspaper story. It is not required to present ‘both sides’ of a story.”

I couldn’t disagree with him (or the views of the protesting students) more.

While I agree that artwork does not need to tell both sides of a story, I do strongly feel that an academic institution is responsible for telling both sides of a story. Brandeis, however, does not have in its possession paintings by Israeli children that depict Palestinians violently hurting or killing Israeli children. Consequently, Brandeis feels that it wouldn't be appropriate to display the Palestinian artwork without also exhibiting the opposing (Israeli) viewpoint.

When a university displays an art exhibition, the contents of the exhibition reflect upon the school. Brandeis is a Jewish-sponsored college. A Palestinian art exhibition that depicts children being tortured by Israeli soldiers not only distorts the truth, but it runs in contradiction with the beliefs at the basis of the school's origin and establishment. If Brandeis does not wish to be associated with the contents of such extremely politically-charged artwork, it should certainly have the right to pull the exhibition.

Halperin has since lent the 17 paintings to an Arab student organization at MIT, which plans on displaying them in the near future.

My Memo to MIT: Keep Em!

TheSolidSurfer.com comments: Mini Me, thank you for the excellent report and analysis. I fully agree with you - the Palestinian artwork is not a mere presentation of the Palestinian "side", but a blatant distortion of the truth that entirely contradicts Brandeis's founding values. Furthermore, presenting only one perspective of the conflict is quite dishonest intellectually, and I'm glad to hear the administration has had the good sense to recognize this. Now that Brandeis has made it's decision, I hope MIT goes even further and throws the art in the trash!

Protocols of the Elders of Harvard: Study Claims That Israel and AIPAC Control America

After the forced resignation of president Lawrence Summers, I thought Harvard couldn't sink any lower. But it has. Way lower.

The university's Kennedy School of Government has released a new study claiming that AIPAC and the pro-Israel lobby has convinced Americans to support Israel against America's best interests. The study argues that Israel hurts America's international standing, has chiefly caused anti-U.S. terrorism, and is the primary reason for America's worries about Iran, Iraq, and Syria. But the pro-Israel lobby, by manipulating the media and academia, has biased U.S. foreign policy towards Israel.

So folks, there you have it. Just as predicted in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Israel the puppeteer controls hapless America. And at Harvard, this belief is considered serious scholarship.

I don't know much about the study's authors (John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt), but one thing is certain - their work isn't worth the paper it's printed on. Apparently, they conveniently forgot that America, and not Israel, is Bin Laden's "Great Satan", and that the Arab world would be just as fanatic and dictatorial regardless of Israel's presence. I could debunk their claims in much greater detail, but it's not even worth wasting the effort; the fact that former KKK wizard David Duke supports them is all we need to know.

That said, both Martin Kramer and Michael Freund excellently refute the study's claims, and I highly encourage anyone to read their pieces.

Recent weeks have been a terrible low point in Harvard's history. Any more papers like this, and the Kennedy School of Government should have to rename itself after Jimmy Carter. I almost wouldn't be suprised if the Taliban at Yale decides to switch his colors to Crimson. Unless it changes quickly, Harvard truly risks losing its status as a leading academic institution.

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Update: The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto has written another sharp refutation of the study.

On Academic Radicals: David Horowitz's The Professors

I'm not quite trying to start an Oprah-style book club, but in light of the leftwing faculty attack on Harvard president Lawrence Summers that spurred his resignation, I'd like to suggest a book to all who are interested: The Professors by David Horowitz. Subtitled "The 101 Most Dangerous Academics In America", the publication discusses the most prominent of the radical university professors who support and teach the worst of leftist causes including Soviet Communism, terrorism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Americanism.

I haven't actually read the book, so I can't directly comment on its quality, but the author's stature as the editor of the excellent online publication Front Page Magazine should testify to the accuracy of his research and reporting. Furthermore, given the Summers episode and the multitude of infamous rants from leftist profs like Ward Churchill and Bill Ayers, the book's chosen topic is clearly important. These radicals have politically indoctrinated countless college students, and their outrageous falsehoods must be exposed. The professors' personal beliefs would matter far less if they left the politics out of the classroom, but all too often, this is far from the case.

Fortunately, I believe, most students can see through the leftist deceptions. The majority of the time, the professors' rhetoric so contradicts reality that even the most naive classroom attendees will dismiss it as nonsense. Back in my college days, for example, I had an American History professor who, bar none, blamed all of America's problems on Ronald Reagan. No matter the ailment -- poverty, inner city crime, high unemployment, drug abuse -- it was all the fault of the Gipper and his Republicanism. Hardly anyone in the course, though, took this ranting seriously; even those who detested Reagan knew that most social and economic problems have various causes unrelated to the legacy of a single president.

Problem is, a handful of students each year do fall prey to the indoctrination. I doubt my professor made Horowitz's book (his beliefs were quite mild compared to nuts like Duke's Miriam Cooke who supported the Taliban and excuses Palestinian terrorism), but I did know several people who became hardcore anti-American leftists by graduation, most likely as a result of similar teaching. Perhaps these classmates have since shed the identity, but the leftist academics clearly made their mark.

This, I feel, is why The Professors is so important. Until tenured academics shed the warped political slants from their teaching, we need writers like David Horowitz to alert us to the dangers. See Horowitz's website for the book, as well as Daniel Pipes's Campus Watch for more information. The book is available from, among other places, Front Page Magazine and Amazon.com.

The Left's Guiding Principle And Where It Goes Wrong

Many prominent leftist actions often seem puzzling to the rest of us. When leftwingers ally, for example, with Islamists against America, their position is so recklessly shortsighted that we wonder just how they can act so blatantly against themselves. Islamists in power would completely destroy everything the left holds dear, from freedom of speech to gay rights to feminism, but that doesn't stop groups like the employees of San Francisco's City Lights Books (as mentioned in my previous post) who have openly sided with the jihadists by refusing to sell Oriana Fallaci's pro-Western text The Force Of Reason. That this stance contradicts the leftists' own interests is quite obvious. But why can't they seem to see it? How blinded by ideology can one possibly be?

This same quandary also pops up frequently when encountering leftist political thought, from Jimmy Carter's peace-at-all-costs support of Hugo Chavez to European elites welcoming radical Muslim immigration to American university professors defending the motives of the 9/11 terrorists. Each time, we wonder: What can they possibly be thinking? Of course they must believe in their actions, but how can they not recognize such blatant missteps?

There probably isn't a definitive one-size-fits-all answer, but I'd like to offer an explanation that may account for much of it. Leftwingers believe, as Dennis Prager has touched on in the past, that all people are inherently good.

So what's the problem? In reality, being good is a choice, and while many people indeed act as such, others unfortunately choose to act evilly. But if you believe everyone is inherently good, then evil cannot truly exist and evildoers are not wrong but misunderstood. Therefore, instead of trying to defeat evil, you're always explaining it away, and thus unchecked the evil only grows worse.

Sadly in many cases, this is exactly what leftism has done. How many times have we heard statements such as the following: The terrorists aren't evil but are responding to legitimate grievances. Therefore, we shouldn't judge them, but must apologize for our own actions which must have provoked them. Crime is not the criminal's fault, but a result of his poor economic situation and oppression by society. Palestinian suicide bombers are not evil, just desperate because Israel has left them with no other choice. Muslims in Europe aren't wrong to be violent, just angry over unemployment and discrimination. It's okay for Hugo Chavez to suppress freedom; he has no other choice because of Venezuela's rich-poor gap. Saddam and bin Laden are not truly bad guys; they became dictatorial to rebel against the modern culture that threatened their traditional ways of life. The list goes on and on. Each time, the leftists see no evil because their belief in humanity's 100% goodness does not allow for the possibility.

Seen from this point of view, then, their actions no longer seem quite so ridiculous. These people naively believe that evil isn't real and proceed to act accordingly.

Look, for example, at a popular review of Steven Spielberg's film Munich by well known movie critic Harry Knowles. A self-confessed bleeding heart liberal, Knowles is clearly a nice guy and obviously well intentioned. But look at what he says about America's enemies:

[Munich] doesn’t just humanize the assassins, but the targets. Not only that - Steven dares to put them in the same room, to find a music they can both stand. To have the leader of a PLO group talk with a leader of an Israeli group about the resolve and hopelessness of either's situation...

We like to think of those on the other side as inhuman retches of society. They probably eat animals raw – or even fetid rancid with maggots. They spend all their time sharpening knives and acting like crazed madmen frothing at the mouth. They hate life and go around slapping anyone that looks at them.

In the 40s when we went to war with Japan, Italy and Germany – we made them inhuman monstrosities. It’s easier to kill an animal, than a man. Here, Spielberg attempts to defuse that by making these plotters of the unthinkable… just men. Intellectuals that would translate books to further their culture. That have cute children and loving wives. That appreciate a night sky and young love. That dream of living where their fathers lived and raising an olive tree. A people that dream of a better tomorrow, but dedicated to die for that dream. Same as the men that are hunting them.

Notice the review's key points? Like many leftists, Knowles simply can't acknowledge the presence of evil. We didn't make Japan, Italy, and Germany out to be monstrosities during World War II; they WERE monstrosities. It's not wrong to demonize the PLO terrorists; they DID act like inhuman retches of society. The hard left just doesn't get it.

But as events have played out over again ad infinitum, appeasing evil in the name of understanding never works and only emboldens the evildoers. Until the left recognizes this, they are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Albert Einstein once said that "the world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing." This advice is well worth heeding.

America and Overpopulation Myths

Ever driven across rural America and seen how much empty space is out there? Often, you'll cover hundreds of miles of land virtually devoid of people.

Contrary to the claims of many leftwingers, environmentalists, and other other doomsday population bomb types, the United States is not overpopulated. Far from it. Our 300 million people live in a geographic area about the same size as China, home to more than 1.3 billion. Many other areas of the world, including most of Europe, India, Southeast Asia, and West Africa also carry far greater population densities. Furthermore, we produce more food than we can possibly eat, and our per capita economic output leads the world (apart from Luxembourg, whose tax-haven status greatly inflates GDP).

But that doesn't stop certain leftist rants such as the one this San Francisco Gate columnist pulled on an Arkansas family that recently celebrated the birth of its sixteenth child.

Now of course sixteen kids is a lot, and certainly most people desire far fewer. But these particular parents wished for more, and that's that. End of story. There is certainly no need to publicly ridicule them for overpopulating the world (or to ridicule them for any reason, period).

The column's author may be correct in stating that one billion children around the world live in poverty, but this is entirely unrelated to the size of America's population (or, for the most part, population size anywhere). Rather, these poor children overwhelmingly live in unfree nations ruled by thugs and dictators who vastly limit their people's economic potential. South Korea, for example, has over double the population of North Korea, but the dictator-ruled North mires in dire poverty while the democratic South abounds in wealth.

Overpopulation clearly is not the drastic problem that many claim, and most certainly not in America. Our nation has plenty of room to grow, and if we choose to do so, then by all means we should.

Quick Links and Hollywood

Larry Elder agrees with much of this blog's previous writings on Hurricane Katrina.

Emilio Garza for the other Supreme Court vacancy? Ben Shapiro makes the case.

More on Hollywood celebrities using the hurricane to attack our president.

And some thoughts on the above piece:

As many of us know, Hollywood in 2005 has experienced its worst downturn in recent memory, with box office takes plunging, fewer films becoming blockbusters, and many expensively produced movies becoming major flops. Studios have largely fingered as the culprit the increasing abundance of other entertainment options, such as home theater and DVDs, video games, and the Internet.

But are these really to blame? Entertainment choices actually have been increasing for many years, starting with radios and television sets in the 1950s. Video games went mainstream in the '80s, while the Web has been around for a decade and DVDs for nearly as long. Certainly these may play a partial role in the Hollywood downturn, but I believe that the primary cause is a different beast altogether - bad movies. And are these related to the Tinseltown crowd's leftwing tendencies? You bet.

To most Hollywood actors and filmmakers, achieving artistic credibility among their peers is of paramount career importance, even more so than earning large sums of money. (Just to point out, this is no different than artists in fields from painting to poetry; hence the term "starving artist.") That's why you see directors like Woody Allen and Roman Polanski, neither of whom have scored a hit in many years, continue to attract top acting talent and generous studio funding for films that are almost assured to pull great reviews but poor box office results. As the Hollywood crowd sees it, who cares how many people actually watch the movie; it's Woody Allen and he makes great art.

Thing is, when most of your peers have political and cultural values far different than most Americans, you may be impressing your friends but you're also alienating most of your audience. This, I believe, is why moviegoers shunned well reviewed films with ultra-liberal viewpoints like Kinsey and The Interpreter, but flocked to critically savaged yet family-friendly movies like Napoleon Dynamite.

Now certainly this is not the only cause of bad-movie syndrome; Hollywood has in recent years relied far more on formulaic sequels, remakes, and TV adaptations than on fresh and original scripts. But the confluence of leftism and artistic peer-review has no doubt played a significant role.

Letter To Cindy Sheehan

The contributions keep rolling in. Here is an open letter to Cindy Sheehan, who has been protesting in front of President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas.

Dear Ms. Sheehan,

As a father of three young men who are the loves of my life, I have the ability to at least understand the depth of the bond you have lost. And, I admit that I cannot fully appreciate the profound sorrow, anger and despair you feel, and may never be able to do so, as my children, thank goodness, are alive and very healthy. Indeed, I shudder to imagine how I might react if I experienced what you have experienced. I hope, with all due respect to what you have endured, however, that I will not react like you have reacted. Because what you are doing is suppressing actual debate, not enhancing it - after all, who can seriously debate the issue of war with a woman who has lost her son in battle and lives to admonish or embarrass our president (whom she blames) to avenge her loss?

Matt Drudge yesterday reported that you now plan to protest paying your taxes so that you might indirectly put "this war on trial". If you really choose to take this course of action, you will undoubtedly be following in the footsteps of a number of other tax protestors, all of whom have in common one reason or another for their protests, some pedestrian and others more serious. In such cases the protestors, if discovered, are universally fined or jailed, an appropriate response by the state to prevent fiscal anarchy. Actions like not paying your taxes merely serve to demean the poignancy of your loss, and potentially classify you as just another wacky tax protestor who is waiting for the government to resume the gold standard.

After all, the debate about the war, its "trial", if you will, goes on daily in weblogs and the mass media, and is routinely delivered by politicians, the clergy and pundits galore. You are welcome to join in the debate; you need not commit tax evasion to do so. Incidentally, I'm glad you identified the issue as a war. Many people don't believe the action is indeed a war or that the rules of war should apply. Some believe the action is more in the nature of a police matter, or worse, a matter that can be resolved through reasoning or through negotiation. I too believe we are at war, with the most insidious of enemies: a fascist, racist form of Islam that cannot be appeased any more than Hitler could be appeased. It's difficult to win a war against an entity like that. It's tiresome to wage such a war. There are horrible losses to bear. But it's winnable and I believe we must win it or society as we know it will perish.

Why do I believe this? As Thomas Friedman says, the world is getting flatter. By this, I mean that heretofore complex technologies and formulas are becoming more commonplace and available. This means not only that we in America must continue to innovate to remain economically relevant, but also that horrible weapons will soon be available to terrorists and terrorist sponsoring countries. Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria - all these countries and, potentially, their terrorist surrogates will soon possess weapons of mass destruction within a reasonably short period of time. That is the world we are facing. We can either put our heads in the sand and give up, or face the facts now and do our best to endeavor that this scenario does not occur. To me, this is a war worth fighting and winning.

I notice that you believe differently, however. You seem to be quoted as saying that America's presence in Iraq and Israel's presence in Palestinian-populated territories are what is causing the terrorism against us. By this statement, you acknowledge that terrorism is indeed a political and strategic weapon of war. It is principally used as a guerilla tactic by forces that are weak against a foe that is strong. It relies on hiding behind innocents, and on brainwashing, cultivating and projecting the natural self-anger and frustration felt by everyone who has failed onto to a scapegoat. After all, who has failed most Muslims but other Muslims and their reprobate governments? And whose tactics are the Islamofascists mimicking but those employed by Hitler in Weimar Germany?

And more to the point, we were not in Iraq when New York City and many of its inhabitants, some of whom I knew, were brutally murdered by Islamofascist terrorists. And had we only fought the war in Afghanistan, and had we not entered Iraq, do you think the Islamofascists would be understanding and refrain from terrorist activities against U.S. troops in Afghanistan? Would you really feel any different had your son died in Afghanistan?

And as I recall, in 1948, when Israel was formed by the United Nations (the same body that formed the nearby Arab nations during the same time period) it was not yet "in" the West Bank and Gaza. Indeed, Israel is only there now as a result of an attack and invasion by its Arab neighbors. What would you suggest the Israeli government do in such a situation when appeasement or capitulation means death? What specifically could the government of Israel have done differently to save your son's life?

Ms. Sheehan, as you acknowledge, we are at war. Unfortunately, the war did not begin with Iraq and is not the result of our policies in Iraq. That is the excuse-de au currant. We are at war with fascism - a Muslim brand of fascism. Your son died in that war. He was brave and no doubt valiant. I am very sorry for your loss. But it was not in vain.

Eric Green,
Dallas, Texas

TheSolidSurfer.com comments:

For anyone who doesn't know, Eric is the orginal founder and owner of this website. Eric, thank you for the contribution, and it is fantastic to have your writing back on the site. It is never easy to criticize someone who is obviously suffering as Ms. Sheehan is. But even with the terrible loss of her son, nothing gives her the right to steal from all other taxpaying Americans by not paying her own. And by blaming "neo-cons and Israel" for his death, she is in truth greatly hurting herself by diverting attention on her son away from where it should be: on the fine person and soldier that by all accounts he was.