Not FASHIONABLE to protest real thugs and murderers.

Frauline Germany is another kept mistress; an adolescent country kick-started by the Marshall Plan then protected by Reagan’s Pershing missiles pointed at the USSR. That’s when “throngs of angry Germans protested” … against the US sugar daddy that was trying to prevent the Russian tanks from rolling into Germany the way they did in Czechoslovakia and Hungary.

Poor Chancellor Merkel from East Berlin is trying to put the immature Germans on the couch and talk them out of denial. Helping them not to fear global competition from the Polish plumbers.

Germans make Liberals look worldly.
Do they teach history this way in school?

The left, I'm afraid is inflicted with a severe case of naval gazing.

What a strange post.

The responses are "close your eyes cuz you know what they're going to say" stuff, but what a strange post.

So "the left" is to blame for...not protesting Putin? Shouldn't "the right" be blamed? After all, Putin is muzzling the press, etc., etc. All values of the right. Free Press. Free Enterprise. Markets. Association.

So "the left" should now be criticized for supporting the traditional "right" tenets.

I'm confused. I admit it. Point me the way, as they say on the right coast.

What I'd really like to know is who thinks Putin's a rightie and who thinnks he is a leftie.

Go ahead. Be brave.

nordica

nordica13 : The thing is, the Right don't DO protest. The left DO (ad nauseum). It's really just another lefty hypocrisy story. Nothing strange at all about that post.

OMMAG: Not fashionable, but more likely not safe!

And the international left never really gave up its love affair with the Soviet commies. And they're still commies, let's be clear on that.

Coincidentally, I did a post this AM which is an appropriate parallel to this story. It exposes the left yet again to the light of day...

Leftists Use N-word & Other Epithets at Columbia

http://thecanadiansentinel.blogspot.com/2006/10/leftists-use-n-word-other-epithets-at.html

Yes, I mentioned this in the last "Reader Tips" tip I left, but this is perfectly on-topic and adds to this post as a parallel.

nomdent: That's a most cogent analysis. Arrested adolescents -- all of Western Europe.

nordical13 (7:50 P/M.)...
"So "the left" is to blame for...not protesting Putin?"

Yes. The "right" (i.e. unprincipled warmonger Bush and his coalition of pets) is too busy freeing truly oppressed people all over the world.

Wanna REALLY raise the right's assessment of the left? Organize a BIG series of rallies around the world protesting honour killings of Muslim women (say, 5 million as a bare minimum) by Muslim males. Just for kicks, try to organize a bunch of high profile Hollywood types to fly into, oh, how about Islamabad, and have them march through the streets there protesting the Taliban's abuse, both past and present, of Womens' rights in north west Pakistan.

What's that? No guts? I thought not. All bluster, no substance.

Wish the sappy leftists would just clam up their pie holes and let the Men and Women get the job done.

The "right" doesn't protest. And blogs are...not protest?

Not sure what hypocricy you're talking about Me No Dhimmi.

Putin is in Germany. He is an avowed enemy of a free press. And the lack of a critical element is... a problem of the left?

I'm sorry. Still don't get it.

Putin is no more a lefty than Joe Stalin was.
He's a slimey little bastard of a tyrant who is setting himself up to be Supreme Commisar for life.

And just where is the outrage of the German Protestor cliques? Not a peep from the selfrighteous asswipes. Just more proof of the underlying theme of David's Medienkritik....The Left are Only interested in bashing the US. They are a bunch of hypocrites.

Now I bet you would see them out in force if there was a rally of anti-communist right wingers happening.

www.americancongressfortruth.com...
Scroll down, left hand side: "Watch Brigitte Gabriel's Interview". Takes a few minutes to download (20 or 25 minutes), runs 45 minutes.
She's Lebanese by birth, grew up steeped in the CERTAIN knowledge that Israel was a colossus of evil; she found out differently at age 17.

Off topic? Not really, considering the obtrusive defence by the left (hello Wrznalphabet et al) of Hezbollah last summer. Not a peep in defence of Israel... you know, the country which has been under attack from Hezbollassholes off and on since 2000.

OMMAG writes: "Putin is no more a lefty than Joe Stalin was." Absolutely right. You might want to make an authoritarian/totalitarian distinction here though.

OMMAG writes more: "And just where is the outrage of the German Protestor cliques? Not a peep from the selfrighteous asswipes."

Again with the name calling. Either have a beef and express it or stop telescoping your views. Just because my son calls your son a "fag" doesn't make his argument more cogent. Get out of the sandbox and argue like a man for God's sake. 14 year old girls do what you do - and to no great effect.

OMMAG writes (sigh) more: "Now I bet you would see them out in force if there was a rally of anti-communist right wingers happening."

Unless of course you lived in a Putin-established police state.

Then of course there's the possibility that the anti-communist right wingers are already in power.

What do you read daily? A high school newspaper?

Hey, nordica13, he's one of yours, cast in the mold of Stalin, that followed Lenin, that was an ideological disciple of Marx. He's pure old school un-rehabilitated KBG, that's his roots. He's re-Stalinizing Russia. The critics are bannished or being annihilated. The private tv stations have all returned to the hands of the state, so did Yukos, not the move of a capitalist.

He is the Left's problem because his behavior is deja vue Stalin, once an idol of the left. Putin is pure communism reconstituted. You really need to read Russia's history.

The Germans are morally compromised slobs. They are also energy dependent on Russia. It's all about oil, dear lefties.

nordica13 Semantics I think. When I say "protest" I'm thinking of those noisy street affairs with placards containing intemperate language likening Bush to Hitler, containing swaztikas and pictures of monkeys and thoughtful opinions like Bush spends all his waking hours dreaming up ways to kill kids, that kind of thing. I don't think of sda as a "protest" as such.

As I think you'll agree, the right -- or rather conservatives/libertarians, etc -- don't generally go in for that kind of spectacle.

Another exanmple, of course, is the utter failure of the feminist movement to protest against the fate of women under shariah law, forced marriages, like that. Stonings. Hangings for adultery. Honour killings, etc.

Generally, the idea seems to be that the 3rd world and persons of brown/black skin get a pass from the professional protest industry: I guess we should call it the tyranny of low expectations, like that.

In summary, the internatonal left basically does easy, safe protesting, and mostly at home.

Remember Svend Robinson's protesting? A day or two in jail, no risk to pay, no job security issues, like that. Easy, safe, posturing and preening for the cameras.

http://uncommontruths.blogspot.com/2006/10/president-of-thornhill-young-liberals.html

"Michelle Oliel of "Michelle's World" has resigned as head of the Thornhill Young Liberals over remarks made by Michael Ignatieff that referred to the tragic accident at Qana as a "war crime." Michelle was the director of the 2004 election's "Opposition Watch" (which, I guess will by now have changed it's name to "Conservative Government Watch"). "

Interesting.

Wow Penny, a history lesson. From a history major no doubt.

Let's break this down:

He's one of mine. Ummmm, no. The assumption being I am authoritarian or totalitarian. That would be a wrong assumtion.

Of course, being the student of history you are (name a book of Russian history you've actually read) you know that Lenin distorted Marx and Stalin distorted Lenin. Stalin was neither left nor right: he was a tyrant. So Putin is in fact a simple tyrant, the kind of guy that freedom lovers like Bush support in Khazaktstan.

And about Capitalism: let's face it, the big "c" works best in authoritarian regimes. Check out China.

What really astonishes is the comment "He is the Left's problem," Really. And why would that be? You mean the "left" should take care of Castro? Where do you get this stuff?

The thing is you seem to make it up as you go along. The Enlightenment came up with this thing called "reason." Try getting out of your tribal mentality.

To put it in a nutshell, the left has no leg to stand on; they're completely full of crap and show no sign of even wanting to get better. How sad... leftism is a terrible, debilitating disease. Poor, poor, pitiful moonbats.

And I agree with Penny re. Russia. Russia is not our friend. Russia has demonstrated conclusively that its allegiances like either with only itself, the Axis of Evil or both, not with the Allies of the Free World.

Following the fall of the Evil Empire, the Soviet Union, it appeared that there was a glimmer of hope for Russia... we thought that perhaps they were going to become part of the Free World. But it's painfully clear that history is repeating itself: the abrupt end of the temporary alliance between the Allies and the Soviets in WWII against the Nazis is recalled in President Putin's apparent turning away from the Free World in self-interest, allying with the enemies of the Free World instead.

The terrible Russian Bear has awakened from its long hibernation and is hungry, empty stomach growling...

Check out Peggy Noonan's article on the same subject--the white hot anger of the hypocritical left--over at Real Clear Politics.

Me No Dhimmi writes: "Semantics I think. When I say "protest" I'm thinking of those noisy street affairs with placards."

Which engages you in semantics too, since semantics is a linguistic determination of meaning. Dissent is protest, and you're engaging in it regardless of how you "sematicize" it.

And you're right, the "anything that remotely smells" of left doesn't engage in those kinds of things. What they do is start blogs and smear their opposition.

The rest of your post is off topic. Stop changing the subject. Who the F**k cares about Svend. Ummmm, except you.

What's all this Fag stuff nordica? Got a problem?
Who is arguing nordica? You think my intention is discourse with the likes of you? You think very highly of yourself then.

You don't like my language /choice of words?
Then do youself a favour and ignore them!

You don't like my opinion...too f**n bad for you!
I'm simply expressing my view of those people...
Putin = a slimey little bastard who is not to be trusted by anyone and will succeed in ruling Russia like Stalin did. Unless of course someone sneaks a load of plutonium under his office chair or somesuch.
The German Protestors = manage to organize great shows of righteous indignation over anything related to the US or Free Enterprise but when this SOB shows up ....Not A Peep! These are hypocrites! A POV expressed by DMK wich I agree with. Except of course this bunch may actually support Putin which is a whole other realm of detestable character.

Davids Medienkritik - where the dishonesty and hypocricy of German media and German attitudes of such as the Trendy Protest Bunch are diligently revealed.

And so on.....

So what do you read daily?
The Peoples Voice? or maybe The Spark?

Should I be impressed?

Canadian Sentinel writes: "To put it in a nutshell, the left has no leg to stand on; they're completely full of crap and show no sign of even wanting to get better. How sad... leftism is a terrible, debilitating disease. Poor, poor, pitiful moonbats."

I'd really like to see a definition of "left" other than it is something worthless. George Bush the other day agreed to a ban on bottom trawling in the oceans surrounding N.A. Funny thing: Greepeace has been pushing this agenda for some time. Is he a dupe? Or a moron? Gosh, could he be both? But I hate namecalling, unlike Canadian Sentinel - could you think up a more narcissistic rubric?

Let's deconstruct sentinel's arguments: the "left," whatever that is, cannot support itself on two feet, they don't know anything, and they're dumb. And pathetic.

Front of the class Sentinel. A critique that will go down in history for it's research-based acuity.

No wonder Andrew Coyne has abandoned his blog. He's tired of the deathless rants from people like you.

And to tell you the truth, Coyne is probably one of the very best columnists in Canada. By a long shot.

The left are a feather cushioned lot.

They chatter and protest - protected by what revelation, honour, wisdom and liberty have provided them. Yet sneeringly, like Jack Layton, they thumb their nose at their very own father's beliefs.

They march not to conserve, share and grow - but to destroy.

Don't shed a tear dear father, as I recast what you and my ancestors bled and died for, in order to bring forth me - the enlightened man - to remake the world in our modern collective image.

The image of our heroes: Marx, Stalin, Mao. Che, Fidel. And a fullflilment of the enlightened utopia they perceived.

Burn, baby, burn.

The left in this country, broadly speaking, opposes Canadian troops in Afghanistan, but not the Taliban's treatment of women; they oppose the US, but not China; they oppose Israel, but not Syria, Iran, or the PLO.

When vast totalitarian governments arise out of the very same langauge as the left -- concern for "the people" -- and leave tens of millions dead and suffering, they'll say, for example, that "Lenin distorted Marx, and Stalin distorted Lenin", and that they weren't really "left". Well, no shit, Sherlock, that's the whole point: the pandering, selective dream-state of leftists with their golden-path ideas for implementing a perfect society has always resulted in horror. Rather than recognizing this, the left claim that Castro, Lenin, Mao etc just didn't get it right.
That's, uh, kind of the definition of insane thinking.

The left thrives on victimhood, and then turns around and neglects it's inevitable victims. This denial is typically paraded as some struggle for the "truth". Their attacks on the western seats of freedom in the world are lauded as "justice-seeking". They claim to speak for the little people and the voiceless, yet they fall completely silent when communists and former communist states execute journalists, starve their opulations, abduct poets and writers in the middle of the night, etc.

Let's take nordica13's suggestion at face value for a moment: Putin is not a leftist. Okay, let's say he's a right-wing, corrupt capitalist. The question still remains: Why are the representatives of the left, who never fail to burn effigies of Bush, Thatcher, etc not protesting Putin's brutality, the ongoing murder of critical journalists, etc., or his presence in Germany? If they're relieved from their usual conscience-based protests because he's not "theirs", one would have to ask, is George Bush, then, "theirs"? Is Israel?

BTW, N13, you're right, Coyne is one of the best, if not the best columnist in Canada. As for why he has abandoned his blog recently, you shouldn't presume to speak for him. On his blog, those who *agreed* with him were generally from the self-identified right, and his best and most recent columns have decried, in genteel terms, the idiocies of the left.

Oh, and remember Big City Liberal?

(Sigh) OMMAG write: "What's all this Fag stuff nordica? Got a problem?"

Illustrative comment on my part OMMAG (like you don't know); on your part: beside the point and immaterial. Next.

(Siigggggh) OMMAG writes, and writes: "Who is arguing nordica? You think my intention is discourse with the likes of you? You think very highly of yourself then."

Yeah OMMAG, but you posted in response. Answered your own question and now you look sorta foolish.

OMMAG kinda writes: "You don't like my opinion...too f**n bad for you!"

Put this guy on the debating team. Awesome. (You know, I've seen your photo and you really *look* older than you sound.)

OMMAG continues to write: "I'm simply expressing my view of those people..."

Yeah, but OMMAG, your opinions are received opinions. You simply ape what everyone else who harbours the "politics of resentment" says. You're a seething puddle of hard feelings, sour grapes. You sound like a kid cut from the "A" team.

And the rest of it is cliches strung together with "ands" and "buts."

Surely you realize this. Surely you look inside yourself and see the collapsing skin of your pseudo-ideas.

EBD - It's not about LOGIC....the slavish adherence to misplaced and misunderstood ideals is like a pathology.

As for nordica....mock me if you want.
I stand by what I say.

nordica13,

Any chance of anything ... I do mean anything ... original?

nordica13, if you're so smart as you believe, you don't need anyone to explain what it means to be "left". I've fallen into the trap before of trying, but have learned. You know full well what I'm talking about.

On the other hand, the left cannot provide an acceptable, valid def'n of "right", seeming to believe that "right" means to oppose human rights and to kill people who are different, among other things... but, come on... today, those who oppose human rights are the darlings of you leftists. And those who kill those who are different are supported oh, so eagerly by the left.

I'm talking about the member nations of the Axis of Evil and of the Islamofascists. I suppose these guys are "right-wing", as were Hitler, Stalin et al? I suppose your support for these people therefore makes you "right-wing"?

I'm beginning go develop the opinion that left and right have merged into one symbiotic relationship whereas normal, conservative folks who think for themselves are neither left nor right, nor even "centrist"... we just are regular folks. That means that Republicans and Conservatives are neither left/right nor center... we are regular folks. Everyone else is just plain nuts.

Well, good night... enjoy the discussion.

Bound and determined to have the LAST word nordica?

Let's take a look at EBD's comments for a sec, notably: "The left in this country, broadly speaking, opposes Canadian troops in Afghanistan, but not the Taliban's treatment of women."

C'mon EBD, on the face of it this is an absurd statement. Say this out loud in front of the offices of the National Post. Mark Steyn would argue that one. Herein lies the echo chamber of the SDA blog. Say anything and some mouth breather will agree.

Another EBD discourse on the history of ideas: "the pandering, selective dream-state of leftists with their golden-path ideas for implementing a perfect society has always resulted in horror. Rather than recognizing this, the left claim that Castro, Lenin, Mao etc just didn't get it right."

Interesting syllogism but that's all that is. The modern democratic left has gotten all kinds of things wrong, the most obvious being the use of the State to obviate demographic wrongs, like the number of viz-mins in gov't. Stuff like that. Linking the odious Gloria Steinem to the likes of Shining Path geurillas is a bit much.

I'm a divorced man paying child support. In Canada. I can give you chapter and verse of the kind of ignominy delivered to men under custody and access let alone maintenance provisions as created by the "women's caucus" on Parliament Hill. And that is left wing. And it was supported by conservative women in parliament. But I can't support the kind of ad hoc crap EBD puts in his post. It's not only paranoid, it's hallucinatory.

EBD just strings a bunch of things together and call it left wing. A right wing monkey could do that. I think.

The rest of your post is off topic. Stop changing the subject. Who the F**k cares about Svend. Ummmm, except you.

Posted by: nordica13 at October 13, 2006 09:47 PM

That isn't off-topic... Svend is one of the most prominent leftists of all, making it on-topic. A radical, in-your-face, thieving, lying, manipulatively-affective moonbat infamous for shaking a piece of paper at the IDF, telling them he doesn't recognize their authority and, incredibly, walks past them, to be shocked when he's pushed back. And who could forget his support of the Serbs under Slobodan Milosevic while they were committing genocide against the Muslims of Kosovo (Yugoslav Muslims aren't all that innocent, historically, many having been Nazis themselves in WWII, but we conservatives cannot support genocide of any peoples just because their ideology might be evil and some of them as well... you deal with the ideology, not kill all the people, but I guess Svend was fine with the Serbs' wholesale culling of the Muslims, as I believe most leftists were as well, since they opposed the NATO war against the butcherous Serbs).

All leftists are fair game as examples. The behavior of each of them may be held up as an example of what may be acceptable to the left as long as the left in general continues to accept the extremists as their own, no matter what... and the left continues to support Svend Robinson, having rewarded him with an $85,000/annum union post shortly following his conviction for stealing a very expensive piece of jewellery and only turning himself in after it was disclosed that he was caught on videotape in the criminal act.

Incredibly, he got no criminal record and was merely sentenced to some community service, which I don't know whether he even performed.

The left protects its own, no matter how radically extreme... or even dangerous.

(name a book of Russian history you've actually read)

Oh, come on. This isn't the playground. It's not show and tell time.

Stalin wasn't an aberration. He was the logical extension of the mass collectivizations of Lenin, remember the political murders, the show trials, and the famines under Lenin?, obviously not. The collective works of Solzenitzyn, winner of the Nobel prize for literature, pretty much cover in agonizing detail the definitive history of that period from Marx to Stalin with all of the dots connected.

Oh, and, the Left needs to take responsibility for Pol Pot, Castro, Mao, now Chavez and every other communist thug that used mass murder, political prisons, and the forced removal of citizen's property in the name of communism. Show me where in a free and fair election in the world people chose to be collectivized or wards of the state?

Defend the left all you want. Your shallow hobbled smattering of incoherent definitions...The Enlightenment came up with this thing called "reason."...!!!!....no kidding...tells me that you've swallowed whole some lame poli sci instructor's useless drivel. Your loss. That makes you a sheeple, instructed, not educated. Big Difference.

Let me put it this way Sentinel (and I, humble servant, take no credit for this): the world can be divided into two groups - ideologues and pragmatists. The world *could* be divided into left and right but we are poorly served by this division. David Frum goes on ad nauseum about someone belonging to the wrong ideology, but I say it is ideology itself that is wrong.

The liberals have run this country for far too long but they did it through pragmatism, i.e., what policy, at what juncture in time, through which mechanisms, will serve the party's and the country's purposes? And don't be constrained by ideas of conservatism or liberalism while you make your decision.

The Iraq policy group ideology stated outright that first the Americans should open up markets and once markets were open everything else -through enlightened self interest - would follow. Paul WOlfowitz has admitted the mistake. Based on what? An ideology anchored no differently than that of Lenin: a meaningful movement of history predictable through economic cycles. I.E., if we implement one thing, the other thing is sure to follow. Lenin altered Marx for his own purposes - to bypass Capitalism in Russia. Did it work?

No. And neither did Iraq. Via Wolfowitz.

A pragmatist on the other hand would pick and chose, study not ideologies and fantasies but history itself. Colin Powell is a pragmatist. So was Chretien, but I thought the guy was also a rank opportunist

I am neither left nor right. I am an empiricist. And a phenomenologist.

And you guys are name callers.

Posited by penny: "It's not show and tell time."

Oh but it is Penny, it is. Any "moonbat" can make bald assertions Penny. But can you back it up?

If you can point out a substantive difference between Hitler, Stalin, Kim Jong Il, Mao ze Dong, Sadam Hussein or any other despot of thE last 100 years - OTHER THAN IDEOLOGICAL PRETEXT (which really amounts to a matter of *style* in their propoganda) - then let me know.

Go on and on and on (and on and on and on) about the crimes of Stalin and call him a leftist. Go ahead. To me they're all of a type: men who want power and will latch onto any convenient set of ideas that will carry their ambitions through.

Wanna link Jack Layton to Stalin? Go ahead. Then *you're* no different and no more correct than someone who mindlessly (and lazily) connects Bush to Hitler.

You're a bunch of name callers. Label affixers. And you're intellectually lazy.

nordica, schmordica see ya later moron.

name caller writes: "nordica, schmordica see ya later moron."

"Don't worry if you cannot enjoin an argument; you can always call the other person names."

Oscar Wilde

moron

name caller

nordica13,

Ok, I'm a label affixer. You are Nothing - devoid of any original thought (more than enough feelings).

Join the line on the left.

N13, you called me a "right-wing monkey"; you said I was paranoid and hallucinatory. Then, you pouted that "you guys are name-callers".

Um, see any hypocrisy there, fella?

Let's look at your counter-attack, shall we? You said it was absurd for me to note that the left, broadly speaking, opposes the presense of Canadian troops in Afghanistan.

Er, would you say that the left in Canada, broadly speaking, supports or opposes the presense of Canadian troops in Afghanistan? Let's see who's being absurd, you little monkey you! :>)

Can we have some civility, please? The baby Jesus is crying.

"Left" = ideologue.
"Right" = pragmatist.

The Liberals ran the country through chicanery i.e. what policy, at what juncture in time, through which mechanisms (however flawed), would serve the party's purpose in their greedy quest to hang on to power... and that's that.

I get a kick out of the anti-Iraq crowd. Cripes, you'd think Saddam Hussein was gonna live forever; not a lot of stability if he would have croaked "in office", if you can call it that. No, Iraq IS NOT a mess; try a read of "Iraq the Model" and Michael Totten. Neither is Afghanistan, for that matter. Oh, almost forgot, incursions into Iran are what is required now. Of course, the left... I mean, the ideologues, would have a group apoplectic fit, but at least Iran would butt out of Iraq. That would likely be ALL it would take to bring the parties to the table, and put paid to virtually all the sectarian killings (more like the Corleones and the Tataglias).

I hear, through Michael Totten, that the Islamic fascist movement (ideologues) in Algeria is dead; it took 150,000 deaths, and 15 years of civil war. Nobody, but NOBODY in Algeria wants an Islamic government... just peaceful democracy.

Fastest growing economy in the world? Iraq (17% last year). Take away the Sunni Triangle, and Iraq is hardly a mess. Kurdish Iraq is like a mini America, and the Kurds are VERY pro American, because THEY understand, as do the "pragmatists" (from both traditionally the "left" i.e. Hitchens, Nick Cohen, Iggy... that's about it..., and, oh, a few thousand easily recognizable traditionally "right" leaning personalities) that there's work to do.

Gawd! You'd think Canada didn't coast for, what, 120 years before it coalesced into a country... and a pretty fragile country at that until the 20TH century. Give Iraq a chance; it's going AMAZINGLY well. And don't give me that b.s. about 655,000 dead. What a load of crap.

Gotta phone my uncle Roy now; those shrap wounds still act up on him a bit. Never met uncle Harold; flak killed him in 1942. My mother kissed her 1ST husband goodbye in the S'toon train station in '42; where his body is nobody knows. And IRAQ is a mess? For whom?

Dante,

Congrads on the Med school.

Joe B.,

Never bring facts to a fantasy fest.

Y'know, Putin may very well be a Stalin-in-training, but I still find it rather hard to work up any sympathy at all for the Chechyans.

ural (12:06 A.M.)...
You're right...er... correct, where was my head?
I know where it USED to be, about 12 or 14 years ago. Then I quit supporting the New Democrats, if ya know what I mean.

The Left has never been "liberal" in the classical sense of the term. It has never believed in freedom. They hate democracy, capitalism, and individual thought. They love tyrants and dictators that advance collectivism and trample individualism. The Left never considers the evil perpetrated by her catalog of collectivist tyrants, such as Pol Pot, Saddam, Castro, Mugabe, Jong Il, Armadinjad, Putin (I could go on and on) that stifle, enslave and kill individuals.

They see no hipocrisy in calling for action in Yugoslavia, East Timor, and the horn of Africa while proclaim action against Saddam, the bloodiest living individual since Pol Pots peaceful and comfortable death, as "illegal". The UN is their Church, but only when it suits them. They are the apostates of Western "liberalism".

One only has to examine the treatment of apostates by the Lefts main geopolitical allies to know they espouse NO REAL PRINCIPLES. One could sum up the Leftist attitude with three words: AGAINST FREE PEOPLE.

I'm late to this thread, but I'm finding I agree more with Nordica than the others. Labels like "right" and "left" have gotten too simplistic, to the point where they are virtually meaningless. To call Putin a "lefty" is ridiculous. He's a tyrant, pure and simple. I wouldn't be surprised if a major reason no one protested his visit to Dresden was that they feared the KGB still had agents there, and there might be reprisals. I don't think anyone in the world would have the same fear of GW Bush.

And to say the "left" protests, while the "right" doesn't - later on today (Sat. Oct 14), a man from my city of Richmond Hill is planning to lead a demonstration of (reportedly) 2,000 protestors to Caledonia to challenge the native occupation there. He fully expects confrontation with the OPP. His ideology is what many would label "right wing".

Labels can be useful shorthand, but left/right and liberal/conservative have been trivialized. What if you're like me - against the gun registry, the Court Challenge Program, and Kyoto, among many "liberal causes", but not at all worried about internet porn, marijuana use, or teaching kids about sex, among "conservative causes"? Am I right or left? Liberal or conservative? I don't think I fit either category, and I think trying to shoehorn people into one or the other is a waste of time.

My preferred bifurcation point is "at what point do you have the right to tell me what to do?". If what I'm doing can be shown to prove active, demonstrable harm (as opposed to the secondhand smoke farce or the equally unproven anthropogenic global warming hypothesis), I think society has a right to stop me. If not, not.

But reflexive labelling is, as Nordica pointed out, intellectually lazy. If you have a real problem with, say, Putin, it's easy enough to point out what you don't like: state censorship, brutal repression, death of journalists, etc. Take the time to make an argument; reading posts full of name calling is boring.

And now for something completely off-topic:

On Monday night in Richmond Hill, a car accident claimed the life of Venezia Storm. She was 12 years old, and played soccer with my daughter for 3 years. She was beautiful, lively, lightning fast, and had a devastating shot. (I used to play goal in practice, and her shots had my hands stinging even when she was 10 years old.) We'll be attending her funeral this morning, and if anyone here has a moment to remember her in their prayers, I would be grateful.

We are our own worst enemy..for many years we derided and encouraged Germany to be pacifistic and encouraged them to tow NATOS' line.Unfortunately,we forget that the communists moved in big time into Germany post war....they were omnipresent when Hitler and his SA battled them on the streets in post WW1 Germany..there was nothing new here..Since the 1917 Bolshevik overthrow of the Tzar,this was a major battleground..

After the second world war,especially in places like Dreseden(where my parents and ancestral home is..)the KGB and NKVD formed groups of Germans sympathetic to their cause and re-created the scenes of 1933 all over again...

Through the 50's , there was German resistance to this, but eventually the doctrine of a demilitarised Germany took the fore...You can't have it both ways..Germany was pacified post war,and then asked later to re-arm to fight against the Russian hordes..please forgive the German people if they had heard that one before and declined the invitation..

Statistics taken from the Canadian Human Mortality Database; year 2000 is the last reference given.
- deaths from January 1998 through December 2000:
625,234.
- add in the last 6 months of 1997 (which would
equal the 3-1/2 years of the Iraqi conflict),
and the Canadian mortality rate would increase
to about 725,000.
- Canada's population in 2000: approximately
30 million (some 30,007,000, to be exact);
Iraq's population today: approximately
28.8 million.
- death took 2.42% of Canada's population over
the course of those 3-1/2 years.
- death took 2.27% of Iraq's population over the
course of the last 3-1/2 years.

Conclusion - Statistics are a mug's game.

Speculation - Either Lancet is up their ass, or they have a political ax to grind. My belief is it's about 50/50.

Firmly held belief - people who are against the Iraqi Freedom Project (perfect name, what?) have not got the brains of an ice cube.

kursk, I am not unsympathetic to the German people. But, could they not be expected to contrive some semblance of common sense and basic human decency among them from 1914 until now?

Let's do take German ambitions of Communist global subjugation off the table. Would it then be possible to also hope the German people could understand that the evil that mobilized the Germans into collectivist genocide is indemic to human nature?

Would it then be too much to ask that they remember the selfless sacrifice of the nation that helped lift them into prosperity?

My grandfather, aunts, and uncles risked their lives for GERMAN FREEDOM -- freedom from your homegrown maniacal killers. My mother and father lived in abject poverty during the Marshal Plan TO FEED GERMANS.

My friends, again, risked their lives in Yugoslavia for European "never again" bravado. Empty thoughts, empty words, empty meanings. Freedom still means nothing. Democracy means nothing. The search for a collectivist Utopia marches on.

Despite the sacrifices of my parents and grandparents, Germans now seem to think Americans are the ignorant fascists. They build bunkers for Saddam, make backroom deals with Armadinejad, romance Castro and Putin, all while calling my DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED President, "Hitler" to global applause.

Merkel has taken something of an edge of it, but I have followed German geopolitics for a long time, including Schroders "new" oil adventures, and I do not know that Germany is my ally.

I do not mind an unfriendly friend, but I have serious problems with a friendly enemy. I have obligations to both my ancestors and my children, and I take them seriously. Do you?

kursk, I am not unsympathetic to the German people. But, could they not be expected to contrive some semblance of common sense and basic human decency among them from 1914 until now?

Let's do take German ambitions of Communist global subjugation off the table. Would it then be possible to also hope the German people could understand that the evil that mobilized the Germans into collectivist genocide is indemic to human nature?

Would it then be too much to ask that they remember the selfless sacrifice of the nation that helped lift them into prosperity?

My grandfather, aunts, and uncles risked their lives for GERMAN FREEDOM -- freedom from your homegrown maniacal killers. My mother and father lived in abject poverty during the Marshal Plan TO FEED GERMANS.

My friends, again, risked their lives in Yugoslavia for European "never again" bravado. Empty thoughts, empty words, empty meanings. Freedom still means nothing. Democracy means nothing. The search for a collectivist Utopia marches on.

Despite the sacrifices of my parents and grandparents, Germans now seem to think Americans are the ignorant fascists. They build bunkers for Saddam, make backroom deals with Armadinejad, romance Castro and Putin, all while calling my DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED President, "Hitler" to global applause.

Merkel has taken something of an edge of it, but I have followed German geopolitics for a long time, including Schroders "new" oil adventures, and I do not know that Germany is my ally.

I do not mind an unfriendly friend, but I have serious problems with a friendly enemy. I have obligations to both my ancestors and my children, and I take them seriously. Do you?

"the world can be divided into two groups - ideologues and pragmatists" -nordica13

--Whatever you want to believe.

Actually, 'tis the leftists (yourself included) who're the ideologues.

It's regular folks (conservatives) who're the pragmatists. Oh, yes!

We conservatives are the ones who understand the reality of the world and who take that into account all the time. That's pragmatism.

Leftists the ideologues, conversely, stick to dogmas like socialism, gay marriage, appeasing evil, etc... nothing pragmatic about any of that, as they're either proven to not work or not proven to work for society (the gay marriage thing).

Leftists only believe they know what they're talking about. That's what I mean by leftism as a disease: the disease is delusion. And who's more delusional than the left, if they're the ones who believe that sitting down and chitchatting with the minions of the devil (like the Taliban) will convince them to be good? The list of leftist delusions is so long it could circle the earth umpteen times...

And, nordica, I believe you're demonstrating for the many readers of this blog precisely what I'm talking about. Think about that (Oh, wait... what am I saying? You leftist guys don't bother to think!)

I know a way to "get out The Left" to demonstrate against Putin.

Someone should urge the guy to say something favourable about Christianity immediately followed by something negative about Islamists.

Such *bigotry* would drive the euro-lefties just apeshit in a new york minute!

Once read a little tome entitled "The Russian Idea" (forget the author, although he was Russian) which argued that Soviet communism was merely secular czarism. The salient points from both polticial "cultures" dovetailed in an almost perfect manner.

Is Russia our friend or foe?

From a political perspective, Russia is, all things considered, a Central Asian Khanate; and this despite the fact that Russians themselves are European and of a Christian background.

Russia has the all the political finesse and delicatesse of a maurading Tartar tyrant and Putin's style is that of a Hun.

Despite the connotation the term "Hun" often has, I do not mean it to be insulting in any way whatsoever. Russia's feet may be anchored in the culture and religion of Byzantium, but its head is jam-packed with the authoritarianism of Central Asia.

You know, the old KGB "ve have vays uff makingk you tawk" schtick!

The conquest by the Tartars in 1240 left an indelible political stamp on Russia (and not a very good one, either) whose extent and impact can be neatly compared to that of the Norman conquest of England.... a much more positive event.

As a result, we can talk to'em, we can be cordial, we can reason with 'em, but we can never, ever trust'em.

Is the Russian "bear" reawakening? If it is, it's more a grr than a GRR

All I know is that its fur is pretty mangey!

Sigh, I'm afraid, John, that the left will never demonstrate against Putin.

Note that under Putin, Russia is strongly anti-gay, something that would logically cause the left to go totally nuts and march naked down the streets with picket signs equating Putin to Hitler or the Devil.

But this hasn't happened. Why? Because the left likes the fact that Putin is a communist beneath the surface and that he's not a friend of the Free World.

I really don't think that the left really cares about gays- gays for the left are just a useful tool for attacking Christianity and conservative Free World values. I don't think they care about Muslims, either... again, like with the gays, Muslims are an ally of convenience in the left's quest to destroy the Free World civilization because the left hates everything about the Free World. They don't know what they want to replace it with, though they do value nothing but selfish, self-and-society-destructive hedonism, and a world with rules stands in the way of this "value" of the left. They want a world in which anything goes. They want complete, unfettered, every-man-for-himself anarchy.

Of course, they don't bother to think ahead to how they'll deal with the non-Free World after they destroy the Free World. They're so stupid and delusional they don't realize that the non-Free World will execute a final solution on these unwashed, unkempt, unruly folks... we see the non-Free World killing off unacceptable people all the time, and leftists would be on the hit list for sure. Too bad this reality is lost on them.

Do they think the Chinese Communists would let them live? Would Ahmadinejad let them live? Kim Jung Il? If they do, they're wrong.

I know the above sounds nutty and farfetched, but how else can one explain the left? The left itself is nutty and farfetched, after all!

For what it's worth, somebody's protesting.

"Arriving in Dresden, the city where he served as a KGB spy in the 1980s, the Russian president was heckled by 2,000 demonstrators furious over the killing of Anna Politkovskaya, shot dead by a gunman outside her home on Saturday afternoon."

"As Mr Putin got out of his limousine, one man shouted: "You're a murderer, you're not welcome here."

from Telegraph.co.uk:
tinyurl.com/yhxchh

2000 demonstrators! Excellent!
But were those masses of drum thumping dreadlock adorned trendies there?

To The Left, Putin represents "the resistance" battling the hegemonic imperialism of the yanquis!

Putin opposes sanctions against Iran, he opposes the NATO actions in Iraq, as well the extension of NATO eastwards to the borders of Russia.

That fact that Putin opposes a free press, that his henchmen kill journalists and that he foot-drags on democratic reforms means nothing to our bien pensants like "Budd-the-spud"

Putin opposes Bush.....that's all that matters.

"Bush is Hitler!". "No blood for oil!"

We all know the drill