Victory for free speech and truth: LA Jewish Federation apologizes for cancelling Geller talk

There are not many men who are as courageous as Pam, either!

China might not put up with it but India might. Democracy helps Islam gain traction and the Indian government will do anything for the Muslim vote.
I'm not sure about this scenario you talk about because I tend to think that the conversion rate to Islam will accelerate over the coming years. The "call to Islam" is administered by Saudi Arabia and also by our own government departments and media outlets and schools. Many will succumb to the propaganda. Eventually, Islam will be defeated, if only by its own inherent weaknesses, but the short-term prognosis is not good.
And if the Chinese people get too stroppy, who knows? The Chinese Government might decide to get on the bandwagon, too.

Nykos, I see that your village is still without its idiot. Isn't it time to stop roaming and return home?

Your anti-Semitic jibes are truelly vile.

"What gives? Are American Jews liberals before they are Jews?"

Without knowing that "liberalism" contains within its movement many of the good virtues of Judaeo-Christian Graeco-Roman Civilization, such a question's rhetorically posed bafflement makes sense. At the threshhold of that bafflement, one has a choice to make, between two paths to take for explanatory relief: either continue to demonize liberalism simplistically and thereby demonize the liberal Jews along with it; or understand the situation we are all in with a little more nuanced sense of the tragic-comic. The former leads to civil war; the latter may be our best hope for a restoration of the West's former rationality.

LemonLime, I'm sorry, I vehemently disagree with you. "Classical Liberalism" contains within its movement many of the good virtues of Judeo-Christian Graeco-Roman Civilization. I hold many classical liberal values, though I self-identify as a conservative.

"Classical liberalism is a political ideology that advocates limited government, constitutionalism, rule of law, due process, individual liberties including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets...." (Wikipedia)

Contemporary liberalism ("progressivism"), for the most part, bears no resemblance to classical liberalism. Most contemporary "liberals" (today's left) are trying to shut down Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller and other counter-jihadists. Liberals want to deprive us of our freedom of speech. Today's liberals are the true fascists. Not all but many. Today's liberal activists ally with the jihadists.

What are you saying?

"Mayor Ed Koch, Alan Dershowitz, Abraham Foxman, Elie Weisel, etc." What? Are you sure? Maybe they voted for Obama in 2008? I don't know about the others, but at least Ed Koch publicly expressed his disapproval of Obama. Obama is not only anti Israel, but anti American for God's sake. Surely, these highly intelligent people cannot be that blind.

These men are very naive and that is being kind. Even Holocaust survivor / Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel thinks he set Obama straight on Israel and Jerusalem at a White House luncheon! Alan Dershowitz (protests notwithstanding) still supports Obama. I lost faith in George W. Bush (voted for him in 2000) only days after the 9/11 attacks when he dedicated his administration to the establishment of a Muslim-enemy state in Israel; after the many lies he told the public about Islam. I am a forty plus year registered Republican. If Romney is elected president and he starts in with all this nonsense, I am going to publicly condemn him. I will not maintain my support for him or his anti-Israel policies. I will not make excuses for him because he is one of "our guys."

Let's take Ed Koch. I sent the following piece from Politico to our Jewish discussion group:

He (Koch) added, "I think Obama has done a terrific job in the last six months in support of Israel. And I want to praise him and I want to reelect him."

Koch: I helped change Obama

http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/06/koch-i-helped-change-obama-on-israel-127104.html

By MAGGIE HABERMAN | 6/24/12 10:40 AM EDT

Koch helped change Obama, this dedicated Israel-hater?

Perhaps Mayor Koch could benefit by reading from the book of Ecclesiastes:

"A poor yet wise lad is better than an old and foolish king who no longer knows how to receive instruction." (Ecc 3:13)

Maybe you are right. I called them cowards because, given our history, we have no excuse for moral cowardice.

wildjew,

From my perspective, the issue is more complex than a Wikipedia article can do justice to.

First, I put "liberalism" in quotes because I was not really referring to it, but felt constrained by short time and wanting to post a brief comment to use that term, when I really wanted to use the term "PC MC" -- which I believe is related to "liberalism", but distinct in important ways.

Second, I agree in part with the distinction that has become fashionable, between "classical liberalism" and some other type of liberalism that is bad, variously termed -- you used "progressivism" to denote it. Where I disagree with this model is your apparent hard and fast dissimilarity you wish to pose contrasting these two liberalisms. Yes, they do have differences, in history and content, but they are not utterly different. I would maintain that historically they swam in the same water, so to speak. As far as derivation goes, it may not be so simple as to say that progressivism derived from classical liberalism, or perhaps was an aberrant offshoot from it (or in some ways, both). Basically, I see a complex process unfolding in Western history, which I will probably now over-simplify, because otherwise I'd have to write pages and pages.

What you see as an apparently simply deleterious "progressivist liberalism" I see as a more complicated process by which liberalism over time became tainted, and drew upon deeper sources in Western tradition of Gnosticism which had all along been percolating under the surface so to speak, erupting here and there as heretical movements, magic, witchcraft, etc. A certain portion of this Gnostic substance found expression in the Reformation, and then the Enlightenment with its consequent Revolutions.

There has thus been a kind of bifurcation of the "bad liberalism" into a virulently radical liberalism that tends to be truly inimical to the West (e.g., Communism); and a more socially amenable liberalism that has good intentions and does not want violent revolution, but has a lot of bad ideas for society nonetheless.

Further percolating out of the latter, the Bad Liberalism Lite, has been a process deriving what I call "PC MC" -- which has reflected an overall trend throughout the West in the 20th century of liberalizing all points on the political and social spectrum, such that even conservatives now have become in varying degrees mushy and liberal-minded about many social and political issues. This isn't a simple rule: there is a lot of variety, where we can find some conservatives who are more traditionalist about certain issues, and others who are less so. But it is a discernable overall trend. On some sociopolitical issues, many conservatives may feel safe remaining true to their ideology; but on certain issues, they go with the sea change the whole West has been surf-riding -- such as "Tolerance for the Other" no matter what, bleeding over into an often thoughtless tolerance for Muslims just because they are perceived to be an ethnic Other. This I believe is the #1 reason why the West remains myopic to the problem of Islam, and why there is tremendous inertia to changing this. This would not be the case if this problem were limited only to those Dastardly Leftists and Liberals.

This PC MC process more than radical liberalism has involved the mingling of good and bad ideas. Tolerance for the Other is a good virtue, and it derives from our Judaeo-Christian Graeco-Roman heritage. Curiosity about the Other is also such a good virtue. Self-criticism about our own culture is yet another good virtue that is natural to the West. Where it goes wrong with PC MC is in cultivating these to an irrational excess. So it becomes more difficult to extricate the good from the bad.

This difficulty is augmented by certain facts about our current enemy -- namely, that he is not simply the Army of some hostile Nation, but is a whole People scattered all over the Earth in nearly every country, composed of mostly Civilians, and looking Ethnic. These facts put enormous strain on people who are affected by PC MC, putting pressure on them such that their ability to connect the dots and assess the data rationally is often significantly inhibited, simply by virtue of those facts acting as prejudicial axioms: Ordinary mainstream Islam can/t be the direct blueprint of those who wish to destroy our society and subjugate us -- therefore, it isn't. The ordinary Muslim can/t be our enemy -- therefore, he isn't. This is the reigning thought process concerning the problem of Islam; and it has less to do with "bad liberalism" than with a much deeper, broader process that has become by a sea change of a paradigm shift -- involving our good heritage as much as bad elements floating along in its historical currents -- the dominant and mainstream world view of the modern West.

LemonLime, you've obviously given historic political ideology much thought and study. I read political philosophy and more often than not, my eyes "glaze over." A few months back I bought "The Conservative Mind, From Burke to Eliot," by Russell Kirk. I got so far and then I gave up. Maybe that is why folks like Spencer are best-selling authors and others are not. Best selling authors keep things simple. For me, true liberalism reaches back to antiquity in the Bible. The prophet Isaiah wrote of the last days or the world to come:

"No longer will the fool be called noble (or liberal), Or the rogue be spoken of as generous.

"For a fool speaks nonsense, And his heart inclines toward wickedness: To practice ungodliness and to speak error against the LORD, To keep the hungry person unsatisfied And to withhold drink from the thirsty...." etc.

Liberalism has a rich tradition going back to the Bible. For me liberalism means nobility of character, generosity, kindness, magnanimity, integrity, etc., none of the qualities found in the head of today's liberal movement, Barack Hussein Obama. Today's liberals have a terrible problem. They are supporting a racist, wicked, churlish-demagogue; a truly evil man.

How "liberal" is that? If today's liberals were true liberals in the historic / Biblical sense, they would denounce their racist in chief. It is as simple as that. If vast majority of Germans were innocent, as some authors I have read want to suggest, Adolf Hitler would have never risen to power in Germany.

Nor are Americans innocent. America and the world will pay a heavy price for elevating Barack Hussein Obama to the presidency. I cannot say exactly what that price will be but there will be a price.

LL: OT
while you can see that all my posts are full of granatical errors as well as atroucios spellings, the reason for this is:
1- I blog from work. I do not have a computer at work and
2- I am in 1950's technolgy when it comes to computer and I would not what ican to click in order to correct my postings. that siad however, I have an excellent command of the English language. I am the head of sales for a mjor entertainmet company here in NYC. that siad, your use of words and phrases are so unfriendly. while you have every right to post your blogs however you like, my suggestion is for you to tone it down and give readers a chance to enjoy your posts as oppose to resorting to a translation. remmeber this site is not unique to english speaking readers, rather it is an international forum and lot of people do not have the command of the English language as you do and the rest of the bloggers on this site. I am not being a D..., I am merely making a suggestion for the good of our cause here. hope you are well.
M