24 May 2006

The Swedish Miracle

This is a long article worth reading, that details the slow motion collapse of modern, liberal society in Sweden. It discusses how, in Sweden,

  • In some areas Swedish girls are afraid to to be blonde in public.
  • Political parties that dissent from the consensus of the ruling class are attacked by thugs while the government looks the other way
  • The local media openly supports bias in their reporting to support the concensus of the ruling class.

There’s quite a bit of other points, all well documented with links.

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Context, not facts

[source, source]

Do you remember Taheri-azar? The 25-year-old Iranian graduate of the University of North Carolina rented an SUV in March and drove it into The Pit, a campus gathering place for UNC students. He accelerated into the standard college crowd of preachers, smokers, gawkers, and cause-hawkers. He hit nine people and injured six. None died, much to Taheri-azar’s chagrin.

[…]

Taheri-azar and the Duke lacrosse players were all technically innocent until proven guilty. In one case, public officials, the press, and the local community did their best to deny the accused that particular courtesy of American justice. Tellingly, it was not the case of the murderous thug who confessed to attempting to kill his classmates, in a fashion reminiscent of Mohammad Atta, just for being non-Muslims — and then detailed his plans and motivations in letters to a local paper.

The only facts that seem to matter these days are those of context, not the actual actions. So the facts of culture and ethnicity trump the facts of individual guilt or innocence.

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Now it's clear what CFR was really about

Instapundit writes

WITH MEMBERS OF CONGRESS CLAIMING that they’re exempt from searches in bribery cases, it’s probably worth noting this new Zogby poll, which shows that the American public holds all its leaders — but especially Congress — in low esteem.

No doubt Congress will want to respond by putting criticism off limits, too.

Senator John McCain is way ahead of you on that, Instant-man.

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I can't wait for the "everybody does it" defense

[source, source]

After years of quietly acceding to the Bush administration’s assertions of executive power, the Republican-led Congress hit a limit this weekend.

Resentment boiled among senior Republicans for a second day on Tuesday after a team of warrant-bearing agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation turned up at a closed House office building on Saturday evening, demanded entry to the office of a lawmaker and spent the night going through his files.

The episode prompted cries of constitutional foul from Republicans — even though the lawmaker in question, Representative William J. Jefferson of Louisiana, is a Democrat whose involvement in a bribery case has made him an obvious partisan political target.

Speaker J. Dennis Hastert raised the issue personally with President Bush on Tuesday. The Senate Rules Committee is examining the episode.

I often mock the MAL for picking awful specific examples of their policies. I have to hand it to the GOP, though, for this effort in achieving parity in that regard. The Speaker of the House is now defending a Representative caught on tape taking a massive bribe? Speaker Hastert, let me send you a clue from outside the beltway — taking bribes is not considered innocent behavior for the vast majority of voters.

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