J. Christopher Pryor
When we go about our daily routines, we are helped by rules or certainties that remain fixed even throughout our hard and chaotic lives. Our sense of order in the universe does not remove anguish, but provides a context in which to deal with it. For instance, we might get mugged, but we know the police will at least try to capture the thief. We also might get cancer, but we know that family and friends will try to comfort us and a doctor will try to heal us. Even with life’s difficulties, we believe that there are some constants.
Despite our best attempts to draw assurance from our understanding of the world and the rules of human behavior, we are sometimes thrown off. This truth reminds me of a scene from the movie, The Matrix. In this movie, the heroes are able to travel into a virtual world in order to fight the villains. This virtual world has rules. Sometimes, the heroes are killed, but there is a sense of security created by knowing and following the rules of the virtual world. But this changes. In one scene, the good guys are walking up the stairs in a building. Neo, the savior, has a bout of deja vu. It is then explained that the Matrix, or the rules of the universe, has changed. Panic breaks out, because every rule that they took for granted has been altered. The changing of the rules of the Matrix nearly lead to the death of another hero, Morpheus. read more…
Yesterday, a major Hollywood movie producer accused Jews of running U.S. foreign policy and the media . He also claimed they exaggerated the evils of Hitler. Hitler, he argued has been misunderstood.
Here’s what Oliver Stone said:
The Jewish domination of the media….They stay on top of every comment, the most powerful lobby in Washington. Israel has f***** up United States foreign policy for years. read more…
Scorching temperatures are breaking records in Europe this summer. But the weather is moderate compared to the Islamic tempers flaring across the continent.
Tonight, Islamic riots are breaking out in France and England. Concerning the riots in France, Jihad Watch is reporting:
The violence began around midnight on Friday and lasted through the night in the poor suburban neighborhood of Villeneuve, home to the alleged robber. read more…
I jumped when I saw the quote reported on Drudge this afternoon. “Israelis suspicious of me because my middle name is Hussein.” When I first saw it I thought Joe (whom I affectionately refer to as “Jar Jar”) Biden was filling in as a speach writer. As I began reading the article more thoroughly, I realized that President Obama’s statement was not a gaffe, but actually an articulation of his opinion on Israeli Jews. Haaretz reports: read more…
Hitler, as an unqualified example of pure evil, is often used as a standard by which one can judge other lesser forms of evil. People of all stripes and political persuasions refer to Hitler and his Nazis in their speeches. But as time moves on, and the memory of Hitler’s actions becomes more faded, caricature begins to replace reality. Once reality is replaced by caricature, the meaning of the evil that was Hitler becomes obscured. The obscuring of the history of the Holocaust has lead some to abuse the term and its significance.
Last week, Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center wrote an article that sheds light on the complexity of this issue. Hier discussed how society should refer to one of the greatest evils of all time. In the article entitled, Nothing since can (or should) be called a Holocaust, Hier attempts to make some clarifications. Unfortunately, Hier compared “apples to oranges,” and so weakened an otherwise noble position. Concerning the misuse of the term “Holocaust”, Hier correctly wrote: read more…
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled yesterday to uphold the federal law banning any aid, humanitarian, as well as military, to terrorist groups. The decision came with the support of liberals and conservatives on the Court. Even the Obama administration stated:
The material support law is one of its most important terror-fighting tools. It has been used about 150 times since Sept. 11, resulting in 75 convictions. Most of those cases involved money and other substantial support for terrorist groups.
While Chris Matthews’ special “Rise of the New Right” was nothing less than insulting to the intelligence, and pure propaganda, conservatives can learn something from it. If we do not clean our own house, somebody else will. There are many who march under the banner of conservative America, but who have their own agenda. They often keep this agenda to themselves until they are presented with the proper moment or event that provides them the opportunity of revealing themselves without risk of reprisal or censure. read more…
Classification is an important and usually unnoticed aspect of human organizations. People in conflicting groups tend to go out of their way to visibly distinguish themselves from their opponents. The British wore red coats, the Communists and Nazis had bright flags. Groups also adopt identifying terminology to unify themselves and to be distinguished from their adversary. This practice is almost universal. Almost universal.
Today there is a world-wide political movement that has no outward unifying symbolism. The adherents of this movement appear to belong to diametrically opposed organizations and religions. They apparently have no leader and would likely scoff at the idea that they form a united political front. The only way to identify them is to see not so much what they are in favor of, but what they are against. read more…
One of the reoccurring themes in anti-Semitic rhetoric is the idea that the Jews behave as a monolithic body to reach their alleged perverted ends. By treating the Jews as a united organization, one is then able to justify any injustice against individual Jews. This is because, according to this mindset, there are no individual Jews, some of whom are good and others bad. There are only members of the monolithic group of evil Jews.
The objectification of individuals is not just employed by radical anti-Semites. It is a nasty and irrational aspect of the human condition. Ask anyone from Brooklyn what he thinks of people from New Jersey, or anyone from Ann Arbor what they think of people from Detroit. You will likely not hear a well reasoned lists of the attributes of people from Jersey or Detroit. read more…
The new ABC hit “V” provides many parallels between its story line and the last twenty-four hours of news coverage concerning the “Flotilla of Peace” that was on its way to assist the residents of Gaza. The parallels are to be found in the manner in which the good guys are portrayed as evil and the villains are portrayed as peace-loving individuals. read more…
Han Solo, why is South Park worried about angering Muslims but not Christians?
Mr. Solo: “Because Droids don’t rip people’s arms out of their sockets when they lose. Wookies have been known to do that.”
Conservatives across the country have been dismayed by South Park’s decision to placate Islamist demands that South Park not portray Mohammed on the show. In the past, South Park has had no difficulty insulting other religions and deities. So what is the difference here? Apparently, the producers of South Park do not want to have their arms ripped out of their sockets, or worse. read more…
In a recent article entitled “What War with Iran Means” Pat Buchanan continued his Leftist-like agenda of siding with the enemies of America and America’s allies. Buchanan wrote: read more…
