NewsReal Blog » Totalitarianism

Miraculous GOP Turnaround Causes Michael Moore to Drop the Act and Ask Obama to Disenfranchise Wisconsin

Calvin Freiburger — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 17:00:55 +0000

This popular post was originally published April 8, 2011.

In a stunning development, a clerical error in Wisconsin has transformed what many expected to be a long, ugly legal battle favoring the Left into an almost certain victory for the Right, outraging leftists like Michael Moore, to the point where the radical “documentarian” has stopped bothering to hide his disdain for the democratic process.

The intense Wisconsin Supreme Court race between the incumbent Republican, Justice David Prosser, and his Democrat challenger, state DNR enforcer JoAnn Kloppenburg, ended Wednesday with the latter declaring victory based on the Associated Press’s calculation of a 204-vote lead. Prosser didn’t budge, and most predicted an onslaught of recounts and vote fraud litigation to ensue.

But on Thursday evening we learned that Waukesha county clerk Kathy Nickolaus had erroneously passed on the county’s data to the AP without the numbers from the city of Brookfield, which shifted the lead to Prosser by more than 7,000 votes. Leftists are predictably outraged that hijacking the judiciary to thwart Governor Scott Walker’s public-sector union reforms won’t work after all, though none have topped the overreaction of Moore, who tweeted last night:

Republicans created the rule: “Whoever declares victory first, wins!” When will Obama Justice Dept impound ballots and stop the shenanigans?

Much has been said about the totalitarian impulse and anti-constitutionalism behind modern leftism, but rarely is it expressed so overtly by one of their own. Moore wants the federal government to forcibly prevent the certification of a state election and give the office to someone based strictly on her own, premature and entirely unofficial, declaration of victory?

Wow. I don’t think I even need to say anything more to explain how mind-blowingly horrendous his position is.

Moore’s man-of-the-people act has never quite rung true, but after this he can’t even pretend to value such niceties as democracy, the rule of law, or ensuring that every vote is counted. He has truly and irrevocably dropped the pretense of being anything other than a would-be tyrant.

As for Nickolaus and allegations of pro-Prosser funny business: yes, Nickolaus has been rightly criticized for blunders in the past, but the imaginative lefties crying foul right now are bound to be disappointed for several reasons.

Miraculous GOP Turnaround Causes Michael Moore to Drop the Act and Ask Obama to Disenfranchise Wisconsin

Calvin Freiburger — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 22:45:34 +0000

Republicans created the rule: “Whoever declares victory first, wins!” When will Obama Justice Dept impound ballots and stop the shenanigans?

Wow. I don’t think I even need to say anything more to explain how mind-blowingly horrendous his position is.

Television Turned Against Women’s Rights in Afghanistan. Where’s Cultural Imperialism When You Need It?

Calvin Freiburger — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 20:00:12 +0000

Television can be a force for liberty in totalitarian and theocratic societies, but it can be used to thwart liberty, as well. Case in point: Gayle Tzemach Lemmon’s Daily Beast report on disturbing events in Afghanistan:

In the past several weeks, controversial television presenter Nasto Naderi has stepped up a campaign he began this year accusing women’s shelters of supporting prostitution and other behavior considered immoral. In December, Naderi showed footage of a family guidance center run by the organization Women for Afghan Women, followed by pictures of family guidance and women’s shelter staff entering their offices. According to Naderi, women’s shelters encourage behavior that violates Islam, though he has yet to offer any evidence to support his allegations.

The unwanted attention has sent a chill through women’s rights supporters in Kabul and created an environment of both fear and defiance among shelter workers. In a conservative country with little history of providing safe havens for domestic-violence victims, the concern is that Naderi’s charges could do great harm—and put shelter workers at risk.

“By these kinds of programs, people’s minds may be swayed, and they may think negatively about these kinds of safe houses,” said Selay Ghaffar of the organization HAWCA, which offers legal aid and temporary shelter to Afghan women seeking to escape domestic abuse.

Naderi makes no bones about what’s really driving his propaganda campaign, boasting that his people “have fought 30 years to put the word ‘Islam’ in front of Afghanistan […] But some NGOs come and want to make another way for our country.” It certainly isn’t concern for the shelters’ quality—“Mr. Nadiri says he hasn’t visited any of the 17 shelters officially registered with the government.”

Women’s defenders fear the legitimization of the Taliban could mean the end of the shelters:

Women’s advocates say shelter opponents are emboldened by reports of peace talks with the Taliban, and the prospect that more conservative religious forces once again will gain power in the country.

“Our government wants to talk with the Taliban about peace and no one is talking about women’s rights,” said Maria Bashir, the country’s only female chief prosecutor. “If the Taliban comes to government and peace is successful, then they will close those shelters.” […]

To some women leaders, Naderi’s provocative broadcast shows just how vulnerable women’s rights are in Afghanistan. Although the government hasn’t moved to close any of the safe houses and has publicly backed women’s right to work and education, last year Afghan President Hamid Karzai bowed to public pressure and created a government commission to look into exactly what services the shelters provide.

I’m A Domestic Extremist

Bosch Fawstin — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 20:30:50 +0000

If all one has to do to be labeled a “domestic extremist” is oppose current TSA policies…

Editor’s Note: Other bloggers are allowed to reproduce Bosch Fawstin’s NRB cartoons at their own publications. Links back to NRB are appreciated. Click the button below for Bosch’s previous cartoon:

A Murder in China and the Global War Against the Unborn

M. Catharine Evans — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 19:00:00 +0000

The murder of Xiao Aiying’s baby in southwest China this past week is just one of millions since the Communist country instituted its one-child policy in 1979. Xiao, wife and mother, committed the unspeakable crime of wanting a second child. At eight months pregnant, she almost got away with it.

Aiying’s husband gave this account of the killing to reporters. From UK’s dailymail:

Twelve government officials entered [Xiao Aiying’s] house where they hit and kicked her in the stomach, before taking her kicking and screaming to hospital.

They held her hands behind her back and pushed her head against the wall and kicked her in the stomach, I don’t know if they were trying to give her a miscarriage.

Our ten-year-old daughter has been excited about having a little brother or sister but I don’t know how I can explain to her what has happened.

There [at the hospital] the 36-year-old was restrained as doctors injected her with a drug to kill the unborn baby.

The women in China like Xiao have been on the progressives’ hit list for a very long time. Margaret Sanger wrote an article that was published in the China Times on April 30, 1922 entitled “Will China Accept the Principles of Birth Control?” Almost one hundred years ago, a petite, socialist woman from New York had her eye on the Far East:

I believe China will accept Birth Control, not perhaps at one swallow, but rapidly in the next few years. Already there has been great interest in the question, especially among the younger generation. It is in that generation China’s destiny is to change and it will change, perhaps dramatically. And Birth Control must [precede] any great permanent change in her social systems, for birth control is first & foremost a principle of freedom and social right, and next a great very great indeed economic expedient.

57 years after Sanger’s prediction China incorporated its one-child policy into the Constitution. Officials report that it has prevented 400 million births since then and created an economic boon. The head of the National Planning and Population Commission stated last month that the policy will stand despite a poll that showed 70% of Chinese women would like to have more than two children. Sanger’s contention that birth control would become a “very great indeed economic expedient” echoes the present day Chinese government who state that the policy has raised the standard of living for those already born.

Life under Communism: Do the Young Ones Know?

Joshua Lipana — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 16:00:00 +0000

Never Again.

A great piece was published recently in The American Thinker entitled “Life under Communism.” It expresses a worry we should all feel.

“I am worried because too many people, especially our youth, don’t even have a clue as to what living under a totalitarian regime is like. Here is my story, how I learned about the evils of government domination and became the patriotic freedom-fighter that I am today.”

The author, Charlotte Cushman, writes vividly and very personally on what it was like to have family who escaped the brutal rule of Communism. She recalls how her uncle, who escaped communist Yugoslavia and had just arrived in America, was traumatized:

“He was very nice and a lot of fun, but he was very nervous. He was nervous all the time. When we would go out in the car he would constantly be looking around, smoking a cigarette, with hands shaking, glancing continuously at the cars behind us or next to us. He would say things like, “They are after me.” “They have followed me here.” “They’re going to get me.”

She continues:

“…he started talking about his life in Yugoslavia. He said his family used to live on a beautiful farm, but the government took it away from them. He said the Communists controlled everyone and everything. They couldn’t even cut a tree down on their own property for firewood. He was afraid to walk from the house to the barn for fear of being shot. You had to be careful of everything you said because if you said something against the government, you put your life at risk.”

Charlotte’s piece serves as a great reminder to us that we must never allow this horrible time in history to be forgotten. Lest we repeat it.

The Totalitarians Among Us

David Horowitz — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 15:00:05 +0000

Why are Temple students more worried about Geert Wilders than these people?

This is a month in which the president of the United States has co-sponsored a UN resolution with the police state of Egypt to ban speech that defames religion; a month in which the Democratic Party has placed an amendment onÂ a defense appropriations bill to make anti-gay speech a thought crime, and in which the White House has launched an all-out attack on the Fox News Channel because it didnâ€™t like whatÂ Fox commentators were saying.Â Â And instead of reacting with appropriate horror at an assault on the free press not seen since the days of Joseph McCarthy, a leading â€œliberalâ€ pundit, TIME columnistÂ Joe Klein has called Foxâ€™s behavior â€œseditiousâ€ and thus helped to set the stage for making criticism of government a â€œhate crime.â€

How deeply entrenched is this totalitarian virus in our national culture? A column appearing yesterday in the Temple University press indicates that it is already an integral element of the curriculum of our schools. The column by a student named Josh Fernandez is a condemnation of the recent appearance at Temple of the Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders who is under indictment in the Netherlands forÂ defaming Islam, specifically for a fifteen minute film he made about Islam called â€œFitnaâ€ which explains why so many atrocities have been committed (and are currently being committed) in its name. Under pressure from Islamic totalitarians, Europeans are already well onÂ their way to outlawing free speech.

Note that the Temple column was protesting the right of Wilders toÂ speak at all andÂ was part of a concerted effort by the Muslim Students Association (which is a notorious supporter of the Islamic jihad) and Temple leftists to stop the Wilders event. Three Temple administrators participated in this effort telling the students who sponsored the event along with the David Horowitz Freedom Center that â€œforeigners donâ€™t have free speech rights in America.â€ Under this university pressure, the College Republicans withdrew from sponsorship of the event and the Temple student government condemned it.

Fernandezâ€™s column begins by quoting Wilders himself:

â€œI know that some of you here were very much against me speaking tonight, and to those that opposed me coming here, I would to like to quote the very famous British author George Orwell,â€ Wilders said in his opening, â€œâ€˜If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.â€™â€

But showing that he didn’t understand a word Wilders said, and without missing a beat, Fernandez follows this quote with a perfectly Orwellian statement of his own:

â€œItâ€™s not that Temple students didnâ€™t want Wilders to exercise his right to â€˜tell people what they do not want to hear,â€™ but they didnâ€™t want to hear hateful rhetoricâ€¦â€

Free speech â€“ which is precisely the freedom to speak what is hateful to others â€“ is our most sacred right. It is the foundation of all our other freedoms. The difference between a free society and a fear society, as Natan Sharansky has put it, is that in a free society you can speak your mind in public and not worry whether the government will come after you for having said it. In a sense this is the only freedom we have because without it the party in control of the state will have no opposition. It will simply outlaw the opposition as hateful. Under Stalin the hate crime was being “anti-Soviet.”

Later on in his column Fernandez writes:

â€œWilders claims to make a distinction between â€˜the [Muslim] people [whom he supports] and the ideologyâ€™ of Islam [which he condemns], but when he spouts hateful statements, such as â€˜Western culture is far better than the Islamic culture, and we should defend it,â€™ he counteracts his alleged distinction.â€

How quickly hate speech is redefined as standing up for the freedoms your country has, which Islamic totalitarianism denies (and which thus makes your country better.) And this in the city of Philadelphia, the birthplace of American liberty.

Americaâ€™s first and most fundamental freedom is under concerted attack. The attack originates with Islamic jihadists and their liberal collaborators, but it is being supported by useful fools and the seriously confused.Â This series ofÂ events should be a wake-up call to all Americans. The hour is already late.