Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Revised - Juan Williams Plays Brings Race Card-Playing to a Whole New Level

This has got to be one of the most shameful things ever uttered by a person who wanted to accuse another of racist speech. Juan Williams has now pretended to be under the impression the very mentioning of several key factors that negatively affect the nation are code words for racist thought.
This is the link to his article followed by a quote:

"The language of GOP racial politics is heavy on euphemisms that allow the speaker to deny any responsibility for the racial content of his message. The code words in this game are “entitlement society” — as used by Mitt Romney — and “poor work ethic” and “food stamp president” — as used by Newt Gingrich. References to a lack of respect for the “Founding Fathers” and the “Constitution” also make certain ears perk up by demonizing anyone supposedly threatening core “old-fashioned American values.' ”

The nation, as Mr. Williams is of course painfully aware, faces an enormous problem of the notion or sense of entitlement. It is literally crushing our base that has plodded along and contributed the money that keeps the system afloat.

In addition to the beginning of the breach of the dam under FDR, the flood that LBJ started with "The Great Society" has not only created a burden that can no longer be borne, it has virtually caused a huge subsection of our society to exist as a permanent underclass of indentured servants whose only job is to keep voting for those who will give more money and other benefits for free. The Liberals knew that this would occur, and yet when someone brings the subject up, Mr. Williams would have him or his language denounced as racist. They cannot bear to have their little master plan to be exposed. They seek to maintain a system that can have no end result other than a final assumption of all or most of private property in the nation and a society blind to the work, beliefs, and ethics that caused it to come into being in the first place.


We all know that non-whites are not the only ones who have a sense of entitlement, are on some sort of relief, or have a poor work ethic. The Democratic Party, which historically did everything it could to maintain slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, and all sorts of horrific institutional and legally ignored abuse and terror, devised a system that would place many in a softer yet more insidious from of bondage. Those of the Republican Party,(Or others who also refuse to subscribe to this insanity) many of the members of which resisted all of these, are repeatedly painted as racists for trying to put a stop to this tragedy.

If I were to speak out about the prevalence of, say, pedophilia, and a disproportionate amount of these offenders happened to be white, would that mean that I am being a racist?

The charge of a "lack of respect for the 'Founding Fathers' " is too another sick example of tearing apart the society that these men created. Not only were the Founders people for whom a welfare state would have been completely foreign, they, with all of their faults, were some of the greatest men the world has ever seen. All societies have or had significant faults, yet how many have in turn created one that not only had tremendous attributes, but could be (And was) changed without dismantling the whole constitution as those men did?

These men literally pledged their lives, fortunes, and honor to make the decisions that they did when taking the easy road would have been much safer. They became wanted men as a result. The nation that they founded is still a place where many come for the opportunity to achieve great things. The Left wants no memory or knowledge of their existence or their achievements, because they serve as examples that we could only hope to emulate. The Left has always taken the position of ignoring the events, people, culture, and everything else that came together to begin and grow a society. Once a society has reached a point of "move in" condition, the promptly walk in, take over, and assume control of the steady and inevitable decline of their doing.


This is part of the beginnings of the assault on Free Speech in the US.


http://spectator.org/blog/2012/01/31/juan-williams-breaks-the-racia

Note too that Mr. Williams includes the expressing of any concern about unchecked illegal immigration in his dishonest portrayal of racist speech. Due to the fact that the overwhelming amount of illegals immigrants are from Latin American, Mr. Williams feels that he can get away with labeling people who call for respect of our sovereignty as racists.








Monday, January 30, 2012

Michael Coren on the Honor Killings in Canada and the Role of Islam in Cases Such as These

Please take the time to view the video of Michael Coren. He is a Canadian commentator. He is an articulate intelligent, and no-nonsense type of man. He speak about the recent honor killing trial and, in my opinion, rightfully holds that there are elements that are "intrinsic" in Islam that lead to such types of activity.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/01/michael-coren-on-fox-speaks-out-on-honor-killing-this-was-something-intrinsic-to-islam.html

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Joe Myers and Ibrahim Thompson Come Together to Misrepresent Christianity, Judaism, and Islam

The Winston-Salem Journal recently published a thoroughly dishonest piece that ran the old tired and worn out line of comparing violence in Judaism and Christianity to the place of the same in Islam.

http://www2.journalnow.com/news/2012/jan/28/wsopin02-joe-myers-and-ibrahim-thompson-guest-colu-ar-1864448/#fbcomments


The catalyst for the above article was the moves by Lowes to pull out of advertising for the show "All-American Muslim" which features nice enough people with whom I personally would probably get along well.(If they would have me)

The problem is that the show portrays certain individuals as Muslims when in fact most of them are hardly representative of members of that group. One of them is a nice woman who dresses in a manner that would send Imams in a frenzy. She also runs a night club. What woman in Islamic culture is allowed to dress flatteringly, stay out at night by herself, and be involved in a nightclub? It would be sort of like featuring a couple who pretends to be Christian but engages in wife-swapping or a Jewish guy who eats pork BBQ. It doesn't mean that they can't go back to trying to live as others of their respective faiths do, but at the moment they can't be taken to serve as examples of members those groups.

Below is a link to an earlier post from this blog:

http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2011/11/all-american-muslim-cant-hide-charade.html

The feeble attempts to compare the advocacy of violence in Judasim and Christianity with that of Islam have grown quite old by now. No one disputes that there are sincerely kind and gentle Muslims, but their beliefs cannot be held to be representative of Islam itself. Trying to equate the place that violence takes in Islam with the same in Judeo-Christian teachings, scriptures, and thought is a an example of a patently false argument. Even the worst examples of the latter cannot be compared as they were simply, unlike in Islam, not be be repeated by successive generations. The importance of violence in Judeo-Christian belief can be debated by anyone who desires to do so, but it cannot be held to be comparable to the place that it has in Islamic thought and teachings. Violence is not only an inherent part of Islam and its growth, it is to be practiced by all believers in all generations.

A brief but telling summary of Islamic thought can be accessed below:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/islam-101.html


Saturday, January 28, 2012

Mohammed is the Most Common Name for Babies in Oslo

Well. what do you know? Oslo, traditionally known for names of the Nordic persuasion, is now known to produce more newborns named Mohammed than any other name. The comments made by the mayor of the once-proud city are downright shameful:
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" 'How excellent. This is great. Lørenskog is the third biggest immigrant municipality in Norway, only by surpassed Oslo and Drammen on a per-capita basis. There are people from all over Norway and the rest of the world living here in Lørenskog, so it’s not strange that many people called Mohammed live here. It is extremely exciting,” says Tovan to rb.no.

He considers Mohammed to be a completely ordinary name.

“The name Mohammed is found all over the world, and we are a part of the world. Some people are called Mohammed and some people are called Åge. My name is Åge,” says Åge Tovan."

[As far as I am concerned, his or her name is mud]
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A person who has only recently become aware or concerned about the current tide would be likely to assume that the Honorable Caudillo* is just not very bright. Those who have been around the block, though, will lean towards the more cynical view; that the mayor is happy about this development because Muslim immigration means more votes for the Left. It also adds to the body of people who are culturally programmed to willingly accept a government in which the individual simply ceases to exist.

'How excellent' and 'this is great' perfectly echo Bill Clinton who infamously stated that it was a "positive thing" that by 2050 the US would have a majority of citizens who were not of European descent. That event itself was sick enough. 'A positive thing' implies that things will be more than OK - it indicates that it will be even better. Those of the Left pursue with tenacity the complete excising of any appreciation, admiration, or recognition of the achievements of those whose culture is derived from the civilization of the West. The very society in which Billy stood while he made his utterance was the product of these people, but typical of a Marxist or other Leftist, its "Thanks for taking us this far boys, we'll take it (society, industry, education, parenting, and whatever else) from here."

Once that happens, the decline is inevitable and begins quickly. Once the end is reached, the only results are complete gutting and rebuilding (While saving the foundation) of the place or a total collapse.

Societies and people that derive from people of Scandinavian culture are known for being orderly, well-mannered, hardworking, honest, churchgoing if not devout, and welcoming. Even communities in the US that were founded by Scandinavian immigrants are still attractive to those who desire to relocate to a place in which Western culture has not been thrown out the window.

In the past, they were also known for being willing to drop the nice-guy image on a temporary basis to fiercely defend their way of life.

Those that seek to bring totalitarian rule to Western Europe want to be rid of all of the aforementioned. I hope that the indigenous begin to stand up for their rights sooner than later. The US is not far behind. I hope that, just as from Locke, Rousseau, and others, we may profit from the example of those who act rightly in the lands from which out culture is derived.


http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2012/01/norway-renames-itself.html

* Spanish word for a political leader who possesses administrative and military authority. Due to its many instances of being utilized by some Latin American leaders who acted as demagogues, in modern use, the word can have connotations of buffoonery and inflated self-importance.





Thursday, January 26, 2012

Ethiopian Church Burned


Not to be outdone by their Egyptian, Nigerian, Iraqi, Indonesian, Pakistani, Kurdish, and other Muslim brethren, Muslims in Ethiopia burned down an Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

http://www.christianpost.com/news/muslim-mob-burns-down-church-targeted-by-police-in-ethiopia-64505/


The Ethiopian Orthodox Church is an ancient body. I have been told that its Patriarch is the same as that of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt.

It just seems to be a bad ride that never ends.....

And the Western European nations just keep bringing more Muslims into their countries; not that I approve of leaving the Christians in the nations up top to suffer by themselves. Do you think that the Left would approve if we switched gears and began to encourage the Christians of those nations to immigrate to the US, Canada, the EU, etc.? It would provide the Cultural Enrichment they purport to hold so dearly, allow for an influx of immigrants much less prone to violence, and be an easy fit with the predominantly Christian populations in the new host nations.

We could also then have very little in the way of complaints as there would be less Christians getting hurt over there and less Muslims committing crimes, hurting people, and agitating for more control here.

Something tells me that the Left would not agree to this arrangement. Could it be because this plan would work against their plans to bring about totalitarian governments in Western countries?











Pious Pakistani Sells Christian Girls

Very little time for even trying to type tonight -

This is an interesting link. It hearkens back to the one from October of 2011, where a Kuwaiti woman calls for the sale of sex slaves to Muslim men to prevent them from cheating on their spouses.

Their world is a savage one.

http://www.answeringmuslims.com/2012/01/pious-pakistani-muslim-sells-christian.html




Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Follow Up from Yesterday's Post About Plight of Ethnic Danes - More Attacks Come to Light

http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2012/01/national-tragedy.html

http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2012/01/there-is-nothing-left-for-us-danes.html


This a follow up to yesterdays  post on the plague of burglaries in the neighborhood of Vollomose, which is in Odense, Denmark. Today I came across two more posts with that describe in detail the experiences of individual ethnic Danes in that area.

In one post, a 29-year resident of the neighborhood has been robbed and savagely beaten, had his home burglarized and vandalized more than once, and feels like an outcast in his own country. He is an old man and set in his ways but has finally decided to leave. In the other, a couple that had spoken to police about a crime that they witnessed were themselves targeted for daring to report the criminal activity of the tolerant peace-loving Muslim immigrants. They were verbally assaulted and a paving stone was thrown in their son's bedroom. Their home was vandalized three times since the additions to Denmark's culture became aware that they had spoken to the cops.

Yet we dare not say anything for fear of being labeled fascists or racists. 

As I noted yesterday, this has to be addressed before the few remaining ethnic Scandinavians are holed up in their own ghettos and rural zones of safety while swarms of the new conquerors rule the streets in the rest of these once-proud nations.

Where do the Leftist think they will be once this happens? Do they plan to utilize the opportunity to create an all-powerful totalitarian state that will at least be able to keep the lid  in most of the criminal activity? It is the only option of which I can think when I put myself in their shoes.

They have put so much effort into destroying the cultural component of these (In this case, those of Scandinavia) nations that can't even be blamed for colonial activities as Norway, Denmark, and Sweden were not involved in that mess. Much of the rest of Europe and the US lives with this perpetual white-guilt of colonialism or slavery; consequently, they are afraid to put the brakes on the massive tide of immigration that consists of peoples who have no desire to take on our culture at any point.

Bill Clinton, while speaking about the projected demographics of the US by 2050, was quoted as saying that by that point the majority of Americans will not be of European descent and that 'This is a positive thing."

Why is it positive? Why couldn't he have said that it would be an OK thing? Is there supposed to be something inherently wrong with people of European descent or their culture?

I personally believe that very few people truly hate those of European descent. What I hold they hate is the individualistic culture of these people. They hate their cultural attachment to Judeo-Christian values, to Republican-type governments, and their general rejection of all-controlling societies that are produced by Socialist/Fascist, Far-Eastern, or Islamic rule.

What comes with general European-based culture is a respect for free speech, property, religion, financial gains of those who risk much to gain it, and an outright refusal to be treated as sheep to be ordered about at the whim of those who would seek to rule over them.

Here is a link that shows the attitudes of some who wish to do the same in the US:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/01/we-reject-the-un-reject.html
















Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Muslims in Denmark Target Homes of Ethnic Danes in Wave of Burglaries

http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2012/01/driving-danes-out-of-area.html

Not content with sexual assaults of ethnic Danish women and generally making life for the non-aggressive native people generally miserable, Muslim immigrants have moved to burglarizing homes of ethnic Danes.

The post  (Be sure to click the "read more" link at the bottom) is quite disturbing. It appears as if individual Muslim immigrants strut about as if they are the "only rooster in the chicken coop". Since the Left, including rabid feminists, have reduced Scandinavian men to impotent spectators of the horror show, one would not be surprised. Their men are descended from those, whose efforts and sacrifices ensured that the nations of Scandinavia could boast a reputation that would cause a potential enemy to think twice about attacking that region, but have now been pushed off to the side.

Note the article from the Brussels Journal that provides a glimpse of the mindset of anti-male hatred in that region.
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1300

...and a quote from the article:

"Schyman’s battle cry is “Death to the nuclear family!” I have heard the same slogan repeated by young Norwegian feminists in recent years. Schyman seethed that today’s family unit is “built on a foundation of traditional gender roles in which women are subordinate to men. The hierarchy of gender, for which violence against women is the ultimate expression, has been cemented.” “Conservatives want to strengthen the family. I find this of grave concern.”

In the year 2000, Swedish feminist Joanna Rytel and the action group Unf**ked Pussy entered the stage during the live broadcast of the Miss Sweden contest. She also wrote an article called “I Will Never Give Birth to a White Man,” for a major Swedish daily, Aftonbladet, in 2004. Rytel explained why she hates white men — they are selfish, exploitative, vain, and sex-crazed — and just to make things clear, she added, “no white men, please… I just puke on them, thank you very much.”

Misandry, the hatred of men, isn’t necessarily less prevalent than misogyny, the hatred of women. The difference is that the former is much more socially acceptable.

If all oppression comes from Western men, it becomes logical to try weakening them as much as possible. If you do, a paradise of peace and equality awaits us at the other side of the rainbow. Well congratulations to Western European women. You’ve succeeded in harassing and ridiculing your own sons into suppressing many of their masculine instincts. To your surprise, you didn’t enter a feminist Nirvana, but paved the way for an unfolding Islamic hell.

It is correct, as feminists claim, that a hyper-feminine society is not as destructive as a hyper-masculine society. The catch with a too soft society is that it is unsustainable. It will get squashed as soon as it is confronted by more traditional, aggressive ones. Instead of “having it all,” Western women risk losing everything. What are liberal feminists going to do when faced with aggressive gang of Muslim youngsters? Burn their bras and throw the pocket edition of the Vagina Monologues at them?"
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If the men of Europe do not begin to stand up for their people soon, even if it causes howls of protest from the Left, what will be left for the natives? They will be forced to leave the lands of the forefathers in a mass exodus, remain as subjugated second-class citizens, or be faced with the worst scenario of all - the fight for their very existence.

Ezra Levant on the Obamian Move to Deny Approval for Keystone Pipeline

http://ezralevant.com/2012/01/keystone-copout.html

Ezra Levant is a well-spoken and highly intelligent Canadian commentator. The above is a link to his post on the Obamian administrations' denial of approval for the Keystone pipeline. Note that Mr. Levant refers to "ethical oil". This phrase, which I believe he coined, refers to petroleum that originates in a  nation of free people, that does not involve mistreated workers or people, and cannot be tied to any type of terror groups.

The move by the American president is a travesty not only because we are now essentially forcing Canada's hand to simply sell their product (That we need) to China, but that Leftists have come to comprise such as substantial subsection of the American electorate. The push from the Left to stop this project had the appearance of an Islamic Jihad. No society can grow, flourish, or even maintain its living standards or culture in any way once Leftists begin to exercise any real influence.

Leftists, who have witnessed the failure of their system wherever it has been attempted, obstinately refuse to allow that the societal structure that they champion is by its very nature a system programmed to stagnation followed by internal collapse. When it failed in mostly agrarian societies and semi-industrialized ones like Russia, they moved on to the developed nations in Western Europe. When these endeavors too failed, they moved towards an all-encompassing superstructure of the European Union to make it work. The result has been a catastrophic forced gutting of European culture and its economy with its people as the targeted victims.

Their co-conspirator's in the US have had to operate more or less under the radar until the last twenty tears or so. Since then, they have burst out from the seams and began to run amok. Senator McCarthy's name was associated with rabid inquisitorial paranoia because he not only was able to recognize the threat of Leftism in the US in the 50s, but that he actually did something about it. With people today fearing to be labeled Fascist or rascist for opposing the Leftist's agenda, the Vandals have almost complete freedom of movement to tear the place apart. Where the historical Germanic Vandals really just wanted loot for themselves and smashed and burnt some things in the heat of the moment, the Leftist have every intention of ripping the place to shreds to the point that it can never recover any amount of its former strength.

From there the Leftists figure that the people will have no other option than to voluntarily give up their freedom and subject themselves to the state. Like the closing days of the Western Roman Empire, the freeholder will find it easier to just surrender his property and attach himself to whomever he feels can lessen his burden of state control and rapacious taxation. With no one to protect him, his only choice will be the very state that worked to enslave him in the first place.

In the words of Colin McEvedy whom I admired greatly, we are looking at the "Orwellian twilight of the West". The writer used that phrase to refer to the days when the Western Roman Empire flailed about to maintain control of a gutted society that had  ruined its middle class long before and consequently needed to control every aspect of every individual's life (Even dictating the line of work in which one would engage). I see the term as applying just as much to our West of today.


Recall the phrase Orwellian twilight of the West when you read and see what is going on in plain sight in our era.

One key difference between the Fall/Collapse of the Western Roman Empire and ours is that the administration of the empire enlisted some of the barbarian tribes as Foederates  to help defend the empire on its borders. These Germans were free people. The Leftists seek to employ their own barbarians to destroy our West, not at the borders, but from within. The barbarians that assail us do not belong to bodies of free people but are subjects of either their Leftist or Muslim overlords or systems.

An Open Letter From Jews For the Preservation of Firearms Ownership


http://jpfo.org/filegen-a-m/christian-selfdefense.htm

The link to the open letter from the Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership is Above.

Few are aware of the very existence of such a group as Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. As may be assumed by their name, the group rightfully believes that the existence of an armed citizenry is a key part of a free society and a crucial element in maintaining the free status of those who are not part of the ruling elite. Their website will provide access to all sorts of essays that argue that, when private citizens voluntarily or sheepishly allow themselves to be disarmed, they are effectively sowing the seeds of the own enslavement and possible extinction as a people.

I strongly recommend that you not only read the open letter that is addressed to Christians and concerns the threat posed to them in the US, but that you also take the time to read much of the other material which is easily accessible on the site.

Note that I also looked up a link for the article that is referenced in the Open Letter from the JPFO about California children being required to dress and act as Muslims in school.

http://www.wnd.com/2002/07/14425/


Note also that available on the site are several posts and essays that provide very strong arguments that the US Gun Control Act of 1968  not only has its roots in anti-gun legislation created by Nazi Germany, it is close to a carbon copy of those laws.

Monday, January 23, 2012

More Rapes by Muslims in Europe and More Attacks on Christians

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/01/stavanger-norway-nine-out-of-ten-rapists-are-men-from-minority-groups.html

http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2012/01/child-rapist-from-respectable-family.html

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/01/nigeria-muslims-destroy-christian-orphanage.html

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/01/nigeria-at-least-156-dead-in-wave-of-bombings-shootings-boko-haram-jihadists-claim-responsibility.html

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/01/egypt-muslim-brotherhood-and-salafists-reportedly-collaborate-in-rampage-against-christians.html


The last three days have seen so many articles and posts about violence committed by Muslims, (Or those who, in the words of Robert Spencer "misunderstand*" Islam) against Christians that picking one event or even one country in which these occurred would leave too much out.

Again, the amount of sexual assaults in Scandinavian nations such as Norway that are committed by ethnic Scandinavians is almost statistically zero. Immigrant Muslims are doing virtually all of the raping. We are of course aware that ethnic Scandinavian women are regularly targeted by these thugs, but the link at the top notes that Muslim women are often raped also since they will do anything to avoid the stigma attached to being raped and therefore generally will not report the attack. Muslim men, following the example in the Koran, do seem to relish treating non-Muslim women as captured slaves. Since the Western European nations refuse to admit that they have terrible problems with the scale of such attacks, the attacks just seem to go on in a "business as usual" manner.


The second is about a British police officer who received a laughable sentence of 18 years in prison for, among other things, raping a 7 year-old girl.

The third and fourth describe more attacks on Nigerian Christians by Boko Haram.

And last but not least, Coptic Christians were again subjected to all sorts of attacks in their own country. The attacks appeared to be part of a grand scheme to prevent the victims from being able to vote.

It seems that, for every event that is noted on an article or a post, many others are either left out or never come to light. The mainstream media rarely if ever makes mention of these atrocities, and the Leftist-dominated governments of the West have no desire for the world to get an accurate idea of what kind of motivations that Islam can stir up in individuals or groups of its adherents.

The people of Western Europe are literally tongue-tied by their own political elite. It is they who who cater to Islamic groups that demand that nothing derogatory about Islam, or individuals who commit violent acts that are inspired by that religion, be allowed to be spoken or written. Hate speech laws that may have been created to avoid horrors such as the Holocaust have been employed to silence ethnic Europeans as they watch their world being torn apart from the inside. The rights of the indigenous are being upheld and/or advanced everywhere in the world unless those natives happen to be Whites or, if in another continent(s), native Christians.

The civil, social, and criminal penalties for speaking truthfully in public cause most people not only to remain quiet, but to cause the majority to enforce this silence on those who are in fact willing to stand up and speak the truth. It is almost as if they think that if they too remain officially ignorant of the problem then it does not exist; either that or they are afraid of being brought in to testify to what they heard and consequently be suspected of also being aware of the problem. I am reminded of The Time Machine, where the existence, actions, and constant threat of the Morlochs is something that everyone knows but cannot discuss. The only difference is that in the story no oppressive Socialist/Fascist organization was there to punish those who did in fact speak up.

*Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch employs the term "Misunderstanders of Islam" in a sarcatic manner as the Leftist media tends to portray those who commit violence in the name of Islam as actually failing to understand that their religion is a religion of peace and tolerance.














Sunday, January 22, 2012

Spartan Mothers - Tough for a Reason

 Those who have some familiarity of ancient Spartan society generally fall into one of two camps - one that admires the best of their culture while admitting that we are better off without the worst of it; and those who think poorly of it overall. Those who hold to that latter tend to be admirers of Athens and her society - itself also an example of a culture with many good traits and those that we are fortunate not to have. Both though, were societies where the individual was a crucial factor and provide fine examples, each in their own way, of how a nation-state may be organized in a manner where the individual does not get smothered by the power of the government.

One point should be ironed out firstly- that the Sparta of the Iliad was quite different from the ancient Sparta of of which we speak when Spartan society in the topic. The former was a city-state of the early Achaean/Mycenaean* Greeks. This Sparta, along with much of Greece, was overthrown by southward-migrating Dorian Greek tribesmen shorty after 1200BC. The illiterate Dorians took over many of the strongholds of the petty Greek kingdoms immortalized in Homer's epic poem and instituted a generally harsher rule. Thus began the Greek dark ages, which roughly parallels what occurred after the fall (More of a slow internal collapse) of the Western Roman Empire and the rise of the Germanic kingdoms of Western Europe staring in the fifth century AD. Consequently, when Helen of Troy is described as a Spartan, the term is geographically accurate but is misleading from a cultural or historical viewpoint. It is sort of like equating ancient Romans with those who today reside in Rome.


The Dorian state of Sparta rose out of the period where the earlier Achaean/Mycenaeans had been either driven out of the region of Lacadaemon/Laconia or subdued by the newcomers.Those who remained in the region generally fell into the class known as Helots. They had no rights at all and lived in state of servitude under the ruling Dorian Spartans. Note that this can not be held to be of the chattel-type of slavery practiced by societies such as the early US.  Other Dorians who lost out in the power struggle among the competing Dorian  tribes seem to have gained a status of non-Spartan freemen - the Perioikoi. They could own property, have  their own jobs such as farmers, craftsmen, armor makers, etc. They did not possess the rights of Spartans in the area of government. There were others such as the Sciritae, who also enjoyed free status. Both of the latter also were allowed to bear arms and defend the region; the Perioikoi as hoplites and the Sciritae as a sort of early skirmisher/light infantry types.

Unlike modern cultures, military service was not optional for free citizens of the period. Spartans were born to defend the state. If Spartan babies passed the initial tests administered to ensure that the child was healthy, then it would be allowed to live, if not, the infant was exposed.

We of course are happy that we no longer hold any peoples in subjection or leave the fate of our babies to any examiners, but we must note that there indeed are those from the modern Left who not only do advocate enforcing euthanasia on sickly/deformed/retarded infants and disabled seniors, but labor without pause to ensure that large swaths of our current population remain completely unable to even attempt to earn their own living and thus consist of a class forever dependant on the government for handouts. The latter provides an appetizing solid block of voters who will in turn will continue to vote for the Leftist candidates who consequently have no reason to allow anything that may change their condition.

Spartan society, although not nearly as austere as historians traditionally hold - they sang, played music, held celebrations, etc., but their methods of creating citizens soldiers were indeed austere. At age seven a Spartan boy was shipped off to the Agoge, which was essentlialy a military training barracks. He would remain in a barracks-type environment until age thirty. His military obligation did not end until age 60.

I will try my best to keep the details as short as possible to concentrate on the main point. Below are two wikipedia links that can provide a decent start for one who desires a more thorough familiarization.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agoge

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparta

The Agoge was a harsh environment. The children were subjected to extremely rigorous schedules of physical activities, exposure to the elements,  and deprivations, including the deliberate causing of hunger on a regular basis. The boys were made aware by implication that they could always steal food if they were hungry, but were punished severely if they were caught while doing so. This is believed to have encouraged them to learn to be disciplined to move quietly and without mercy as well as mentally inuring them to shortages that would inevitably be experienced while on military campaigns. The meals often consisted of some pork cooked in a broth of blood and vinegar; a concoction that reportedly caused a visiting non-Spartan to comment that he now knew why Spartans were not afraid to die in battle. Simliar comments were made of Spartan mothers; they were conisdered by many to be overly harsh and emotional with their sons. While some today will speak of German or maybe Irish mothers in this manner, Spartan mothers would generally make the former two look like pampering Italian moms of today.

There has to have been a reason for this harshness, and it appears to have been caused by the conditions ever-present in the Agoge. Those who have children are aware of the level of maturity and physical/mental toughness of seven year-olds. We can look at our children of that age and recoil in horror at the thought of having them removed from our watchful eye, the attention and affection that we give, and overall care that we regularly administer. We are able to do this as we know that, unless some terrible and unforeseen disaster visits our families, our young children are going to be with us at least until they are eighteen.

We have the luxury of bringing our kids along slowly on the road to toughness or mental and physical hardness. If parents know that their son is not close to being ready for, say football or wrestling, they can hold off for a while before throwing him in with boys of his age who are stronger and more aggressive. If is is clear that he is not going to be an athlete, a fighter, or a kid that is emotionally tough, they may very well not register him for any sports or other peer-involved activities at all. I personally do not recommend the latter course at all. There are too many advantages of getting the child exposed to some degree of competition even if he is not likely to be very accomplished at these activities.

Spartan Moms had no such option; the fathers were in the barracks and often not home until after thirty and even following that were on training/drill periods or actual campaigns. They could simply not be counted on to be there to toughen up the boys. Yet, ready or not,  the boys would have to leave, at age seven to an unforgiving world where the seven year-olds who were not ready would do more than cry for their mothers every night like a kid at summer camp, they would in all probability not graduate and become full Spartan citizens; either that or they would not survive at all.

When Spartan mothers acted in a manner that we would perceive as overly harsh or without affection, they were in fact doing the best thing that they could for the children that they loved - they were preparing them to survive the trials of the Agoge. The harder and harsher that they were on their boys, the more likely that they would live through the crucial first year of training and be on the road to citizenship. If they truly loved their boys, they withheld from themselves the selfish desire to pamper and "baby' their boys. If they did give in to their selfishness, they were guaranteeing that their boys would be beyond miserable - they may not even have returned home. Denying themselves the joy of lavishing all sorts of affection was therefore the key to increasing their sons' odds of making it through the Agoge.

Spartan mothers also denied themselves the luxury of public displays of grief for fallen adult sons. They practiced the "stiff upper lip" before the British were even formed as a people. There are dozens of saying and mini-anecdotes attributed to Spartan mothers - all of them telling and many are actually inspirational.

Two to note here:

The answer that Leonidas' wife Gorgo gave when asked why Spartan women ruled over their men. This was of course intended to be an insult to Spartan men. She replied that this was due to the fact that only Spartan women gave birth to men.
Ouch!

The others refers to the many examples of how the mothers reacted to any perceived cowardice on the part of their sons; some were killed by thrown tiles or other objects, some were chased with sticks, others mockingly shown their mothers' exposed bellies and asked if the wanted to crawl back in.


There are far too many to list, but the link below is a good source.

http://www.stoa.org/diotima/anthology/wlgr/wlgr-greeklegal99.shtml

Whether one is an admirers of Spartan society or not, their system of creating tough, fearless hoplites worked.

A common phrase was that a Spartan women had "never seen the smoke from an enemy's fire."

Another telling example was when, during a discussion between the high ranking Spartan Antalcidas and an Athenian, the Athenian boasted that during the on-again off-again wars between the two states "We have indeed often driven you away from the Cephisus (A river near Athens). Antalcidus replied "But we have never driven you away from the Eurotas" (A river in the area of Sparta)

If you do visit sites that provide examples of Spartan sayings, you will see how the word "Laconic" came to mean short, brief speech where less was more and words were not wasted.


http://www.ancientgreekbattles.net/Pages/47931_Spartaquotes.htm


*Those disposed to Homer will use the term Achaean, those who lean towards the work of archaeologists, Mycenaean.





Saturday, January 21, 2012

Britain Possibly Without Aircraft Carriers Until 2020 -2030


Great Britain, a nation that defined the notion of "ruling the waves", is effectively without an aircraft carrier. This creates a major weakness in force projection and consequently leaves the nation unable to confidently commit to defending such faraway possessions as the Falkland Islands. Leftist Argentine President Christina Fernandez, echoing the actions of the incompetent military governments that paralyzed that nations' growth in the 80's, has returned to that scheme to take the Argentine peoples' collective minds off their real problems and "pledged 'an eternal fiight' to reclaim the islands'.

Most are aware of the Falklands War of 1982. Below is a link that provides a decent summary of that conflict. Note that even at that time, the US Navy did not think that Britain could successfully retake the islands (When it had a much stronger naval force). The actions of their task force, coupled with the fighting elan and superior training of British military personnel, eventually prevailed. The word "yomp", referring the the ground-pounding across the islands of heavily-laden British soldiers and Marines, thus entered our vocabulary.

The high number of Argentine prisoners that were taken, many of whom had been issued all of six rounds of ammunition per soldier (Reported at the time), appears to testify to both that the Argentine government truly believed that Britain would not move to retake the islands and that the typical Argentine soldier's heart was not in this fight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklands_War


The following refers to to the reactions to Prince William's deployment to the Falklands:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"When asked if Britain would be sending an aircraft carrier to the Falklands during Prince William's military service, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense told NBC News: "No, we don't have one." HMS Ark Royal was decommissioned in March".

[Aside from am airfield described as well-defended and possessing Typhoon fighters, the Falklands have no other air assets. It was noted that, in the event of a successful attack that destroyed the Typhoon force, Britain would lose all control of the air in the region].

"...Admiral Sandy Woodward, who commanded the task force that liberated the Falklands' British population from Argentine occupation in 1982, believes the islands "are now perilously close to being indefensible.' "

[That is a very telling statement coming from the mouth of a Brit]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/19/10189569-will-prince-williams-tour-of-duty-reignite-simmering-falklands-dispute

Also mentioned in the article is that Argentine athletes are considering wearing messages on their uniforms at the 2012 Olympics in London stating "The Falklands are Argentine". I would have thought that they would have chosen their name for the region, Las Islas Malvinas, but maybe they feel that using the English name for that region will be better at getting the point across.

Note also that an Argentine Official, Sebastin Brugo Marco, was quoted as saying that sending Prince William on deployment to the British possession was "a provocative act"

[I guess that they are trying to sound like China does with Taiwan]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-15703340

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2067260/Aircraft-carrier-expected-operational-2030.html

The stepping-up of exploratory oil drilling by Britain in 2010 was the most recent catalyst for Argentina to feel justified to express resentment. Note that, prior to the beginning of Britain's 180 year-rule of the islands, and like most other nations, Argentina showed no interest in possessing or ruling that region. The citizens of the islands are British, not Spanish-speaking British subjects.

With the decommissioning of the HMS Ark Royal, Britain is simply in no position to function in a manner consistent with having a modern navy. This is a sad event. After Trafalgar, when Napoleon's dreams of naval power were crushed by Nelson, no nation challenged British sea power until the period before WWI. Even then, the Royal Navy more than held its own. From decisively containing much of the threat from Imperial Germany in that war through the Cold War, Britain could always be considered to be a naval power.

The Royal navy does have new carriers under development, but the above article notes that these will not be available until possibly as late as 2030. Even if they are commissioned by 2020, we are still looking at nine years of the same.

Lack of funding is always the first reason for reductions in military spending. Lo and behold, today also saw an article that exposed one telling reason for the current financial state of Britain:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9026401/370000-migrants-on-the-dole.html

According to the article, billions of Pounds Sterling are spent each year of welfare payments for immigrants who are not approved to remain in that nation and would be sent home if they happened to be residing in other nations. The Labour Party repeatedly not only forced this economic, political (The immigrants consistently vote for Labor candidates), and religious (A disproportionate amount are Muslims who also create massive criminal and security problems), burden onto the British people. It has also repeatedly lied about the extent of the immigration deluge.

http://www.political-facts.co.uk/immigration_and_new_labour.htm

The governments of the Western nations seem to be working together to destroy the cultural, ethnic, and religious factors that made these countries what they are. In doing so, they cannot but be aware that they are also destroying the abilities of their respective nations to actually defend themselves and their interests/possessions. I hope that the people of these nations put aside their minor differences and address these problems before it is too late.




Friday, January 20, 2012

Sparta, NJ Resident Charged With Terroristic Threats -Threatened on Facebook to Send Someone to Slit Victim's Throat

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/01/facebook_death_threat_in_spart.htm

A resident of Sparta, NJ (Yes, I get the irony) was recently arrested and charged with Terroristic Threats due to threatening via a Facebook message to send a person to slit the victim's throat. The girl who was the target of the threat is 17 - the actor, 20.

Please note the two incredibly brilliant quotes from a lawyer in Washngton DC:

"It seems we’re just starting the conversation here in trying to figure out where we want to go with these types of issues and how we deal with them as a society at they come up on a more regular basis," said Bradley Shear, a Washington D.C. attorney who practices cyber and social media law.
?????

"You don’t want to infringe upon people’s First Amendment rights, but you still want to protect people who might be a target of these types of things," Shear said.


The first quote is essentially talking in circles in a manner which would put Alexander Haig to shame; the second is bringing the right of free speech into the discussion.

One of the problems in our society is that whenever an event occurs, we begin to spin the facts around and try to point them to a topic that simply does not fit into the picture. Free Speech is as much part of the equation with the Sparta resident as is the privilege to drive a vehicle and driving recklessly or while drunk. You simply cannot cause people to be frightened of bodily injury or of losing their lives.

When the initial tumult following Cambridge Police's arrest of Henry Gates subsided, the editorials and radio call-ins inevitably went over to issues that had nothing to do with the event  that resulted to Mr. Gates' arrest. Both consisted of, once it was painfully obvious that the cop had not acted inappropriately, with racist motivations, or "stupidly", as stated by the intelligent American president in one of his earlier Obamian moves, that "We need to talk about the fact that racism sometimes is a factor in arrests". 

It was unbelievable- First the media was swearing that Gates was arrested or suspected due to being black, then when that fell apart, the Left started in with "Well, sometimes people get arrested because they are black so we need to talk about that right now". They simply refused not only to admit that they had been terribly wrong in their assumptions, but that they could not use the clamor that they were introducing to displace the real point and take its place

No one was willing to step up and shame Mr. Gates. If any normal person had been approached by a cop at their front door and informed that a report of a burglary or other suspicious activity had been reported at that house, the homeowner would be happy to present an ID and surprised if the cop did not request to see it. Most of us would thank the cops for being thorough. Mr. Gates, apparently shamelessly, decided to take the path less traveled and turned a two-minute police response into a nationwide crisis. 

Our friend from Sparta will have to answer to these charges is Sussex County Superior Court. The Star Ledger, (Source of the articleunfortunately, has either an agenda or a dearth of intelligent writers who cannot see a news story for what it is.


Thursday, January 19, 2012

Egyptian Cleric - Jews are a Cancer

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/01/egyptian-muslim-cleric-wants-genocide-these-jews-are-a-cancer-in-the-body-of-planet-earthgetting-rid.html


Arab Spring - and then some!

This gentleman, who also happens to strangely unaware that Islam is the religion of peace, can't seem to wait until the Jews are annihilated.

Make sure to read the entire post - the link is at the top.

"I tell them that the battle is bound to come, Allah be praised. The Prophet Muhammad, whose words are divinely inspired, said: "Judgment Day will come when the Muslims fight the Jews." That means that the Muslims will be the ones who engage [in fighting]. It's not just any battle. He said: "The Muslims will fight the Jews, and the stones and the trees will say: Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him." Even the stones and the trees hate them. The battle is bound to come."

Note that the reference to stones and the trees calling out to Muslims to kill the remaining Jews that are hiding behind them is not something that the cleric made up on his own. This comes from the Hadith, the sayings of Mohamed (referred to his followers as the prophet). There are many more verses in the Koran that refer to Jews. I myself was raised on school textbooks that made it clear that the Koran refers to Jews as "People of the Book" and indeed it does. The manner in which the quotes were provided were clearly designed for the reader to come to the conclusion that Muslims have some sort of respect for Jewish people. Nothing can be farther from the truth. If some dares to oppose the Left and actually reads the Koran, he will see that whenever "People of the Book"is found, it  is normally followed by statements that are far from complimentary to the Jews. In fact the vast majority of these are derogatory. One common refrain is next asking why they refuse to follow Mohammed's teachings. 


Many are not aware that the Koranic references that speak well of Jews and Christians or insist that "there is no compulsion in religion" come from the early period of Mohammed's work. This is referred to the Meccan period, when his movement was weak in numbers and he had to avoid looking like he wanted to take the whose region (and the world) under Islamic rule. Once he fled with a band of his followers to Medina, then the real Mohamed could stand up. Our cleric mentions the attack on the Jews of Khabar - these Jews got off easy, only losing all of their property and being allowed to work the land of the oasis in return for giving one-half of the produce to the Muslims.

 Left out of the cleric's rant was the earlier fate of the Quraiza Jews in 627AD. Accused by Mohamed of aiding the Meccan army that had recently failed to take the city of Medina from Mohamed, these people were savagely treated. The men were beheaded to a one and the women and children were sold into slavery.

As with many of the posts of this nature, I find very little to say in conclusion. The Muslims who are apparently not aware of how peaceful and tolerant their religion is do most of the work for us.


Non-Radical Egyptian Muslim Attacked on Televised Debate -By the Moderator of All People!

Note: I wanted to title this "Moderate Egyptian Muslim Attacked by Moderator" but I thought that it would cause confusion.

I and many others have noted in the past that in Islam there is essentially no room for anyone who desires to live/promote a moderate style of Islam or who would try to dispense with the Jihad//conquering/looting aspects of the religion of peace and tolerance. Dr. Sayid El Qimini, who has studied and earned a Doctorate in the US, is a pleasant, respectful man who clearly does not endorse Jihad or maltreatment of minority Christians.

Dr. Qimini was invited to debate on an Egyptian television channel. What transpired was a travesty - not  was he treated terribly overall, -the verbal attacks coming from both his opponent and the moderator, but upon preparing himself to depart due to being fed up with the whole thing, he was hit in the back of the head with a coffee mug - by the moderator. 


What kind of  society would allow for anyone to get so angry at a debate that not only does the opponent turn abusive but in which the very person tasked with keeping the debate orderly jumps in with the verbal abuse and then violently assaults one of the participants?

Please read the entire post here:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/01/egypt-islamic-supremacist-talk-show-host-assaults-liberal-muslim-guest.html

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

15 Year Old Girl Tortured by Husband's Family After Fleeing From Forced Prostitution

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iiklchBt2CXvWqOhTNBwUbVlLq1A?docId=CNG.d5ee67dd42d5a468e9ea68e927470560.471

A 15 year-old Afghan bride, who was burned, beaten and had her fingernails torn off in the basement of her husband's house is recovering. She had reportedly fled the household to avoid being forced into prostitution by the family but was returned to them by the police since the noble civil servants figured that heh, it was either that or jail for the girl.

We catch wind of this sort of things now and then, but horrific abuse on women is commonplace in nations in which the religion of peace is the primary system. Islam does not allow women to leave their houses unless they are accompanied by a male relative. While the Left put marriage in its sights in the West in the 40s and 50s, saying it amounted to slavery of women, and subsequently has done everything within its power to destroy the family, Islam was there the whole time showing what real female slavery is all about. While Jay Leno's wife comes out and says that the Koran provides for better treatment of women than does the Bible, Islam makes sure that it will not be allotted second place in this contest. In Islam second place is for losers.

This is what is going on - High School Freshman or Sophomore-age girls are required to marry and then, essentially their life is over. Islam is such a pervasive system that not only do whole families get on board with abusing these child-brides, but even the families (Read menfolk) of these girls have no desire or courage to stand up for their daughters, sisters or cousins. Even the threat of criminal prosecution or civil actions in a Western nation would not be enough to stop all men from that region of the world from making the savage abusers regret ever considering mistreating their relatives in the first place. Islam requires the families of these girls to not only yield to the "rights" of the in-laws, but even causes them to be ashamed of their children for running away in the first place. Some may recall the girl who also ran away and consequently had her ears and nose cut off by her in-laws. Her father, far from being torn by anguish and ready to fly into a rage, ("Rage, Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilleus" - First line of the Iliad) sheepishly did nothing and reassured his daughter that he would find her another husband -yea, that's what she wants, to be married again.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/10/13/130527903/bibi-aisha-disfigured-afghan-woman-featured-on-time-cover-visits-u-s

And another-
http://www.khaama.com/rights-advocates-plea-justice-for-torued-afghan-girl-275

While we rightfully know that some sort of punishment must occur for the Marines who urinated on their slain enemies' bodies, others in the West are ready to call for extensive jail terms for these young men who did not do one-tenth of what occurs to living, breathing girls who are trapped in a system of true slavery.

There is no doubt that our military members are subject to the laws of war and therefore cannot walk away without administrative (Hopefully not criminal) punishment for their actions, but many in the West (Read mostly Leftists) are ready to literally throw the book and more at these Marines.

One point that is not addressed very often is the Arabization of regions once Islam is entrenched. No matter what the culture of a particular group, Islam turns each one into a more severe mirror-image of a pagan Arab society. The Koran, if it indeed going to be a Koran, must be written in Arabic or it can only be considered a commentary of that book of tolerance.This and other Arab-superiority factors tend to cause converted societies to try their best to prove that they are not second-class Muslims. Not only does the society become Arab-like, it generally has a tendency to become as severe as possible in its quest to become purely Islamic. Those of these cultures seem to seek to be "more Arab than the Arabs themselves".

The people of Afghanistan are descended from proud peoples, mainly Indo-European Iranians ( Not Persian of modern Iran, which is a subgroup of Iranian) and Turkics (Not Ottomans and others of Modern Turkey, also subgroups of the widespread ethnic Turks). These were fiercely independent peoples who no doubt may have terrorized their enemies but did not engage in terrorizing their own family members by marrying them off to be abused, forced into prostitution, mutilated, or killed by their new families.

Most are not aware that Alexander the Great's first wife*, Roxanne (Or Roxana) was the daughter of a Iranian noble named Oxyartes. This man was a proud warrior and leader. Even though he had been defeated by Alexander's capture of the Sogdian fortress, Oxyartes would never have allowed the Macedonian King to get away with treating his daughter with anything less than the utmost of respect.

* The story of Roxana is a tragic one. After Alexander's death, she moved to Macedon with his young son.
Years later, when the heir was around 14, he and his mother were murdered (probably by poisoning) by the ever-scheming and selfish Cassander, who resented Alexander and wanted the Macedonian thrown for himself. The vast majority of the stories about Alexander's megalomania, drunkenness, rages, etc. are the result of Cassander's subsequent prohibition on the writing or publishing of anything good about the dead King. It was not until Cassander's death that  accurate and reasonably complimentary accounts of Alexander could be distributed. To this day we still have historians [sic} who cling tenaciously to the wildy exaggerated, derogatory, and false accounts of his life that originated from the time of  Cassander's censorship.


Tuesday, January 17, 2012

REVISED: Italian Cruise Ship Captain Refused Orders to Return to Ship While His Passengers Perished or Remained on Board



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM9sam2u_Tk

The youtube video has the audio of the exchange between the Coast Guard Officer and Schettino.

Another example cowardice and shameless actions by men in the West - The details of the communications between the Italian Coast Guard and the Captain of the Costa Concordia have come to light. The Captain is repeatedly ordered to return to the ship and he repeatedly refuses to do so.

The entire exchange was a disgrace; you can sense the disgust in the Coast Guard Commander's tone as he has to repeatedly respond to the Captain's refusals and excuses, such as insisting that he has to direct the rescue operation. Is he pretending that people will believe that he actually thinks that he has authority to command the rescue efforts?

Below is the link, followed by quotes:

The captain's name is Schettino.

http://newsok.com/coast-guard-to-italian-captain-go-back-aboard/article/feed/336354

"You go on board! Is that clear? Do you hear me?"
"
It is an order. Don't make any more excuses. You have declared 'Abandon ship.' Now I am in charge."

"Listen Schettino," De Falco can be heard shouting in the audio tape. "There are people trapped on board. ... You go on board and then you will tell me how many people there are. Is that clear?"

"I am here with the rescue boats. I am here. I am not going anywhere. I am here," he said. "I am here to coordinate the rescue."


"What are you coordinating there? Go on board! Coordinate the rescue from aboard the ship. Are you refusing?" came the response.

"Do you realize it is dark and here we can't see anything?"

De Falco shouted back: "And so what? You want to go home, Schettino? It is dark and you want to go home? Get on that prow of the boat using the pilot ladder and tell me what can be done, how many people there are and what their needs are. Now!"


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I could not imagine living with myself if something like this had occurred. Not only had he left the ship that was sinking due to errors that occurred under his command, but he brought his second-in-command with him onto the lifeboats while passengers, who had trusted him to take care of them, remained on board.

One thing that may be lost on those who have never worked in a military environment is the normal manner in which military officers communicate with each other. Even when one officer is angry or dissatisfied with another's actions, the first officer will almost always resist letting his opinion be expressed by his words or tone of voice and will save his anger for later when they are alone. Even reports after the incident will normally be dressed in military diplomacy with the writer expected the reviewers to read between the lines.

None of these restraints were in place in this event; Coast Guard Officer DeFalco, rightfully so, withheld nothing as he went after the man who wanted the rank, but not the responsibility, of Captain. Repeatedly does DeFalco use "Schettino" and not "Captain" when addressing him. I have rarely heard officers berate others in public and even then they would, at most, spit out the other's rank when showing their displeasure. Schettino deserved no such courtesy, he just gets his last name when addressed. I hope that Schettino cringes every time he hears his name uttered from now on.

DeFalco deserves credit for being so forward. I have no doubt that someone higher up in his chain of command will have a problem with his lack of discretion in his communications. I congratulate DeFalco and assert that the West needs more of this to cause men to be more fearful of being publicly shamed than for their own lives.

Both Schettino and DeFalco come from a nation that has a history of men who stood defiantly in the face of peril; Cato the Younger, Horatio Cocles, Gaius Mucius, and others who followed knew that self-preservation is not one's primary goal.. The difference was that Schettino didn't care how he fit into that picture and DeFalco apparently did. Men have allowed themselves to be so emasculated by Feminism that they simply don't have any concern about how their manhood is viewed. Even if women are adamant that they do not want men helping them, men have no choice but to do it anyway. I don't care if they don't like it - that is the way it is. Men function as the sheepdogs of society. Other men will always be the wolves. If the non-wolf types of men refuse to take their place as sheepdogs, then the wolves will run roughshod over their women.

I could not imagine seeing the look in the eyes of those in my family if I had done such a thing as Schettino. Spartan mothers, never known for being tender (A post explaining that phenomena this weekend - there truly was a reason for this.), would be so humiliated if their sons came home after running away from battle, that they would, for example, chase them with sticks. One reportedly hiked up her garment and asked her two sons if they wanted to crawl back up into her womb.

When the wolves see this sort of cowardice, how can we be surprised when a gang of Somali boys in Sweden rips off bikinis from 11 to 16 year-old girls in a PUBLIC pool areas and gang rape them? When the wolves have nothing to fear from the dogs, they will do whatever they please. Yes, this happened on more than one occasion and the men were too afraid of the Somalis, the law, or both to do anything to help the girls.


http://www.eutimes.net/2011/03/20-refugees-suspected-of-gang-rape-at-stockholm-public-swimming-pool/

As recently as the Titanic, men were expected to and did sacrifice themselves to make sure that the women and children got on to the lifeboats. Of course there were upper-class people who survived at the expense of those of the lower class but that is not the point here. The men knew their job and for the most part they did it, even though they knew that a horrid death in the North Atlantic awaited. They would not save themselves not only because it be wrong to do so but because they would not have wanted to live with themselves after failing to to do their job.


The following is the inscription from the monument to those men which is in Washington DC:

TO THE BRAVE MEN

WHO PERISHED

IN THE WRECK

OF THE TITANIC

APRIL 15 1912

THEY GAVE THEIR

LIVES THAT WOMEN

AND CHILDREN

MIGHT BE SAVED


ERECTED BY THE

WOMEN OF AMERICA

TO THE YOUNG AND THE OLD

THE RICH AND THE POOR

THE IGNORANT AND THE LEARNED

ALL

WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES NOBLY

TO SAVE WOMEN AND CHILDREN























http://www.eutimes.net/2011/03/20-refugees-suspected-of-gang-rape-at-stockholm-public-swimming-pool/

Coptic Leader Speaks Out on Current State of Christians in Egypt

An interview with Yohanna Qult, the Deputy Patriarch pg the Coptic Orthodox Church, was published in Catholic.org the link is blewow:

http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=44418

The Priest described the climate that Christians in the Middle East face very clearly - he also noted that the West has essentially done next to nothing to help those who adhere to the Christian faith in that region. Muslims who submit that they have an axe to grind against the West for acting as modern day "Crusaders" apply that label to Western forces in a derogatory manner and insist that this, and the support given to the State of Israel, are their sole reasons for attacking the West.

The facts do not support their position - When the West takes any action in a predominantly Muslim nation or even sends forces for a brief period of time, the Christians always have it worse once the military leaves. Christian in Iraq are attacked regularly and cannot either walk the streets, have Christmas services, or even keep their business open or remain in their homes without the constant threat of bombings, kidnappings, rapes, etc. Lebanese Christians have been on the ropes since we quietly walked away in the 80s. Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia are also very dangerous places if one is a Christian. The Arab Spring has opened a Pandora's box of anti-Christian and Jewish hatred. Christians are suffering terribly from those who follow the religion of tolerance.

If these Muslims would be even slightly honest, they would certainly welcome the US to invade/occupy or otherwise use our military or political influence to remove their current leaders in every nation in the Middle East  as our presence in every country  is inevitably followed by the utter destruction of the respective Christian communities.

Monday, January 16, 2012

Vatican Speaks Up About Persecution of Christians by Muslims

Well, Glory Hallelujah! - and this time I am not being sarcastic in the least.

The Vatican, as reported in CatholicCulture.org, published statements concerning the persecution of Christians and, lo and behold, there was a surprising pattern in the list from the NGO mentioned in the article that names the places in which persecution is at its most severe and active:


“The recent annual report of the international evangelical non-governmental organization Open Doors on the persecution of Christians in the world contains a world index of persecution according to which the first ten places are occupied by the following countries in descending order: North Korea, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Iran, Maldives, Uzbekistan, Yemen, Iraq and Pakistan,” (Italics added) notes Father Federico Lombardi."

-OK, I fell back into sarcasm on that one.

Also, note the tone in which "Arab Spring" is used below:


“Among the most serious concerns, the increase in Islamic extremism merits special attention,” he continued. “Persons and organizations dedicated to extremist Islamic ideology perpetrate terrible acts of violence in many places throughout the world: the Boko Haram sect in Nigeria is but one example. Then there is the climate of insecurity that unfortunately in some countries accompanies the so-called “Arab spring”--a climate that drives many Christians to flee and even to emigrate.”

To me, as understated as this was, it was still a big step for the Catholic Church to make these statements. Although Father Frederico Lombardi stopped short of spitting out the term "Arab Spring", he clearly used it in a manner that communicates that not everything that has happened as a result of the toppling of strongman governments is as great as the Media would have us believe.


Link is below:

http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=12976&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CatholicWorldNewsFeatureStories+%28Catholic+World+News+%28on+CatholicCulture.org%29%29


Rape is a perticularly common tool among Muslim men in nations with either Muslim majorities or those with sizable minorities. Although Muslim females are far from being safe from sexual assaults from their coreligionists, Christians are a more defenseless target. Note the post from Jihad Watch below:

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http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/01/pakistan-christian-girls-some-already-married-abducted-and-forcibly-converted.html

Pakistan: Christian girls and women, some already married, abducted and forcibly converted to Islam


The marriages of captives are abrogated, by order of the Qur'an: "And all married women (are forbidden unto you) save those (captives) whom your right hands possess. It is a decree of Allah for you" (4:24).
"There is no compulsion in religion," according to Qur'an 2:256, but the nature of the "compulsion" is in the eye of the overlord/beholder. There is, in reality, plenty of coercion hardwired into Islamic law, even via Qur'an 9:29, which gives unbelievers the options of conversion, subjugation, or warfare. All options are intended to lead the way to conversion by making life so otherwise intolerable, humiliating, and terrifying as to wear down resistance. But hey, you know, no compulsion or anything. Just "an offer you can't refuse."
Often, just to keep things looking good on paper, these women and girls are made to sign under duress (if not while drugged) a document saying they converted of their own free will. Is there "no compulsion" in document signing?
"Choora," variously spelled "Chura," or "Choohra," is a derogatory term. Literally, it means "sweeper," referring to the menial jobs to which Christians are frequently relegated on account of their faith and the social barriers to their advancement.
Pakistan remains a major recipient of U.S. aid. We have leverage we are not using to help Pakistan's second class citizens realize their full rights in society, and liberate the abducted and wrongfully imprisoned. "Girls being raped and tortured," from The News, January 16 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):
“I saw two of my daughters being raped in front of me,” an old lady from Essa Nagri told The News. “It is considered that Chooras have no integrity.” She says that around midnight, men from other areas start gathering in their neighbourhood. “They are usually drunk. They choose which home they will plunder.”
She adds that one night they stormed into her home and raped two of her girls, while she “was locked in another room hearing their cries for help”. “I am a widow without any financial prospects, but I did go to the MPA representing us. What good is he if he can’t do anything to protect us?” The fear to report these cases is such that at first, no one even admits that an incident of rape or torture has taken place.
Forcible conversions
Within the past three months, nine women have been abducted and forcibly converted to Islam. MPA Javed adds that the purpose is not to gain good deeds, but to sell them. A majority of the Christian girls converted are married, he says.
According to reports he received from different areas of the city, the abducted women are later sold to feudal lords in Sindh and Punjab. Citing a recent example, Javed says that in Essa Nagri, a 23-year-old married girl was forcibly remarried to a 60-year-old Muslim man, who was notorious for selling girls.
"Known to be pious, but had a side business of selling Christian girls":
Javed said that the man was known to be pious, but had a side business of selling Christian girls. He says many people apart from him knew the truth. The only information that the family received was by a phone call through which they were informed by somebody that their girl is in Punjab.
He points out that there is a judgment by the Lahore High Court which clearly states that a “married Christian woman cannot be remarried to a Muslim even if converted,” but these cases do not even go to the police to be challenged in the high courts.
The Qur'an trumps the court ruling.
Brothel beside a church
Ayub Goth, near the Meteorological Department, is another area known for ethnic and religious discord. The Christians living in the area complain that a brothel was recently established right beside a Catholic church in the area.
In the evening women from outside are brought by “some people.” Residents say that these people have enough political clout to ensure that no one dares raise a finger....
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Women and girls must live in constant fear of being attacked, kidnapped, or worse. Note to my knowledge that the post mentions  the selling of girls. The West, while of course guilty of slavery in its past, did not to my knowledge engage in the specific act of sex-slave trading. The West also was a driving force in abolition, something that is completely foreign to Islam itself.

The most savage aspects of ancient Arab culture were incorporated fully into Islam when it was created. This is what we are facing, not a few people who abuse or fail to understand the tenets of their religion.
While the West has sought to improve itself, often by looking back to the best of its foundations, Islam always falls back on the most vicious parts of the foundations of its system.




White House Appears to put SOPA on HOLD

The Stop Online Piracy Act, which due to the broad powers it provided to companies,  was the subject of significant opposition, including extensive petitioning. The White House indicated that it would not support this bill, at least in its current wording.

I had posted about this bill a sort while back, but my response paled in comparison to the extensive efforts of other bloggers and active citizens. SOPA simply allowed companies to take actions on their own (Like blocking suspected websites) that in any other situation would require a court order. I too support a means to stop the wholesale proliferation of piracy, but SOPA as it was written is not the way to address it. We can't have sites being blocked because they kinda, sorta, just might be posting or using copyrighted material, especially when the private entity is the one reaching out/or in and doing the blocking.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45998662

Sunday, January 15, 2012

The Campaigns Against the Western Manner of Learning to Read and Applying English Grammar

Crucial Revision - The author of the American Thinker article linked below makes an strong argument that the "sight words/Dolch system had its roots with Leftist thinkers. He notes that, to a prominent Socialist behind this movement, illiteracy was no big deal. This is also included in the follow-up post just above the link to the American Thinker post.

http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2012/05/follow-up-on-enforced-illiteracy-in.html

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/05/reading_the_contempt_of_socialists.html

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A common (probably all-too-common) theme of posts on this blog are of those which describe modern-day deconstructions (Wrecking ball work - both overt and covert) of methods, ways of thought/living, beliefs, and practices of Western culture.

Before I proceed further, perhaps I should clarify my general outlook on innovation. I enthusiastically embrace new ways to doing things, especially when the functions of work, daily, life, etc. can be improved by new material, technology, and even thought if any of those can truly provide us with a better way to accomplish tasks and help others. At the risk of appearing to be a chest-thumper, I will also make it clear that I not only happily took to new things like digital photography, readers, software, etc, but had, early on, predicted, against the protests of those who detest any change, that things like E-readers (I of course did not call it that by name at the time) and wall-mounted digital photo albums would be commonly employed a short while down the road. 

The only reason that I felt the need to state these is to possibly head off any possible accusations of being "resistant to change".

That is, unfortunately, often the charge leveled against one who refuses to simply drop a way of living, learning, and thought that has not only been hallowed by time but has proven itself to be an extremely effective tool in teaching each new generation. Many of the Left (or they  who are influenced by it), very likely as a result of a desire to remove all traces of a cultural/linguistic foundation of a society, will delight in tearing apart many of the basic means of  teaching, learning, and applying grammatical disciplines that brought us to point where we are now. These people, who in their desire to create a cultureless and by extension completely malleable society, aggressively promote “multiculturalism” but will also need to utterly excise methods, practices, and  types of learning which provided a connection to one’s past. Two examples will be cited here; the continuous attack on the use of the alphabet* to teach reading, and the wholesale dropping of the proper use of prepositions in sentences.

(*This refers to the attacks in academia on the utilization of phonics to teach reading and writing)

Firstly, to treat the whole subject fairly, a short-as-possible history:

It is universally recognized that writing was a massive leap forward in the beginnings of civilizations. The rate and by which notes, events, observations, conclusions, etc, could be recorded, learned, passed on, and used along with other recorded documents to improve upon earlier knowledge was without a doubt multiplied immeasurably. The history of writing is inextricably tied in with the history of civilization and is itself the only true foundation of any real historical works. Verbally recorded traditions, while still valuable, cannot compete with the probable accuracy and lack of revisions of the written word. Even when, for example, Herodotus writes of gold-digging ants in faraway nations, he himself was most likely relying on verbal accounts that had been run through the rumor mill several times over. The vast majority of his notes, though, have proven to be extremely valuable for their accuracy and substantial effort put into his research.

We of course are aware of pictorial-based systems of writing such as Hieroglyphics. There is a reason that the very name for this system means “priestly writing”. They are, while accurate and valuable, so heavily-reliant on thousands of characters to represent words, ideas, etc. as to be the exclusive domain of the upper classes. Systems like those of ancient Egypt, the Mayan, Indus valley, early pre-cuneiform Sumerian, (All extinct) and even Chinese are extraordinarily difficult to teach to people in a reasonable period of time. For the vast majority of history, these systems of writing were relegated solely to the educated classes. Many hold that the Egyptian script goes back five thousand years.


By the time the second millennium BC rolled around, the Sumerians had long been using a vastly improved version of writing called cuneiform. This utilized impression impressed into clay tablets with a stylus. The number of characters was reduced to around a thousand and later by the Hittites of Anatolia to around 400. This was clearly an improvement but we had still not yet reached a point where the lower-class individual could be taught how to read and write with the amount of free time available to him.


Syllabaries or Open Syllabaries were another improvement in writing. These had come into place by the beginning of the sixteenth century and shortly after had been adopted by the Hittites, Minoans, and on Cyprus. The Achaean Greeks utilized an open syllabary (Linear B) adopted from the Minoan writing (Linear A). Syllabaries were a major step towards an effective system of writing that could be taught to those for whom the classroom (or desk) was a part of one’s life, not the whole thing. These could reduce the number or characters to around 80; Modern Korean is in fact a Syllabary. It utilizes signs for syllables such as the “ing’, “er”, “en” “tion” etc. in English (I know that I restricted it to suffixes, but you get the point). It is very effective and can put a young student on an equal footing with his older peers and, most importantly, provide him with the tools to decipher more complicated words as he grows older.

A word of warning – be very diplomatic when referring to the Korean system of writing as a syllabary when speaking with a Korean; they very much want to refer to their system as an alphabet and can become easily hurt.

The next big leap, and the one that most directly affects us, is the consonantal alphabet. It was the work of the Syro-Phoenecians and of course was utilized by their close relatives, the Hebrews. This alphabet, which as implied by its name does not have vowels, utilizes a single symbol for each individual sound. Depending on the amount of sounds in a language, we can now reduce the amount of symbols to, say, 25-40.

This is a major event. The student can be taught the sounds associated with each symbol, be given simple, one-syllable words to start, followed by two-syllable words and so on until he can “sound out” any word no matter how long it is or how many syllables it contains. It is difficult for us to appreciate how big a moment this was.

There is, though, a factor in these Semitic languages that could cause problems when applied to other languages. Semitic and Hamitic languages have vowel-type sounds that, in the words of Colin McEvedy, “occur in regular relation to the consonants”. In other words, in their languages vowel sounds follow certain consonants and those do not change. Vowel symbols are therefore not needed. Where in English, utilizing a consonantal alphabet would cause a problem with “hs” and we could not be sure if it meant “his”, "house", “has”, "hose", etc., this problem would not occur in the former languages.

The problem was resolved, of course, by the Greeks*, who removed from the consonantal alphabet a few symbols they would not need for their consonantal sounds and applied those to their vowel sounds. Voila!, we now have an alphabet, one that can be taught in a very brief period of time, allows one to read and write in an effective, clear manner very quickly, be utilized even to write most foreign words, and again provides the student with the ability to be able to read things like …”

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”. Sorry, I couldn’t resist – but I did cheat and cut-and pasted that one.

Those who were taught the use the “Phonics” method probably have good memories of learning how to read. The first book that I read on my own was “We Feed the Deer. Learning to “sound out” words enabled me to tackle words with greater complexity. In time, I of course learned to pick up common words in a flash-recognition manner, thereby enabling me to, like most of us, read at a very rapid pace. I still, though, regularly apply the sounding-out phonics method when encountering words with which I am not familiar or foreign words written in our alphabet. While flash-recognition of words of course lets me rip through common, familiar words, no amount of flash-reading will enable me to actually be able to read.

Now we can slowly begin to approach the actual topic:

Modern English, contrary what many will say, is not a Germanic language. Old English was in fact a Germanic language, being very close to Friesian and also close to Dutch. These are two examples of Low German. Old English was the spoken language of England/Britain during the time of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom(s). This language, along with pickups from the old Welsh/Briton (Brythonic Celtic), Scandinavian from the Danish and Norwegian Norsemen, (Vikings), some Latin, and some other bits and pieces continued in use among most people even after the Norman Conquest – the upper classes speaking Medieval French.

This situation – Germanic being spoken by some and a Romance (Latin-derived) by others, was not going to last forever. Slowly the languages began to mix. By the time period depicted in Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, one of the characters is described as speaking “The mixed language” This refers the Middle English. We remember it from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Whan that Aprille with his shourers soote The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote”.

The language had reached a form mostly recognizable to us by the time of the Elizabethan era. Modern English actually has more words of Medieval French origin than of Old English (Germanic) origin. I believe the percentage here is around 27% French, 24% Old English. The rest is mage up by Welsh/Briton, Scandinavian, Greek, Latin (Direct absorption of Latin - not indirectly through French), and words/phrases incorporated from languages such as French in the modern era, like Lassez-fair.

The hybridization of the languages, along with a general failure to address the need to revise/overhaul the spelling of words, left us with a hodgepodge of different spellings
This fact is the primary cause of the difficulty that can be encountered in pronouncing certain words like cough, enough, etc. This in turn became the primary ammunition of the revisionists.

I will freely admit that, later in the US,  Noah Webster may have dropped the ball when he completed the American dictionary in which he successfully standardized much of our English spellings. (Note that English was far from standardized at the time of the foundation of the American Republic). “While he was there”, it would have been helpful had he overhauled the spellings of the rest of our words. Maybe he felt that he had pushed the enveloped far enough already.

Spanish, for example has an alphabet+ (I don’t know when it was revised nor does it matter for the purposes of this subject) that enables one to read every Spanish word with little likelihood of mispronouncing it.

+ [I don't like my choice of words in that case. I should have written "spelling" or "writing system"]

Since that event never occurred in English, Academia, predictably, came up with a false conclusion – since phonics-type reading does not work with every English word, then it must not work any English word. From there the regression into abandoning the teaching of reading to children was rapid. Teaching “reading” came to be viewed by many to be the act of repeatedly showing children flash cards in an effort to get them to recognize words by rote memorization as opposed to actually reading the words.

Fortunately for my eldest, this system had not been adopted the elementary schools [In our area] by the mid-90s and she was taught how to read and write. My youngest, though, was met with this like a freight train and the results were comparable with a train wreck. My youngest was a hard-working student, a pretty bright kid, and had no disabilities such as dyslexia+, but having him memorize pictures and calling that "reading" was clearly not working. When I saw what was going on, I approached the teacher, who clearly had been taken in by the smoke and mirrors of this system and was a strong advocate of effectively skipping steps one and two (Learning symbols for sounds (1) and having students apply that knowledge to letters placed together and have them learn to “sound them out”(2) ). She was, sadly, a very nice and clearly bright individual. In fact, I was more disappointed that this person, who was clearly no dolt, could not have seen that this flash-recognition system not only has no place in the teaching of reading to our youth but that it essentially and utterly ignores the very system that we have and utilize for reading and writing in the first place! Her response was that, with this system, “He will learn how to read like that “(Snaps her fingers) Well, my kid is in first grade and I don’t want him reading in a snap; I want him to learn how to read.

I performed the necessary repairs by teaching him phonics and encouraging the extensive writing of notes to me from him that forced him to imagine how the word should be spelled with the knowledge that he had at the moment. It was as observed from the old “Our Gang/Little Rascals Series” and had been encouraged by my eldest’s teacher in her first grade class.

Another parent in town who faced a similar situation related to me the teacher’s reaction to the mentioning by the parents that they were planning to purchase reading tutorials/workbooks for their child who was not progressing (shocking) at the expected pace. The teacher, without a pause, stated. “OK, but make sure you stay away from anything that uses phonics”. That was how far the assault had gone – not only was she not planning to teach phonics, but she had been so brainwashed that she could not bring herself to think, even for a second , that it may be possible that her handlers in academia got it wrongly.

When the word “went” is shown on a flash card, it is no different than showing a child a Chinese character and asking him to remember it, along with “what” and “where” and every other word that occurs in any language. The teacher, again a nice woman, was the product of a society that unfortunately does not teach or encourage one to actually think. Had she been so, there would at least have been the chance that she would have applied critical thinking to this system and consequently saw it for what it is – a mixture of false logic to solve a very minor problem of exceptions to the rules like silent “H’s”, “gh’s sounding like ‘F’s’, long and short vowels,”etc. and an outright effort to detach our children from one of the foundations of our Western culture.

While I admit that some advocates of this system who work at the college level may have truly had good intentions in creating flash-card reading, they too were born of a culture of studies that removed critical thinking from the equation. Ignored so completely was the history of Western culture, and by extension the very reasons for the development of alphabets in the first place, that they could not see the inherent weaknesses of what was being advanced as a “new and better way” to teach children to read and write.

I tend to lean towards a more cynical take on the situation. As a student progresses through more years of school, he begins to notice that certain things start to come together. He learns about the old forms of writing, how the alphabets came to be, and beings to realize that what he is doing at that very moment is exactly what some Phoenician kid in Sidon or an Athenian student was doing at a similar age in their times He notices and feels a connection with the past.

The Left has no intention of allowing this to continue, so as they do with parental authority, admiration for his parents and his nation’s and culture’s founders, and all other people, things, and events worthy of emulation and respect, they remove it entirely. In this case this is accomplished by teaching American kids to recognize words Chinese-style under the pretext of being unable to teach them any other way. Of course they conveniently ignore the fact that phonics-type systems worked flawlessly for years.

The second subject mentioned early in this post, namely the abandonment of teaching students to avoid leaving a preposition at the end of a sentence, is admittedly not nearly as much of a problem but is still another means of removing parts of our culture/language from our collective memory.

Since English is, again a mixed Medieval French/Old English language, our English came to have the French (From Latin) grammatical rules applied to it. That is why “To whom”, “of which”, “about which”, etc, are the most proper means to express oneself while generally avoiding leaving the preposition at the end of the sentence. To be fair, it is clearly less awkward to occasionally apply common usage with certain phrases such as “What are you talking about?” This was famously treated; possibly somewhat tongue in cheek, by Winston Churchill when he wrote that “This is something up with which I will not put.”

Again, Academia has collectively dismissed this part of our grammar, with grammar handbooks such as Harbrace, without mentioning anything about the general and time-honored ways of utilizing prepositions as derived from French grammar, stating simply that they “can be used at the end of a sentence”. That’s it – no mention of the purpose or the most proper means of employing those words or any explanation that many modern phrases are easier to communicate when leaving the preposition at the end of the sentence. All the new reader sees is that they can be used at the end of a sentence. When explanations like that are encountered, I find that they tend to communicate a desire to completely ignore the question.

The grossest example in treating this subject, and one devoid of any common sense whatsoever, was an instance where the answer was provided in a Q&A format. The answer was extremely brief, again with no explanation of the actual question. It started with “English isn't Latin” in bold print followed by a line that sought to, again dismiss the entire question outright.

"English isn't Latin" is just another mindless example of how we are taught to ignore much of makes us what we are. No one ever said that English was Latin; the facts are that French is in fact directly derived/adapted from Latin, that Modern English is the product of mixing two languages, and that the French rules are applied in this case. No, the re-educator simply decides that noting that English Isn’t Latin is supposed to put the whole issue to rest.

The Western world is literally being torn at from all angles. I hold that it is the obligation of the individual to ensure that our children learn to read in a proper manner and one consistent with our actual method of writing sounds. One must also stand his ground when grammatical rules, which were adopted purposefully and provide some character to our language, are ignored by the very people who write the handbooks that are designed to teach English grammar. Note that George Orwell’s 1984 featured "Newspeak," which was designed to remove any real thinking, feelings, or abstract thought from communication.


* After writing this, I continued to have a nagging thought that I had once read that there had been archaeological discoveries of Phrygian alphabetic inscriptions that were found to be as old as the earliest known Greek examples. I came up with the citation a few days later. (Again, Colin McEvedy) If the dating is accurate, then we of course have to allow that the Greeks could have learned the use of vowel-signs from the Phrygians of Anatolia. (Modern-day Turkey). Note that the Phrygians, although like the Greeks an Indo-European-descended group, have their origin among the Thraco-Cimmerian peoples of which the only surviving spoken language is Armenian. (This or course being heavily Iranian-influenced - referring to the main Iranian group, not Persian specifically)


+ One of course may point out that those who do in fact have Dyslexia or other disabilities have an easier time with flash-memory rote-learning of words. If that is the case, then we have yet another example where the intellectual abilities of able students are knowingly being suppressed. Having difficulty keeping up with the other students in reading is no different from being below-average in being able to hit a baseball or any other activity. Those students are to be provided with the alternative methods just like I spent time teaching less-skilled nine year-old boys how to hit a ball. Alternate methods of teaching are just that – alternate methods. They are not to be used to replace a system of teaching/learning lock, stock and barrel. Doing so is terribly unfair to students and the parents who pay for this education with their taxes.