Who's the Materialist?

Who's the Materialist?
07/11/09 - Cafe Hayek by Donald J. Boudreaux

[edited] Capitalism emphatically does improve material living standards. But more, all the great champions of economic freedom ultimately justify capitalism because only it affords true dignity to individuals. That dignity is denied by systems which arbitrarily diminish each person's freedom to choose.

It is fine for "Progressives" such as Mr. Dionne not to share the value of freedom. But it is rather cheeky with one breath to accuse proponents of capitalism as unduly focused on material goods, and with the next breath to insist that a major problem with capitalism is that some people get fewer material goods than do other people.

Charming the Barbarians

President Obama Believes He Can Charm the Barbarians
02/11/09 - PajamasMedia by Phyllis Chesler

[edited] But what word other than “barbaric” describes the systematic incitement to violence that takes place in mosques and on television and which has led to mob rampages and episodes of “wilding”. Muslim girls and women are group-groped, gang raped, kidnapped into sexual slavery, set on fire, buried alive, and blinded by acid. This, for daring to go to school, work as a newscaster, a hairdresser, or for a foreign company, refuse to wear a shroud, or choose to marry someone of their own choice.

Beginning with President Obama, and including the American and western media, we had better start connecting the dots. We are not only facing “barbarians,” but we are facing barbarians who brilliantly and viciously employ non-conventional, asymmetrical, non-proportionate, and terrorist means of warfare–which unbelievably, our own media finds thrilling and romantic.

The western liberal media is terrified to further offend the rampaging Muslims whose religion is, presumably, one of peace. But not telling the truth and keeping one’s head deep in the sand does not abolish the barbarism. It only makes it more difficult for us to name it and to defend ourselves against it. For example, despite all the liberal media cautiousness, in 2009, a Polish engineer Piotr Stanczak was kidnapped, then beheaded on video in Pakistan, near the border with Afghanistan.

The “barbarism” is hardly confined to Muslim countries. In Scotland there is an alarming pattern of Muslim or “Asian” murderous attacks upon young white boys.