A hallmark of those on the left is their incessant demand for freedom to say what they want when they want.  Of course, they exercise that right at any given opportunity in speeches, rallies, demonstrations, and editorials, to name just a few.  No matter how lame brained the speaker; no matter how psychotic the ideas, freedom of speech reigns and no one is called on the carpet for bad behavior.  Although most of what they have to say is irritating, I believe that they have every right to say what they want as long as it isn’t illegal.  I believe that most of us on the right would agree.  Unfortunately the same objectivity is not coming from the left.

Here is one example.  Harvard President Larry Summers made the “mistake” of voicing the hypothesis that there may be some social and/or genetic differences between men and women.  For that he has been vilified by the faculty of his university and has now resigned.  Apparently, for those on the left freedom of speech exists only when they agree.

One more recent example is just as horrific and just as telling.  Members of Minnesota Families United made a television ad featuring some Iraq war veterans including 23-year veteran Marine Lieutenant Colonel Bob Stephenson.  The group consists mostly of relatives of soldiers who have died in Iraq or who are still serving there.  I am not sure who has more right to speak out on the war than that group of people.  When Cindy Sheehan spoke out against the war, she was greeted with open hearts by the left.  But then, what she was saying fit the leftist agenda. 

Here is the extent that the Democrat Party will go to silence speech.  The head of the party in Minnesota labeled the ad as “un-American, untruthful, and a lie”.  In doing so he was in effect labeling the veterans who spoke in the ad as liars.  This comes from the party that keeps saying that it will always honor and respect our veterans if not their mission.  I guess that rule is in effect only when the veteran condemns the war, not when he or she supports America’s mission in Iraq.

Thank God that there is a strong counter-balance to the fascism of the left in the form of those of us who still really DO value free speech.  Oh-Oh, sorry, I said God in public.  Now I am in trouble.

Many websites and search engines use the term “key word” to indicate a word or phrase that the user can enter to find some specific topic or area of interest.  The key word for those on the left is “nuance”.  Using this key word, anything is possible for the left, even that which make literally no sense at all.

Random House defines nuance in a very benign manner as meaning “a subtle shade of color, expression, or variation”.  When used by the left the word means something a little more malignant.  Unfortunately, it is appearing more and more frequently in the leftist press.

In the eyes of those on the left, nothing is right or wrong and nothing has constant meaning.  Reality is ever changing based on opinion.  When someone tries to categorize an event or situation as right or wrong those on the left look down their nose and tell us that we are oversimplifying…that we should take a more “nuanced” approach to the situation.  They tell us that we should not judge others, regardless of what they do.  They tell us that we are really not very bright because nothing is simply right or wrong (unless they don’t like what someone does as in smoking tobacco, controlling our own property, owning and carrying guns legally, not wearing a helmet, etc., etc.). But I digress.

For example, illegal immigration is not really illegal immigration.  People who cross our borders without adhering to immigration law are “undocumented immigrants”.  Using the word “illegal” would be judgmental and not nuanced.   It would also lose many voters for leftists.

Those on the left also have trouble with the concepts of marriage and of the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution.  To those on the left, marriage really isn’t marriage.  It is what they want it to be.  Right now, they want it to include unions between people of the same sex.  A few of them want it to be a union between…well…a person and anybody or anything.  They use the equal protection clause as their battering ram.   Yet, we all know that we all have equal protection under the Constitution regarding marriage.  Anyone in America who is of legal age can marry anyone else of legal age as long as that person is of the opposite sex and not a close relative.  There is no discrimination regarding marriage.

The list of areas requiring “nuance” in the minds of leftists goes on and on.  Here is one more: impeachment.  President Clinton was impeached for perjury regarding having had sex with an intern.  According to the left he was railroaded.  Remember, President Clinton was not impeached for having sex with the intern but for committing perjury.  Of course any of us in regular jobs who has sex with an intern would be fired, in jail, and paying a very large civil penalty.  To the left, this is not a big deal because President Clinton was one of theirs.  But impeachment takes on another meaning when it is not one of theirs.  For example, when President Bush tries to fight terrorism using what are probably quite legal procedures, those on the left call for his impeachment.

Words and concepts are to those on the left what oatmeal is to the rest of us.  There is no form, no shape, and no structure except what they give it at any time based on their ability to nuance.

Former Vice President (and almost President) Al Gore seems to have taken that final step toward psychosis.  Either that or he is so bitter about losing the 2000 presidential election that he will do and say anything to undermine the current administration and therefore his own country.  In his latest display, he informed Saudis in Saudi Arabia that America had haphazardly gathered and detained Saudis immediately after 9/11. 

First of all, Duh!  Of course we gathered and detained suspected terrorists.  From what I can read we may have gathered up around 70 of them.  We apparently were in error in 13 of those cases.  Not too bad when you consider that we had just been attacked by Saudis in airplanes. 

People like Gore are only fanning the flames of Islamic terror.  The fact is that they don’t need much.  Anything they focus on that makes the West look bad and that gives them power is just that much gravy for them.  It doesn’t matter what it is or what form it takes.

Clifford D. May (Minneapolis StarTribune, 2/12/06, Scripps Howard News Service) has done a good job of making clear the purpose and methods being used by islamofascists.  In his article he wrote that “The damage these demonstrators are doing to the image of Islam is incalculable, far beyond what any poison-penned cartoonist could accomplish. So why are they doing it?

“Machiavelli provided the answer more than 500 years ago. For those who would rule, he said, it is better ‘to be feared than loved.’

“By now, all but the most self-deluded among us recognize that militant Islamists are waging a War Against the West, a deadly jihad against Christians, Jews, Hindus and moderate Muslims.

“This international intefadeh -- ostensibly in response to 12 cartoons first published in a Danish newspaper in September -- is merely militant Islamists' latest tactic. The charge most frequently leveled against the protesters is hypocrisy. How can they be up in arms over a few cartoons lampooning Muslims when, in many Muslim societies, Jews and Christians are routinely characterized in vicious terms and images? That misses the point.

“The militant Islamists are not demanding equality. They are demanding superiority. They are Muslim supremacists -- ideological heirs to those who, in the 20th century, fought for Aryan supremacy and white supremacy.

“Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, leader of the European Council for Fatwa and Research and president of the International Association of Muslim Scholars, is seen by some as the ‘hidden hand’ behind the protests. He has declared: ‘Islam will return to Europe as the conqueror.’

“Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Al-Qaida commander in Iraq, said: ‘Killing the infidels is our religion, slaughtering them is our religion, until they convert to Islam or pay us tribute.’

“Militant Islamism is least of all about religion. It's mostly about power. The cartoon intefadeh is one front in an expanding war of arms and ideas against the West. And it appears to be working. If, in the process, the reputation of Islam is muddied and bloodied, that's a price militant Islamists are more than willing to pay.”

As al-Zarqawi says, the religion of islamofascists is to kill anyone with whom they disagree.  Their religion is about power and control over others.  At least that is clear and makes much more understandable their ability to somehow bring harmony to the concepts of killing and of religion. 

When religion is grounded in killing, we kill.  When religion is grounded in mutual respect (the golden rule) we accept or at least tolerate.  But that is where the rubber meets the road.  If Christians and Jews and people of other religions are about to be destroyed by islamofascists, when do WE take a stand?  When do we stop accepting and tolerating and hold the line against the killers?  May now is that time.

This is for all of those who rant on and on about a single-payer, government funded health care system.  Many of those people are the same ones who rail incessantly about the failure of the Medicare prescription program. 

Here is a rude awakening, my friends.

No matter which political party is in power, the government is incapable of running anything efficiently.  It is not that the government doesn’t try.  It is just that the mechanism of big government makes it totally impossible to run anything well.  The last thing we need is government bureaucrats making health care matters even worse.

Let’s get off the government health care kick and work with companies that know what they are doing to develop a more efficient, managed-care approach to health care.  The Democrats had their chance during the Clinton administration.  Unfortunately the President allowed his wife to muck it up.  After Hillary failed he signed the HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) in 1996.  That law was supposed to increase the security of our private health care information.  Instead it created a multi-billion dollar hardship on health care providers (and ultimately on all of us) while giving the Department of Health and Human Services to right to see our private health information.  President Clinton probably felt good about having done something about health care.  Unfortunately, it increased the cost of health care.  It was the wrong something.

It is time to try again with the right leadership and with the right people at the table.  A truly bipartisan effort, facilitated but not led by government, can create a system that the country can be proud of.  Now is the time!

It seems that Democrats are totally incapable of memorializing their own without demonizing their supposed enemies.  We all remember that the memorial for Senator Paul Wellstone became blatantly political, serving both to attack Republicans and to provide a catalyst for the campaign of replacement candidate Walter Mondale.  This week a similar situation occurred during the memorial for Coretta Scott King.  Rather than extol her virtues, speakers demonized those with whom she (and they) disagree.  

I realize that many of you may have missed the latter fact since neither the New York Times nor the Associated Press mentioned the venomous speeches against President Bush that covered under the heading of eulogies.  Despite the fact that President Bush was present, spoke with respect for Mrs. King, has hired more African Americans for cabinet level posts, and has put at least as much money into entitlement programs (much of it serving African Americans) than even his predecessor, he was vilified before the crowd. 

Obviously this type of behavior is to be expected from professional victimizers and rabble-rousers such as the Revs. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Joseph Lowry.  I find it telling that the leftist media didn’t mention any of their most hostile comments.  But I find it even more telling that the Times and AP did not mention that former president Jimmy Carter was one of those attacking a sitting president during a memorial service.  Even the elite media knows that this will not help their cause.  They think regular Americans are stupid but they are beginning to realize that we do have values.  When a former president attacks a sitting president, he shows not only disrespect for the Office of the President but for America. 

During the memorial/political convention, Bernice King (youngest daughter of Coretta Scott King and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.) stated that her mother’s purpose in life was to spread her father’s message of peace and unconditional love.  She went on to say that her mother was an “incredible example of Christ-like love and obedience”. 

That may be true.  But those who follow her and revere her do not show any of those qualities.  I wonder how she felt observing them from her new home in a truly peaceful heaven.