The problem with progressives is that they never met an evil that they didn’t want to appease. Consider the fact that in Iran, you can be imprisoned for blogging. And do you know what happens in Iranian prisons? If you answered “you die”, give yourself a gold star! First, consider this story from Celestial Junk (H/T Free Canuckistan!) which links to this Beitbart article.
Excerpt:
A young Iranian blogger jailed in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison for insulting supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has died, his lawyer told AFP on Thursday.
…The blogger, aged around 25, was sentenced in February to 30 months in jail for insulting Khamenei and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic.
Sayafi was first arrested in April last year and released on bail after 41 days before being detained again this year.
Iran has launched a crackdown on bloggers and Internet users deemed to be hostile to the authorities and their Islamic values.
The Jerusalem Post notes that Freedom House is promising to launch an investigation.
“Omidreza Mirsayafi’s death illustrates the dangerously inhospitable environment in which bloggers operate in Iran,” said Jennifer Windsor, Freedom House executive director. “Mirsayafi should never have been subjected in the first place to the cruel conditions found in Iran’s most notorious prison. At a time when President Obama is attempting to engage Iran, it is essential that the United States see Iran’s regime beginning to demonstrate a greater respect for human rights.”
But here’s President Teleprompter reaching out to Iran:
Excerpt: (Stop the ACLU has the transcript)
My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us, and to pursuing constructive ties among the United States, Iran and the international community. This process will not be advanced by threats. We seek instead engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect.
Remember how progressives think: good is evil and evil is good. Everyone is morally equivalent. Just imagine, (they say), if everyone were the same then there would be no more wars! If we just appease the good Iran and unilaterally disarm the evil USA, then the world will be at peace.
George W. Bush knew the difference between good and evil, and was not afraid to act to defend liberty abroad. And 2 wars only cost us about 500 billion dollars. Meanwhile, Obama is going to spend several trillion dollars over the next few years driving us into a socialist depression. Bush spends a little money and liberty increases. Obama spends tons of money and liberty decreases.
Then again, maybe Obama isn’t as much of a naive dove as I think he is. His unilateral trade war with the entire world is going great! Look, John Lott is reporting progress in the trade war against Mexico. Yeehaw! Cowboy communism!
UPDATE: In my RSS reader, I spied this IBD podcast and here’s the transcript of it.
WINTERY KNIGHT 
You obviously don’t understand the concept of extending a hand in good faith.
Love your enemy as yourself.
The Obama administration is far from perfect, the earmarks in the budget omnibus were a disgrace, but he has been kept so busy by the Global Financial Crisis that was initiated under George W reign and this is the source of the high expenditure of his budget. We are eons off socialism, let alone communism.
Do the pro’s and con’s of George W Bush’s presidency if you get more pros than cons you can rest assured that you are radically biased.
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Thanks for your comment. I would recommend you take a look at this analysis of Jesus’ moral prescriptions from Jewish theologian Dennis Prager. He explains that at least some of the moral rules prescribed by Jesus apply to personal moral choices, not to the state policy. So, if you get a personal insult, you turn the other cheek. But as a nation, this rule doesn’t apply. The United States is not a theocracy.
For an analysis of who and what caused the financial crisis, check out this post.
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Yep, no socialism here (or in Medicare/Medicaid/Social Security):
http://www.drudgereport.com
The bolded headline as of 1:15 PM EST:
Obama will call for increased oversight of ‘executive pay at all banks, Wall Street firms and possibly other companies’ as part of sweeping plan to ‘overhaul financial regulation’, NY TIMES reporting Sunday, newsroom sources tell DRUDGE… Developing…
Well, I hope no one was keen on a recovery any time soon–‘Going Galt’ is about to hit the big-time.
P.S. As for the rest of your foolish comment, Julian, I don’t have the time right now to waste (yet again!) explaining to someone that is historically deaf, dumb and willfully blind why it is not GWB’s fault (or at least no the lion’s share of it), nor do I have time to laugh at your feeble attempt to throw “love your enemy as yourself” in WK’s face (I don’t know about you, but I’m not big on loving people that have been KILLING AMERICANS in Iraq and threatening to nuke Israel just because it has the ‘temerity’ to exist.)
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The introduction of oversight and regulation isn’t going to introduce apocalyptic levels of big brother style government into our lives. Its going to help more minimum and middle wage earners and the sick and needy. The point of it is to provide a more even playing field with safet nets so that those less fortunate than myself aren’t left to slip through the gaps in our society that currently exist.
The Global Financial Crisis, is not entirely of GWB’s doing, its a global problem that no one individual can be blamed for. However, his radical brand of capitalism did encourage the lack of moral hazard that was/is so rife on Wall Street that resulted in these hapless game of high risk derivatives trading. And his tax cuts were just quite simply economically foolish given the incredible deficits he was running as a result of a pointless war.
As for foreign diplomacy if you think that continuing the GWB foreign policy is a good idea then you just aren’t assessing the outcomes of its eight years of implementation dispassionately. The war in Iraq was a monumental mistake that cost more American lives than the 9/11, which despite the claims of WMDs was a motivating factor in this retaliatory war.
I’m all for Israel’s existence. But you’re not going to convince the world by shouting and shooting at them that Israel has a right to exist. The middle east theological/territorial issue isn’t going to resolve quietly during the Obama administrations tenure, it will go on for generations, but by recklessly supporting the Israeli military strikes that are over zealous is a dead end. War will not resolve any of the many issues that the US government, now and in the future, needs to deal with in regards to foreign policy.
As for Iran, you can either bomb their developing weapons refineries or negotiate as best you can. Personally, I’m for the latter.
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Thanks for your comment. Obviously we are not going to agree on foreign policy, but I appreciate a different perspective on the blog.
Regarding the subprime crisis, I analyzed the financial crisis here. The Democrats are almost entirely responsible because they forced the subprime lenders to make the bad loans, and as the New York Times reports in 2003, Bush tried to regulate the GSEs before it was too late. Please read the post, which contains links to the LAT and NYT stories.
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I’ve read your article on the financial crisis and the new york times paper and it is indeed a intelligent progressive publication that I respect. And I acknowledge the sub prime mortgages weren’t of his authoring, and yes the congressional democrats introduced legislation to increase home ownership in minority groups and low income earners. This may have been the mistake.
However, I can’t believe that just because the Bush administration tried but failed to introduce some regulation to the house finance industry once that his hands are clean. It reflects very poorly on his stewardship of the economy that his administration accomplished so little, all of his failures can’t be blamed on congressional democrats. If he had embraced more intelligent partisan politics then perhaps more good would have been accomplished.
The following is an excerpt out of the economist that puts his time at the helm well I think:
” “I inherited a recession, I’m ending on a recession,” he noted at his press conference on January 12th. He wasn’t asking for pity, only to be judged on what happened in between. Unfortunately, that economic legacy is littered with wasted opportunity, bad judgments and politicised policy. The budget surplus he inherited is now a deficit, the fiscal hole in America’s retiree programmes is bigger than ever, the tax system is an unstable, patched-up mess.
It is not all his fault. But for the most part, good policy repeatedly took a back seat to Mr Bush’s overweening political ambition. Both the country and, ultimately, the Republican Party are left the worse for it.”
A good and reasonable man that who foolishly courted the powerful job in the world, power that he didn’t have the intellect nor temperament to handle. His incompetence was a blight on the US and the world.
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Ok, we have to leave it there! You already tricked me into a second rebuttal, you beast. What will the neighbors think? You get the last word, OK?
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Swell
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