That’s one case, but are leftists always hypocrites?
Do As I Say Not As I Do
I had a long drive on the way to my parents’ house for Christmas and I decided to listen to the audio book version of Peter Schweizer’s 2004 book “Do As I Say Not As I Do“. In that book, he profiles a number of leftist public figures, and he discovers that leftists don’t practice what they preach, because even they know that leftist ideas don’t actually work. I really recommend the book, so let’s take a closer look at it and you’ll see why you should read it, too.
FrontPage: Give us some of the best examples of the gulf between some liberals’ social criticisms and the ingredients of their private lives. Give us some insights, for instance, into the likes of Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Cornel West, Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy and Barbra Streisand.
Schweizer: Looking for liberal hypocrisy is, as they say in the military, a target-rich environment. Noam Chomsky, for example, has attacked wealthy Americans who set up trusts to avoid paying inheritance taxes. But this self-professed “radical socialist” has a tax attorney and did the very same thing. (When I asked him about this hypocrisy he said it was okay because he and has family have been working on behalf of suffering people all these years.)
Michael Moore’s hypocrisy is pathological. He has said numerous times that he doesn’t own a single share of stock and that capitalism is not acceptable “on any level.” And yet, I found that, according to tax returns filed with the IRS, he has owned shares in Halliburton, numerous oil companies, defense contractors and other multinationals through a tax shelter. When it comes he race he’s also wildly hypocritical. He says that Americans who happen to live in largely white neighbhorhoods do so because they are “racists.” But he lives in Central Lake, Michigan, which according to the U.S. Census has more than 2,500 residents and not a single black person in the entire town.
Cornel West has numerous times condemned middle class blacks that abandon the “chocolate cities” for the “vanilla suburbs” but guess what, his flavour of choice is vanilla, too.
Ted Kennedy likes to pose as the Robin Hood of the Senate, forcing wealthy Americans to pay their taxes to help the poor. But I discovered that Kennedys record of actually paying taxes is horrible. Tax the inheritance tax. He says that Americans should pay 49% to the IRS when they die in the name of “social justice.” But according to public records, the Kennedys have almost completely avoided contributing to “social justice” by placing their assets in trusts that are located overseas. The Kennedys, over the past thirty years, have paid less than 1% in inheritance taxes on more than $300 million. Ted Kennedy, like Hillary Clinton and George Soros, loves higher taxes. On other people.
And:
FrontPage: Why do you think people are drawn to leftist ideals and what kind of people are they? Self-contempt appears to be a common ingredient, no?
Schweizer: Yes, self-contempt is a big part of it. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great German pastor who stood up to Hitler, wrote a book about “cheap grace.” Liberals are guilty of cheap grace in the political sense. They feel guilty and their form of penance is embracing the destructive ideas of the progressive faith. But it’s cheap grace because as I show it the book, they don’t actually change the way they live. I think that the religious comparison makes sense because in many respects the modern day left represents a religious movement. They are motivated by a sense of sin, guilt, and the need for salvation and absolution in the political sense. Socialism offers salvation to them. Of course, they don’t actually plan to live like socialists.
I would really recommend taking a look at this book. It’s similar to Paul Johnson’s “Intellectuals” if you’ve ever read that, but it’s better.
Thousands of Venezuelans lined up outside the country’s equivalent of Best Buy, a chain of electronics stores known as Daka, hoping for a bargain after the socialist government forced the company to charge customers “fair” prices.
President Nicolás Maduro ordered a military “occupation” of the company’s five stores as he continues the government’s crackdown on an “economic war” it says is being waged against the country, with the help of Washington.
Members of Venezuela’s National Guard, some of whom carried assault rifles, kept order at the stores as bargain hunters rushed to get inside.
[…]Images circulating online as well as reports by local media appeared to show one Daka store in the country’s central city of Valencia being looted.
“I have no love for this government,” said Gabriela Campo, 33, a businesswoman, hoping to take home a cut-price television and fridge. “They’re doing this for nothing but political reasons, in time for December’s elections.”
Maduro faces municipal elections on Dec. 8. His popularity has dropped significantly in recent months, with shortages of basic items such as chicken, milk and toilet paper as well as soaring inflation, at 54.3% over the past 12 months.
Economists are expecting a devaluation soon after the election, likely leading to even higher inflation.
This will surely encourage more businesses to come to Venezuela to create jobs, and compete with other businesses in order to lower prices and increase quality for consumers. Oh wait, no it won’t. It’s just going to causes businesses to scale back, expand in other countries, and go out of business entirely – taking jobs with them.
Petroleos de Venezuela SA, the state oil company, seized about $1 million worth of equipment from Superior Energy Services Inc. (SPN:US), the Houston-based company said.
PDVSA expropriated two hydraulic units that were idled after the Caracas-based company missed payments, Greg Rosenstein, head of corporate development, said by phone from New Orleans. The units operated in eastern Venezuela’s Anzoategui state, Associated Press reported Nov. 1.
[…]Under President Hugo Chavez, who died of cancer in March, Venezuela initiated a nationalization process, seizing assets from companies including Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM:US) and ConocoPhillips. (COP:US)
Schlumberger Ltd. (SLB:US), the world’s largest oil-services company, said in March it would reduce work in Venezuela because of mounting overdue payments from PDVSA. Schlumberger subsequently reached an agreement and announced on May 24 that it would provide a $1 billion rolling credit for a joint venture in Venezuela.
That will encourage oil companies to come to Venezuela and pay royalties to the government, and give jobs to more Venezuelans. Oh wait, no it won’t. It’s just going to cause companies to scale back their investments, expand in other countries, stop hiring, lay off more people, and pull out of Venezuela. I’m sorry but this is standard leftist economic policy.
Are Barack Obama and Hugo Chavez very different?
Remember the last time that Venezuela seized privately-owned oil companies? They eventually had a nice explosion at the oil drilling facility, because the government doesn’t know how to run a business better than the people who created that business. You can see it today here, as Obama nationalizes the health care industry and tries to substitute his own web site. He thinks he knows how to create web sites. The man who has never run so much as a lemonade stand in his entire life, and is an authority on how to read a teleprompter and play golf. You do NOT put people like this is in charge of the economy.
Comparing Chile to Argentina and Venezuela
The strange thing is that the economies of Chile embraced free market capitalism, free trade, private property, and the rule of law. Unlike Venezuela and Argentina, they are doing vastly better economically. Look at that chart, which I got from libertarian economist Dan Mitchell. You can’t refute that, because economics is real. No one can hide from the facts.
Gay activist Dan Savage thinks that we should murder every single child born on the planet for the next 30 years, against the will of the parents, in every single country in the world.
Self-styled anti-bullying advocate Dan Savage told a giggling and applauding audience in Australia that “abortion should be mandatory for 30 years” on Monday during a panel discussion on Christianity, marriage and sex.
Savage made his remarks during a program titled “Q&A, Adventures in Democracy” broadcasted from the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall on Monday in response to the question: ”Which so-called dangerous idea do you each think would have the greatest potential to change the world for the better if it were implemented?”
“Population control: There’s too many goddam people on the planet,” Savage said as the audience burst into applause at his predictable response. “You know, I’m pro-choice. I believe that women should have a right to control their bodies. Sometimes in my darker moments, I’m anti-choice. I think abortion should be mandatory for about 30 years.”
Savage, creator of the “It Gets Better” viral video anti-suicide crusade on behalf of gay teens, takes a hateful, violent pro-death position toward everyone who irritates him, from unborn babies to hapless Green Party candidates standing in the way of total Democratic domination.
“I wish [Republicans] were all f***ing dead,” he said on liberal comedian Bill Maher’s HBO show “Real Time” in 2011 during the debt-ceiling brouhaha.
Back in 2006, Savage called for the barbaric murder of a Green Party candidate, angered by the threat of third-party candidates to spoil the Democratic Senate victory of Bob Casey.
“Carl Romanelli should be dragged behind a pickup truck until there’s nothing left but the rope,” Savage told the Daily Pennsylvanian, alluding to the 1998 torture and death of hate crime victim James Byrd, Jr.
Voters thinking of casting a ballot for Romanelli should be “beaten,” said Savage, who had previously used the beating death of 21-year-old gay teen Matthew Shepard as blog post fodder.
Remember, this is just what he says in public. Can you imagine what his real views are?
The Obama administration is a big fan of Dan Savage:
President Barack Obama himself supports Savage’s “It Gets Better” campaign, devoting a page of WhiteHouse.gov to it as a civil rights issue.
Obama appears to share Savage’s view on abortion as well: During his tenure in the Illinois state legislature, Obama spoke and voted against a version of the “Born Alive Infants Protection Act,” which would have made it illegal to kill a living, breathing, defenseless child that survived an abortion.
It’s very important to take a close look at what gay activists say and do. Below are a couple of examples of what gay activists do.
A satellite church affiliated with controversial Seattle pastor Mark Driscoll was vandalized early Tuesday (April 24) and a group calling itself the “Angry Queers” has reportedly taken responsibility.
Stained glass and other windows were broken at the Mars Hill Church, according to a post on the Facebook page of Pastor Tim Smith.
“Neighbors of the church reported seeing several young adults in black masks throwing large rocks into the windows,” a church news release said. “Police stated that a bank in the area was also vandalized in the same way and that they believe the vandalism was planned ahead of time, most likely by an activist group.”
On Tuesday, KPTV FOX 12 reported it had received an email from someone using the name “Angry Queers” and claiming responsibility.
Mars Hill Portland opened last October. During the first service, protesters gathered in front of the church and yelled obscenities at worshipers to speak out against the church’s stance on homosexuality.
Here’s part of the e-mail written by the gay activists responsible for the attack:
The e-mail, which is peppered with foul language, berates the Q Center, a local LGBT activist organization, for engaging in a dialogue with the Mars Hill’s leadership. “What we have to say to the Q Center is this: F—K YOU, you don’t represent us. You are disgusting traitors who prioritize social peace and the bourgeois aspirations of rich white cis gay people over the more pressing survival needs of more marginalized queers.”
“F—k dialog with people who want us dead,” the e-mail read. “The only dialog we need with scum like Mars Hill is hammers through their windows.”
“We hope this small act of vengeance will strike some fear into the hearts of all of Mars Hill’s pastors, and warm the hearts of our friends and comrades (known or unknown). It may not get better, but we can certainly get even,” it concludes.
And of course, we can’t forget the prominent gay activist Floyd Corkins, who was convicted of domestic terrorism for his attack on the Family Research Council.
The man accused of opening fire and shooting a security guard at the conservative Family Research Council headquarters last August plead guilty to three charges in a D.C. federal court Wednesday.
Floyd Lee Corkins, II of Herndon, Virginia entered guilty pleas to a federal weapons charge as well as a local terrorism charge and a charge of assault with intent to kill, according to news reports.
The Washington Post reports that, according to the plea agreement Corkins signed, he told FBI agents on the day of the shooting that he “intended to kill as many people as possible” and planned to “smother Chick-fil-A sandwiches in their faces.”
Investigators found additional magazines and 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches in his backpack on the day of the shooting.
Following the guilty plea the FRC issued a statement placing a large portion of the blame for the shooting at the feet of the liberal Southern Poverty Law Center, which had listed FRC as a hate group. FRC noted that prosecutors discovered Corkins identified his targets on the SPLC’s website.
“The day after Floyd Corkins came into the FRC headquarter and opened fire wounding one of our team members, I stated that while Corkins was responsible for the shooting, he had been given a license to perpetrate this act of violence by groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center which has systematically and recklessly labeled every organization with which they disagree as a ‘hate group,’” FRC president Tony Perkins said in a statement, which went on to demand that SPLC stop attacking organizations that have a different opinion on gay rights.
The Human Rights Campaign, a very large and influential gay rights group favored by Democrats, joins the SPLC and the convicted domestic terrorist Floyd Corkins in condemning the FRC as a “hate group”. Gay activists continued to condemn the FRC after the terrorist attack had occurred.
You can read more about the views of Floyd Corkins here, and note this:
Corkins told the FBI he found the FRC building as his target using a “hate map” on the website of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). The SPLC refuses to acknowledge any responsibility for the shooting. SPLC still lists FRC as a hate group and continues to maintain a map to FRC’s office building on the SPLC website.
Dan Savage often speaks on college campuses and on television as a liberal commentator. He often makes controversial remarks, such as saying that Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, in opposing homosexual behavior, contributes to gay suicide.
On Sept. 27, 2012, Savage told a student audience at Winona State University, “[E]very dead gay kid is a victory for the Family Research Council. They argue that the gay lifestyle is sick and sinful and dangerous and they point to the suicide rate, and then they turn around and do everything in their power to make sure that suicide rate does not come down and to drive it up.”
“Tony Perkins sits on a pile of dead gay kids every day when he goes to work — and he calls himself a Christian,” said Savage. “I don’t understand how real Christians let that little f–ker get away with that.”
What does the FRC do? They put out research papers showing the importance of mothers and fathers to children. That’s what gay activists consider to be “hate”. It’s very important to understand what gay activists actually say. I have no doubt that if you ask gay activists like Dan Savage and Floyd Corkins whether they are tolerant people, they would say “of course we are tolerant”. So you have to look for yourself at what they say, and what they do, and judge for yourself whether they are as tolerant as they want you to believe.
WINTERY KNIGHT 