The bro hood by Steven Plaut

 1.

   As you know, the Egyptian military has overturned the Terror-ocracy of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.  I never quite understood just what they had done with the Muslim Sisterhood but we will have to address that some other morn.  Anyways, there are all sorts of reports coming out of Egypt about how the military is taking Islamists out back and disposing of them in an environmentally friendly manner.

      But this just raises some questions of what the Egyptian military should be doing with the carcasses of those Islamist fundamentalists from the "Bro-hood."  Being an ever-helpful sort of fella, I have begun a list of proposals.  Inspired by that book about the 101 things to do with a dead cat.  So here is what I have come up with so far:

101 Things for the Egyptian Military to Do with Dead Islamist Fundamentalists:

1. Upset the environmentalists by using them to poison piranha fish.

2. Use them to help boost Purina's stock value.

3. One word: McNuggets.

4. Give them tenure at Ben Gurion University.

5. Fire them off into space so Barry Chamish's UFO friends will never want to visit earth again.

6. Clone them and sell the spinoffs as 21st century scarecrows or as members of the Neturei Karta.

7. Pretend they are Rachel Corrie and run a bulldozer over them.

8. Save Holland by using them to plug the dikes.

9. Let them occupy Wall Street with a sign reading "Will Terrorize for Food".

10. Market them in the bazaar as carpet beaters.

11. Let the US javelin team train on top of them for the Olympics.

12. They make a great speed hump.

13. Tie them to a pole and use them as the bait at the dog race track.

14. Send them to the Harvard BDS leaders.

15. Enroll them in the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Seminary. Hey, they already have taken more Rabbinic courses than Michael Lerner.

16. Halloween Decoration.

17. Clearicil could use them in its commercials to show what happens if you use the inferior brand.

18. Export them to France as a wine supplement.

19. Sell them as organic produce in Berkeley.

20. Tie them to the back of cars for newlyweds in MTV commercials.

21. Use them to scare your kids when they refuse to clean their rooms.

22. Sell them as a Yigal Tomarkin original sculpture.

23. They give people 101 reasons to prefer having a dead cat.

24. Use them to become the patron saint for dung beetles.

25. Sell them to that Museum in Sweden that ran the "Snow White Pure" sculpture.

27. Enter them in the Texas State Cow Chip Toss as the world's largest cow chips.

28. Make them the drummer in a punk rock band. Or better yet, the drum.

29. Tell Anna Nicole Smith they are rich.

30. "Fear Factor" TV show could make people sit on a bench next to them.

31. Put them in an envelope and send him to the Elect Ralph Nader committee.

32. Let Brandeis hire them for its peace and justice studies program.

33. Rent them to Cubans as a device to hold their place in the bread lines while they go off fishing.

   

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2. 

What is a Liberal?

By Steven Plaut

Liberalism is in many ways more of a theology than a political philosophy.  And like any theology, its proponents reach their conclusions and ideas through faith, not through technical testing of hypotheses.  Just as believers in God do not subject Him to laboratory tests or statistical regression analysis, so followers of the Great Liberal Kahuna, the embodiment of liberal superstition, promote their system of beliefs based upon faith.

The following are the basic principles and axioms upon which all thinking and public debate must be conducted if you wish to be a true progressive and liberal person who cares:

First of all, and indeed most importantly of all, liberals should be free to call everyone else nasty names because they are so caring and moral.  No one however should be permitted to call liberals anything.   For a liberal to call someone nasty names shows social concern and awareness.  For someone to call a liberal a nasty name back is immature and impolite and is avoiding the issues.  When liberals smear others, it is freedom of speech.  When critics of liberals disagree with the opinions of liberals or question the motives of liberals, it is libel. 

Liberals need never document their claims.  All liberal claims are self-evident. Whenever a liberal is presented with documentation of facts that contradict the liberal's theology, the liberal must insist that no evidence has been presented at all.  No scientific sources that present facts contradicting liberal theology are admissible.   Especially regarding climate change.  They must be dismissed as being right-wing and "neocon."  All arguments with a liberal may be settled by telling the non-liberal that he or she reminds you of Rush Limbaugh of Glenn Beck or Margaret Thatcher.

Ironically, these days the greatest bugaboo of liberals is battling against what they call "neo-liberalism."   They never define the term but they seem to mean any advocacy of allowing markets to operate.  Liberalism once meant free markets.  Today it means opposition to free markets.  Liberals dub those who still hold the archaic opinion that markets perform better than bureaucrats as "Neo-Liberals."

Liberals are quite sure that everything wrong with the world is because of the United States.  Anything left over that is wrong with the world is the fault of the
Jews.  Terrorism is merely resistance to America and Jews by people with legitimate grievances.  The only people in the world whose access to guns liberals believe should not be restricted are Palestinians.

Liberals prefer the internet to libraries.  That is because there are too many reactionary books and magazines on the shelves in libraries.  You can spend your life on the internet without reading anything that contradicts liberal political theology.  Liberals never study economics, statistics or public policy analysis.  That is because these things tend to undermine liberal preconceptions.   

Liberals support proposals that make real problems of the world worse, just as long as advocating them can make the liberals feel caring and righteous.   Liberalism, like jacuzzis,  is all about feeling snug and warm and good.  Liberals hate the idea that life involves tradeoffs.  After all, when there are tradeoffs it is harder to feel righteous.  In other words, liberalism is largely a form of recreation designed to make its advocates pleased with themselves, and never mind when liberal ideas make real problems of the world much worse.  It makes liberals uncomfortable to imagine mentally ill people being forcibly institutionalized; so they prefer that the mentally ill be homeless, just as long as the homeless do not enter neighborhoods where liberals live. 

Liberals also believe in magic, and insist that complex world problems can be resolved using hocus pocus.  They believe criminals can be rehabilitated and so need not be incarcerated.  They are sure capital punishment does not deter any crime.  Liberals believe poverty can be eliminated by making it illegal to employ people at less than the minimum wage, and insist this will not produce unemployment.  They are convinced that people can live in cheap housing if rent controls make it illegal to rent housing units at higher prices.  They firmly believe that setting price limits on what the medical system can charge for services will produce affordable health care, not shortages.  They do not think anyone will work or produce less if tax rates are very high.  Liberals are sure that poverty is caused by low self-esteem.  So is poor school performance.  All problems of life may be resolved by raising self-esteem. 

Marxists may believe in "economic determinism"  but liberals believe in the Holy Trinity of Race, Gender, and Sexual-Orientation Determinism.   Liberals favor apartheid just as long as it is affirmative apartheid, that based upon dumbed down standards and racial-gender quotas.  If there are proportionately more blacks in prison than whites, liberals insist that it is because the courts and police are racist.  If there are many more males in prison than females it is because males commit more crime. 

Liberals always say "people of color" so that everyone will know they care.  They use the female pronouns half the time or more to prove they are egalitarian.  Liberals refer to Israeli Arabs as (occupied) Palestinians.  They pretend to believe the "transgendered" are a gender and that transgendered people are normal.

Liberals pretend that they do not care about material things, but will never sell their smartphone or condo in order to help out those living in hardship.  Liberals sob endlessly about poverty, misfortune, and inequality but are not interested in foregoing any of their own income or wealth to transfer it to the poor.  They believe low-income people should be helped using YOUR money, not theirs.  They believe in income redistribution just as long as no one tries to redistribute any of their own money away from their own pocket.  The property of liberals is sacred; other people's property is to be used for social engineering and doing good.

Liberals also prefer that poor people in the Third World starve rather than embrace capitalism and live like Western liberals do.   Liberals insist that low-income people need government help and nanny-state protection to know how to live and raise children and spend money and find work.  Marijuana should be legalized, while salt and sugar and trans-fats should be criminalized.  The only people never in need of being told by bureaucratic Big Brother or the governmental Mary Poppins how to live or take care of themselves are liberals.

Liberals insist that they are more caring and compassionate than anyone else.  They claim conservatives are people who hate children and flowers and kittens.  Conservatives may consider liberals to be wrong or foolish, but liberals consider conservatives to be evil.