Ezra Klein sporting the effects of the Photoshop beard filter.
Witness below, the genius of Ezra Klein, in full streaming video, as he declares the Constitution of the United States to have "no binding power." He continues, revealing his confusion with anything written over 100 years ago, maintaining that the words from then mean different things now. I wonder what he thinks "Congress shall make no law" means now vs. then? I am pretty sure I have read his take on "shall not be infringed" before, but I am not sure where.
Klein was the famous creator of the "JournoList" where he exposed his full-tilt DNC whoring skills, along with the great David Weigel. At least Weigel got shit-canned from Reasonfor his schilling for positions too far outside of their Cosmotarian sensitivities. Klein is safe, for now, at the Post while Weigel is safe at Socialist Worker, or wherever he is.
Expect B. Hussein Obama to blitz Christian Churches of every stripe, most Sundays and maybe Wednesdays, from now until Novembeer 2012. - John Tagliaferro*
If you are not familiar with Reason's Morning Links, you haven't been reading Suki's posts much. I don't remember the last time I posted anything about them. However I do read them regularly.
After Reason's barrage of Ground Zero Mosque (stories that had little or nothing to do with libertarian issues), that seemed like months but was probably just a few days, my annoyance level has been elevated. Today's morning links diffused that a bit when I spotted one to have some fun with: New poll: One in five Americans believes Barack Obama is a secret Muslim. Unfortunately, Rush was talking about this for over an hour (he is talking about it again now) and I just got to it after hearing his take. I did hear about the poll long before Rush's show came on the air.
What would be the libertarian take on this bit of electorate confusion? I know the Libertarian issue: Barry Hussein Obama is not Bob Barr, the small L issues are many.
First, something Rush observed that dovetails with mine: It really does not matter what Obama's religion is. Unless you are a member of a religious party in the US, it really should not make any difference if he is in a Christian sect, a Muslim sect, Jewish or none of the above. It probably matters greatly to Cosmotarians, in some shallow and meaningless way, but to those of us who value freedom of choice, his personal choices matter not one bit to us.
Rush played some MSNBC audio from a Pew Research Center representative who was being interviewed about the survey. I am going to start with the Washington Post article that Radley Balko linked to. Remember his title? One in five Americans believes Barack Obama is a secret Muslim. In the first paragraph, the Post informs us that this is an increase since B. Hussein Obama entered the presidency. Now that is the makings of a headline! Obama has had more air time in a few months than any other president since television was created. No telling how many internet eyeballs he gets. He is mentioned on this blog regularly too. We report, you do what you want.
So, on the social issue, fit for Entertainment Tonight or the 700 Club (is that still on?) more and more people believe Obama is a Muslim. Soon after the Post informs us that this is a trend, they mention that it could be a political problem! "Rising trend in Obama's Supporters Percieving Him as a Muslim could be a Reelection Problem" might sound a little better and more accurate, but the Post article does not mention Democrats and runs off into 'mean media' conspiracy theory for an answer. For some reason, they mention only Republicans and Independants:
More than a third of conservative Republicans now say Obama is a Muslim, nearly double the percentage saying so early last year. Independents, too, are now more apt to see the president as a Muslim: Among independents, 18 percent say he is a Muslim, up eight percentage points.
Note the interesting phrasing. For Republicans, the percentage doubled in a year. For Independents it went up eight percentage points to 18%. Pretty much double there too. What of the Democrats?
First, I had to dig up the Pew results, since neither the Post nor Reason bothered to link there. From their headline and first paragraph, it is a bit of a stretch to say "one in five" since they cite 12%:
A July Pew Research survey found 12% of Americans continue to say Barack Obama is Muslim, virtually unchanged from 10% in March. This misperception is not limited to voters who oppose Obama. Identical percentages of Republicans and Democrats (12% each) think he is Muslim, and 37% of those who think he's Muslim intend to vote him. A quarter doesn't know, but significantly those who have heard different things back McCain (48% to 33%) while those who just don't know back Obama (48% to 33%).
Ah, Democrat perceptions are identical to Republican and rising at the same rate. I like my headline better :)
What could possibly explain all this? Rush pointed out, he does not attend services like other presidents have. I will add that Bill Clinton only went Church crazy when he was well on his way to his impeachment hearings. Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Bush did not need any prompting to attend and made no secret about attending. Maybe something in Obama's actions is giving people these impressions?
George Stephanopoulos tried to help him out, but a copy of the interview floating around does not help:
Looks like about 1:20 into this clip.
How about other factors? Like running to the rescue of the "Allahu akbar" shouting MAJ Hasan, to the point that command influence may be a major defense strategy. Maybe it is how he jumped into the Cordoba/Project 51 Mosque/recreation center issue? Maybe it was when he gave NASA a new mission, to stop exploring space and help Muslims with math and science? How about all that bowing? Skipping the National Day of Prayer? Phoning in his address to the Boy Scouts? Sending the Ground Zero imam on a vacation at tax-payer expense? The only thing the Post can blame on talk radio is the tendancy for them not to ignore these things like the Post and MSNBC tend to do.
*I have heard similar from others already today.
The coverage on the Ground Zero Mosque by Reasonis laughable. Does their Cosmodroid fixation on the personal biases of some really have any place in a libertarian discussion about anything? I say no and I am pretty new to this too. I thought personal preferences were a big libertarian issue, that is preserving the rights of individuals to think as they may as long as it does not harm others. In the case of the proposed Cordoba Mosque (re-branded as Studio51 or something), Reason has article after article about how any objection to the facility (recreation center, Mosque, foot washing fort, whatever) is only based on bigotry. Hey, Cosmotarians, bigots are people too, and that is not even the issue.
People certainly have a right to be offended, in the same way that Tim Cavenaugh has the right to be offended by people who do not share his love for Judy Garland and her body of work. Why waste time complaining about that when there is a real issue of government steam rolling abuse going on? Is that not a true libertarian issue, or am I missing the whole point of being a libertarian?
I read Reason for a reason, to be informed of libertarian issues. For some reason, Reason has been ignoring the private property issue in Manhattan (yes, there are many, this is about the WTC site, that was attacked by the adopted soldiers of Cosmoitarians and I think the reason mentions in this paragraph only count as two drinks). Today is one of the first days in over a year that I did not bother looking at the site (until after work) since my “good morning” message, and I see I didn't miss a damn thing, unless you call Radley Balko managing to mention the Ground Zero Mosque (actually I missed that yesterday and caught it today) without bashing Sarah Palin an improvement. That is another staple of Reason, if the Cordoba Mosque is to be mentioned, Sarah Palin must be bashed. If there are Cosmotarian Sacred Scrolls, this must be one of the top edicts and Radley must be drinking virgin martinis for this infraction.
Enough of that, the issue at hand is the overly powerful mayor of New York and the even more powerful New York Port Authority misusing their power to streamline one house of worship into a space while they prevent another, that had been in the neighborhood for ages, from even rebuilding. THAT IS THE FUCKING ISSUE, REASON COSMOTARIANS!
Some troll ass (“The Angry Optimist”, who seems to only appear when he wants to call me a boy and changes his name to one of several and call John me) repeats the same comment about this issue, never providing anything of substance to any conversation: “No conservative cared about the Church being slighted until a few days ago.” So damn what? Many of us didn't know about the Greek Orthodox Church getting screwed by the Port Authority until a few days ago and that still does not change the fact that the Port Authority and the Mayor are giving the Mosque special treatment just because it is a Mosque. Reason is doing the same thing. It would still be special treatment if the Saint Nicholas Church never existed. Why didn't we read it first on the pages of Reason about this Church getting shafted? Simple, Cosmotarians hate Christians and they love Islam. No? Then you come up with a better answer.
Reason saying anything nice about Church or Synagogue property is as rare as them using “illegal” in a discussion about immigration. In yet another rarity, even that happened today in a Gillespie post. One person in the comments seemed to notice it too. The fact remains, when property is owned by a non-Muslim congregation, Cosmotarians become Marxists on the private property issue.
So, Libertarian Magazine of Record, give me a reason to keep reading you instead of Slate, The Nation, The New Republic, or the World Socialist Web Site. They have the same attitude you do when real property is owned by a group of people who worship anything besides Ayn Rand. I was being overly nice there. I think my business is going to The National Review soon anyway.
Yes, at long last, Reason has found a reason to speak out about unfair restrictions against property owners. Unfortunatly, they are taking up the cause to give a hand to Canadians feeling oppression while they still only give the finger to Manhattanites who do not subscribe to the current cosmotarian faith fads. Even communist Poland gets a shot below.
For 10 years, libertarian activist and scholar Peter Jaworski has thrown an annual summer seminar and party on the Clarington, Ontario property owned by his parents, Marta and Lech. The Liberty Summer Seminar typically features speeches from libertarian activists and scholars followed by live music and food. This year Peter's parents, who fled to Canada from communist Poland in the 1980s, face a $50,000 fine for violating local zoning laws.
