Friday, September 27, 2013

The Council Has Spoken!! This Weeks’ Watcher’s Council Results - 09.27.13

Ted Cruz – Man of the Hour

Senator Ted Cruz hit a nerve with and gave some hope to the ever growing, but now, 73% of the American people who wanted ObamaCare repealed, defunded or at least overhauled before it goes into affect.  He also gave Americans hope that someone in DC might be standing up for them. #MakeDCListen went viral before and during his filibuster, although technically declared a speech because of technical games by Senate Majority Leader and Obama Pawn Harry Reid. And you know what Senator Cruz was saying was true and scares the administration because they have been attacking him relentlessly, using  the Progressive (Alinsky) style motto… if  you can't beat someone on merit; misquote, lie, and obfuscate… with the help of the liberal media!

Video: Glenn Beck Slams Media's 'Blindfolded Fear' of Ted Cruz: So 'Terrified,' Trying to 'Destroy' Him

Sep 27th, 2013 by AskMarion -  The Watcher’s Council:

The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast and we have the results for this week’s Watcher’s Council match-up.

“You can’t hit what you can’t see” – Hall of Famer Walter Johnson

“Do not say the Dark Lord’s name!” – Professor Snape, in ‘Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix” by J.K. Rowling

This week’s winner, The Right Planet’s Defining the Enemy — Islamic Terror, is an excellent look at what happens when people, for whatever reason, are victims of what psychiatrists call ‘category error,’ the inability to solve problems because of the difficulty in properly defining or naming them. Here’s a slice:

Fight them; Allah will torture them by your hands and will disgrace them and give you victory over them and satisfy the chests of a believing people. He will remove the rage from their hearts. Allah turns to anyone he wills. Allah is all-knowing, all-wise. (Qur’an 9:14).

You know, I’m getting sick and tired listening to leaders from both sides of the political spectrum try and blow sunshine up our collective posteriors when it comes to Islamic terrorism. Just as I have predicted all along, there’s not going to be any “moderate” Free Syrian Army. For all the radical leftists out there who have deluded their minds into believing Zuccotti-style democracy is going to take hold in places like Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Syria … well, they need to extricate themselves from the very murky, dark place in which they find themselves so firmly and perpetually ensconced.

Churchill’s words are about as politically incorrect as you could can get these days. That’s why the truth they contain hits hard. Islam is a theo-political movement of conquest, period. It always has been, and always will be, “until the faith of Islam ceases to be a great power among men.”

Churchill’s words are about as politically incorrect as you could can get these days. That’s why the truth they contain hits hard. Islam is a theo-political movement of conquest, period. It always has been, and always will be, “until the faith of Islam ceases to be a great power among men.”

And herein lies the problem, in my opinion: the whole notion of a “war on terror” misses the mark. What we are talking about is a “war on Islamic terrorism.” If one cannot define the enemy, then one does not know thine enemy. If one does not know thine enemy, then one cannot defeat the enemy.

I realize there are Muslims who could be described as “moderate” or “peaceful.” But, quite frankly, their silence is deafening regarding the astonishing brutality exhibited by terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda, al-Nusra, Boko Harem, al-Shabab, Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), Lions of Tahwid, and plethora of like-minded Islamic terrorist groups waging “jihad against the infidel” across the globe today.

It’s not that terrorist groups like al-Qaeda et al. have hijacked the religion of Islam–quite the opposite. Islamic terrorists see themselves as true fundamentalists who are faithfully carrying out the commands Allah and his prophet–specifically, to wage war against the unbelievers–the infidels. There is no greater accomplishment, according to the Koran, than to die the death of a martyr in jihad against the infidel. When Osama Bin Laden said that Americans love life while Muslims love death, it is in reference to the Koran’s promise of paradise for the martyr.

More at the link.

In our non-Council category, the winner was Victor Davis Hanson with Our Truest Lies, submitted by Joshuapundit. It’s a trenchant examination of what can best be called ‘progressive legends and myths.’ Do read it.

At the end of John Ford’s classic Western, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, the editor of the local paper decides not to print the truth about who really killed the murderous Valance. “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”Aaron_Alexis-FBI_Image

Legends now become facts in America at almost lightning speed. Often when lies are asserted as truth, they become frozen in time. Even the most damning later exposure of their falsity never quite erases their currency. As Jonathan Swift sighed, “Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it.”

After the recent shooting tragedy at the Washington Navy Yard, cable news shows, newspaper reports, and talking heads immediately blasted lax gun laws. The killer, Aaron Alexis, had mowed down 20 innocent people — twelve of them fatally — with yet again the satanic AR-15 semi-automatic “assault” rifle. The mass murdering was supposedly more proof of the lethal pathologies of the National Rifle Association and the evil shooter crowd that prevents good people from enacting proper gun-control laws. Once more an iconic tragedy had the chance — in a way that even the near-simultaneous shooting of 13 in Chicago did not — to energize the nation to do the right thing and ensure that no other such mayhem would follow.

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Then the assault weapon vanished into fantasy. Instead, over the course of the week, it was slowly learned that the unhinged Alexis had somehow passed at least two background checks, legally bought a shotgun, modified it, and for 30 minutes shot and reloaded it to slaughter the innocent. Are we to outlaw the owning of shotguns despite background checks and lawful purchases? Vice President Joe Biden, remember, had recently urged Americans to obtain old-fashioned, all-American shotguns for protection rather than dangerous semi-automatic assault rifles. If a shotgun could be used to commit mass murder in the middle of a military installation, how could any gun-control law, short of the confiscation of all guns, ensure that such heinous crimes could not be repeated?

# #

We are left not with the truth that Aaron Alexis bought a shotgun to murder, but with the conjecture that he could have bought legally an AR-15 and therefore in some sense figuratively did — despite the later and less publicized corrections. If it takes some mythologies about Matthew Shepard to expose the plague of homophobia, why indict a noble lie to promote an ignoble truth? What difference does it make what actually happened between shooter Wesley Cook and slain officer Daniel Faulkner, when the Mumia myth serves larger agencies of social change?

Like Orwell’s dead souls, we live in an age of statist mythology, in which unpleasant facts are replaced by socially useful lies. So we print the legend that better serves our fantasies.  Read more at the link.

Okay, here are this week’s full results. Both The Mellow Jihadi and Rhymes With Right were unable to vote this week, but neither was subject to the usual 2/3 vote penalty:

Council Winners

Non-Council Winners

Honorable Mentions

See you next week! Don’t forget to tune in on Monday AM for this week’s Watcher’s Forum, as the Council and their invited special guests take apart one of the provocative issues of the day with short takes and weigh in… don’t you dare miss it. And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter… ’cause we’re cool like that!

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