Lindsey Graham and the First Amendment

I know Steyn is Peter's provenance but I couldn't wait on this.  I've always 
liked the Napier quote and glad he had a chance to use it again.  


Mike F.  


NRO online

The Corner
  

Re: Lindsey Graham and the First Amendment
By Mark Steyn 
Posted on April 04, 2011 9:42 AM 
Andrew,  ever since I ran into a spot of bother in Canada, I’ve found myself  
giving speeches in defense of freedom of expression in Toronto, London,  
Copenhagen, etc. I did not think it would be necessary quite so soon to  take 
the same stand in the land of the First Amendment against craven  squishes of 
the political class willing to trade core liberties for a  quiet life. I have no 
expectations of Harry Reid or theNew York Times, but I have nothing but total 
contempt for the wretched buffoon Graham.

A mob of deranged ululating blood-lusting head-hackers slaughter  Norwegian 
female aid-workers and Nepalese guards — and we’re the ones  with the problem?

I agree with the Instaprof: Lindsey Graham is unfit for office.  The good news 
is there’s no need for the excitable lads of Mazar  e-Sharif to chop his head 
off because he’s already walking around with  nothing up there. And, as for his 
halfwitted analogy with World War II,  he’s too ignorant to realize it but he’s 
singing the dhimmi remake of an ancient Noel Coward satire.

The reason we’re losing this thing is because of a lack of cultural  confidence, 
of which the fetal cringe of this worthless husk  out-parodies anything Coward 
could have concocted. When I’m speaking on  this subject, I often get asked to 
reprise the words I quote in my book,  from Gen. Sir Charles Napier in India 
explaining to the locals his  position on suttee — the tradition of burning 
widows on the funeral  pyres of their husbands. General Napier was impeccably 
multicultural:
You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have  a 
custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks  and we 
hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters  will build a 
gallows.You may follow your custom. And then we will follow  ours.
In the absence of cultural confidence overseas, we are expending blood  and 
treasure building an Afghanistan fit only for pederasts, tribal  heroin cartels, 
and the blood-soaked savages of Mazar e-Sharif. In the  absence of cultural 
confidence at home, we are sending the message that  the bedrock principles of 
free, pluralist societies will bend and  crumble in a vain race to keep up with 
the ever touchier sensitivities  of the perpetually aggrieved. Claire Berlinski 
has it right: The real  “racists” here are not this no-name pastor and his 
minimal flock but  Reid, Graham, and the Times — for they assume that a  
significant proportion of Muslims are not responsible human beings but  animals 
no more capable of rational behavior than the tiger who mauled Siegfried’s Roy. 
If that is true, certain consequences follow therefrom. The abandonment of the 
First Amendment is not one of them.

In Trafalgar Square, there is a statue of General Napier. I would urge  any 
visitors to London to see it before it’s taken down, as it surely  will be one 
day soon. Imagine what our world would look like if it were  Lindsey Graham up 
on that plinth. A society led by such “men” cannot  survive, and does not 
deserve to.

-- 
dadl-ot mailing list
http://mail.thehood.us/mailman/listinfo/dadl-ot_thehood.us
http://news.gmane.org/gmane.music.dadl.ot