United flight 93 monument.
Outrageous
It is a red crescent.
  At the place where Islam(ists?) attacked America.
A red crescent "of embrace"
   We should embrace those who murder children? Slaughter people like animals? (actually worse, of course)
With 44 "glass blocks"
   That means a tombstone for the KILLERS equal to that of their brave vicitms.

Does anything really need to be said?

      An Oxymoron is a self-contradicting statement. Some classic examples are jumbo shrimp, just war, and military intelligence. Most oxymorons, however, are perfectly rational statements when understood to be relative. Compared to other varieties of shrimp, jumbo shirmp are on the average bigger. Compared with other methods of choosing and conducting warfare, wars fought according to a just war doctrine are more fair. Relative to other military specialties, inteligence is tasked with knowing more. Pro-life Democrats think abortion is wrong unless a woman really really wants one, compared with all other democrats who think it is the bedrock of our democracy. Fiscally conservative congressmen don't mind multi-million dollar bridges payed for by taxpayers who will never use them as long as they go somewhere. Etc.

   Let's add to this list the famous moderate muslims. Moderate Muslims are almost always talked about without definition. Do they exist? How many? Why don't they speak up? Of course we're not at war with moderate muslims, etc.  (I suspect a theme of my blog may end up being just what are we at war with.) But like the other terms above, moderate is a relative term used as a modifier. Of course there are moderate muslims; if you have 3 muslims, the one in the middle is moderate. The fact that a muslim is not as far gone as the "radical" muslim makes him definitionally moderate, but is hardly a feat of temperance.
 
   I think some slight of hand is used with the term moderate, where my above definition is used to establish how many "moderate muslims" there are, and then moderate is used, as it may mean often in US politics, as a synonym for restrained or reasonable. "Look at all the muslims who didn't blow themselves up today! A billion! They are moderate compared to our enemies, and if they are moderate, surely they will fit right in in American life."

   This may be true for some. I'd wish it true for all American Muslims, but I'm not that stupid. This is the test I'd give to "moderate" muslims (not that anyone made me Judge Judy and exectutioner, of course) to see if they would pose a threat to American way of life.

1. Is there ever a circumstance when intentionally killing or injuring innocent Israelis is justified?
   I've heard callers to Dennis Prager argue that of course Islam teaches terrorism is wrong, but when asked about Palestinian terror, be unable to issue a blanket condemnation. Justifiying murder of Jews will lead to accepting terror tactics in other scenarios. Besides, justifying murder is for lawyers!

2. What is the proper response to a Muslim who decides to abandon his faith?
   If the answer is anything other than a long talk and prayer (i.e., death, like this Islamic kindergarten Sunday School teacher argues, here) then they have a profound disagreement with freedom and America.

3. What is the proper punishment for a grown promiscuous daughter?
   Again, if the answer is anything other than not being invited to the Ramadan feast (i.e., death) ... well this one should be obvious.

4. How should sharia be introduced into western nations?
   Another trick question. Any answer other than "Never, religious compliance should always be voluntary," is a loser. Sharia denys almost every freedom Americans cherish. Even if a muslim wants to merely convince people to vote it in sometime in the future, they are working towards the complete reversal of western political tradition. And many young muslims do not care for persusion.

    I'm sure there are more that are applicable, these just spring to mind due to recent events. The point is, my impression is that there are many seemingly reasonable muslims who hold extremely dangerous ideas. Am I wrong?

    I graduated college 4 years ago mercifully apolitical. I say mercifully because had I gone to a non-Christian college I would probably have been subjected to the PC left-wing nonsense discussed by Dennis Prager, Mike Adams, and others. Not that I think I was ever that gullible, but anyway, graduating from a university with your head on straight seems to be an achievement these days.
    
    So how did I get to be a talk radio/blog addict? Best I recall it was due to Tammy Bruce's The Death of Right and Wrong. Browsing a mall bookstore, I looked through it, and finished reading it right in the bookstore that week. (I recently bought it in paperback and read it again.) Tammy's Thesis is that much of various left-wing activists are animated by a past psychological trauma and seek to make American culture similarly damaged and thus to fit in, not by healing themselves but by spreading their victimhood status. She terms this "malignant narcissism", and the examples given, probably familiar to most people by now, were justly shocking in my naiveté: fighting for freedom for cop-killers, portraying crap as art (literally), pushing deviant sexual behavior in schools, etc. As I said, it's in paper back now, and I'd advise a read, obviously.

    But I had and have one big problem with Tammy's position, as much as I respect her integrity for writing a book that will likely lose her all her old friends. Not her homosexuality, though I believe that homosexual behavior is deeply damaging to themselves and society. However, she works against the promotion of this lifestyle by writing books such as this, and in our free and just society, people such as her are free to practice their vices. Her sexuality, (which I must admit I know nothing about, other then the title she gives herself) doesn't make her arguments hypocritical.

   But her sustained pro-choice position does. Malignant narcissism is pretty spot on description for choosing abortion. I understand that pregnancy is... uncomfortable. 6 months straight of discomfort, perhaps, and followed by several hours or so of considerable pain. But is this pain worth another person's life? Forget the rhetoric about the onset personhood (or better yet, read Ramesh Ponnuru's Party of Death and see all these silly arguments taken down). Abortion is an action that ends a human life, and for what reason? Because the woman doesn't want to be uncomfortable for a while. And it came about due to her actions. (Please don't bring up rape, tragic but statistically insignificant number of pregnancies.) This is a definition of malignant narcissism if anything is!

   But worse. Sorry Tammy, but fighting for this so-called right for 20 or 30 years is a cause of the problem you rightly lament. If you tell women that they should have the power of life and death of their growing babies, and no man nor law should have a say in the matter don't be surprised if they end up narcissists.

   Well, back to me (speaking of narcissism, benign I assure you). After reading this book, I got more interested in what was going on in the world. I found Dennis Prager, as I remembered my dad used to listen to "this smart Jewish guy" (as I remembered) and from there Townhall, Hewitt, etc.  So that's how I got from there to here, though the seeds of conservatism were no doubt my lifelong Christianity and common sense, the fruits of which I plan to post here for a while. Welcome, and feel free to comment.

    Welcome! Hmmm, where to start?

    I think I'll get to some autobiographical details next time. First a word about the site. Townhall.com has been one of my regular stops for a while, as a great compendium for conservative thought. If you are reading this and don't read Dennis Prager, Mike Adams, Thomas Sowell, John Stossel, recent arrival Nathanial Blake and the rest weekly, pop up to the Columnists tab for more insightful commentary than is probably forhcoming here.  Intergrated with Salem radio means I can listen to more of Prager than my lunch time. Yay! And if Hugh Hewitt wants me to start a blog so bad, fine here it is! ;)

  So the title is Interesting Times, cause we certainly live in them. I guess foreign affairs is an adequate place to put this, but there oughta be a Topic for "The War", right? Since "Domestic Affairs" is further subdivided about 9 times, I'd think there'd be a seperate topic for the single most important, and most interesting [points to title] aspect of our age, the renewal of Jihad and our response to it. 
 
  Second suggestion would be to have a "Personal" or "Other" topic category, since though I know the site is designed for politcal/cultural commentary, once in a while posts like this will be necessary for many bloggers I suspect, and someone searching for "foreign affairs" at the moment will find my site commentary. :P

Anyhow, if you read this far you are no doubt wondering where the interesting part is. Next post, I hope, it's late, and these days I'm an early riser. :)