The Thomas Chronicles

Speaking at the National Press Club the other week, there is no doubt what Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus thinks. In his new book, Blue Planet in Green Shackles - What Is Endangered: Climate or Freedom?, President Vaclav Klaus writes, “The largest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy, and prosperity at the end of the 20th and at the beginning of the 21st century is no longer socialism. It is, instead, the ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous ideology of environmentalism.”

President Vaclav Klaus is sixty-six year old man who grew up during the Stalinist era. He’s lived the bulk of his life under the heel of Soviet Communist tyranny behind the Iron Curtain, so when he speaks on the subject of freedom and tyranny, I perk up my ears and listen.

Washington - Czech President Vaclav Klaus said Tuesday he is ready to debate Al Gore about global warming, as he presented the English version of his latest book that argues environmentalism poses a threat to basic human freedoms.

‘I many times tried to talk to have a public exchange of views with him, and he’s not too much willing to make such a conversation,’ Klaus said. ‘So I’m ready to do it.’

Klaus was speaking a the National Press Building in Washington to present his new book, Blue Planet in Green Shackles - What Is Endangered: Climate or Freedom?, before meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney Wednesday.

‘My answer is it is our freedom and, I might add, and our prosperity,’ he said.

And if this wasn’t enough of a statement President Klaus went on to say this:

‘Like their (communist) predecessors, they will be certain that they have the right to sacrifice man and his freedom to make their idea reality,’ he said.

‘In the past, it was in the name of the Marxists or of the proletariat - this time, in the name of the planet,’ he added.

Klaus said a free market should be used to address environmental concerns and said he oppposed as unrealistic regulations or greenhouse gas capping systems designed to reduce the impact of climate change.

‘It could be even true that we are now at a stage where mere facts, reason and truths are powerless in the face of the global warming propaganda,’ he said. [Emphasis Mine]

This is a question I’ve frequently posed to my friends who advocate the Global Warming agenda and occasionally on this blog: Why do the proposal of Environmentalists always entail the elimination of the American Middle Class?

All their proposed regulations and “carbon caps” becomes an indirect means of taxing the American public, specifically the American Middle Class, out of existence.

Increasingly, the Left’s version of freedom of speech is to deny others their freedom of speech. That is, “I have the perfect right to shut you up.” In other eras of our history, we would call this censorship when one forcibly silences unwanted opinions. Any rational person would see this as antithetical to freedom of speech where ideas are exchanged and debated in the marketplace of ideas.

Or as the pro-choice activist says to a cop in this video, “You’re going to arrest me for my freedom of speech?”

If he hasn’t forgotten, vandalism is against the law…

(hat tip: Michelle Malkin)

I know many conservatives and many conscientious bloggers have gone after the Berkeleyites for their hostility toward the Marine recruitment center. It has been long known that radical, totalitarian Leftists reside in that little cubbyhole of the universe.

Their hostility toward our men and women in arms is well known; in fact, their claim to fame is their constant rallies and protests over every minutia of Leftist ideology. And, you know, I’m fine with that, as long as they conduct themselves in a democratic manner that reflects the conduct of our great Republic.

An ignoramus, if they are such a person, can believe any number of things, and it is their sovereign right as free-willed individuals to do so. What one believes is between them and Almighty God and no amount of legislations can be levied against them for their error in thought.

America’s business is not the business of thought-control and goose-stepping collective state ideology. It is to build damns, build roads, protect and defend the country against foreign incursions, etc. There is nothing extraordinary about what I’m saying. This is simply the basic function of government.

However, I do have issue with what happened at Berkeley this past week. Berkeley’s City Council was re-evaluating their decision to kick US Marine Recruiters out of the city, which was based on the presumption that the US military could go recruit elsewhere. America’s a big country and the military’s over funded anyway.

Well, during their deliberation in the council, two demonstrations occurred. One in support of the original decision to kick out the Marines; the other in support of the Marines themselves. I saw a news clip of these protests in the morning on Wednesday, I think, and what I saw was just shameful.

A middle-aged to elderly woman was telling the camera how a Berkeleyite assaulted her and torn her US flag from her. She thought she’d come out in support of the US Marine Recruiters; the anti-Marine Berkeleyites, however, had other ideas.

It is one thing to believe in Leftist ideology whose basic tenet is that the United States is a force of evil in the world. It is quite another thing to force others to believe in the same thing. From their actions and a litany of others throughout the latter half of the twentieth century to now, it is clear that Leftists (as opposed to the run of the mill liberal) do not believe in self governance, nor do they believe in the free exchange of ideas. Ironically, this is the very thing they proclaim to want: the freedom of ideas.

Please do note, that these people aren’t the pacifists they claim to be. They are not opposed to violences if it furthers their cause, and they employ brownshirt tactics if it gives them the edge. It seems that they are against the United States and they are using the US military, or the Marines in this instances, as proxies to vent their distaste.

I have not met a Leftist who wasn’t angry, and the majority of them that I’ve known are certainly not pacifists.

I watched with interest the Bill O’Reilly segment last night with him on the campaign trail. If you aren’t aware, there was some controversy about his stop at a Barack Obama event.

Apparently, there was some shoving and yelling and hair pulling. A report on the Drudge Report Sunday declared that O’Reilly was screaming at an Obama functionary for blocking his camera shot.

Now in “normal” circumstances, this altercation wouldn’t have even made the front page news of a local gazette. But this isn’t just anyone. This was Bill O’Reilly, the red-faced demon of conservativism who is almost universally vilified by the liberals and Leftists for some vague, undefined reason.

Watching the segment last night where he ran the footage of the altercation unedited, I once again thought how weary and skeptical we must be about these “news” reports. In my opinion, I think Mr. O’Reilly was vindicated with that footage, and I think the Obama functionary should be reprimanded.

It was abundantly clear in the video that the Obama guy deliberately blocked O’Reilly’s cameraman from shooting the footage. From the smart-alec smirk on his face after O’Reilly called him on it, I’d say his blocking was deliberate.

Bill being the hot-headed Irishman he is, shoved the Obama guy out of the way after the second or third time he shoved his back into the camera.

“This is really low class,” O’Reilly shouted.

Now is this whole kitten-caboodle overblown? I don’t think so.

This guy maliciously obstructed O’Reilly from conducting his job, which is to report the news to the his viewers. I think this gets to a larger issue, why do liberals foam at the mouth at the mention of his name?

O’Reilly. O’Reilly. BILL “FOXNEWS” O’REILLY!

Did that scare you?

I don’t mean to be flippant, well, not entirely flippant anyway, but this cuts to the heart of the matter. Everywhere O’Reilly goes, liberals jeer and boo and are otherwise unpleasant. I believe he’s been threatened. For all I know, he might even have been assaulted.

Yesterday morning, MSNBC correspondent, David Shuster, ranted about Bill O’Reilly and started calling him names.

The incident occurred Monday morning, during a discussion about the Democratic primaries. In the middle of the segment Shuster segued to O’Reilly, afterwards saying “I don’t know if this is the time to talk about Bill O’Reilly, but I’ve got a lot of things to say.”

After being told to “get it out,” Shuster spat out, “Bill O’Reilly is a jerk.”

He referred to a recent incident involving O’Reilly and an aide to presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, who he was accused of shoving.

“Bill O’Reilly shoved a guy,” Raw Story quoted Shuster, “shoved a guy who was working for Barack Obama because the guy happened to be standing in a certain spot. And there’s Bill O’Reilly saying ‘Nobody gets in the way of the Factor’s cameras.’”

See what I mean?

Shuster, who probably hadn’t seen the full video footage at the time (O’Reilly showed the full footage last night. Shuster made his comments that morning.), interrupts the discussion on the primaries to spew his venom.

Had I been in O’Reilly’s shoes and a fella decided to block my cameraman because he didn’t like me and because he can, I don’t know if I would have behaved differently. Especially since that guy was smirking that passive aggressive smirk. It was the smirk that said, “Yeah, I’m messing with you on purpose, but don’t challenge me on it. I’ll play the part of the honest, disbelieving victim if you do and you’ll look the bully.”

I’ve seen that look many times. In my younger days, I’ve done it many times myself.

This incident underlines to me the truism about twisted human nature, about how things only matter when you’re it’s ox being gored.

I bet you ten push-ups that the same liberals would be up in arms if this had happened to them and the TV personalities that agree with their political views. They would call it censorship. They would call it a violation of free speech. They would call it everything short of being tyrannical.

And I think, if it was done on a mass scale, they’d be right. But it wasn’t their ox being gored.

It was done to Bill O’Reilly. So, it’s really okay.

To this I have only one comment: Careful.

Be careful not to invite on yourself your condemnation of others. I say this to Leftists as well as to remind myself. We don’t live on Olympus separate and apart from the activities of lesser mortal men.

Just another note on Al Gore’s zany antics. As you are probably aware, our former Vice President has become a veritable “prophet” of Global Warming.

Vanity Fair in their Green Issue a few months back, literally had a semi-serious/ semi-humorous comic of the “prophet” Al Gore pacing on the breadth of the earth in monastic robes. Beneath him raged the fires of Dante’s nine circles of Hell.

Instead of people being tortured and eternally being devoured by their deadly sins, like greed, avarice, and so on, the “sinners” were guilty of polluting. They were the auto industry CEO’s, the non-recyclers, and those horribly selfish SUV drivers! Of course, President Bush and Vice President Cheney was down in there. I don’t remember, but I think they were the ones being devoured by the Devil at his frozen ground floor.

And so the eco-prophet is back at it again. Along with his usual sneer at the country that bred him, America, he added a little something extra this time at the Bali conference.

Al Gore savaged the US government’s “obstructing” attitude and urged delegates at the UN conference on climate change to ignore Washington if necessary to pursue the “moral imperative” of a new global regime.

“My country is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali,” the former US vice-president told 2,000 of the 12,000 people attending the conference on Thursday. “[But] over the next two years the United States is going to be somewhere it is not now.”

The Bali meeting is trying to reach an agreement to start negotiations that will culminate in 2009 with a new global deal to tackle climate change. The US is due to elect a new president in November 2008 and the majority of the frontrunners have a more proactive attitude to climate change than the Bush administration.

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This video was posted by commenter, Ymarsakar, at his blog a while back. I thought it would be useful to re-post this in light of the strange behaviors we see around us. This is not meant to be a comprehensive explanation. Just another piece of the puzzle.

Some time this past April Senator Reid declared that the war in Iraq is lost. Right around the same time House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was making her pilgrimage to the Mideast to encourage our enemies of our good intentions and to reassure them that they’ll be safe in their country from our meddling.

Despite General Petraeus’s good report on the Surge in September and the cascade of good news all across Iraq, the Democrats have stuck to their guns and maintain that the war is indeed lost. Shia militias and Sunnis are coming over to our troops in droves; actually working together and actively fighting Al Qaeda with us. Michael Yon had a very, very significant picture posted on his website of Muslim and Christian men erecting a Christian cross atop a church. Talk about a picture being worth a thousand words.

To these eyes, baby, that’s winning.

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