Abu Hatem أبو حاتم

Robert Wexler, smearmongering McCarthyist:

Here’s Rep. Robert Wexler of Florida:

John McCain’s decision to select a vice presidential running mate that endorsed Pat Buchanan for president in 2000 is a direct affront to all Jewish Americans. Pat Buchanan is a Nazi sympathizer with a uniquely atrocious record on Israel, even going as far as to denounce bringing former Nazi soldiers to justice and praising Adolf Hitler for his “great courage.”At a time when standing up for Israel’s right to self-defense has never been more critical, John McCain has failed his first test of leadership and judgment by selecting a running mate who has aligned herself with a leading anti-Israel voice in American politics. It is frightening that John McCain would select someone one heartbeat away from the presidency who supported a man who embodies vitriolic anti-Israel sentiments.

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Biden, Obama’s current VP candidate - and remarkably, a Catholic Christian - repeatedly asked Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on the question of natural law during his confirmation hearings with the Senate in 1992.  Biden was offended that Thomas believed in natural law, which led him to believe that Thomas supported property rights and absolute morality.

In response, Thomas told Biden that if you don’t believe in natural law then what do you believe?  Man made law?  Thomas said that those who reject a Divine Law - or a Natural Law - essentially reject morality.

I cannot stand Clarence Thomas (he has admitted once and again that he has been inspired by both Straussian and Randian political theory, both extremes are disgusting branches of the Right and conservatism - Leo Strauss was an Atheist Jew who advocated “noble lies” to the public to establish order and make them obey and was inspired by Abraham Lincoln’s curbing of civil liberties while Ayn Rand was an Atheist Libertarian who hated selflessness and stated selfishness was a virtue) but that was a beautiful response.

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Being that I attended Catholic school for over a decade, and that I am a believing Muslim, and that I am a conservative, of course I am pro-life.

Many, from the conservative and Catholic communities where I have many friends, and yes to a lesser extent even amongst the Muslim community, have advocated a vote for John McCain saying that he is “pro-life.”

Not so fast.

McCain voted for both justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer, the most liberal justices on the entire Supreme Court, during the 1990s.  He criticized the pro-life stance of president Bush during the 2000 republican primaries.  He has also supported an unjust war in Iraq which has killed thousands, and as his religion of Christianity (and Islam) teaches, being pro-life does not just mean being anti-abortion.

The Republican party also does not truly care about the abortion issue.  Case-in-point, the We the People Act which Congressman Ron Paul has introduced into the House for the past four or five years does what is called jurisdictional stripping which removes Supreme Court (and all federal courts) jurisdiction from the abortion issue.  This is completely constitutional, it is written plainly in the constitution itself (Article III Section II).  In fact, the last time this was done was 1996 with the Antiterrorism Act, not too ago, and every time jurisdictional stripping has been taken to the Supreme Court it has been upheld.

The Republican party held Congress and the Presidency from 2001-2006 (with the exceptions of six months of 2001 when the Senate became democrat by 1 vote).  The President’s approval ratings after 9/11 were extremely high.  If the Republicans truly had a pro-life agenda they would have passed an act of jurisdictional stripping (which Pat Buchanan had advised they do) somewhere in those 5 years.  But they didn’t.

On Supreme Court Justices, the dream the Republicans are actually pro-life is pure fantasy.  Justices Kennedy and O’Conner were nominated by Ronald Reagan himself, and justice Souter by George H.W. Bush.  They were 3 of the 5 justices that upheld the Roe v. Wade decision in the landmark 1992 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey.  Think about that.  60% of the justices re-affirming Roe were Republican nominated.

Moreover, George W. Bush hasn’t been any better.  Yes, Alito and Robert are solidly constitutionalists, but remember that the first Justice that Bush wanted to nominate was none other than Harriet Miers.  Soon enough the Republican Senate leadership had stopped him, but he wanted her nonetheless.

There is just no point for pro-lifers to waste their time with the Republican party.

Now some have asked me what is the Muslim position on abortion.  So on an semi-related note, let me just say that the Qur’an says “Kill not your children for fear of want; it is I who provide sustenance for them as well as for you; for verily killing them is a great sin.
(17:31)”.  It also affirms a scene from the Day of Judgment “When the female (infant), buried alive, is questioned - for what crime she was killed (81:8-9).

Muslim jurisprudence reminds me a whole lot of Catholic Nancy Pelosi’s attempted misuse of St. Augustine discussing the fetus to defend herself on abortion, according to the AP:

Brendan Daly, a spokesman for Pelosi, said in a statement defending her remarks that she “fully appreciates the sanctity of family” and based her views on conception on the “views of Saint Augustine, who said, ‘The law does not provide that the act (abortion) pertains to homicide, for there cannot yet be said to be a live soul in a body that lacks sensation.’”

But whether or not parishioners choose to accept it, the theology on the procedure is clear. From its earliest days, Christianity has considered abortion evil.

Islamic law also considers abortion to be evil, from its earliest days.  Yet, under Islamic law, the soul does not enter into the body of the baby until the end of the first trimester - specifically after 120 days because of Islamic scripture on this regard.  Thus, the schools of Islamic law agree that early abortion is a sin, yet late abortion is a crime.

Al-Ghazali, the great Muslim theologian, like Augustine, establishes that the embryo at conception - literally when male sperm enters into the egg - is life and existence.  Yet the embryo at this stage is considered to be without a soul.  Thus abortion at this stage is considered to be a disgusting sin but not a crime.  After the first trimester the baby is considered to be with a soul and thus killing the fetus is considered to be a crime and a greater sin than early abortion.  After the baby is actually born, killing it is considered to be infanticide and a greater crime and greater sin.  The four schools of Sunni Islamic law only grant one exception to allowing abortion - that is when the life of the mother is in danger, this is according to the Muslim legal concept of the lesser of two evils yet even there some legal schools found that if the life of the mother was in danger during the second or third trimester and there was a probability the baby would be born healthy then abortion would be prohibited.

Ibn Juzayy al-Kalbi, a medieval Moor Muslim student of Averroes and an Islamic legal scholar who studied all four schools of orthodox Sunni Islamic law and compiled his magnum opus al-Qawanin al-Fiqhiyah or the Laws of Islamic Jurisprudence - a comparison of all schools of Sunni Islamic law, wrote the Muslim opinion succinctly:

When the womb retains the semen, it becomes impermissible to meddle with it.  The sin will become more severe when the organs of the body are formed, and even more when the soul is actually blown into the fetus [consequent to the first trimester], for that is considered murder by consensus.

A good primer on this for those of you who are interested and have emailed is Birth Control and Abortion in Islam where the above quote is tatken, by the esteemed Islamic legal scholar Muhammad al-Kawthari (who I do not always concur with), with an excerpt here.

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I am thinking about purchasing both of these, courtesy Liberty Stickers:

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Palin shared her opposition to the GOP’s roster of presidential candidates, in January 2007 she said before Alaska’s republican primary:

“A lot of us are sitting back and waiting to see if there will be new players in there,” “That’s probably why that box that says ‘none of the above’ is so popular right now.”

 Although as stated earlier, she praised Ron Paul as a “good guy” and “cool.”

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Ron Paul writes in the first few pages of his excellent book The Revolution, that whenever you hear a candidate discuss the “bridge to no where” then know that they do not really want to talk about actual important issues.  To paraphrase Dr. Paul, “Thats .000015% of federal spending, what are you going to do about the remaining 99.999985%?”  Palin today noted that she was in charge of stopping the “bridge to no where,” good to know, Sarah.

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Right now the coalition of Ron Paul supporters on the blogosphere, both libertarians and traditionally minded antiwar conservatives, seem to be praising the Palin pick.  And apparently, Palin gave an interview to MTV News in February praising Ron Paul:

He’s a good guy, he’s so independent, independent of the party machine.  I’m like “Right on, so am I.”

Lew Rockwell’s blog, the former congressional Chief of Staff to Ron Paul says the following on Palin:

Sarah Palin is smart, articulate, attractive, pro-life, and pro-gun, and was even a Buchananite in 1996. Her political career has been based on fighting Republican corruption. Her ratings as Alaska governor are very high. She has a compelling life story, as they say. Her husband is one-quarter Yupik Eskimo. They have five children, including one with Down’s syndrome, whom they refused to abort. Palin will bring the whole Republican base home, and some Independent and Democratic women.

Pat Buchanan said on MSNBC that she was his favorite pick although she was a risky choice for McCain.  In fact, Buchana told journalists at The Nation“It’s great for the base. I’m pretty sure she’s a Buchananite!”  (Although he also said “she just isn’t ready to be commander-in-cheif” as well as “this is the biggest political gamble in U.S. history).  The Daily Paul blog even recommended her as a potential running mate for Ron Paul last September.The American Conservative, my favorite magazine, does not seem to be so pleased with her however.  Michael Dougherty, on The American Conservative’s blog writes:

Like Bobby Jindal or Mark Sanford, I considered Sarah Palin a promisingly conservative, likable, and reform-minded governor. I wished desperately to spare her (and them) from association with the bellicose and ideological foreign policy of Bush-McCain.

Very conservative (and antiwar) Taki’s Magazine’s Sniper Tower blog also shows signs of giving Palin a chance:

I must say that my first impression of Palin is very positive–she’s from outside the Beltway and looks like a straight shooter. I’m going to start reading up on her, and I’m very much inclined to give her a chance.

The Liberty Maven a pro-Ron Paul (and now Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr) blog also gives some lukewarm - but cautious - praise of Palin:

McCain and his expert campaigners have selected someone who the Ron Paul faithful singled out as a potential running mate for Dr. Paul should he magically win the GOP nomination. She has a great conservative record of cutting spending and demanding ethics in government although she is no stranger to alleged ethics violations herself.. When the Alaskan legislature voted to not fund the implementation of REAL ID Act, Governor Palin acquiesced by not vetoing nor signing the bill. The effect being that Alaska has now rejected the federally mandated REAL ID. TheACLU even praised Palin for her inaction. McCain is a vocal supporter of REAL ID and an assortment of  federal legislation that pretends there is no 10th amendment to the Constitution.

While Liberty Maven laments over the fact that Palin will now endorse the overtly militant and interventionist policy of McCain, he does see some good over Palin’s selection:

However, there is some potential good with her selection. It arguably could demonstrate that McCain has seen the kind of support Ron Paul received and is trying to move more to the “Old Right” (or more towards libertarianism ever so slightly). Perhaps he is trying to mitigate Bob Barr’s spoiler potential. These arguments are quite a bit of a reach. Palin is no libertarian, but she certainly has a history of supporting more libertarian notions than McCain. I suspect her future statements will reveal her as straying further from the libertarian mindset.

What’s more, the Politico reports that Palin’s husband and son are independents and NOT republicans.However, neoconservatives seem to be extremely happy with the McCain selection - meaning that whatever good Palin might have on domestic policy is nullified on her soon-to-be overtly militant foreign policy.  Bill Kristol has praised the pick, the blogs over at Commentary Magazine are ecstatic over it, and so is the National Review.  Paraphrasing Bill Kauffman you cannot be a social conservative and support a war which tears apart families and leads to deaths of innocent people.  And to paraphrase Ron Paul, you can’t be a fiscal conservative and support war spending which increases taxes, unbalances budgets, and hence destroys the economy.  I am skeptical about this Palin pick, but no matter how good she might be - the fact is McCain is horrible, and thus I am still hoping for an Obama victory in November (not sure if I will actually vote for him however).

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Then why did he divorce his then disabled wife after coming back from Vietnam, only to marry a rich girl 18 years younger than him less than a month later?  So asks the British Daily Mail.  Another reason why conservatives should oppose McCain.

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For anyone who thought that the democratic party was unimperialistic and antiwar, think again.  As reported by both Andrew Sullivan’s blog and Reason magazine, the new Democratic party platform takes an awfully wide definition of jus ad bellum:

 “We believe we must also be willing to consider using military force in circumstances beyond self defense in order to provide for the common security that underpins global stability-to support friends, participate in stability and reconstruction operations, or confront mass atrocities.”

 For anyone dumb enough to be a democrat or republican and believe in real change, well, sorry for the disappointment.  Reason magazine comments:

Um, I could be wrong, but isn’t that a fairly radical new doctrine on the use of military force? At the very least, it would certainly allow a wide range of interventions overseas. There are probably a dozen situations in the world today that would meet this test.

 And thus unjust wars of aggression are reintroduced into policy by Orwellian euphemisms.  Oh dear.  How is this not different from the foreign policy of our current administration? 

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I am very sorry that I write this, being that I am so biased against McCain in so many ways, but John McCain has run an ingenious campaign ever since he dropped his old advisers and picked up the Bush people.  Yes, the Bush people.  Just a few successes since late June to name a few:

•  At the Saddleback forum McCain gave concice answers which seemed much more sincere than Obama, there was a hands down media consensus that he won that debate.
• McCain has hit and hit hard against Obama and has gone negative in very beneficial ways for him.  The McCain campaign has painted Obama, who the public does not know yet as some sort of radical inexperienced guy with no ties to the heartland.  The Tony Rezko ad really hit hard at Obama - as did the Paris Hilton ad after the Germany speech.
• This ad.  Whatever you have to say about McCain, coupling his month of jabs and uppercuts at Obama with this positive congratulations ad that is to air before Obama’s speech in major battleground states, gives McCain a very positive perception:

Of course, Obama has made some very large strategic blunders himself.  The Germany speech and other “big speeches” have added into the “rock star” image the Republicans are painting.  The Biden pick, which I have criticzed before, was an absolute flop and instead of getting a bounce Obama actually dropped in the polls.  The Democratic Convention has also not been hard enough on McCain.

I still think Obama holds the balance of power, even with Reagan democrats factored in.  Obama has the money advantage, his speech tonight will really help his - already existent - network in Colorado, and the fact that the Clintons went so far praising him means that his party will be alot more united than it was a few months ago.  Also, according to Rasmussen, Cook Political Report, RealClearPolitics, and fivethirtyeight.com Obama is leading in the electoral college count and is leading in key swing states.

The question is however, how in the hell is Obama neck and neck with McCain in national polls - which although don’t matter can be a negative sign if so close.  Duckakis was 20 points ahead of George H.W. Bush in August, and all Barack Obama can do is a measily 1-2 - even losing in some national polls?

McCain right now is running the traditional Lee Atwater type Republican campaign - attack, attack, attack and paint a narrative - and history has shown it has worked (except in 1992).  Obama can’t fall into the trap and become another lame duck John Kerry.  He has to rise above this and be a Reagan or a Clinton.  Even with everything going against him McCain has been able to spring forth some life and some hope just out of simple strategic campaigning.  Obama should take heed now before its too late.

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