Category: The Flemish Menace

Either a disguised label for terrorism, or a hint at a false flag, not sure which.

Oh, Canada?

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by Smitty (h/t Lucianne)

Ottawa cancels Ann Coulter.

Right-wing antagonist Ann Coulter cancelled a University of Ottawa address last night after organizers decided it wasn’t safe to speak.
The move followed boisterous demonstrations outside that sponsors of the appearance feared could turn violent.

Mark Steyn will no doubt have something blistering on this one, but Canada, you really have wet yourself. Your osteoporosis has reached a point where a woman with long hair and pointed remarks cannot offer them without you fearing for ‘safety’. For crying out loud in the dark, I hope all honest Canucks, who can remember a time before the last hair was shaved off their public bottom in the name of some bogus ’empathy’ god, just come South of the border right now.

The fact that you are upright, law abiding, reasonable citizens means that it will take a while to navigate the USCIS process, I know. But come South anyway, and let’s team up, to try to make at least one country on the continent that doesn’t draw vacuum.

UPDATE: photos at Knowledge is Power.

UPDATE 7:12 a.m. ET (RSM): Doggone it, Smitty. If you think you’re going to hog all the Canada-bashing fun here, you’ve got another think coming! Via Kathy Shaidle, the only good Canadian, we have this news update:

After protesters at the University of Ottawa prevented Ann Coulter from giving a speech Tuesday night, the American conservative writer said it proved the point she came to make – free speech in Canada leaves much to be desired.
Then she said what she really thought of the student protesters who surrounded Marion Hall, making it to unsafe, in the view of her bodyguard, for the pundit to attempt entry.
“The University of Ottawa is really easy to get into, isn’t it?” she said in an interview after the cancelled event. . . .
Coulter said she has been speaking regularly at university campuses for a decade. While she has certainly been heckled, she said this is the first time an engagement has been cancelled because of protesters.
“This has never, ever, ever happened before – even at the stupidest American university,” she said.
Coulter remarked on the reception she has had since entering the country.
“Since I’ve arrived in Canada, I’ve been denounced on the floor of Parliament – which, by the way, is on my bucket list – my posters have been banned, I’ve been accused of committing a crime in a speech that I have not yet given, I was banned by the student council, so welcome to Canada!”

James Fulford at VDare explains:

Coulter actually has a case that people are hating her not because she’s beautiful, but because she’s a American. Anti-Americanism is respectable among Canada’s elites, and widespread, but in fact, under Canada’s human rights laws, which include “national or ethnic origin,” it’s just as illegal as hating Somalians.

See you in Vegas, Ann! To quote my favorite pundit (ahem):

Thank God that in America, we’re still free to hate Canadians. As far as I’m concerned, South Park had it right . . .

The Other McCain: Hating Canada Since 1959!TM

UPDATE 8:05 a.m. ET (RSM): How to Describe Canadians (If You Must):

Canuckistani Terrorists Shut Down Coulter
Speech in People’s Republic of Ottawa

Ann’s interview with a cheap Canadian imitation of Bill O’Reilly:

UPDATE 9:20 a.m. ET (RSM): Continuing to update the hate, here’s Jim Hoft at Gateway Hateway Pundit:

The peaceful pro-Palestinian demonstrators in their keffiyahs would not allow her to speak.

Lest you think Jim’s joking, notice the keffiyah-wearer — with shaved head, next to the woman in purple coat — in this photo (via Donald Douglas at American Power):

The Lonely Conservative:

One student said she was happy to silence Ann Coulter. Oh yes, threatening violence to shut up someone with whom you disagree. How civil.

Blazing Cat Fur:

What a disgrace to Canada but what can you expect from a University that promotes Israeli Apartheid Week. The U of Ottawa was all free-speechy when this hypocrite spoke at Whack-A-Jew-Week

Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs:

These same savages welcome the most hate speech sponsors with open arms and open legs, but truth is verboten.

And Pamela provides this video showing that the Muslim girl who on Monday claimed to be insulted by Coulter is — surprise! surprise! — a member of a Facebook group advocating the destruction of Israel:


Best Blog Headline of the Day.

UPDATE 3/25: Ann Coulter Hears a Houle.

PREVIOUSLY:

‘Irrational Anti-Science Lunatics . . .’

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‘. . . like Tim Blair.’

Can you guess who said that about Australia’s most popular blogger? Maybe you need some clues:

That last quote was from ex-sycophant Wild Irish Rose, who was responsible for the banning of Zombie. Still no guess? Maybe if I told you he was recently the subject of a Los Angeles Times column and a New York Times profile? OK, well, how about this clue?

So if “irrational anti-science lunatics” like Tim Blair are the biggest threat in Australia, what about Zachariah Matthews?

Elements of Islamic law – the sharia – should be legally recognised in Australia so that Muslims can live according their faith, a prominent Muslim leader says.
Addressing an open day at Lakemba Mosque on Saturday, the president of the Australian Islamic Mission, Zachariah Matthews, said parts of sharia could be recognised as a secondary legal system so that Muslims were not forced to act contrary to their beliefs. ”Sharia law could function as a parallel system in the same way that some traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander law was recognised in the Northern Territory,” Dr Matthews told the Herald after the session. . . .
“I don’t think we are so unsophisticated that we cannot consider a multilayered legal system as long as it doesn’t conflict with the existing civil system.”

The “unsophisticated” Robert Spencer at JihadWatch has more. And Tim Blair’s colleague Piers Akerman has a report about the Lakemba Mosque from former Reuters reporter Alison Bevege:

[B]ooks on sale in the basement below the mosque reflected the awful truth about the values broadly supported by those who fully embrace Islam and its holy book, the Koran.
Bevege found most of the books on offer were in Arabic but among those in English were publications which exposed the wide cultural gap that would be legalised under sharia law: Islamic intolerance for homosexuality, for equal rights of women and for individual freedoms.
She quoted from the “The Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam” by Yusuf al-Qaradawi, which says: “Because of his natural ability … the man is the head of the house … He is entitled to the obedience and cooperation of his wife, and accordingly it is not permissible for her to rebel against his authority.”
And what happens if she does? . . .
The book then quotes Imam al-Hafiz ibn Hajar who says “To be specific, one may beat only to safeguard Islamic behaviour and if he (the husband) sees deviation only in what she must do or obey in relation to him.”
Bevege, who has worked in North Africa, said despite Dr Matthew’s public support for multiculturalism and diversity, the books in the basement state Muslim women are not allowed to marry non-Muslim men.

Obviously, you’d have to be some kind of white supremacist to believe that the Islamicization of Australia is more dangerous than “irrational anti-science lunatics like Tim Blair,” right?

THE FLEMISH MENACE!

UPDATE: Hey, remember that “libertarian extremist” who went nuts at the Pentagon last week? What’s up with him using Arabic script on his Internet page?

Another ‘Anti-Government Right Wing Extremist of the Ron Paulian Persuasion’

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No, not Pentagon shooter Patrick Bedell — as described by Charles Johnson — I’m talking about that other 9/11 Truther:

Two days before his official trip to Afghanistan, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a “big lie” intended to pave the way for the invasion of a war-torn nation, according to Iranian state media.
Ahmadinejad, known for his harsh rhetoric toward the West and Israel, said the attack on U.S. soil was a “scenario and a sophisticated intelligence measure,” Iran’s state-run Press TV reported Saturday.
The assault was a “big lie intended to serve as a pretext for fighting terrorism and setting the grounds for sending troops to Afghanistan,” Press TV reported Ahmadinejad as saying.

Mahmoud Ahmadenijad, Patrick Bedell, Rosie O’Donnell, Charlie Sheen — all those notorious libertarians!

Probably Belgian, too. IYKWIMAITYD.

ADDENDUM: For the benefit of those who’ve been reading the blog for less than six months, or who didn’t pay close attention to the Great LGF Meltdown of 2009, I will explain the “Belgian” joke and a few other things, as well.

The first clear indication that Little Green Footballs blogger Charles Johnson had slipped a cog was in October 2007, when he attacked Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs and Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch for having attended a “counter-jihad” conference in Brussels, Belgium.

Specifically, Johnson and certain of his pseudonymous commenters charged that various European participants in the Brussels conference were “ultra-nationalist” or “Euro-fascist.” Prominently mentioned in Johnson’s attack was Vlaams Belang (“Flemish Interest”), a Belgian political party that has a history of controversy, opposing the typical European “multicultural” stance toward Islam and immigration (readers of Mark Steyn’s America Alone will nod their heads in recognition).

When Geller and Spencer defended the Brussels conference and protested the guilt-by-association attacks, Johnson’s response was to launch a crusade of defamation against Geller and Spencer. Anyone who sided with Geller and Spencer in this dispute was accused by Johnson of willfully abetting “Euro-fascism.” Conservative columnist Diana West and best-selling author Richard Miniter were among the many people stigmatized by Johnson, as Geller noted.

Keep in mind that, when this dispute began, Little Green Footballs was still one of the most widely read conservative sites, a “must” on any conservative blogroll (including Rush Limbaugh’s site). By declaring Geller and Spencer to be persona non grata and condemning West, Miniter, et al., Johnson was implicitly threatening to eject from the ranks of respectable conservatism any blog that linked either Atlas Shrugs or Jihad Watch. This resulted in a drastic loss of traffic for Geller and Spencer, and damaged their effort to build a trans-Atlantic alliance against what has been variously deemed “Islamicization” or “Dhimmification.”

And all of this, you see, because of the threat allegedly posed by Vlaams Belang, a party that mustered 12% of the vote in Belgium, a peaceful democratic nation geographically smaller than Maryland with a population less than Ohio’s. Consider, then, the extreme disproportion involved in Johnson’s crusade, during which he branded Geller a “Poster Girl for Euro-Fascists.”

Regardless of your opinion of Vlaams Belang — or whether you even have an opinion about them — is this Belgian political party really a threat comparable to al Qaeda? Is Flemish nationalism such a grave danger as to justify the crusade against Geller and Spencer? Or, as seems far more likely, does Johnson have some kind of personality flaw that caused him to go beserk when Geller and Spencer disputed his condemnation of the Brussels conference?

All of which explains why I began invoking “the Flemish Menace” when mocking Johnson’s paranoiac tendencies, his rigid categorical thinking, and his obsessive need to apply pejorative labels to his enemies (real or imaginary). His counter-factual claim that Pentagon shooter Patrick Bedell was an “Anti-government right wing extremist of the Ron Paulian persuasion” is typical of what I call Johnsonoia.

Why not merely ignore Charles Johnson? It’s never safe to turn your back on a rabid dog.

Why Do Charles Johnson’s Beliefs Keep Turning Out to Be Delusional?

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Professor Glenn Reynolds has linked my essay about narcissism, scapegoating and paranoia. Speaking of paranoid narcissists, remember when Charles Johnson called the Pentagon shooter an “anti-government right wing extremist of the Ron Paulian persuasion”? 

Wrong again, Chuckles. John Patrick Bedell was a dopehead peacenik loser of the “No Blood for Oil” persuasion who slowly descended into paranoid psychosis:

Bedell . . . had vigorously objected to the government’s role in the 1991 Persian Gulf War since high school, telling relatives that the United States was trying to enrich itself and oil companies, said his brother, 33-year-old Jeffrey Bedell.
But, in about 2002, after the breakup of a long-term relationship with a girlfriend, his skepticism began to turn to deep-rooted suspicion. And soon it became paranoia, his brother said.
Patrick would point skyward, convinced that “they” were watching him. He believed songs he heard on the radio were meant as warnings.  . . .
“There were symptoms of a mental disorder, approaching paranoid schizophrenia,” said Jeffrey Bedell, a former California deputy attorney general who is a financial adviser. . . .
Patrick was perpetually in and out of school, enrolling in undergraduate or graduate programs and sometimes auditing courses. Jeffrey could not recall whether he had worked anywhere. . . .
The Bedells pleaded with him to seek medical help, but he refused. “I would have conversations with him, trying to convince him to stop smoking marijuana, that it was making his thinking more disordered, but he was not receptive to that,” Jeffrey said.

The Pentagon shooter was not a “Paulian.” He was also not a Hayekian, an Objectivist, a Rothbardian or any other sort of libertarian. Nor was he a creationist, a Belgian neo-fascist or a “climate-change denier.”

Patrick Bedell was suffering from a mental illness that cannot be blamed on Charles Johnson’s ideological Scapegoat of the Week. 

The sycophants at Little Green Footballs are enabling Johnson’s delusions of adequacy. He’s so out of touch with reality, he wouldn’t know the difference between a libertarian and a lamb chop.

Dennis Prager, Charles Johnson and Understanding the Left’s Smear Tactics

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While I responded jocularly when Dennis Prager’s column was first published, a reader e-mailed today to suggest that maybe Prager would actually like to discuss this at greater length, so I sent this e-mail to Prager’s producer, Allen Estrin:

Dear Mr. Estrin:

In his Jan. 26 syndicated column, Dennis Prager responded to Charles Johnson (Little Green Footballs), mentioning me – “in 28 years as a talk show host and columnist, I had never heard of Robert Stacy McCain” – as having been one of the reasons that Johnson claimed drove him out of the conservative movement.
While I am not exactly famous, neither am I utterly unknown, having spent more than 10 years as a news editor and reporter for The Washington Times and co-authored the 2006 book, Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime and Corruption in the Democratic Party with my longtime friend, Lynn Vincent (who subsequently collaborated with Sarah Palin on her recent bestselling biography).
Now a successful independent blogger at TheOtherMcCain.com, I am a frequent contributor to The American Spectator and also to the Green Room blog at HotAir.com. In the past year, I have provided extensive coverage of the Tea Party movement. This week, for example, my American Spectator column addressed Frank Rich’s smear of the Tea Party movement. 
Because of my own experiences with Charles Johnson – who responded to my coverage of the 9/12 March on DC by smearing me as a “white supremacist blogger,” inciting a rather notorious two-week blog war – I think Mr. Prager might be interested in my perspective on the smear tactics used against conservatives. These may be summarized briefly:

  • Bad Faith – The accusation that conservatives are motivated by bad faith (mala fides) is essential to the Left’s attacks. Stigmatizing and marginalizing conservatives is much easier than debating them. Cogent arguments about policy become unnecessary to advancing the Left’s political agenda if they can dismiss its opponents as racist, sexist, homophobic, etc.
  • The Ransom Note Method – By carefully selecting “evidence” of bad faith, the Left is able to present a distorted image of its conservative targets. Out-of-context quotes and controversial biographical data are cherry-picked and re-assembled (in the manner of a kidnapper assembling a ransom note) to present the target in the most damning possible light. This method is particularly effective against conservative talk-radio personalities who engage in polemic battle with leftists. This is why Media Matters devotes such enormous resources to monitoring talk radio in hopes of grabbing a 40-second “gotcha” sound-bite.
  • The ‘Links and Ties’ Method – More than simple guilt-by-association, the Links-and-Ties Method involves presenting a chain of incidental connections to suggest a sympathy of views that does not actually exist. To wit: Target A once spoke at Event B which was sponsored by Group C, co-founded by Person D who once made controversial statement E. By this method, it is implied that Target A actually endorses Statement E.
  • Telescoping and Telepathy – The actions, statements and associations of a conservative target acquire a trans-temporal permanence in the smear attacks of the Left. Once a target is associated (however incidentally) with controversy, this association can be repeated endlessly as evidence of bad faith, no matter how many years intervene. Furthermore, if the target is associated in Year X with a respectable person or organization that becomes controversial in Year X+5, that association can be cited in Year X+10 as evidence against the target – even if the target had no involvement in the cause of controversy. Finally, all evidence of bad faith accumulated by these methods is presented as indicative of the target’s deepest and unwavering personal convictions, as if the accuser were possessed of telepathic mind-reading abilities.
  • Deny, Denounce, Repudiate – The key to these attack methods is the presumption of the target’s guilt. The accuser, having carefully selected the evidence to be discussed in the manner of a prosecutor making an indictment, demands that the target deny the accusation, denounce the bad-faith views involved, and repudiate the persons and organizations to whom he has been connected by the links-and-ties method. As anyone who has been targeted by such attacks can attest, it’s rather like being accused in one of Stalin’s infamous Moscow “show trials.”

Repeated successful use of these tactics is tremendously advantageous to the Left, tending to prevent conservatives from cooperating effectively in their opposition to the Left’s agenda. If a target (e.g., Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Andrew Breitbart, et al.) can be isolated and rendered sufficiently “controversial,” other conservatives understandably will become reluctant to associate with that person. Conservatives are made to feel defensive and as a result may become suspicious of their colleagues, overly cautious in their activism, and hesitant to speak out on behalf of fellow conservatives targeted by the Left.
It is important to understand that the Left’s use of these methods is systematic and progressive. Once a targeted group or individual has been rendered sufficiently “toxic” by smear tactics, the Left then moves on to other targets, gradually expanding the list of those who have been delegitimized as too controversial for participation in the political mainstream. Conservatives who fail to fight back against these smears are thereby granting the Left the ability to decide who is or is not “mainstream.”
There is ultimately no safety in silence. Those who hesitate to defend the Left’s targets today – whether those targets are Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin or James O’Keefe – will regret their caution when they themselves become targets tomorrow. I hope that Mr. Prager will be interested in discussing this subject on his radio program. If not, I hope at least you will forward to him this e-mail from someone he never heard of before.

Robert Stacy McCain

C’mon, Dennis: Join the Flemish Menace!

UPDATE: Thanks to our Kansas commenter for the tip that this post seems to have excited the ever-excitable Charles Johnson and his dwindling band of unbanned minions.

Here’s a helpful hint for happiness in the blogosphere: Don’t ever get a Google alert for your own name.

The very fact that you would consider getting a Google alert for your own name probably indicates a tendency toward personal vanity. All that is then necessary for your enemies to goad your fragile ego is occasionally to write a sentence like, “Charles Johnson is a sociopathic narcissist,” and it will ruin your entire day.

If there are bloggers out there tempted to include the sentence “Charles Johnson is a sociopathic narcissist” as an auto-tag in every future post — well, far be it from me to impede your First Amendment right to free expression.