It’s Time For The Jews To Stand Up For Themselves

by David Horowitz - March 11th, 2011 - Front Page Magazine

This article about Palestine and the intolerance of Jews by Muslims was primarily written to encourage Jews to stand up against the campaign of deceit being waged by the progressive movement and its jihadist component throughout the world. It also addressed (almost as an afterthought) an eqaully serious problem in America today. As Horowitz wrote about what he had said at a recent event, these thoughts attracted my attention.

I said the frontline battle in our present war with totalitarianism was the First Amendment’s right to disagree. When protests were designed to shut down speakers, when speakers were defamed in advance of their appearances, one side of the argument was effectively silenced, and if that were allowed to continue we would soon lose our democracy. I said the attacks on freedom of speech had already gone so far in this country that you couldn’t mention terror and Islam in the same breath without being labeled a bigot or an Islamophobe, accused of labeling all Muslims as terrorists.

Even President Bush who had heroically defended us against the attacks of Islamic terrorists could not identify our enemies by name for fear of offending other terrorists and their sympathizers and allies. He could not identify them as Islamic extremists or Islamic radicals or Islamic jihadist which is what they call themselves. I happened to be speaking on the day Congressman Peter King opened his hearings on the radicalization of Muslims in America and had watched the attacks on those hearings on my hotel television screen. I said we had reached a point in our country where we could not even make inquiries about the threat of domestic terrorism posed by militant Islamists who are responsible for 17,000 terrorist attacks since 9/11 without being attacked as “McCarthyites” and “bigots.”

What struck me was the failure to equate these activities to the practice of progressives who embrace the same tactics on every single issue. A perfect example is the recent near riots in Madison, Wisconsin. Near riots? Excuse me. With millions of dollars in damage lets call them what they were. Riots.

The State of Wisconsin was trying to pass a law that gave Wisconsin government workers more bargaining rights than federal employees possess. MORE bargaining rights. Please note that. Because if you only listened to the mob of pro government-worker union protesters, you would have thought that they were being enslaved. The only thing that the protesters focused on was the requirement that they not continue to be paid nearly 50% more than private workers, get free benefits that private workers (you know - the tax payers who paid the salaries of the government workers who composed the mob) had to pay for, and starting to limit unbelievable early retirement programs that allowed government-workers to work for a few years and then draw retirement for two and three times as many years as they worked. They were rioting in support of their own greed against the reality of our economic problems.

Our courts have allowed the concept of free speech to be sabotaged whenever any group is willing to abuse the idea that actions equate to speech, even when those actions become the denial of free speech to others. If a mob of evil extremists strips your rights, the courts have no problem with that, as long as it is not "paid" government employees doing this in the name of government. Yet in Madison, the free speech rights of the voters were stripped by government workers. Nothing was done to punish them because they were acting in opposition to the elected leaders, not at their behest.

Isn't there at least a modicum of irony that these government workers were permitted to deny the free speech of others in behalf of their own government power when if they had been acting on behalf of government power serving the people as a whole they would have been restricted?

Our courts don't think so. However this is merely proof our courts have become so corrupt they are part of the tyranny of our nation rather than being our defender.