During a police protest in Chicago over the anti-police policies of Chicago’s crooked Mayor Rahm Emanuel, an unidentified angry woman spit on a cop! Lock her up!
The Chicago Police are protesting the policies of their Mayor Emanuel that prevent them from doing their job. The Mayor is personal friend and accomplice of former President Obama. During their protest a woman was caught on video spitting on one of the cops.
That policeman deserves a medal for not retaliating to the radical disgusting female spitter. She on the other hand needs to be arrested and put in jail.
** If anyone knows this woman please contact Chicago police.
President Trump tweeted his support for the police in Chicago stating they have every right to protest how the mayor will not let them do their job.
Chicago Police have every right to legally protest against the mayor and an administration that just won’t let them do their job. The killings are at a record pace and tough police work, which Chicago will not allow, would bring things back to order fast…the killings must stop!
The police in our country do outstanding work under very stressful conditions while protecting all Americans. They should be praised and not spit on for their courage and desire to do what’s right. God bless all police this Memorial Day weekend.
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The United States Capitol Building often is referred to as “The People’s House.” For more than two centuries, access to the People’s House was largely unfettered.
Visitors, whether American citizens or otherwise, could easily and freely walk into the building to see their Representative, listen to a congressional hearing, roam the statue- and art-bedecked corridors, or sit in the visitors galleries to watch one of the two legislative bodies in action.
All that changed dramatically after July 24, 1998, the day a deranged gunman charged into the House entrance and mortally wounded two Capitol Hill police officers. That double murder set in motion an assessment of just how open to the people the People’s House should remain. Over the next several years, a massive and costly construction project took place that now funnels all non-official visitors to the Capitol through a huge, underground system of checkpoints and stairways before they can enter the building.
Security measures on the Hill were tightened further following the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. In similar fashion, it has now become far more difficult for visitors to gain access to public areas of the White House that once were within easy reach for citizens eager to do what people in other countries could only dream about – walking into the actual home of their country’s leader.
These changes serve as very real, if unfortunate reminders of the 21st Century world in which we live; among other things, lengthening the distance between the people and their government. The same can be said with regard to America’s schools.
Where once a parent could walk unquestioned into an elementary school to share lunch with their son or daughter; now they must be buzzed in, badged, possibly directed through a metal detector, and permitted to go only to a specific place within the building.
Yet even with all these security measures, tragedies such as befell the high school in Santa Fe, Texas on May 18th, still occur.
As with the debate about whether to place armed and uniformed law enforcement officers at schools, there remains much controversy surrounding the question of “how much security at a school is too much?”
Sociologists ponder whether physical security measures like metal detectors “alienates” students and makes them less receptive to learning. One writer at the RAND Corporation, Rajeev Ramchand, cites to a study that concludes, counterintuitively, that visible physical security measures makes students feel less safe. Some analysts fret that placing physical security measures at schools make the institutions appear unwelcoming.
In the end, one can become dizzy going ‘round in circles about whether to install physical security devices at school and to what extent. In many respects, this is the debate that virtually every country has faced since 9-11 regarding security at airports and other government structures.
Fears that tightened security at commercial airports would lead to a downturn in civilian air travel, however, never materialized. Despite the animosity with which passengers occasionally view TSA security checkpoints or personnel, the public’s appetite for air travel remains at historically high levels. And, despite the increased security measures at the U.S. Capitol, it remains one of the most visited tourist sites in the country.
But there are differences that must be considered. Schools are not tourist attractions; and unlike most air travel, attendance is not a voluntary activity. It is appropriate and important to consider the effects on students, teachers, and parents of enhanced security measures at schools.
The strategy underlying virtually every plan for physical security measures at schools is quite simple: minimize the opportunity for a potential murderer to gain access to the school in the first instance, and maximize the chances his efforts will be quickly thwarted if he does gain entry.
Unlike airport security, however, school security measures need to be considered in the broader context of whether they negatively impact what goes on there; in other words, whether they enhance or diminish the ability of teachers to teach and students to learn. And, unlike commercial airports, a one-size-fits-all approach is not appropriate for the thousands of extremely diverse schools scattered across communities from Miami to Anchorage.
Striking that balance is not easy, and dollars often are in short supply; but there are resources available. Organizations such as “PASS” (the Partnership Alliance for Safer Schools), along with law enforcement organizations in all parts of the country and at all levels, are ready to assist school boards in developing, implementing and updating hardened security measures. But the will to do so has to be there.
Any school board’s failure to engage such steps for whatever reason, including political or bureaucratic concerns, should be cause for parents to demand those who failed in this regard be fired or removed from office.
Bob Barr is president and CEO of the Law Enforcement Education Foundation (LEEF). From 1995-2003, he represented Georgia’s Seventh Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Hollywood celebrities are coming to the aid of the abortion industry following the Trump administration’s announcement of a new rule that ends the notion that abortion is health care or family planning and requires abortion facilities to be physically and financially separate from federally funded family planning centers.
The new rule, which can be read at the website of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), bars recipients of federal Title X family planning funds from referring women for abortions and – for abortion providers that also offer family planning services – also requires completely separate facilities for these services. The rule sends the clear message that abortion is not family planning or health care.
The new regulations also require Title X recipients to both abide by all state and local laws that mandate the reporting of child sexual abuse, and to document that they have made those reports.
Actress and comedian Sarah Silverman started off ripping Trump on May 18 with her assertion the new rule is not about protecting life, but about “limiting women’s choices while courting a specific voting block”:
Time to expose all the abortions paid for by the hypocrite politicians that vote for this. Make no mistake, this is about limiting women’s choices while courting a specific voting block. This could not be less about morals or life. https://t.co/NkivIkdOuL
MRC NewsBusters noted other celebrity tweets as well:
“Tweet at him now and tell him: he has no right to make decisions about your body,” tweeted actress Jane Fonda:
BREAKING: .@RealDonaldTrump just announced a gag rule that would prohibit doctors from referring patients for abortion and block patients from care at PP.
Tweet at him now and tell him: he has no right to make decisions about your body. #NoGagRule#IStandWithPP
Singer Pink tweeted, “Title X gives women access to contraception and more control over their lives, health, careers & economic security — and a gag rule takes that care away”:
Title X gives women access to contraception and more control over their lives, health, careers & economic security — and a gag rule takes that care away. #NoGagRule
The notion that women are somehow unable to obtain contraception with the new rule in place is, however, “fake news.” Taxpayer funds that would go to abortion facilities that refuse to abide by the new regulations – and some may choose not to – are slated to go to other federally qualified health centers that do not perform abortions and that provide more comprehensive health care. Any individual who would have chosen a Title X abortion facility for regular health care and family planning services can find another center at getyourcare.org.
“These centers outnumber Planned Parenthood facilities by a 20:1 ratio,” notes Susan B. Anthony List president Marjorie Dannenfelser.
Actress Jessica Biel also tweeted the “gag rule” is “a dangerous Trump-Pence policy that allows doctors to withhold information from women about their pregnancy options and block patients from coming to Planned Parenthood”:
Title X gives women access to birth control and therefore more control over their lives, health, careers and economic security. A gag rule takes that away. #NoGagRule@PPact RT pic.twitter.com/JjHkLQI7cC
The new rule, however, does not prohibit doctors in Title X facilities from counseling women about abortion.
Madame Secretary’s Tea Leoni also tweeted the same misinformation about the new Title X regulations:
Under the administration’s gag rule, people who access care through Title X—mostly the uninsured, low income, or people of color—wouldn’t be able to get info about all their options, including abortions. Enough is enough. #IStandWithPP to say #NoGagRule. https://t.co/hWRLx6mfIZ
“Under the administration’s gag rule, people who access care through Title X—mostly the uninsured, low income, or people of color—wouldn’t be able to get info about all their options, including abortions,” she posted. “Enough is enough.”
Again, the new rule does allow facilities that receive Title X funding to counsel about abortion, but not refer for abortion. Low-income individuals and the uninsured can still go to the many thousands of federally qualified health centers that provide more expansive services than Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers. Additionally, Title X facilities that currently perform abortions and distribute contraception can choose to abide by the new rule and separate their family planning centers from those that perform abortions in order to remain eligible for grants under this program.
Other celebrities tweeted similar left-wing talking points that reflected a lack of knowledge about the new rule.
“Stop playing politics with our bodies and health care,” postedTop Chef producer Padma Lakshmi:
“Title X gives women access to contraception and more control over their lives, health, careers, & economic security — and a gag rule takes that care away,” said Kate Walsh of 13 Reasons Why:
Title X gives women access to contraception and more control over their lives, health, careers, & economic security — and a gag rule takes that care away. #NoGagRule
Prosecutors have charged three migrants from Palestine and Syria for attacking a Jewish synagogue in Gothenburg, Sweden last December, following the announcement of the U.S. embassy in Israel’s move to Jerusalem.
The prosecution of the three men was announced this week by prosecutor Stella Lundqvist, who said that hate was likely a motive for the attack on the synagogue, Swedish broadcaster SVTreports.
The three migrants, who are in Sweden as temporary residents and are on work visas, are being charged with aggravated arson or attempted arson.
The prosecutor said the men, “together and in agreement with a number of unknown persons, started fires by throwing several bottles of burning gas or similar liquid to cars parked outside the synagogue of the property belonging to the Jewish Assembly in Gothenburg as well as neighbouring property. The cars belonged to members of the Jewish Assembly.”
Lundqvist added that the crime was being treated as especially serious because of the potential the fires had to spread to nearby buildings in the area, which could have caused far more damage.
The attack, which occurred last December, followed a protest in Gothenburg against the U.S. announcement to move its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem and recognize the city as the capital of Israel, and was said to have involved at least 20 people.
Earlier that same day in the heavily migrant-populated city of Malmö, protestors against the embassy move said, “We have announced the intifada from Malmö. We want our freedom back, and we will shoot the Jews!”
The new U.S. embassy, which opened earlier this month, has been the subject of violent protest by some, including the terror group Hamas, but the move was also welcomed by several European countries including the Czech Republic and Romania, who have both expressed a desire to follow in the footsteps of U.S. President Donald Trump and move their country’s embassies to Jerusalem as well.
Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com
Demonstrations across Nicaragua that began as opposition to reforms of the country’s social security system have exploded into violence against the rule of the President Daniel Ortega.
Ortega has governed Nicaragua for the last 11 years. It is his second stint as president, having ruled the country from 1979-1990 when his communist Sandanista thugs helped suppress any opposition.
The latest clashes broke out late Wednesday between opposition demonstrators and pro-government groups, with the worst occurring in Leon, northwest of the capital Managua.
A 31-year-old man, Manuel Chevez, was shot dead when government-linked groups tried to evict students and residents from a barricade on the main road to Leon, the man’s aunt Justa Ramirez said.
A second man, identified as Luis Diaz and belonging to the pro-government group, was allegedly struck by a homemade mortar bomb, said local Red Cross director Marcio Ocon.
During the clashes, which lasted about five hours, 54 people were wounded by a mixture of gunfire, rubber bullets and blunt instruments, according to the Red Cross.
Chevez’s aunt said he had been shot by a rifle. ‘He was shot with an AK, because it is a shot from an AK that he has on his forehead,’ she said.
Clashes also occurred in other Nicaraguan cities.
There have been talks between the government and opposition mediated by the Catholic church.
The unrest came after the week-long church-mediated talks between the government and opposition forces to quell a month of violence broke down late on Wednesday.
‘Since there was no consensus today between the parties, we in the bishops’ conference regrettably are shutting down the… national dialogue,’ church officials said after eight fruitless hours of mediation at a Managua seminary.
The biggest major stumbling block is the government’s rejection of early elections.
‘That would be dismantling constitutional order and the democratically elected government,’ Foreign Minister Denis Moncada said.
Moncada reaffirmed the government’s readiness to dialogue, saying it is ‘essential to resolve and agree on the elimination of all the barriers’ on the roads, to avoid ‘violence in all its forms and to guarantee the right to work.’
The leader of the opposition Broad Front for Democracy, Violeta Granera, said the dialogue had given her ‘a level of hope’ to find a solution to the crisis.
‘Now what we have left is to not let ourselves be unfocused and to be bolder, more creative and stronger with the protests.’
Ortega ‘wants time to win with impunity… It is already clear that his days in power are numbered,’ she said.
For the Ortega government to talk about “constitutional order” is a bad joke. He has ruled with the help of street thugs who show up at opposition protests to disrupt and intimidate the groups. The opposition has now taken to defending themselves, resulting in the violence sweeping the country.
Ortega should never be underestimated. He is a political survivor and will likely not accede to the demands for early elections. If they are held, he will make sure he wins. Since his government controls the machinery of elections, it’s pretty certain Ortega will get the outcome he wants.
Nicaragua is still a mess 40 years after the civil war. And as long as Ortega is in power, things won’t change much.
Demonstrations across Nicaragua that began as opposition to reforms of the country’s social security system have exploded into violence against the rule of the President Daniel Ortega.
Ortega has governed Nicaragua for the last 11 years. It is his second stint as president, having ruled the country from 1979-1990 when his communist Sandanista thugs helped suppress any opposition.
The latest clashes broke out late Wednesday between opposition demonstrators and pro-government groups, with the worst occurring in Leon, northwest of the capital Managua.
A 31-year-old man, Manuel Chevez, was shot dead when government-linked groups tried to evict students and residents from a barricade on the main road to Leon, the man’s aunt Justa Ramirez said.
A second man, identified as Luis Diaz and belonging to the pro-government group, was allegedly struck by a homemade mortar bomb, said local Red Cross director Marcio Ocon.
During the clashes, which lasted about five hours, 54 people were wounded by a mixture of gunfire, rubber bullets and blunt instruments, according to the Red Cross.
Chevez’s aunt said he had been shot by a rifle. ‘He was shot with an AK, because it is a shot from an AK that he has on his forehead,’ she said.
Clashes also occurred in other Nicaraguan cities.
There have been talks between the government and opposition mediated by the Catholic church.
The unrest came after the week-long church-mediated talks between the government and opposition forces to quell a month of violence broke down late on Wednesday.
‘Since there was no consensus today between the parties, we in the bishops’ conference regrettably are shutting down the… national dialogue,’ church officials said after eight fruitless hours of mediation at a Managua seminary.
The biggest major stumbling block is the government’s rejection of early elections.
‘That would be dismantling constitutional order and the democratically elected government,’ Foreign Minister Denis Moncada said.
Moncada reaffirmed the government’s readiness to dialogue, saying it is ‘essential to resolve and agree on the elimination of all the barriers’ on the roads, to avoid ‘violence in all its forms and to guarantee the right to work.’
The leader of the opposition Broad Front for Democracy, Violeta Granera, said the dialogue had given her ‘a level of hope’ to find a solution to the crisis.
‘Now what we have left is to not let ourselves be unfocused and to be bolder, more creative and stronger with the protests.’
Ortega ‘wants time to win with impunity… It is already clear that his days in power are numbered,’ she said.
For the Ortega government to talk about “constitutional order” is a bad joke. He has ruled with the help of street thugs who show up at opposition protests to disrupt and intimidate the groups. The opposition has now taken to defending themselves, resulting in the violence sweeping the country.
Ortega should never be underestimated. He is a political survivor and will likely not accede to the demands for early elections. If they are held, he will make sure he wins. Since his government controls the machinery of elections, it’s pretty certain Ortega will get the outcome he wants.
Nicaragua is still a mess 40 years after the civil war. And as long as Ortega is in power, things won’t change much.
According to a Wall Street Journalreport on Friday, North Korea significantly escalated the pace of its cyberattacks against South Korea in April, even as dictator Kim Jong-un held a historic summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and planned for a summit meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump.
The WSJ lists a broad range of targets for North Korea’s hacker onslaught:
The South Korean government is reviewing the cyberattacks, which started in the lead-up to the inter-Korean summit in April and continued through at least Wednesday, the people said. Early indications, based on the malware and targets, strongly suggest North Korea was the culprit, the people said.
The groups targeted include South Korean financial companies and organizations that focus on North Korea, the people said, with hackers seeking sensitive information. As with nearly all cyberbreaches, it is unclear how many computers were infected or what precisely was stolen.
Among the organizations affected were the Sejong Institute, an independent think tank, and the South-North Sharing Campaign, a left-leaning group that sends aid to North Korea.
The Wall Street Journal notes that North Korea has relied on its hackers to ease the pain of sanctions by raiding cryptocurrency exchanges and banks. The current wave of cyberattacks could be a last-ditch effort to exploit certain vulnerabilities in Microsoft browser software, which South Korea has been slow to correct by updating its computer systems. Another possibility is that Pyongyang’s hacker army was laying the groundwork for cyberwarfare retaliation against South Korea if negotiations collapse.
Retaliation might not be limited to South Korea. A report by Britain’s Defense Committee in April judged that the risk to the UK from “reckless cyberattacks” by North Korea is greater than the threat currently posed by North Korean missiles. The same report cited substantial evidence that China has assisted North Korea with developing its formidable cyberwarfare capabilities.
Priscilla Moriuchi, director of strategic threat development at Recorded Future, toldUK Computingon Friday that the United States can expect cyberattacks from North Korea as well:
Cancellation of this summit with Kim will likely have larger implications than if President Trump never accepted the invitation in the first place. This will be viewed by North Korean leadership as a slight against the Kim family which will raise the demand for a response.
We expect that there will be some type of cyber-retaliation, most likely denial-of-service or other disruptive attacks against US government departments or military networks, defence contractors, and large American multinationals. Given the high degree of perceived offense against the Kim family, this response will likely occur in the coming weeks and months.
Lastly, the timing of the cancellation, right before the Memorial Day holiday in the United States, is consistent with the historic timing of North Korean cyber attacks in the past.
Security analysts say North Korea’s cyberwar capabilities have improved significantly over the past year, peaking with “Operation GhostSecret,” a hacking campaign directed at infrastructure, financial, and telecom systems in 17 different countries. Some analysts think Operation GhostSecret was intended to show the world what North Korea’s “Hidden Cobra” cyber-army is now capable of.
China struggled to protect the reputation of its Confucius Institute as an educational and cultural “bridge” between China and the world in a column on Friday, while suspicions grow deeper the Institutes serve as instruments for spreading Chinese regime influence into other societies.
“To date, America has already built 110 Confucius Institutes and 501 Confucius Classrooms. Besides language courses, they also opened courses on traditional Chinese culture such as tea ceremony, calligraphy, painting and so on,” the Chinese People’s Dailywrote on Friday. The article also celebrated other schools in Thailand and Belgium.
Texas A&M terminated its agreement to host Confucius Institutes in April at the urging of Representatives Henry Cuellar (D-TX) and Michael McCaul (R-TX).
“These organizations are a threat to our nation’s security by serving as a platform for China’s intelligence collection and political agenda. We have a responsibility to uphold our American values of free expression, and to do whatever is necessary to counter any behavior that poses a threat to our democracy,” Cuellar and McCaul wrote in a letter to four Texas universities.
Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) have also written to colleges in their states urging them to shut down the Confucius Institutes.
“There is mounting concern about the Chinese government’s increasingly aggressive attempts to use “Confucius Institutes” and other means to influence foreign academic institutions and critical analysis of China’s past history and present policies. Additionally, the PRC continues its efforts to interfere in multilateral institutions, threaten and intimidate rights defenders and their families, and impose censorship mechanisms on foreign publishers and social media companies,” Rubio wrote in his February letter.
“Confucius Institute instructors are almost always hired in China and trained by the Chinese Ministry of Education without any of the same employment and hiring protections that exist in the United States. Much more difficult to measure but no less insidious, however, is the self-censorship that often takes place in academic settings where there is a Chinese government presence in the form of a Confucius Institute,” Rubio charged, listing topics from Taiwan to Tiananmen Square that are suppressed at Confucius installations.
“The Chinese government has been clear in its goal and purpose for creating and expanding Confucius Institutes throughout the country, namely to distort academic discourse on China, threaten and silence defenders of human rights, and create a climate intolerant of dissent or open discussion,” Moulton said in his letter to Tufts University and UMass Boston. He also sent the letter to 38 colleges in the Greater Boston area that do not have Confucius Institutes yet, as a warning against opening one.
When FBI Director Christopher Wray revealed in February that Confucius Institutes are under investigation as a possible security threat, Rachelle Peterson wrote at the Hillthat it was time to get the “pernicious” Chinese government-sponsored schools out of all U.S. colleges.
“I spent a year and a half studying Confucius Institutes. I found they misled students about China’s history and pressured American scholars to keep quiet about China’s unsavory policies. The Chinese director of one Institute told me that if a student asked about Tiananmen Square, she would ‘show a picture and point out the beautiful architecture.’ Another stripped faculty doors of banners referencing Taiwan,” Peterson wrote.
Her suggestions for dealing with the problem included rescinding an absurd exemption from the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) granted to the schools because they are supposedly engaged in purely academic activities, reducing federal funding to schools that accept Confucius Institute money, and strictly applying antidiscrimination laws so the Chinese government cannot control the staffing of the institutes.
“No other nation enjoys such direct access to American college classrooms,” Peterson toldDeutsche Wellein April. “Confucius Institute classes are stocked with textbooks selected and paid for by the Chinese government and led by teachers vetted and hired by the Chinese government. It is inappropriate for a foreign power to have such control over a college course.”
The South China Morning Postcredits Confucius Institutes with “giving China a soft power advantage” in Africa, where more than 50 such schools are teaching Mandarin Chinese to students who seek jobs with Chinese companies.
The SCMP describes one such school in Senegal that was funded with $2.5 million in Chinese government money. The costs of running the school and paying staff members are all covered by Beijing as well. Students are given Chinese names by their instructors, who also encourage them to embrace Chinese culture, history, and cuisine. A professor named Mahmoud Fall quoted in the article predicted that Chinese would soon be a more popular language in Africa than French, English, or other European languages dating back to the colonial era.
Asked if he was worried about China becoming a new colonial power, Fall replied: “This kind of cooperation is a win-win because it’s not cooperation that can be imposed by rules and regulations … you retain your freedom. It’s not based on domination. What you have with Chinese cooperation is the possibility to remain yourself, keeping your own heritage, conducting your own policies.”
Obviously reacting to President Trump’s cancellation of the scheduled June 12th summit meeting with Kim Jong-un, President Moon Jae-in met with the North Korean leader again on the North Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone. The UK Guardian reports:
South Korean president Moon Jae-in crossed into the north at the border village of Panmunjom, where the two met for the first time in April, according to Moon’s office. The two leaders discussed the potential US-North Korea summit, which Trump cancelled on Thursday, as well as implementing the joint statement that was released at the end of their earlier summit.
The surprise meeting highlighted Moon’s efforts to get the historic summit back on track, and showed inter-Korea relations are in a far better state than those between Washington and Pyongyang. On Friday, Trump made a partial climbdown, saying the summit could still be held in Singapore on 12 June if conditions are right.
Photos released by the South Korean presidential office showed the two leaders embracing, shaking hands amid opulent decor and holding intimate discussions, accompanied by just a single aide each.
Moon is expected to announce further details of the meeting on Sunday morning.
We don’t know who first proposed the meeting, nor do we know any detail about what was discussed. But it seems clear that both leaders want the summit to go forward, which is probably what Trump wants. They now need to please him, after all.
Obviously reacting to President Trump’s cancellation of the scheduled June 12th summit meeting with Kim Jong-un, President Moon Jae-in met with the North Korean leader again on the North Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone. The UK Guardian reports:
South Korean president Moon Jae-in crossed into the north at the border village of Panmunjom, where the two met for the first time in April, according to Moon’s office. The two leaders discussed the potential US-North Korea summit, which Trump cancelled on Thursday, as well as implementing the joint statement that was released at the end of their earlier summit.
The surprise meeting highlighted Moon’s efforts to get the historic summit back on track, and showed inter-Korea relations are in a far better state than those between Washington and Pyongyang. On Friday, Trump made a partial climbdown, saying the summit could still be held in Singapore on 12 June if conditions are right.
Photos released by the South Korean presidential office showed the two leaders embracing, shaking hands amid opulent decor and holding intimate discussions, accompanied by just a single aide each.
Moon is expected to announce further details of the meeting on Sunday morning.
We don’t know who first proposed the meeting, nor do we know any detail about what was discussed. But it seems clear that both leaders want the summit to go forward, which is probably what Trump wants. They now need to please him, after all.
If you want to understand the moral sickness at the heart of leftism, read the first paragraph of the most recent column by Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne:
“It’s never right to call other human beings ‘animals.’ It’s not something we should even have to debate. No matter how debased the behavior of a given individual or group, no matter how much legitimate anger that genuinely evil actions might inspire, dehumanizing others always leads us down a dangerous path.”
Let’s begin with the first sentence: “It’s never right to call other human beings ‘animals.'”
This is so self-evident to Dionne that he adds, “It’s not something we should even have to debate.”
Only someone who has never debated the issue could make such a claim.
So allow me to debate the assertion.
My view is the antithesis of Dionne’s. As I see it, it is not right to never call another human being an “animal.”
Calling the cruelest among us names such as “animal” or any other “dehumanizing” epithet actually protects humans. The word “beastly” exists for a reason and is frequently applied to human beings. By rhetorically reading certain despicable people out of the human race, we elevate the human race. We have declared certain behaviors out of line with being human.
Biologically, of course, we are all human. But if “human” is to mean anything moral — anything beyond the purely biological — then some people who have committed particularly heinous acts of evil against other human beings are not to be considered human. Otherwise “human” has no moral being. We should then not retain the word “inhumane.” What is the difference between “he is inhumane” and “he is an animal”? Both imply actions that render the person no longer human.
Dionne provides his answer at the end of the paragraph: “dehumanizing others always leads us down a dangerous path.”
He provides not a single argument or illustration for this truly absurd comment.
Anyone who refuses to “dehumanize” the Nazi physicians — who, with no anesthesia, froze naked people for hours and then dropped them in boiling water to rewarm them; put people in depressurized rooms where their eardrums burst, driving them out of their minds from pain; rubbed wood shavings and ground glass into infected wounds, etc. — is, to put it very gently, profoundly morally confused.
What would Dionne have us call those Nazi physicians — “not nice,” “badly flawed,” “evil”? Why is rhetorically ostracizing them from the human race “a dangerous path”? He doesn’t have an answer because he lives in the left’s world of moral-sounding platitudes. Leftism consists almost entirely of moral-sounding platitudes — statements meant to make the person making them feel morally sophisticated. But based on their relative reactions to the sadists of the MS-13 gangs, I trust Donald Trump’s moral compass more than E. J. Dionne’s.
It is ever dangerous to use dehumanizing rhetoric on people? Of course — when it is directed at people based on their race, religion, ethnicity, nationality or any other immutable physical characteristic. The Nazis did what they did to Jews and others because they dehumanized them based on their religious/ethnic/racial identity. That’s why racism is evil. But why is it dangerous to use such rhetoric on people based on their behavior? By equating labeling the cruelest among us “animals” with labeling Jews “animals,” Dionne cheapens the fight against real evil.
I once asked Rabbi Leon Radzik, a Holocaust survivor who had been in Auschwitz, what word he would use to characterize the sadistic guards in the camp. I will never forget his response: “They were monsters with a human face.”
Incredibly, Dionne would not agree with him.
Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His latest book, published by Regnery in April 2018, is “The Rational Bible,” a commentary on the book of Exodus. He is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.
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