On Monday night Dinesh D’Souza will be speaking on campus. His talk will be about Christianity, Islam, and the War on Terror. It will be related to his new book, What’s so great about Christianity It starts at 7PM in 2060 VLSB and will include a question and answer time. The talk is being hosted by the Berkeley College Republicans with support from the Young America’s Foundation.

I have heard him speak and read his Letters to a Young Conservative. D’Souza is a smart and well researched speaker. Even if you disagree with him, he is worth hearing.

As the facebook event says:

Dinesh D’Souza
Monday, April 28, 2008
7:00pm - 8:00pm
2060 VLSB

In response to this article by Editor in Chief Alisa Farenzena, the following letter was composed by some of the Patriot’s editorial board.

Fellow Patriots,

We strongly disagree with Alisa Farenzena’s Conservative Case for Abortion article.

The article claims supporting abortion is consistent with small government principles. However, the article then goes on to say the government should fund this heinous procedure, giving poor women a perverse incentive not to bear their children. Forcing taxpayers to fund such a disgraceful practice is certainly not small government.

The argument in the article is similarly devoid of family values. The most important value in any family is the love and worth accorded to each member. The youngest and most vulnerable people in a family are the most needing of protection and care, not a death sentence.

Many times the Hippocratic Oath is mentioned. This ancient oath specifically instructs doctors to not engage in abortions.

We, the undersigned staff of the California Patriot, recognize the importance and value of life in the womb and stand firmly against abortion.

Rohit J. Joy
Publisher

Derek Yee
News Editor

Charles Huang
Design Director

Christopher Page
Online Editor

Andrew R. Quinio
Editor Emeritus

William F. Buckley, Jr.
1925-2008

Photo by Pictorial Parade/Getty Images

William F. Buckley, Jr., conservative icon and founder of the National Review passed away today at the age of 82 . He inspired many Patriot writers, past and present, by giving us the intellectual firepower to combat political and cultural liberalism. His work is immortalized by the many generations of Americans who have passionately continued the conservative movement.

I received my first copy of the National Review from my sixth grade history teacher, who may or may not have been conservative, but took profound interest in my political education. Through his columns, Buckley became my virtual instructor in Conservatism 101.

Catch up on your Buckley reading here.

And then watch this great clip of WFB taking on Gore Vidal in 1968. America needs more unapologetic patriots like William F. Buckley.

This article from the SF NBC website which made The Drudge Report details Berkeley standing down from its measure to ban the Marines.

A choice bit from the article:

“Subtly stated in the resolution is perhaps an impugning of the soldiers fighting for us in Iraq and other places,” Berkeley City Councilman Laurie Capitelli. “And that was never the intention but that really needs to be cleared up. As I walked to my car that night I realized I regretted it and I had made a mistake.”

The institution that called the Marines “uninvited and unwelcome intruders” claims this was PERHAPS a subtle impugning. It wasn’t perhaps or subtle, and it was greater than impugnment. It was pretty heinous. Now that the city is threatened with the loss of 2.3 million in federal revenue it is backing off, and who knows if it learned a lesson or not.

Here’s another one:

“Sen. Barbara Boxer and Rep. Barbara Lee said they plan to fight the Republican bill”

Good luck with that, ladies! I’d love to see that day on the House/Senate floor. Also, Wozniak, one of the original dissenters, made a comment that was meant to be an olive branch but does nothing to hide Berkeley’s other forms of crazy:

“Berkeley is supposed to celebrate diversity and free speech and we welcome homeless people here. We welcome illegal immigrants. We give them sanctuary. We should welcome the Marines. I mean they’re basically dedicating their lives to protect their country.”

I’m sure February will provide the community of crazies and those who live with them a wholly new outrage to keep our spirits up. This is one thing that Berkeley has done for me–I won’t expect that anything will ever be strange again.

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

“As the right-wing blogosphere railed and a U.S. senator vowed financial retaliation against the Berkeley City Council for its effort to boot the Marine Corps out of town, three war protesters ratcheted up pressure from the left by chaining themselves Friday to the front door of the downtown Marine recruiting office.

The demonstrators snapped their locks shut at 7 a.m. and spent the next 7 1/2 hours blocking the door, waving and chanting as hundreds of cars driving by honked in support. Finally, at 2:30 p.m., police snipped the chains and arrested them.

Two of the three were cited for blocking a business and released, and the third was booked into jail on an unrelated traffic warrant, police said”

Oh boy. These guys have the works: orange prison suits, chains, the usual cadre of anti-Bush/anti-war/abu ghraib signs, etc. The most delicious part is how the right-wingers here on the interweb are supposedly the ones going ballistic, not those restricting the movement of others. I am not surprised that Berkeley is the first city to do this. Some of the reaction came from Republican Senator Jim DeMint, who is working on a counter-measure:

“Conservative bloggers and Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., also believe more articulation is necessary - from the opposite side of the political spectrum.

DeMint began drafting legislation Friday to cut $2.1 million in federal funding to Berkeley in a current congressional budget bill and transfer the money to the Marine Corps. The funding would include $750,000 for prospective ferry service, $87,000 for the Berkeley Unified School District nutrition education fund and $243,000 for the Chez Panisse Foundation, which promotes nutritional awareness in school lunch programs.

“The First Amendment gives the city of Berkeley the right to be idiotic, but from now on they should do it with their own money,” DeMint said in a statement.” Any thoughts on this?

The “ballistic” right wing response is apparently innapropriate, according to Council Member Donna Spring, who said “I guess they’ve never heard of free speech,” in response to those who left her critical phone messages. So her right to speak should be defended but not those who disagree? GatewayPundit is another “ballistic” blogger.

Cal even got a mention in a message from Melanie Morgan: “we have been contacted by Marine groups across Northern California, Cal Berkeley Young Republicans, SF State Young Republicans and a tsunami of e-mails in support”.

The action is going down Tuesday Feb 12th, when folks will be marching on the next Berkeley City Council meeting. Come along if you wanna see something fun.

Last night was the affirmative action debate. BAMN, By any means necessary, brought their national spokesperson Shanta Driver while the Berkeley College Republicans brought Star Parker.

I think almost everyone walked into the room with a solid position on affirmative action. Most people went to cheer on their own side. During the evening, the talk moved away from the policy of affirmative action and its merits.

When Ms. Parker said, capitalism leads to wealth and redistribution leads to poverty, Ms. Driver laughed. Then I remembered the connections between BAMN and the communist group the Revolutionary Workers’ League. Check out this and its many links.

Ms. Driver put words into Ms. Parker’s mouth, claiming she thought black people were biologically inferior. Ms. Parker was called a “self-hating minority,” which later prompted a question from the audience (toward Ms. Driver) “How can I be a self-loving minority?”

During the question period, BAMN’s hearings on hostile climate toward minority students were brought up as evidence that racism still exists in a large way on the Berkeley campus. To me this was laughable. I went to one of their hearings on hostile climate. Two people I knew gave testimony about the discrimination they received. They were called “the puppet of the white man” and an “Aunt Jemima.” However, BAMN turned their cameras off, struck their testimony from the record, and laughed at them when they learned they were politically conservative.

Some of the people for affirmative action are willing to use children to advance their cause. During the question and answer period, a little kid got up to ask a question. The question he asked was not one he came up with himself, it had been written down for him to ask. The kid even had to ask the person next to him what one of the words was.

Does anyone have a favorite quote or point to share?

By now most of you have seen the chalk and flyers around campus advertising tonights debate. It’s hosted by BCR and BAMN, who have brought respectively Starr Parker and Shanta Driver. (Ms Driver debated Mason Weaver at the last such event.)

The event is happening at 6pm in 155 Dwinelle.

I’ll open it up to commentary on this/past/future debates on this topic. Is affirmative action right/necessary/ethical etc? Why is diversity important? IS this issue systemic, and why should we care about it? Go for it.

Some preliminary links to keep you entertained while we wait for Nonie. Gateway Pundit detailing the events slated for tonight; with the exception of the event at Pepperdine, which is cancelled due to fires.

7:11 event begins with an introduction from BCR President Ross Lingenfelder. “The purpose of Islamo-Fascism awareness week is to bring attention to our common enemy, radical Islam”

Nonie, as you are aware, is the daughter of the general who invaded Israel in the 60’s, and was brought up in a Jihadist family. Her speech is sponsored by David Horowitz.

7:14 Ms, Darwish takes the stage to jeers of “Fascist; you are nothing but a tool of the United states”. Shouter is rebuked and removed.

Ms Darwish: “As an American, I cherish the freedom of speech”. What a fitting start. “This is not a discussion of good, peace-loving muslims…but an ideology of violence and hatred”

(more…)

The IFAW, or Islamo-fascism Awareness Week is sure attracting a lot of attention and opposition. My friend in Alabama had even heard of the counter-efforts going on and reminded me to bring a video camera. Here’s an update of some of the events:

Tonight, Nonie Darwish is speaking at 7pm in 10 Evans. It’s open to anyone, and free, but be advised no large bags or or signs will be allowed in, although there will be a space set aside to leave them safely.

Various members of the media will be in attendance, including (I have been informed) Al-Jazeera.

The opposition is holding a series of events called “Peace not Prejudice” and can be seen around campus in their green shirts.

This is a diverse crowd, containing members of the MSA, the SJP, and my old arabic professor.

Here’s another image of the stylish shirts. Green is assumed to be used here in the islamic context, not just because it’s a nice color. Recall the coloration of the Empire State building for Eid-al-fitr, the end of Ramadan.

Also created (likely those over at Revolution Books) is a poster adversiting the week’s counter-festivities, and it’s fairly interesting. Although not on par with the inflamatory posters over at GWU, it does take the typical crack at the CR’s hosting.

This poster wants opposition members to “expose and defeat” IFAW, which is disturbing, because the event is specifically for “Awareness”. It’s not a promotion of anything but education and is happening in order to bring in new perspectives, so “defeating” awareness sounds like supression of expression to me. How would the Berkeley community react if sexual-harassment awareness was called to be defeated, or awareness about racism?

Aside from this is the poster’s graphic:

It shows a crowd of who I presume to be Hitler Youth set on a college campus, it is tantamount to suggesting that CR’s (indeed anyone who opposes them) are fascist sychophants. Our campus, and indeed most, are predominantly liberal, and the idea that conservative youth are “an ice sheet spreading across campuses” and suppressing liberal values on American campuses is silly and patently false.

However, this is what they want to convey:

The panel “what about US fascism?” is claiming just that. Speaking on behalf of this cause is author Larry Everest, Robert Hernandez, and a video statement from Noam Chomsky.

Tonight is going to be a lot of crazy fun, and I encourage people to come see. I’m going to try to live-blog the event, and at the very least I will be taking photos.

Here’s my photo-update from the Wednesday event. It got some coverage on Drudge report, Instapundit, Michelle Malkin’s blog, as well as others.

Here is Melanie Morgan and another woman singing patriotic songs.

(more…)

Tonight was the education debate between the Cal Berkeley Democrats and the Berkeley College Republicans. It was moderated by the Informal Debate Society. The Cal Dems were represented by Ayesha and John, while BCR was represented by Kyle and Derek. Both sides had a freshman debate for them.

BCR’s plan was for the state to give each student a $5,500 voucher. This would allow many students to attend private schools of their parent’s choice. The Dems said privatization was bad and more money should be spend on public schools.

Both sides agreed No Child Left Behind had some bad aspects and standardized tests would only be useful if they tested the right things.

In the context of technology in the classroom, the Dems said doing math on slate boards like they did hundreds of years ago will not help a person with jobs today.

I commend the debaters for their participation. I think BCR came off looking better, but I can be biased.

This Daily Cal article is sort of like a Patriot Blog post in that it contains Ross Lingenfelder and Yaman Salahi in the same place. The Islamo-fascism awareness week that is happening here has getting some attention around the internet with the fake posters at GWU that were attributed to the Young Americas Foundation group there. The events are headed by David Horowitz, who we’ve seen speak here a few times since my freshman year, and are scheduled for Oct 22-26th. There should be some interesting speakers, including Nonie Darwish, and some interesting protesters, including the folks from Revolution Books. Maybe zombie will be there!

the quotes:

“(The week) is an attack on the Muslim community at Cal and in the country, and an effort to marginalize them,” said Yaman Salahi, a member of Students for Justice in Palestine. “It’s also an attack on the free discussion of political issues, especially about foreign policy and the Middle East.”

“The week is about exposing Islamo-Fascism—all different aspects of it” Lingenfelder said. “Women’s rights is a focus, but it’s not what the week is all about.”

The immigration bill is currently resting in the Senate, thought Harry Reid intends to revive it next week. There are a lot of problems with the bill, however some of the aspects are good, but I take more issue with how the debate is being presented. A lot of the discussion is missing some important points, and instead of continuing to yell at my TV, I’ll list a few.

As I said, the bill has some good amendments and some bad, but most of the border security and beaurocratic measures already exist, and aren’t enforced. This bill is adding good-intentioned layers of uselessness, and doesn’t target the real problem, which is that rules aren’t being enforced. Rather than spending the money this bill intends to fill social programs for the potential recipients of Z-visas, enforcement should be beefed up.

Along the lines of enforcement, there’s another point that’s been floating around that “we can’t round up and deport 12 million people” and it’s true, it would be a huge hassle. But we can enforce companies not hiring illegals by raising (and enforcing in every case, no exceptions) the fines. Also, if companies were forced to pay at least minimum wage there would be no incentive to continue hiring those who will “work for less”. If companies actually feared the consequence of hiring illegals, they would stop doing it, and there wouldnt be any jobs for illegals. Without recourse, the hope is that they would go home and try to re-enter legally. That’s just one way a little more enforcement could save us from spending a ton in “deportation”.

Another thing that bothers me is the discussion that this bill gives a provision so that “criminals” wouldn’t be able to get Z-visas. There’s a problem here with the illegals already in this country: because they’ve crossed our border, they are already criminals. They shouldn’t be rewarded for breaking the law with a visa. Those who are in line, waiting and abiding by the laws, should.

Also, there is no reason we as a country need to feel like it’s our duty to cater to illegal immigrants because they are “only looking for a better life”. They are absolutely looking for a better life, and I support giving asylum to people threatened by despotic governments, but the problem these people are escaping is not the US’s fault. The fault lies with Mexico, which is a country that is still developing and is going to encounter problems, but still has a duty to it’s people. If people were streaming from the US to another country, that should be a good indication of SOME kind of problem, right? Mexico has some issues that it needs to deal with, and of course we can help as a neighboring nation (and I’m not going to get into that now because there are all sorts of issues just within that statement). But the US and the American people are not beholden to immigrants; we are willing to help but not to hold their hand and we shouldn’t be expected to.

I hope you like my elementary analysis. Until next post!

Yesterday I went to an event sponsored by the University of California Irvine College Republican. As my ticket said, to hear the confessions of three former terrorists. The three speakers were Walid Shoebat, Zak Anani, and Kamal Saleem. They talked about their experiences growing up as Muslims in the Middle East and the hatred that was engendered in them against Jews and America.

A local newspaper The Daily Pilot covered the event. The article reports a response to the speakers.

Marya Bangee, the spokeswoman of UCI’s Muslim Student Union, didn’t attend the 3 Ex-Terrorists’ appearance but said she was dismayed that the College Republicans had invited them to campus.

“I think it’s a disturbing event,” she said. “The College Republicans should know better. From what I hear, the Ex-Terrorists are against Islam, and they try to equate Islam with terrorism.”

While the speakers did equate their experiences as Muslims to militant hatred toward Jews and often America, I think it would be more disturbing if the event was cancelled due to fear of people getting upset.

It was an interesting event. I hope we can get some similar speakers at Berkeley next year. A debate between the three speakers and opposing people would be even better, but I don’t think that would happen.

In another way I was disappointed. From what I had heard about the happenings at UCI I expected to see some kind of disagreement about the event. I did not see any protesters, only one random guy holding an anti-Bush and Cheney sign. Outside the Bren Center security wanded and patted everyone down before entering.

Yesterday there was an interview (linked here) on Fox News with Walid Shoebat and UCI student Reut Cohen. It lets you see Shoebat in action speaking and talks about other activities at UCI. I would also recommend Reut Cohen’s blog for a firsthand account of the continuing controversies in Irvine.