Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Russia’s Right Turn


Russia’s Right Turn

Moscow has reclaimed its 19th-century conservative role

William S. Lind
An unfortunate legacy of the Cold War is the negative attitude some American conservatives yet harbor toward Russia. Conditioned for decades to see Russia and the Soviet Union as synonymous, they still view post-communist Russia as a threat. They forget that Tsarist Russia was the most conservative great power, a bastion of Christian monarchy loathed by revolutionaries, Jacobins, and democrats. Joseph de Maistre was not alone among 19th-century conservatives in finding refuge and hope in Russia.
Under President Vladimir Putin, Russia is emerging once more as the leading conservative power. As we witnessed in Russia’s rescue of President Obama from the corner into which he had painted himself on Syria, the Kremlin is today, as the New York Times reports, “Establishing Russia’s role in world affairs not based on the dated Cold War paradigm but rather on its different outlook, which favors state sovereignty and status quo stability over the spread of Western-style democracy.”
In his own Times op-ed on Syria, Putin wrote, “It is alarming that military intervention in internal conflicts in foreign countries has become commonplace for the United States. Is it in America’s long-term interest? I doubt it.” Sen. Robert A. Taft and Russell Kirk also doubted it.
Moscow appears to understand better than Washington that the driving foreign-policy requirement of the 21st century is the preservation of the state in the face of Fourth Generation war waged by non-state entities, such as those fighting on the rebels’ side in Syria. Russia has rightly upbraided Washington for destroying states, including Iraq and Libya.
When Putin came to power following the chaotic Yeltsin years, there was a real possibility the Russian state itself would disintegrate. Putin’s greatest achievement, and the reason for his popularity within the country, is that he saved and strengthened the Russian state instead. Blinded by their worship of the clay god “Democracy,” Washington elites cannot perceive the importance of what Putin did, but conservatives should. Russia can be an effective ally against Fourth Generation entities, and conservatives prefer states to stateless anarchy. Russia’s new-old conservatism is evident not only in its foreign policy but at home as well. In September the Financial Times reported:
Vladimir Putin called on Russians to strengthen a new national identity based on conservative and traditional values such as the Orthodox church yesterday, warning that the west was facing a moral crisis. … Mr. Putin said Russia should avoid the example of European countries that were ‘going away from their roots’ by legalizing gay marriage and excessive ‘political correctness.’
“People in many European countries are ashamed and are afraid of talking about their religious convictions,” Putin is quoted as saying, with religious holidays “being taken away or called something else, shamefully hiding the essence of the holiday.”
“We need to respect the rights of minorities to be different,” he added, “but the rights of the majority should not be in question.” American conservatives can only dream of an American president saying such things. Should we not cheer a Russian president who dares to defy “political correctness?” 
The world has turned upside down. America, condemning and even attacking other countries to push “democracy” and Jacobinical definitions of human rights, is becoming the leader of the international Left. Russia is reasserting her historic role as leader of the international Right. This is a reversal of historic importance. American foreign policy should be based on America’s interests, not on affinity for any foreign power. But putting America first does not require being hostile to Russia or anyone else. On the contrary: American conservatives should welcome the resurgence of a conservative Russia.
William S. Lind is director of the American Conservative Center for Public Transportation. 
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St. Petersburg Russia law questions if gay rights are human rights?

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Sochi and The Left’s Human Rights Hypocrisy


Sochi and The Left’s Human Rights Hypocrisy

Don Feder
There should be an event at the Sochi Olympics where advocates posing as journalists, celebrity nitwits and politicians can compete to see who can wail the loudest and longest about the supposed horror of Russia's dreaded anti-gay law, while Pussy Riot plays in the background. Extra points will be awarded for absurd and offensive analogies to the Holocaust.
Western gay groups protesting Putin over Russian law banning gay propaganda
In a February 7 commentary in USA Today, four Congressmen took a break from raising the national-debt limit to discuss their grave concern. "We are especially disturbed by the discriminatory practices in the Russian Federation regarding gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) persons." They vaguely allude to the nation's anti-propaganda law, which discourages promoting "non-traditional sexual relations," without explaining that it concerns attempts to indoctrinate children.
In an open letter to the British newspaper The Guardian, more than 200 "prominent international authors" lament the Russian law. "The chokehold that the Russian Federation has placed on freedom of expression is deeply worrying and needs to be addressed in order to bring about a healthy democracy in Russia," sniffs Salman Rushdie.
I thought when the duly elected representatives of the people passed a law by a vote of 436 to 0 (with one abstention) that was democracy in action. But, apparently, it's only democratic if Rushdie and his prominent international friends approve of the result.
And what would leftist hysteria be without Holocaust comparisons. "These new anti-gay laws are disturbingly similar to the anti-Semitic Nuremberg laws Hitler passed before the 1936 Olympics," raves CNN contributor LZ Granderson. The similarity exists only in LZ's fevered imagination.
In The Daily Mail, another Brit periodical, gay writer Andrew Pierce calls actor Stephen Fry's fondness for genocide analogies here "deranged in its lack of proportionality." Where are the death camps? Pierce asks. "Even more shamefully, Fry is downgrading the significance of the Holocaust by comparing it with a ban on gay pride marches."
During the communist-era, liberals told us we had to be understanding of Soviet eccentricities – like gulags. Now that Russia isn't red any more, relativism is out. Corporate America, which pushed East-West trade and détente in the 1980s, is now lecturing the Kremlin on human rights.
Syrian Christians are being slaughtered with abandon. A third of the population has been exiled. But that pales compared to a ban on men in bikini briefs grinding their way through the streets of Moscow. The Media Research Center notes that while NBC has been all over the Russian child-protection law, the network has yet to report on the plight of Syrian Christians.
A word about that law, which wasn't initiated by Putin and passed the State Duma without a single dissenting vote: It does not outlaw homosexuality. Dozens of gay clubs operate openly in Moscow. The only prohibition is publicly promoting homosexuality to minors.
For example, two homosexuals are not allowed to stand outside an elementary school with a banner that says: "Hey kids, sodomy is swell – and you should try it!" Each violation by an individual is punishable by a fine that's the equivalent of $50.00. Violations of the Nuremberg laws, which had nothing to do with Jewish parades in Berlin, were punished by imprisonment and hard labor.
Why would Russia, with a declining population, be concerned about promoting these "non-traditional lifestyles" to children? Might it have something to do with the British medical journal The Lancet's report that a male homosexual is 18 times more likely to contract HIV than a heterosexual – or those notorious homophobes at the Centers for Disease Control disclosing that in 2010, men who have sex with men (as they delicately put it) accounted for 63% of new HIV infections in the U.S.?
"We must all raise our voices against attacks on lesbian, gay, bisexual , transgender or intersex people." says UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. "We must all oppose the arrests, imprisonments and discriminatory restrictions they face." Must we?
Western gay groups protesting Putin over Russian law banning gay propaganda
At the United Nations and throughout the West, discriminatory restrictions on traditional believers who object, however mildly, to non-traditional life-styles are the order of the day.
The left believes in popular sovereignty – within narrowly defined limits. In the United States, between 1998 and 2012, the voters of 32 states passed constitutional bans on same-sex marriage. This represents 50 million votes for maintaining the integrity of the institution on which civilization depends. On average, the referenda passed by two-to-one majorities.
Despite that overwhelming expression of popular sentiment, state and federal courts (SCOTUS included) have been working overtime to negate the will of the people. When he's through remaking Russia, perhaps Rushdie will help to "bring about a healthy democracy" in America.
Christians who refuse to participate in a travesty that violates their deeply held beliefs are pulverized by judges and bureaucrats drunk on the heady elixir of sexual rights.
The New Mexico Supreme Court fined a photographer $6,638 for declining to photograph a lesbian "commitment ceremony." For refusing to host a gay "wedding," the Vermont Human Rights Commission – which bears a striking resemblance to a People's Revolutionary Tribunal – fined the Wildflower Inn $10,000 and required its owners to place $20,000 in a charitable trust for lesbians. The Washington State Attorney General is pursuing a florist for a similar offense.
When did engaging in non-traditional sexual relations become a human right? Where is the sodomy clause in the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution or U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
The 1948 UN declaration calls the family (defined as mother, father and children) "the natural and fundamental group of society, and (as such) entitled to protection by society and the state." Fat chance, when family rights conflict with the imperative to advance the left's sexual agenda.
In 2005, Lexington, Massachusetts father David Parker was arrested and led away in handcuffs when he refused to leave school grounds to protest his 6-year-old son's initiation into the regime of tolerance by being forced to read "Who's In A Family?" ("Heather Has A Bisexual Mommy and A Transgendered Daddy"). A federal judge dismissed Parker's civil rights suit, ruling that under the state's new gay marriage law, schools have a positive duty to indoctrinate students and a right to keep parents in the dark.
Late last year, the U.S. Senate passed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act which extends "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" rights to the workplace. If ENDA is enacted, a male employee will have a legal right to wear a dress to work. Objecting to same will be a civil rights violation punishable by heavy fines.
California's bizarre-beyond-belief bathroom bill is on hold, pending the outcome of a referendum triggered by opponents collecting 619,000 signatures on a repeal petition. The law allows boys who "feel like girls" to use the bathrooms and changing rooms, and shower with, those who not only feel like girls but in fact are girls. And Putin would deny such progress to his people? For shame, I say!
Both California and New Jersey now have bans on reparative therapy. Under penalty of law, parents are forbidden to take their children to a counselor for unwanted same-sex attraction. State Sen. Ted Lieu, the law's sponsor, admitted it was intended as an "attack on parental rights… because we don't want to let parents harm their children."
Chai Feldblum, who Obama placed on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, tells us that when religious beliefs conflict with the rights of sexual minorities, she would have "a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win."
Here's another gem from Comrade Chai – whose thinking reflects the reigning cultural ethos: "Just as we do not tolerate private religious beliefs that adversely affect African-Americans in the commercial arena, even if such beliefs are based on religious views, we should similarly not tolerate private beliefs about sexual orientation and gender identity that adversely affect LGBT people," says the former law professor. Russia's child-protection law is mild compared to this type of thought-control.
In a recent address, Putin observed: "Many Euro-Atlantic countries have moved away from their roots, including Christian values." The Russian President admonished, "Policies are being pursued that place on the same level a multi-child family and a same-sex partnership, a faith in God and a belief in Satan. This is the path to degradation." Putin could never make it in U.S. politics, being too grounded in reality.
Last week, Ban's boys at the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child ordered the Catholic Church "to review its position on abortion, which places obvious risks on the life and health of pregnant girls" – unlike abortion, which has a salutary effect on 16-year-olds.
The committee also urged the Vatican to re-think its opposition to faux marriage, which "fails to recognize the diversity of family settings," and inevitably leads to "stigmatization of and violence against… adolescents and children raised by same sex couples."
But what are the deeply held beliefs of 1.2 billion people, and a 2,000-year-old institution, against the imperative of sexual-orientation/gender-identity "equality," opposition to which is, after all, a lot like cattle cars and gas chambers.
As my friend and Russian pro-family leader Alexey Komov likes to say: "Under Reagan, America helped to save us from communism. We'd like to return the favor."
Source: GrassTopUS
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