Part-Time Pundit

Columns and Commentary by John Bambenek

Still Think the ACLU is All Goodness and Light, Glenn?

Read on.

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  • August 31st, 2005 Posted by John Bambenek | Around the US, Law / Legal Issues, Politics, StoptheACLU | no comments

    Coalition for Darfur: What It Is All About

    Here’s the weekly Darfur post.

    Last weekend, the blog Blue Girl, Red State wrote a post about a regular blog commenter who went by the name “Shameless Hussy.”

    Blue Girl reports that “Shameless Hussy” went to Darfur in June as a humanitarian volunteer and was traumatized by what she saw

    What
    she dealt with daily goes beyond the pale…beyond the nightmares of
    most people; Children with all four limbs hacked off right above the
    knee or below the elbow. Twelve year olds who died in childbirth after
    being gang-raped by the Janjaweed. Women who gave birth to rape-babies
    who were then cast out by their families for shaming the family name,
    leaving only one avenue of survival for themselves and their children
    after the camps: Prostitution.

    What is f**ing her up is the
    desperation, and the fact that she worked herself to death for over a
    month, and she still didn’t really save anyone. Now that she’s gone,
    it’s like she was never there. Even the ones she helped keep alive, she
    didn’t save. You try dealing with that reality.

    And women are
    the preponderance of victims. Men do not leave the villages to go to
    the countryside to gather firewood and other necessary items of
    sustenance. Women venture out, even though every time they leave their
    villages, they are at horrific risk of being beaten and raped and
    disfigured. The reason they go instead of the men? The women are only
    attacked, the men are killed.

    This post receive a fair
    amount of attention within the blogosphere (as far as posts about
    Darfur go) mainly due to the fact that Kevin Drum
    linked to it. And while getting bloggers to pay attention to Darfur, if
    only for a minute, is a minor miracle, it is worth asking why it takes
    a post about traumatized aid workers to generate any interest in
    genocide.

    This situation in Darfur has existed for over two
    years and, if people were interested, they could find accounts of
    death, disease, rape and torture occurring there on an almost daily
    basis. 400,000 people have died and nearly 3 million have been
    displaced and yet nobody - not politicans, not the media, not bloggers
    - really seem to care.

    To anyone who has been paying attention,
    the atrocities witnessed by “Shameless Hussy” are, sadly, well-known.
    If her story generates concern for the people of Darfur, then for that
    we should be thankful. And if people who were moved by it are really
    interested in Darfur, then they should start reading the analyses
    produced by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Eric Reeves and the International Crisis Group, supporting organizations like Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children, Save Darfur and STAND, reading blogs like Passion of the Present, Sudan Watch, the Coalition for Darfur, and Sleepless in Sudan and demanding that their elected leaders do something about it.

    Our
    thanks goes out to “Shameless Hussy” and all those who sacrifice to
    help those in need. But we must keep in mind that Darfur is not about
    them - it is about this

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  • August 31st, 2005 Posted by John Bambenek | Military / War, Politics, Sudan, United Nations | 2 comments

    It’s Time to Grow Up, Glenn

    Link Looting? Don’t you think that’s in a little poor taste comparing someone having a, albeit heated, disagreement with you about the ACLU?

    Sure, the ACLU does some good things, but they are a part of the larger encroachment of the federal government in general and the judiciary in specific, something as a lawyer you apparently see no problem with. Let’s recap.

    Any abortion regulation is now a federal question, even when we’re dealing with . Whether or not states can protect their kids from pedophiles is now a federal question. Whether intelligent design or evolution or both is taught in the classroom is now a federal question. Whether local school boards can decide to teach students abstinence is now a federal question. The ACLU is at the forefront of federalizing every policy dispute and instead of people dealing with things democratically at the lowest level, we are left with a system where every policy decision must be approved by a judge. That is not democracy; that is juristocracy.

    When you have ACLU leaders comparing religious people with terrorists and saying all prayer is immoral, is it any wonder why people of faith are suspicious? When the ACLU supports revoking the tax-exempt status of churches (despite the fact they aren’t businesses and don’t produce anything) is it a wonder why we question their values?

    Is a mass-delinking appropriate here because of a disagreement, maybe not. But comparing people who dislink you because of your politics to the looters in New Orleans is beyond the pale. We realize as a professor you might not take criticism well, but do try to not make every disagreement a moral failing of your opponents.

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  • August 31st, 2005 Posted by John Bambenek | Law / Legal Issues, Politics, Pro-Life, StoptheACLU | 3 comments

    What is it with Democrats who like to Dance on the Dead?

    Robert Kennedy Jr. today demonstrated why the Kennedy family has gone all down hill since JFK. He suggests on the HuffPo that Hurricane Katrina was caused by the Mississippi Governor’s “anti-kyoto” and “anti-environmental” stances. The tone is almost giddy that this leftist can link dead bodies in some religious way to a Republican. We’ll have to wait a few more weeks for their to be protests at their graves organized by Code Pink.

    This is the problem with the Democratic party and the left in general, they can’t simply try to make a point and convince people. What they do instead is gloat on any bad news and link it to some Republican policy. Tsunamis; Republicans fault. Hurricanes; Republicans fault. Train bombing in Spain; Republicans fault. Hollywood’s deplorable movies; Republicans fault.

    You ever wonder why they keep losing elections? They’re still blaming Bush for every problem that comes along and then systematically ignoring all the good news out there. (See Good News from Iraq, or increased home ownership, and the list goes on).

    Right now more and more people are seeing the Democrats and the Left for what they are, despicable elitists who have a sneering disdain for the “common man” and all things American. They could care less about America, the poor, the hungry, they just want power and they’re pissed off at the voters for not giving it to them. This is just the latest episode of their downfall.

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  • August 31st, 2005 Posted by John Bambenek | Around the US, Law / Legal Issues, National, Politics | 4 comments

    Carnival of Life Debut!

    Tim and I over at Pro-Life blogs are debuting the Carnival of Life. If you have posts on pro-life issues submit them.

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  • August 30th, 2005 Posted by John Bambenek | National, Politics, Pro-Life | one comment

    DI Point/Counterpoint Published: Expelling Radicals

    My latest for the DailyIllini is up. It was on the question of expulsion of radical Islamic preachers who advocate and stir people up for terrorists acts, as Britain and France are already expelling them.

    The fuller version of what I was asked to write on was the expulsions going on in the UK and France and whether that is ok in the United States. The online DI version doesn’t reflect the question, and the print DI could have worded better.

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  • August 30th, 2005 Posted by John Bambenek | DailyIllini | no comments

    Impeachment: This is Getting Out of Hand

    Pat Buchanan proves why he’s irrelevant

    Why is everyones solution to every policy disagreement impeachment? I dunno, here’s a crazy idea, campaign on the idea. The voters buy it, you win. The voters don’t buy it, you go home and cry to momma. Illegal immigration is a problem, but I have this crazy opinion that we should reserve impeachment for…. oh, I don’t know… “high crimes and misdemeanors”.

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  • August 29th, 2005 Posted by John Bambenek | Immigration, Law / Legal Issues, National, Politics, Religion | 5 comments