Oh I'm sorry, do I make you uncomfortable?

Suspect #2 is in custody and is never seeing the light of day again.  I'm indifferent to whether he gets the death penalty or not.  It is however, my fondest wish that he get no miranda and no trial.  He should be interrogated swiftly and firmly and then be sent to gitmo without a second thought.

Evil has been stopped today, now it should be vanquished. Do not pass go.  Do not collect $200.  Bring on the water board.

Enough with the kid gloves, enough with the bullshit.  The drones are a good start, but we can do more.  We can always do more.  We must stop at nothing to keep our shores and our children safe.  This is war.

And while I'm not surprised that this act of terror, this slipshod barbarity, was yet another jihad, I'm not happy about it.  Well, maybe a little, because I said from the very beginning that there would be an al qaeda connection.  But I'm not nearly as happy as the liberals in my life are disappointed.

Don't believe me?  This article from Salon pretty much sums up the left and the MSM's true feelings in the matter.  I know they are relieved as I am that the bad guys are caught and Americans are safe, but I also know deep down they are in anguish that once again evil came with a prayer rug.  And even deeper down, they know this evil is here not because of what we have done but because of who we are.

Oh, and I won the bet with my wife that these terrorists would be radical Muslims.  I proclaimed, in our living room on Monday "This is radical Islam, no doubt."  The love of my life raised an eyebrow skeptically, not because she claims to be any expert or even cares really, but because she loves to cool me off when I think I'm hot shit and know everything.  "Alright, you're on.  A hundred bucks says this is some crazy white guy."

I got the text this morning, "Ok, and I owe you a hundred bucks."  Like I said, only happy a little.

And yet I am still mystified.  Mystified that it's okay to call every fringe group on the planet crazy and fucked up - except the one that has killed the most innocents.  Pro-lifers are fanatics.  Tea Party people are scary.  Right wingers are Fascists.  Gun advocates are violent.  Radical Muslims are...  WAIT A MINUTE HOLD ON YOU RACIST PIECE OF SHIT!!!

And yes, liberals are also reading comprehension impaired.   Read the next sentence very slowly.

I HAVE NEVER SAID THAT MUSLIMS ARE CRAZY AND FUCKED UP.  I HAVE ONLY SAID THAT RADICAL MUSLIMS ARE CRAZY AND FUCKED UP.

No matter how many times I say this - it doesn't seem to get through.  Oh well.  I guess I'm racist.  Whatever.  Don't care.

Radical Muslims are crazy and fucked up.  And they are far crazier and more fucked up than all the homegrown American idiots put together.

Radical Muslims mutilate women.  They chop off limbs.  They terrorize villages and chop off heads. They rape young boys - systematically.  They are genuinely and truly deranged and terrifying.  And there are millions of them.

Take the worst of the worst from our shores.  The Westbero Baptist Church assholes are crazy and could be called evil - but last I checked they haven't been lopping off limbs or throwing acid in school girl's faces.  There's also less than 100 of them.

And then let's look at the home grown evil doers that have actually raped and killed people.  Like say, Occupy Wall Street.  There's thousands of these knuckle heads and they have actually done some real damage.  And if the seemingly never ending list of crimes from these folks doesn't impress, how about an actual plot to blow up a bridge and kill innocent people?

Still not impressed?  Alright, then how about the Weather Underground, who more than once succeeded in killing people, including cops.  Of course, their members are now all rotting in prison for their crimes.  Oh wait, no scratch that.  They're actually out and highly successful, in positions of power and influence, including tenured faculty at Columbia University.  They get a pass because their socialist beliefs fall in line with the infantile progressives that sip latte's and text on their i-phones while bemoaning corporations.

So because there are these few rotten apples that have done evil of course means that I view ALL left wingers as murdering rapists, right?  Oh wait, no... I'm not a MASSIVE IDIOT.

And when I say that Radical Islam is evil, people couldn't possibly think that I meant ALL MUSLIMS were evil.  They would have to be MASSIVE IDIOTS to believe that.

Anyway...

I call evil evil when I see it, and I call it by it's name.  I am not uncomfortable saying that radical Islam is the greatest threat to our freedom on the planet and that we must fight it.

I'm dismayed at those who squirm at these words but are perfectly comfortable slandering pro-life or pro-gun people as lunatics and "just as bad" as the taliban.  That's like me saying Michael Moore is just as bad as al qaeda.  He's crazy, he's an asshole - but he ain't evil.  He's just a moron.

Now if he were to pull out a gun and blow Rush Limbaugh away, then we might have an argument to say he was "just as bad" as a suicide bomber.

And when a lone nutball kills an abortionist, as has happened in the past, a grand total of 8 times since Roe v. Wade - I can concede that he's evil and even that he's "just as bad" as the pieces of shit that bombed Boston on Monday.    But he's one guy.

But the pro-life movement is NOT evil.   Radical Islam IS.

Despite the isolated incidents of sexual assaults (a LOT more than 8) and even two murders in it's brief history and a plot to bomb and kill hundreds, Occupy Wall Street is NOT evil.  Radical Islam IS.

Radical Islam is a systematic system of beliefs in which the primary focus is the destruction of Israel and ultimately the United States and the end result for all western countries to come under a caliphate of a twisted version of the Muslim faith.

It has millions of followers who celebrate in the streets when Americans die.

It is evil.

I have no ill will to the real religion of Islam, and I in fact (unlike most of my liberal friends) have been to several Muslim countries and have made actual Muslim friends that I still keep in touch with.   I am a lover of all people and have a deep belief and faith that most all, including Muslims, ultimately want peace and prosperity for themselves and their children.

Just because angry liberals in this country make shrill condemnations that anyone who speaks out against the radical version of Islam is a xenophobe or a racist - doesn't make it so.   But if that's the only argument they have against those of us to speak the truth, then so be it.

I am happy to wear the names "racist" or "hate monger" as badges of honor if they come from cowards.

And I am content in my beliefs, so much so that I forgive the self loathing decadence of those who are quick to condemn my country and yet slow to recognize true malice that festers overseas and occasionally infects our shores.

Tonight I will sleep soundly, knowing that Suspect #2 is going away forever, a footnote in the long story that is our war against terror.  But tomorrow is another day and no doubt future challenges await.   There are those among us who through their jejune tantrums seek to intimidate those of us, the majority, who can recognize true evil when they see it and have the fortitude to call it as such.

These childish screechers are of little concern, because I know when the shit really hits the fan, as it did on 9/11, they will (much like the toddler who has his sippy cup snatched away) for a while, wake up and realize that the time for foolishness has ended, and they will join the rest of us, united as Americans.

Then peace time will likely return and they'll head back into the ball pit of self-doubt and selfishness.  But the grown ups will still be here for them if things should go bad again, with love in our hearts and malice towards none.

Except those that are actually evil.

Radicalized.

As I sit here Wolf Blitzer is speculating that the "right wing" may very well be behind the bombings at the Boston Marathon.  But my mind hasn't grasped just yet that we are under attack once again and the likely result will be little or no change in the world view from Wolf and other idiots like him.

No, I'm not ready to talk about this terrorism yet, as it is so fresh.  However...

Lately I have been thinking about Kermit Gosnall.  Click here at your own risk for a detailed summary of this monster's crimes.  Suffice it to say, because of the MSM's blatant non-coverage of this story, I am slowly but surely giving up hope that I can be reasonable with liberals over their sacred cow which is abortion on demand.  The Gosnall case contains more than enough murder and mayhem to warrant bombastic front page wall-to-wall coverage from the usual suspects, Nancy Grace and her ilk, and yet they mostly remain inexplicably silent, focusing instead on the murder trial of a psycho liar who happens to be a reasonably good looking young woman.  Is the liberal press' silence political?  Is the Pope Catholic?

I have always declared myself "pro-choice" here and to my friends, recognizing intellectually that as abhorrent as the procedure is - we are bound to have far less of them if we keep it safe and legal.  But the Gosnall case has me reconsidering my cavalier views.  If the result of a blind adherence to the right of a woman to terminate her pregnancy at any time and for any reason - is that we willfully ignore the most heinous and outrageous abuse of this dictum, then where does true evil lie?  And where does that leave someone like myself who is God fearing and has a deeply ingrained sense of right and wrong?

This man butchered baby after baby after baby after baby.  Mostly black babies.  Mostly poor babies. It boggles my mind that so many are turning a blind eye to this great evil.  Not because it  they are too revolted to speak of it - we have entire museums devoted to equally horrific atrocities - but because it doesn't quite fit the liberal idea of freedom.  Witness this piece of brilliance sent to me by my good friend Cali.

I finally may be coming around to radicalization.  I refuse to be on the side that is casual about killing a baby.  Planned Parenthood's official stance is that if a baby's spinal cord is snapped inside the womb, it is a medical procedure.  Outside the womb, they could charitably be called "hazy on their stance".   I cannot, in good conscience, share either of these views - even if it means that I find myself in the company of "crazy" people who believe that new life is innocent and sacred and should be defended.

I'll concede that the waters are a bit murkier in the early months of a pregnancy.  My wife and I gave the nickname "rice grain" to the zygote inside her belly when we learned she was pregnant.  I knew from google, that my future child was literally the size of a grain of rice at less than 2 months after conception.  And yet, had Beverly miscarried at that point, I have no doubt that we both would have been devastated.  We were so proud and happy that we had made a child, even one as small as a speck, and that it would grow and emerge.  To lose that life, even a "rice grain" would surely have been traumatic.

And yes, I have been to Africa - I have seen the devastation of AIDS and abandoned babies that a society without adequate reproductive health care can bring upon the world.  I saw a baby, starving to death in front of me in her mother's arms.  What is the humane path here?  Would it be more humane of the mother to have aborted this child?  It is a blunt question that I wrestle with often, reflecting on the most desperate of circumstances and the sheer volume of children on this planet who suffer because they emerge into a sphere of poverty and desperation.

There are no easy answers on this issue.  In the real world, it is complicated, it is difficult.

But God has been helping me find my way.  

I often take my little girl to a park 3 blocks from our house.  It is a softball field, next to nice basketball and tennis courts, next to a great playground, next to a beautiful field of grass and trees that is not quite large enough for idiot soccer players to ruin.  The park is made even more peaceful and serene because it is directly adjacent to Valhalla Cemetery, an enormous but old and beautiful graveyard which is home to a large military contingent from World War I, as well as a fair amount of the old guard from Hollywood including Oliver Hardy.  

In the park there are a couple of trees suitable for climbing, but the one Natalie likes best is right along the chain-link fence at the cemetery border.  Just on the other side of the links is a very long row of truncated grave sites, seemingly crammed in against the fence.  But they are not crammed in, they are short graves because these are the graves of babies.  Infants.  Most were only on this earth for a few days at most.

Most of these babies died ages ago.  The majority of the graves are dated in the 1960's with only a handful from the 70's.  One grave in particular caught my eye two Saturdays ago.  It was the grave of a baby who had only lived 2 days in 1965.  The grave caught my eye because atop of it sat a pristine white vase holding a batch of fresh spring flowers.

This angel had just had a visitor, like, probably earlier in the morning.  I looked closer.  October 6th, 1965, was the date of death.  This baby died in October - exactly 48 years and 6 months ago.  Nearly half a century ago this baby was born and died two days later.  And 48 years and 6 months to the day later, fresh flowers had arrived right on schedule.

Not even a yearly anniversary, 48 1/2 years precisely. The love for this angel was still no doubt as fresh in someone's heart as those flowers.

And then there's Kermit Gosnall.  And then there are those of us who are flippant about "terminating a pregnancy".  I have been in this group at times.  It's easy to fall into the trap.  

"Who is going to care for that baby?  Republicans?" 

This is an actual argument I've heard from pro-choicers.  

In the face of Kermit Gosnall, in the face of those flowers, it seems to be an absurd position.

Intellectually, I have already been radicalized past the point of any sympathy at all for people in this country who use abortion as a form of birth control.  If you are privileged, as most people who are born in this country are, there really is no excuse for not stepping up and doing what is right.  That one to me is easy.  Sandra Fluke and other idiots like her who demand free birth control and free abortion on demand so they can do what feels good at any time without consequences are plainly despicable.  

But in the cases of rape and incest, again the waters are murkier .  

How can I tell someone who has endured unspeakable violence what her choice should be?  On the other hand, are we really blaming an unborn baby for the crimes of violence and/or sickness perpetrated against it's mother?

This is the part where many pro-choicers FLIP out for someone even daring to ask this.  I think it's a legitimate question, at the very least worthy of dialogue and discussion.  My heart tells me that the baby is innocent and should be protected, but my heart also tells me that a woman who has been subject to the life altering horror of rape, in any of it's awful forms, has rights too.  And I really can't speak for a woman who has endured this.  I don't understand how pro-lifers can't honestly address this quandary.  

Rape is soul shattering.  I've never been down that road of pain - I can say the baby is innocent and should be protected, but realistically I can never walk in the shoes of a woman who bears the scars of rape or incest, and I cannot deny her a say in the matter.  What about the baby's choice?  Yes, people should speak for the baby - but ultimately the mother must decide.  I would pray that she would choose life - but I cannot interfere with her decision, for history shows us that she will make it, legal or not.

This is my honest truth.  I don't have an easy answer for this one - but I also think it is absurd for someone who calls themselves "pro-choice" to blindly proclaim anyone who puts out the question of protecting an innocent baby as "crazy" or "anti-woman".

The real war on women is carried out every day across the globe by millions of zealots who still practice female genital mutilation and honor killings.  The war on women is not the compassionate pro-lifer whose heart tells them that an unborn baby is innocent.

And as for the third world, which I have been to and experienced more than a few times in my life - I cannot condone the starvation and depravation I have seen before my eyes.  If birth control and adequate health care was made available in these places, suffering would be greatly reduced.  This is a simple fact.  

It does not take away the simple truth that the unborn are innocent - but it does no good for pro-lifers to blindly proclaim that every pregnancy must come to term and every baby must be born NO MATTER WHAT.  People who say this sort of thing without any thought or introspection are not wrong in the most basic sense, but they are absent of any critical understanding of the real world.

Still, more often than not these days, I find myself leaning their way.  Especially when it comes to my country and all the resources we have at our disposal.  Does this mean I think African babies have less value than American ones?  Of course not.   But someone who lives in a shack with surrounded by raw sewage and filled with starving children, has a legitimate need for actual and practical mercy and compassion.  Not platitudes without actual assistance.

And someone in the first world who has been brutalized into pregnancy, while their baby may be innocent, has the right to do what they feel they must do.  I cannot speak to their horror and they alone must decide.  Does this mean I'm okay with murdering babies?  I don't know.  Maybe it does.  I pray that it does not. I pray for God to help me with this.

No easy answers.  That's just the way it is.  The abortion question is not a simple matter.  If it were, most of us would be on one side of the issue.  

Still, I keep going back to those flowers.