Is the worm turning?

There have been glimmerings of resistance/fed-up-ishness from various places in the last year or so, and they thankfully continue. The resistance of which I speak is to the Islamofascists that seek to destroy the West, and at least some influential parts of our intelligencia are starting to speak out about it.

The comments recently from the German Minister of the Interior about tougher anti-terrorist laws, and what amounts to the existing Israeli policy of targeted assassinations (fine idea in my books) are highly revealing. To my way of thinking, they are a trail balloon from the German government to see test the mood of the public.

"Those ideas have nothing to do with concrete, current government policies," Thomas Steg, the government's deputy spokesman, said at the regular Monday press briefing in Berlin. Citing Merkel, Steg said that "there shouldn't be any ban on ideas over how to fight terrorism" and that the German Constitution must always be adhered to.

Schäuble, a senior member of the Christian Democratic Union, has taken an increasingly tough approach toward preventing terrorist attacks in Germany since becoming interior minister in November 2005. He has stepped up surveillance, sanctioned a special database for suspects and wants the army to play a role in internal security.

His remarks, made in response to the terrorist plots in Britain, run counter to Merkel's views and represent a significant shift in how Schäuble wants to deal with terrorism. "You must take risks to defend liberty," he told German television, "but you cannot just sit back and do nothing, either."

The usual suspects (the Greens, etc.) were predictably in opposition to the very idea that anyone would take some aggressive action, let alone target “minorities” (although nobody said that, you know they’re thinking it), but the tone of the opposition was a bit frantic. Not frantic as in scared, but “shrill” may have been a better word. The first link I used is obviously agin’ it, but the fact that it came out at all says what a lot of people are thinking. The bad guys don’t follow our rules, but it’s very important of course that we have nice soft ones to not even bother applying to them…

In the last few days I’ve actually been reading the Ottawa Citizen after a hiatus of a couple of years. The shift in editorial direction is evident, and to me, refreshing. A spade is a called a shovel, and a sense of balance is maintained. Even I get tired of having to read American-style right-wing stuff all the time, but that’s where a lot of the fight against apathy and appeasement is to be found.

What I think may provide a much needed slap to those who repeat the mantra about “poor, disenfranchised terrorists” is that (admittedly amateurish) “Doctors’ Plot” in the UK. The fact that educated Muslims are also involved in the anti-western jihad should come as news to anyone makes me shake my head, but it’s hardly surprising.

That’s about it. The only other thing of note is that "Shrek 3" was a pale shadow of the first two. Look at that, a new direction: reviews! Not really, but I keep feeling I need to break things up a bit, although the conundrum is that only things that bother me motivate me to use my spare time to spit out these screeds, so things tend to be a bit dark. Oh well.