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Monday, June 16, 2003
Conservative and conservativer: When Ben met Esther
Good buddies Karl & Will have both directed me to Intellectual Conservative, the theoretical home of really, really smart conservatives.
Well, they'd like you to think that. Before I get to our main attraction (Esther) let's look at a sample of the stimulating, groundbreaking, and provocative articles over at IC:
Two years ago, Jon Alvarez was a fairly typical apolitical middle-class computer salesman living in a Syracuse suburb. Like so much else, that changed after Sept. 11, 2001. Now Alvarez, 37, of Baldwinsville, is directing a nationwide effort to boycott media figures he deems "anti-American." He's talked to management at Disney's corporate offices. He's been discussed by national columnists. Alvarez is ticked off at celebrities like Sheryl Crow and Robin Williams, and he's not going to take it any more.
"9-11 changed things for me," said Alvarez, who worked for five years teaching U.S. history to eighth-graders in Austin, Texas. "I felt like I was sucker-punched." His feelings of outrage increased last year as he watched opposition grow to the war President George W. Bush proposed to wage against Iraq. "It bothered me, hearing these people talking against the president," he stressed. "There was really some vicious anti-American rhetoric. I wanted to stand up to represent the silent majority in this country."
Some of those vocally opposed to Bush's plans were Hollywood stars, especially annoying to Alvarez. "I'm a big movie buff, but I realized that I couldn't support these people anymore if they were going to be stepping out of their roles as entertainers," he said.
Last winter, when the "Not In Our Name" petition against the war in Iraq with celebrity signatures began to circulate over the Internet, Alvarez took action. If those celebrities opposed his president's war, Alvarez wouldn't support their movies, he vowed. And he'd get other people to join him.
So Alvarez formed PABAAH, the Patriotic Americans Boycotting Anti-American Hollywood, a network of about 100 people around the country, and began pushing more actively to boycott celebrities who are considered "anti-American." The T-shirt sold by the organization prominently features some of the most egregious offenders and their "anti-American" quotes.
[snip...]
A lot of people, Alvarez said, aren't aware that the celebrities they know and love have taken political positions. "We're just trying to make the public aware of where these people stand. They're saying Bush is a racist. People should be outraged," he noted.
Alvarez's activism has a local edge, too. He's leading a petition drive to fire WSYR-AM 570 afternoon-drive motormouth Jim Reith for his on-air comments about U.S. foreign policy. Alvarez said he's been banned from calling Reith's radio show. Reith did not return phone calls, although we figure it's because he would rather the issue just went away.
Not surprisingly, Alvarez remains a staunch supporter of the Iraq invasion. He said the military operation was justified, despite the minimal evidence of weapons of mass destruction. The criticisms of the war on terrorism are also misplaced, Alvarez asserted. "People talk about the erosion of freedoms, but I don't see that. I haven't lost any freedoms. I feel more secure knowing that we have a leader at the helm who is not afraid to take action to do what is necessary to protect America."
Of course, this being America, Alvarez's views aren't shared by all. One posting on the Cusack Political Board addresses a note "To Jon Alvarez and other Fascists." Another posting refers to him as a "fear-mongering, stupidity-spreading idiot." One writer opined: "Jon, I seriously think you have been hired by some left-wing organization to parody the right."
Well, I feel enlightened. How about you? Not enough? Okay, here's our main attraction and the young woman who just might make a man out of Ben Shapiro: Esther Hartstein.
First, a little background on young Ms Hartstein:
Esther Hartstein is a student at Monsey Academy High School, Clifton, NJ. Her insightful commentary can be read periodically at Rightgrrl, JewsforLife, DebateUSA, OpinionEditorials and Young Conservatives where she is a contributing writer. A multi-award winning poet, Esther has written a book, "Eros Wins The Battle", about a U.S. immigrant fighting for regime change in her native country. The book, filled with Greek myths and poetry, is available at various bookstores. She has two homes in Clifton, New Jersey: one where she resides with her family, the other at Barnes & Noble.
An avid reader of all things nonfiction, Esther's intellectual curiosity led her to become a Republican at age fourteen. Now seventeen, she is the proudest Republican ever. She enjoys a great discussion, and a stimulating outing, though feels that truth, as well as oneself, is best found when society fades into the fray rather than blurring the view.
A proud and orthodox Jew, Esther's life and perceptions are based on the fundamental Jewish concept that G-d created a perfect world and that all evil arises when things and inclinations are not used for their intended purpose(s). She dreams of raising six children.
Esther says: So, who cares if we don't find WMD's?. And answers it with irrefutable logic such as this:
Take reason #1, that Iraq either has or had access to WMD's. We know for a fact that there is a rampant arms industry availing weapons to any rogue with the cash to pursue them (Saddam Hussein is just such a rogue). We have located and are currently interrogating sophisticated weapons scientists from Saddam Hussein's administration, including Dr. Huda Ammash (who served as President of Iraq's microbiological society) and Dr. Rihab Taha, also known as Dr. Germ. We also know that chemical weapons, including toxic Sarin gas, were used in the Kurdish Genocide of 1988, a catastrophe resulting in mass disfigurement and the annihilation of the Northern town of Halabja. Whether or not Saddam actually possessed weapons of mass destruction in the days preceding his overture is immaterial. He has used them before, thereby proving that he had access to them. Access is just as deadly as possession.
The either-or options in argument #1 equally prove a definite danger. Imagine that there is a nutcase out to get you. Scenario one: the nutcase owns a gun. Scenario two: the nutcase does not own a gun, but lives across the street from a gun shop. As long as there is a nutcase out to kill you, it does not matter which scenario is true. Whether or not the nutcase has bought the gun does not impact on your safety if he has the same resolve in both scenarios. Hence, even if Saddam Hussein did not have WMD's we know with certainty that he had access to WMD's, which made him just as dangerous to the American people and the world at large.
As for arguments 2 and 3, it is a historical fact that Saddam Hussein used weapons of mass destruction on Kurds, Iranians, and domestic Shiite Muslims, all of whom played major roles in formal dissent movements under Saddam. Does our confrontation with Saddam in the Gulf War of 1991 not place us in the same category as these groups? Were we not enemies just as they? Why would he deal kinder with our citizens? Because he knows we would fight back and beat him? That reasoning never stopped him from picking on Israel. We live in an era where a single suitcase packed with explosives can bring down a whole airport, and anyone who cannot be trusted with such weapons must be kept out of power by force if need be. Policing the global arms trade is a fantasy.
So, who cares if we don't find WMD's? Iraq is a huge country encompassing 437,072 square kilometers. Weapons could be hiding anywhere. However, what are the the chances of discernible weapons being located today, tomorrow, or even next year? Nada, Zilch. They could have been neutralized, destroyed, then dumped into the Mediterranean sea via Syria for all we know. And despite the impossibility of the task, Bush and Blair are expected to drum up some WMD's by the next press conference. Why don't we first demand Rep. Cynthia Mckinney (D-GA) prove her famous statement that Bush caused 9/11?
Somewhere, in a dormroom in Westwood hard by the UCLA campus, Ben Shapiro reads this and something stirs in his heart...and in his lap. A like-minded Orthodox Jewish girl sits a nation away, firing his imagination. Star-crossed lovers, one from the House of Shapiro...one from the house of Hartstein. She dreams of raising six children.
Six children.......having sex six times. It's more than he has ever dared to dream of.
He takes a cold shower.
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