It's terrible.

One thing the left never seems to get is that these people want to kill them. They have convinced themselves that the terrorists "want peace" and are only provoked into murder and savagery by the Bush neocons.

It's time for them to get attuned to fucking reality. The terrorists hate most everything the lefties love. The terrorists hate abortion. The terrorists hate homosexuals-- and indeed murder them when they find them, unless they are both powerful and closeted, like Yasser Arafat. The terrorists hate empowered women. The terrorists hate sexual latitudinarianism.

And yes, the terrorists hate Madonna.

One thing I've been annoyed with is how the left is constantly suggesting that "we" give up on values and priorities cherished by the right in order to appease the terrorists.

Can't we appease them by giving them Israel?

Can't we appease the terrorists by making SUV's prohibitively expensive for all but the rich liberals who most favor them? After all, the vehicles do have a number of benefits cherished by rich liberals, comfort and status-endowment among them; but surely we can artificially raise their price so that only the very wealthy can afford them. And surely we can artificially raise the price of energy, so that the middle class will be forced to economize, while the rich continue to blast energy-wasting air conditioning through their mansions because their pampered skin glistens unattractively when the Malibu air rises above 75 degrees.

Can't we appease them by withdrawing our troops from bases around the world?

Can't we appease them by taking money from the pockets of hard-working Americans and giving it to Arab intellectuals and politicians preaching hatred against us? (As someone once observed, foreign aid is the process of taking money from the poor in rich countries and giving it to the rich in poor countries.)

And, as Thomas Friedman suggested, can't be appease terrorists by having all of our Christians give up their belief in their backward, oppressive religion?

They have plenty of suggestions as regards the appeasement of terrorists when it involves giving up values or priorities they don't share, and in fact are fighting anyway.

But have any of these people ever suggested once:

* that to appease terrorists, we should outlaw abortion?

* that to appease terrorists, we should relegate women to chattelry?

* that to appease terrorists, we should outlaw and harshly punish any "ungodly" public displays of sexuality of any kind?

* that to appease terrorists, we should throw over our silly adherence to the separation of church and state, and move towards the theocratic model favored by terrorists?

* that to appease terrorists, we should imprison and/or kill homosexuals? All right, that's too extreme. But perhaps we can appease terrorists by outlawing gay marriage...?

And, of course, we all know that the very first thing we need to do in order to fight terrorism is raise taxes.

Isn't a funny little coincidence that, among the litany of the left's suggestions for making the terrorists not hate us quite so much, there's not a single suggestion as to what the left can give up?

They're big on calling for "sacrifice" among all Americans, but the only "sacrifices" they mention are not "sacrifices" for them at all. They don't call on themselves to sacrifice; they call only on the right and moderates to sacrifice, and thus deliver victories to the left.

And this is what angers me. I would never suggest any of the above in order to "make the terrorists not hate us so much." I would never attempt to advance some conservative social agenda by using terrorism as a hammer.

Doing so would be to use terrorism for my own political ends. I wouldn't be guilty of terrorism myself, but I surely would be guilty of gleefully using terrorists as my catspaw to advance my political agenda.

And yet the left repeatedly does this. They are constantly making use of terrorists as their objective allies -- "objective allies" in the sense that they are, as an objective matter of fact, joining terrorists in making their demands on our nation -- to advance their agenda.

I don't wish ill on Madonna. I do wish her to stop making her horrific music, and I do wish her to stop assaulting the public with her tasteless self-promotion; but I want her to make that good judgment on her own, uncoerced.

I suppose I would appreciate it if Madonna, who's been quite happy to point out the "evil" of the men who fight terrorists in order to protect her, might have something useful to say about terrorist violence.

But I doubt that will ever happen.

The left is always asking, "Why do they hate us?" But that "us" is lie. They don't mean "us." They don't mean "us" because "us" would include them, and they don't mean themselves. They do not believe that they themselves are hated by terrorists, or indeed could ever be hated by anybody, except for the "religious right" and the "right wing conspiracy."

When they say, "Why do they hate us?," they mean-- as they always have -- "Ask yourselves why they hate you, you ignorant, jingoistic, capitalist, unenlightened fat-and-comfortable Americans who we also despise for many of the same reasons."

Perhaps Madonna will begin to undestand-- no, dear, they hate you too. Indeed, they hate you especially.

They sure the fuck don't hate me. They've never heard of me, and, alas, probably never will.

But they have heard of you, and seen what you represent. And they hate you, dear, personally. And they even hate your children, who of course haven't done anything to anyone, ever.

So next time you ask "Why do they hate us?" perhaps you should consider the question carefully, for the first time in your life, with the understanding that you, Madge, are indeed part of "us."

And perhaps you will rethink your vapid, treasonous attack on your fellow Americans are guilty of little more than wanting to live their lives -- fat, comfortable, hopelessly bourgeois, pitiably unglamorous and unfabulous -- withoug being murdered in cold blood.

And the next time you or your fashionable friends condemn Israel for daring to protect its children against terrorist violence, perhaps you'll comprehend that, unlike you, they can't avoid the threat of their children being butchered by terrorists simply by cancelling a couple of fucking concert stops.

The nation of Israel can't protect itself by just adding a couple of extra fucking concert dates in Italy and Spain.

Neither can America.

Michael Moore, infamously, was aghast that the terrorists attacked cultured, enlightened, liberal New Yorkers, rather than the Texans or Kentuckyans or Ohioans who really fucking deserved it.

Maybe the left would do well to understand that the right -- which is disproportionately suburban and rural -- is joining this fight not to protect Pocatello, Idaho, but to protect all those liberal, progressive New Yorkers whom Michael Moore cares so much about (even as he, by unmistakable implication, expresses his lack of care about the safety of other Americans).

This war is being fought primarily to save New Yorkers. And Washingtonians.
And Los Angelenos. And San Franciscans. And Miamians. And Chicagoans. And Bostonians.

Conservatives seem willing to fight to save the lives of liberals. If only the favor were to be returned someday.