My new Taki article is now up at TakiMag.com:

Every so often, an action hit comes out of nowhere—Mad Max, Terminator, Ricci v. DeStefano. Inevitably, we start hoping that the big budget follow-up can keep the same excitement going, just with huger explosions. A few times—Road Warrior, Terminator II—our dreams come true.

I’ve got to say, though, that this Ricci sequel, The Senate Sotomayor Hearing, has so far been the dullest successor since Matrix Reloaded.

Can’t anybody afford a decent script doctor?

You might almost imagine that Sotomayor was crafted to drive away its audience. It’s as if the people in Washington don’t really want American citizens paying attention.

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Sometime on Monday Senator Leahy (D-Vermont) had his office put out a press release confirming his intention to try smuggling S.909, the Hate Crime Bill, through the Senate by attaching it to the National Defense Authorization bill this week – some reports say today, others Thursday.

It is worth looking though this admittedly flatulent document to be reminded that the intention here is not merely to privilege the homosexual community. The bill will also widen the ability to favor the groups set on a pedestal by earlier Federal legislation:

by making it easier for Federal authorities to investigate and prosecute crimes of racial, ethnic, or religious violence. Victims will no longer have to engage in a narrow range of activities, such as serving as a juror, to be protected under Federal law

Furthermore it will provide tax dollars to favored vigilante groups

In addition, the hate crimes amendment will provide assistance and resources to state, local, and tribal law enforcement to address hate crimes

Unquestionably these will turn round and buy indoctrination kits from the ADL and the $PLC.

Moreover, by citing cases such as the recent Holocaust Museum shooting and the Matthew Shepard murder, which can be quite adequately punished under existing law, Leahy makes crystal clear that the intention here is to criminalize opinion - albeit opportunistically at present by starting with situations where the heretic has committed an objective crime.

There is no telling where this will lead.

But this stratagem stems from weakness. If the Democrats believed this legislation was broadly popular, they would force it through by itself and reap a triumph. Instead they have limited hearings on this sweepingly radical measure to two hours (Leahy insolently claims this was “adequate discussion”) and then launched it onto the maelstrom of the Defense Authorization pig-out. For good reason, this horrified a pro-bill correspondent at the Daily Kos in June

I just got a phone call from a well placed source on Capital Hill that confirmed that the hate crimes bill currently before the Senate will be added to the Defense Authorization Bill. Remember how well that worked out for us last time? Congressmembers can use our lives to bargain for bombs and defense spending instead of simply affirming our dignity as human beings worthy of safety from persecution and violence if hate crimes are added to the defense authorization.

Seeing how this news has spread has been very instructive. The Rev. Ted Pike was rapidly in the field with an email alert, picked up by some Christian oriented websites. One or two others have published independent commentaries, often drawing attention to the magisterial work of Professor Robert Gagnon – for instance here and here.

Apart from a brief reference in a NY Times blog, nothing in the MSM. And from those valiant champions of the Conservative cause, the National Review, Weekly Standard, Wall Street Journal , American Spectator –zero. Sadly even what used to be a staunch defender of freedom, LewRockwell.com, seems to have taken no editorial position – although one or two of its bloggers have made cryptic comments. Needless to say, the plutocrats of the immigration reform movement, NumbersUSA, FAIR and CIS, remain silent.

Normally I would put this down to the intellectual and financial influence of the Neoconservatives. But a sympathetic observer has suggested that homosexual forces might also culpable. I do not know what to make of that. I do know that failure to get this legislation through would be a shattering blow to the left, so that the lack of simple partisan enterprise is peculiar.

What is clear, however, is that this week the anti-bill response has been dwarfed by an explosion in the homosexual blogosphere with calls to telephone Senators for the bill outnumbering appeals for opposition by perhaps four to one (based on my Google News Alert feeds).

Consequently the Rev. Ted Pike sadly put out PRO-HATE BILL CALLS FLOOD SENATE! 14 July 09

NPN’s poll for early afternoon EDT on Tuesday, July 14, shows calls in favor of the hate bill significantly outnumber calls against it in both Democrat and Republican offices.

Personally, I think there is still a chance. As OpenCongress.org says, even after the amendment is attached, there are a lot of steps left and a lot of other interests to be accommodated – that is why the Daily Kos correspondent was so perturbed. Furthermore the anti bill forces tend to be slow to react. Unlike the Gays, they generally to have families to deal with, and are in fact not motivated by hate – it took a week and more before Holder’s damning testimony began to be widely circulated.

But the threat hanging over us is indeed desperately serious. As Professor Gagnon says in
Why a Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity “Hate Crimes” Law Is Bad for You (PDF)

This “hate crimes” bill is the proverbial foot in the door or camel nose in the tent

And the people behind it have a much wider agenda. They want to shut down political debate on a wide range of topics – and they been appallingly successful in Canada, the UK and much of Europe. And generally, the motives are what The Kvetcher bravely identifies with respect to his own community in a posting on Jewcy
The Blood of Some is Sweeter Than the Blood of Others July 14 2009

I can’t believe that as a NYC Jew, I am turning to a group called “Bikers4Freedom” to make the case against expanded Hate Crimes laws. But unfortunately, Jewish groups are not challenging these bills. Rather, Jewish groups like the ADL are the very worst offenders.

(VDARE.com note: for Bikers4Freedom see here [audio])

The Kvetcher continues:

What is the ADL defending against? Fairness. When it comes to policy, the ADL is not content to fight mistreatment of Jews…the ADL fights for selective treatment of Jews. That’s not the behavior of a “defense” group. That’s the behavior of a supremacist group. The ADL obsesses over haters because it takes one to know one.

Last week, there was one of those now-traditional Two Minute Hates in the national media, familiar to people as diverse as James Watson, Don Imus, and Michael Richards. This one was directed at a swim club in suburban Philadelphia, which had agreed to allow an inner city daycare center to use its swimming pool each Monday all summer. But after the first visit by 65 black and Hispanic children, the club hastily changed its mind.

Of course, the swim club was denounced universally for “prejudice,” but wouldn’t the word “postjudice” be more appropriate? After all, before hand, the swim club had presumed that hosting 65 inner city children in its pool (two-thirds of which is deep enough to drown in) would be a swell idea, and only then developed an aversion after they had experience with them.

I look forward to a future in which we will all engage in Obamaoist self-criticism sessions beginning, “I hadn’t realized I was postjudiced until …”

Stuff White People Like picked “Awareness” as #18 on the list:

An interesting fact about white people is that they firmly believe that all of the world’s problems can be solved through “awareness.” … What makes this even more appealing for white people is that you can raise “awareness” through expensive dinners, parties, marathons, selling t-shirts, fashion shows, concerts, eating at restaurants and bracelets. In other words, white people just have to keep doing stuff they like, EXCEPT now they can feel better about making a difference.

Yet, even more than the “Awareness Campaign,” it strikes me that the pervasive leitmotif of our age is the “Anti-Awareness Campaign,” the semi-organized efforts to keep people from connecting the dots.

Consider how the facts in the Ricci case are repeatedly described as some weird anomaly, when they are simply business as usual in most big cities, barely distinguishable from, say, the Biondo case that dragged on for years in Chicago. But pattern recognition is despised.

The goal is not to impose hypocrisy, but stupidity.

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human mind — forever.