Are You Ready? ♠ Êtes-Vous Prêt ? |

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Another of those "Arabs" who are "not ready for our Western democratic model" I imagine:

I share with President Bush and all of the American people human sentiments and desires for freedom, democracy and propagation of democracy, human rights, right of ownership and right to form a civil society.

Fathi Eljahmi, Libyan dissident

Freedom, democracy and its propagation, human rights and right of ownership (which is, coincidentally, one of the most important human right - if not the most important - from which the others result naturally) and right to form a civil society.

That's it, the list is fairly exhaustive.

I'd say Mr. Eljahmi is more than ready for the democratic model, and he can't possibly be the only voice in the Arab world.
After all, just like Iraq's WMD, it's not because Blix the Goblin can't see them that they don't exist.

Talking about Goblins, would Mr. Chirac care to repeat that pearl of wisdom he used to lecture North African victims of their totalitarian states with? What was that "first" human right of yours again Jack? "to eat, to be cared for, to receive an education and to have housing.", wasn't it?

Or to put it in Radia Nasraoui's way, to "eat up and shut up"?

Nothing very surprising from the man ruling this Socialist Wonderland though: "To eat, to be cared for, to receive an education and to have housing", is not "the first of the human rights", but the UberStatist's dream. "Please, do shut up. All you need is a food voucher and see, I'm the one who delivers. Here you go, stop complaining."

Ironically enough, it should actually go rather well with Ms. Nasraoui's husband, ruler of the Tunisian Worker's Communist Party... Yeah, it's a dog eat dog world.

Anyway, I, for one, certainly hope that SpookyMan Gadhafi won't be allowed to trade his weaponry against his dictator's seat and get away with it, as the jailed dissidents seem to fear.

Fortunately, Mr. Chirac is not President of the United States (you knew it too, didn't you?), and the declarations of the actual President are quite far from Jack's Eat Up, Shut up:

As long as the Middle East remains a place of tyranny and despair and anger, it will continue to produce men and movements that threaten the safety of America and our friends. So America is pursuing a forward strategy of freedom in the greater Middle East. We will challenge the enemies of reform, confront the allies of terror, and expect a higher standard from our friend.

For his opponents, Mr. Bush presents a major flaw: that damn cowboy, he keeps doing exactly what he says.

Yes, unlike Flip-Flop John and yes, in the problem at hand, we can only rejoice over it.

It may take some time, particularly since it become more apparent everyday that America will have to take this road without Europe (bare Great Britain and a good part of Eastern Europe maybe. Okay, let me recast that: without Europe's Socialists from both the Left and the Right) who is pandering to Middle East tyrants.

However, I'm pretty confident that in the end, Mr. Eljahmi and his people, just like former dissidents from another East, will see the fall of their tyrants, and the restoration of their natural rights.

For the benefit of us all, and once again, thank to America.

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Encore un de ces "arabes" qui "ne sont pas prêts pour notre modèle de démocratie Occidentale" j'imagine:

Je partage avec le Président Bush et l'ensemble du peuple américain le sens et l'attrait humain pour la liberté, la démocratie et sa propagation, les droits de l'homme, le droit de propriété et le droit de former une société civile.

Fathi Eljahmi, dissident libyen

Liberté, démocratie et sa propagation, droits de l'homme, droit de propriété (qui est, par ailleurs, l'un des droits de l'homme les plus importants - sinon le plus important - duquel découlent naturellement les autres) et droit de former une société civile.

C'est ça, la liste est plutôt exhaustive.

Il m'apparaît que M. Eljahmi est plus que prêt pour le modèle démocratique, et il ne peut être la seule voix dans le monde arabe.
Après tout, à l'instar des armes de destruction massive irakiennes, ce n'est pas parce que Blix le Gobelin ne peut pas les voir qu'elles n'existent pas.

A propos de gobelins, M. Chirac pourrait peut être nous répéter cette perle de sagesse avec laquelle il sermonne les dissidents nord-africains victimes de leurs états totalitaires ? Quel était ce "premier" des droits de l'homme selon vous Jacques ? "de manger, de recevoir des soins, une éducation et un logement", je crois ?

Ou, dans les termes de Radia Nasraoui, de "bouffer et de la fermer" ?

Rien de très surprenant venant de l'homme qui dirige ce Merveilleux Monde Socialiste, cela dit : "manger, recevoir des soins, une éducation et un logement", n'est pas le "premier des droits de l'homme", mais le rêve de l'Ultra Etatiste. "Merci de la boucler. Tout ce dont vous avez besoin, c'est d'un ticket d'alimentation et voyez, je suis celui qui les accorde. Prenez et cessez de vous plaindre."

Ironiquement, cela devrait cadrer parfaitement avec le mari de Mme Nasraoui, dirigeant du Parti communiste des ouvriers de Tunisie... Ouais, les chiens se dévorent entre eux parfois.

Quoi qu'il en soit, j'espère certainement pour ma part que Khadafi le SpookyMan ne sera pas autorisé à échanger son arsenal en contrepartie de son siège de dictateur et de s'en tirer comme ça, ainsi que les dissidents emprisonnés semblent le craindre.

Fort heureusement, M. Chirac n'est pas Président des Etats-Unis (vous le saviez vous aussi, pas vrai ?), et les déclarations de celui qui l'est sont assez éloignées du "bouffe et ferme ta gueule" de Jack :

Aussi longtemps que le Moyen Orient restera une région de tyrannie, de désespoir et de colère, il continuera à produire des hommes et des mouvements qui menaceront la sécurité de l'Amérique et de nos amis. En conséquence, l'Amérique poursuit une stratégie de liberté au Moyen Orient et au-delà. Nous défierons les ennemis de la réforme, confronterons les alliés de la terreur et escompterons des standards plus élevés de nos amis.

Pour ses opposants, M. Bush présente un défaut majeur : ce satané cow-boy n'arrête pas de faire exactement ce qu'il dit.

Oui, contrairement à John la Girouette et oui, concernant le problème du moment, nous ne pouvons que nous en réjouir.

Cela prendra certainement du temps, particulièrement puisqu'il semble plus apparent chaque jour que l'Amérique devra faire cette route sans l'Europe (à l'exception de la Grande Bretagne et d'une bonne partie de l'Europe de l'Est peut être. Ok, laissez moi reformuler cela : sans les socialistes européens de droite comme de gauche) qui se plie avec complaisance aux volontés des tyrans du Moyen Orient.

Cela étant, j'ai bon espoir qu'au bout du compte, M. Eljahmi et son peuple, tout comme les précédents dissidents d'un autre Orient, verrons la chute de leurs tyrans et la restauration de leurs droits naturels.

Pour notre bénéfice à tous et une fois de plus, grâce à l'Amérique.

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I own, built and run this place. In a previous life I was not French but sadly, I died.

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Comments thread (24)

1338 - frenchfregoli

frenchfregoli
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One can run an entire humor blog with jacques chirac 's quotes. But the one about "eat and shut up", which he pronounced IN tunisia during a state visit probably must be carved in stone, and branded as official proof that France has abandoned any pretense to their own motto: Libérté,Egalité,Fraternité. When will we regain ,or be worthy of them again?

1339 - SparcVark

SparcVark
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The "Eat and shut up line" reminds me of a story about Benito Mussolini. Apparently one day at the dinner table, his young son looked at him for a long time, then asked: "Daddy, what is Fascism?" Il Duce's reply? "Shut up and eat!"

1340 - Sasquach

Sasquach
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I tend to agree with you DF that the right to ownership is the most important human right. There can be no meaningful claim to freedom unless a person can claim the results of their labors as their property. Without property rights your very life is not your own, nor is the food you eat, both are a gift of the State. Both can be removed by the State as it's whim dictates.

1341 - john

john
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I'd place one right, or at least elevate one right to property above all others. That is the right to keep and bear arms. While most here in Canada think of it as an American invention, it is actually a British Common Law right. It is in my view the right from which all others spring. It is the first right that tyrants expunge. Sad that almost all the Commonwealth countries including my own have expunged this first liberty.

1342 - Andrea

Andrea
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John - I agree with you that the right to keep and bear arms is an extremely important right, but I have to place it below the right to property. Without the first having the right to property, the right to keep and bear arms is moot, because those arms cannot be your property. Ultimately, without the right to own, the arms will belong to the state and merely be loaned to the individual. And while I'm here, I offer a salute to John Locke, who first emphasized the right to property and upon whose ideas the US is founded.

1343 - Mike

Mike
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Great entry. Excellent points.

1344 - Damian Bennett

Damian Bennett
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau posited in his "Discourse on the Origin and Foundation of Inequality Among Men" that property was not a natural right but a debasement of civilization. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon pulled out the stops with his declaration: "All property is theft." And the contemporary French have not much tempered these political sentiments toward property, at least as regards everyone but France. John Locke enumerated the basic "inalienable" rights of man -- and I believe in the correct procession -- as "life, liberty, and estate." Give the final term an aphaeretic trim, and there you have the French essential right: the state -- the right to be cared for. Jack gives this as the second term of the first manifold right invented during his Tunisia "influence-begging tour": "The first human right is to eat, to be cared for, to receive an education and to have housing. From this point of view, we must remember that Tunisia is more advanced than many countries." (More advanced? Hhmmm, no doubt Saddam's Iraq was fresh in mind. Jack has other human rights inventions up his sleeve, like the essential second human right, to defecate.) Jack covering his man Ben Ali, dismissed Tunisian rights lawyer Radia Nasraoui, at the time in her second month of a hunger strike protesting Tunisia's shabby rights, thusly: "We also have people in France who are staging hunger strikes, who have staged hunger strikes and who will doubtless stage hunger strikes in the future." Huh? This is, well, just plain dopey. Back in France Jack clarified (?) his position: "France has long been of the view that human rights are indivisible and universal." Huh? In case you miss his point, Jack went on to say that any criticism of his person on this issue was "unjust". And ditto those stories about anti-Semitism in his France. If it ain't schmoozing, then it's all just "unjust". Sadly there is nothing "inalienable" or "universal" about man's rights as Messrs. Robespierre, Lenin, Stalin, Castro, Saddam, Mugabe, Mao Zedong, and countless other single-person democracies have demonstrated. Then there are globe-trotting bootlicks like Messrs. Jack and Dom, who use human rights like toilet paper to pull off a little of the stink. DGB

1345 - someguy

someguy
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DF: Since you didn't have a comment box below your latest graphic, I just wanted to thank you for recognizing the good work of the Coalition. As an active duty member of the U. S. Navy, I deeply appreciate it. :) As a Catholic, I pray that Our Lady of Lourdes, Ste. Jeanne d'Arc, and St. Louis Grignon de Montfort will protect you all and bring the French people back to their Catholic faith. May God be with you!

1346 - lestat

lestat
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The most important human right is the right to live (I wonder how you can own anything if you're dead...even your freedom). No state, no society should be allowed to kill its citizens. That's why death penalty isn't compatible with a democracy. If the state can decide to kill you, then your "freedom" is a gift implicitely granted to you by the state.

1347 - Damian Bennett

Damian Bennett
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M./Mll. Lestat, Yours is an odd bit of reasoning. What is the prohibitive correlation between democracy, a form of government, and the death penalty, a form of punishment? Although, I'd have to agree no one has yet figured out how to take it with them beyond the beyond, you'll have to sketch in a mighty elastic enthymeme to leap from "No state, no society should be allowed to kill its citizens" to "[the] death penalty isn't compatible with a democracy". Let's examine this governing principle of your main proposition: "No state, no society should be allowed to kill its citizens". 1. A policeman is an agent of a local government, an officer of its courts. Your principle then would prohibit said policeman, with opportunity, from using deadly force to kill a citizen husband holding at gunpoint his citizen wife with the unmistakable intent of killing her. 2. An air national guardsman is an agent of the state government. Charged with the protection of the local citizenry, your principle would prohibit said guardsman from shooting down a plane flown by a citizen crazy with the unmistakable intent of crashing into an occupied building and killing as many of his fellow citizens as possible. 3. A member of the armed forces is an agent of the national government. Your principle again would limit the exercise of protecting the duly elected government against renegade citizens leading a coup d'état to, what? Tongue-clucking? Your principle is quite the boon to the lawless. As I've written elsewhere, rights, in law, are neither inherent nor irrevocable. They are a class of entitlements, they proceed from the government. When one speaks of "inalienable" rights, one must look beyond government to a supernatural authority. You ask that a government stand guaranty for that which is beyond its claims. Well, that's a neat trick. Further I would venture that rights are relational. If you were the sole being in the world, what rights would you enjoy? Life? Liberty? Estate? These rights all require society for context, which is to say, meaning. Their establishment and protection require a competent grantor, which is to say, an authority. M./Mll. Lestat, I doubt you are here to make the case for God. However I fully understand your trepidation at the thought of your rights in the safekeeping of the Fifth Republic. Bonne chance. DGB

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