The Washington Times
  • Subscribe
  • Times News Services
  • RSS
  • Mobile Headlines
  • e-edition
  • E-MAIL ALERTS
  • REGISTER
  • LOG IN
  • E-MAIL ALERTS
  • WELCOME
  • Your Profile
  • Log Out
  • Front Page Image
  • Classifieds
  • Autos
  • Real Estate
  • Jobs
  • Special Sections
  • Customer Service
  • Home
  • News
  • Opinion
  • Sports
    • NFL
    • NBA/WNBA
    • MLB
    • NHL
    • Tennis
    • Golf
    • Motorsports
    • Soccer
    • NCAA
    • Olympics
    • Outdoors
    • Other
  • Culture
    • Home & Living
    • Family & Kids
    • Fashion
    • Food
    • Travel
    • Health
    • Washington Visitors
    • Books
    • Military History
    • Life
    • Auto
    • TV Listings
    • Movie Listings
    • Death Notices
    • Entertainment
  • Themes
  • Communities
  • Shopping
    • Stores
    • Coupons
    • Daily Double
    • Promotion
    • How It Works
  • Videos
    • Two Guys
    • Birnbaum on Washington
    • Liz Glover
    • Amanda Carpenter
    • Morning Briefing
    • Documentaries
    • Joe Giganti
    • Video Game Minute
  • Podcasts
    • About Headlines
    • Audio and Radio
    • America's Morning News
  • Sports

    KNOTT: Pollin honored as a D.C. treasure

  • Sports

    Jamison lights fire under Wizards

  • Politics

    Uninvited White House guests met Obama in line

  • Sports

    Wife aids Woods after SUV crash

  • National

    Volunteers for drug trials hard to find

  • Business

    Dubai debt crisis rocks U.S., Asia markets

  • World

    Piracy threatens fishermen in Yemen

Sunday, February 13, 2005

Tolerance fetish

Rate this story

Average 0.00
after 0 votes
Login or register to rate this story

  • Font Size -+
  • Print
  • Email
  • Comment
  • Tweet this!
  • Share
  • Article
  • Comments ()
  • Click-2-Listen
  • Videos

More Stories

  • Atlantis, crew of 7 back on Earth
  • Uninvited White House guests met Obama in line
  • iPhone lands in Korea
  • Wife aids Woods after SUV crash

By

Here are three small news items from around the world you might have missed:

(1) An unemployed Berlin waitress faces loss of welfare benefits after refusing a job as a prostitute in a legal brothel.

(2) A British court ruled a suspected terrorist from Algeria cannot be detained because jail gives him a "depressive illness."

(3) 17-year old Jeffrey Eden of Charlestown, R.I., has been an awarded an "A" by his teacher and the "Silver Key" in the Rhode Island Scholastic Art Awards for a diorama titled "Bush/Hitler and How History Repeats Itself."

A trio of itsy-bitsy little stories from the foot of Page 27 of your daily paper, if they made it at all. But they're as revealing about the course of the war as anything going on in Iraq.

The Germans, in the bad old days when their preferred field of combat was France rather than Fraulein Helga's government-regulated bondage dungeon, used to talk about "wehrwille" -- war will. America, Britain, Australia and a select few other countries have demonstrated they can just about muster the "war will" on the battlefield. On the broader cultural front, where this war will be won, there's little evidence of any will.

The waitress forced into prostitution by the government pimp is, at one level, merely an example of the unintended consequences that follow every legislative initiative. But at another, it's the logical reductio of the modern secular welfare state. Like all those European utopias John Kerry wants America to be more like, Germany has a permanently high unemployment rate and, as a result, penalizes those who refuse to take available jobs -- like providing "sexual services." The welfare office in Gotha ordered a 23-year-old woman to audition for a job as a "nude model."

As Queen Victoria is said to have advised her daughter on her wedding night, lie back and think of England. Now the welfare office says lie back and think of Germany. And why not? When you cede to the state the responsibility for feeding, clothing, housing you, for your parents' retirement and your own health care, it's hardly surprising they can't see what the big deal is about annexing your sex life as well. If a welfare state were a German S&M club, the government is the S and you're the M. The "security" of welfare is not usually quite such literal bondage, but it always is metaphorically.

When the Germans legalized their whorehouses, they thought it showed how relaxed and enlightened they were. Al Qaeda types take a different line: They think it's a sign the West is decadent and weak and cannot survive. And they have a point: Government forcing women into prostitution is just the latest example of the modern secular state's internal contradictions.

That British court judgment is another. SIAC, the United Kingdom's anti-terrorist court, found in 2003 that the 35-year old Algerian man in question had "actively assisted terrorists who have links to al Qaeda." But he was released from Belmarsh Prison because of his "depressive condition." I would be depressed if I were a terrorist: The Afghan camps are gone, the Great Satan has liberated Iraq, and Osama re-emerges from his three-year sabbatical only to release a floppo "Vote Kerry" video recycling a lot of lame Michael Moore gags. The more Islamists in a depressive condition, the better. Maybe if they get sufficiently depressed, they'll stop being terrorists and become trainee accountants or male hairdressers.

12Next »

Post a comment

There are comments on this article, submit your opinion!

Commenting is disabled for this entry.
If you feel there is still something worth mentioning about this entry please contact the author or the site admin.

Ask a Question

You Report

Do you have another point of view, photos, audio, video or more information about a story?

Top Stories

Most Read

  1. EDITORIAL: Hiding evidence of global cooling
  2. Climate 'czar' says hacked e-mails don't change anything
  3. EDITORIAL: The global-cooling cover-up
  4. Wife aids Woods after SUV crash
  5. PRUDEN: Trouble afoot for high priests
More Top Stories »
  1. In tobacco-loving Virginia, bars give up the habit
  2. Grade-schooler unearths fossil at dinosaur park
  3. Climate czar rejects doctored data claims
  4. HOLMES: Behind Obama's overseas allure
  5. EDITORIAL: The duty of a nation to obey God

Most Shared

  1. EDITORIAL: The global-cooling cover-up
  2. PRUDEN: Trouble afoot for high priests
  3. EDITORIAL: Hiding evidence of global cooling
  4. Climate 'czar' says hacked e-mails don't change anything
  5. Finance mavens gloomy
More Top Stories »
  1. In tobacco-loving Virginia, bars give up the habit
  2. Fenty's approval in D.C. divided by race
  3. Drug lords finding safe haven in Bolivia
  4. Global Warmists exposed
  5. EDITORIAL: The duty of a nation to obey God

Most Commented

  1. Climate 'czar' says hacked e-mails don't change anything
  2. EDITORIAL: The global-cooling cover-up
  3. Climate czar rejects doctored data claims
  4. PRUDEN: Trouble afoot for high priests
  5. EDITORIAL: The duty of a nation to obey God
More Top Stories »
  1. EDITORIAL: Hiding evidence of global cooling
  2. Crashers probe may become criminal investigation
  3. HOLMES: Behind Obama's overseas allure
  4. Obama taking emissions goal to summit
  5. Fenty's approval in D.C. divided by race

Listen to Washington Times Radio

  • America's Morning News

    with John McCaslin and Melanie Morgan

Blogs & Columns

  • Hot Button Blog

    RNC: Breast cancer recommendations may lead to 'rationing'

  • Belief Blog

    Evangelicals OK civil disobedience

  • Out of Context

    Foods that might kill libido

  • On the Fly

    United lifts some 'award' blocking

  • Technology

    Facebook wins round against phishing spammer

  • Redskins 360

    Hall out, Rogers will start

  • SNOBlog

    Beyond 'Woody'

Videos

Advertising Links
TWT Store
  • e-edition
  • Print Edition
  • Weekly Washington Times
TWT Affiliates
  • Middle East Times
  • Golf
  • UPI
  • Arbor Ballroom
  • Washington Times Global
  • About TWT
  • Press Room
  • F.A.Q.
  • Work for TWT
  • Advertise
  • Sponsors
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site Map

All site contents © Copyright 2009 The Washington Times, LLC.