Kerry: 'Lack of Integration' of Muslims in Europe Like U.S. Civil Rights Struggle in '60s

    Secretary of State John Kerry met with EU High Representative Federica Mogherini at the State Department Wednesday and afterwards addressed the press and took some questions. One question from a French reporter concerned problems with Muslim integration in Europe and the potential terrorism ramifications:

Question: [W]e heard recently from President Obama talking about the potential lack of integration of Muslim communities in Europe. He mentioned that as one of the greatest dangers that Europe faces in terms of terror threats that might come. Would you agree with those words from President Obama, and should he have used those? And Mr. Secretary [Kerry], I’d like to get your opinion on that as well if I can.

    Kerry responded by recalling his days as a college student in the 1960s during the civil rights era and the consequent sensitivity of his generation to "this question of minority and rights and integration and so forth." After explaining that although the US has made "unbelievable progress" on race-related matters, "we still have some distance to travel." Eventually, Kerry stressed that "this particular incident of violence [terror attack in Paris] wasn’t a specific targeting that grew out of that [lack of integration]"; however, he said, there is work to do where "one minority or another or another is not able to share fully in the full integration" in the country where they live.
   Here is Secretary Kerry's full response to the question:

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, let me just begin quickly on the integration issue. When I was – I entered college in 1962. And in 1963, ’4, ’5, we were deeply embroiled in this country, and we – college students in the Civil Rights Movement. And we were deeply impacted by that and have always been, I think, as a generation, much more sensitive to this question of minority and rights and integration and so forth. We’ve made unbelievable progress in our nation, unbelievable progress in the years since then. But it would be completely disingenuous not to say to you that we still have some distance to travel. We’re not finished. We’re still – you heard the President last night talk about voting rights. So what was won in 1965 still has to be fully embraced and implemented here, and other things that are linked to that. We’ve seen our own struggles in some communities and great debates about race in America in the last year. 

So it would be dishonest of me – and I’m not involved in domestic politics right now, so I’m not going to go into it in depth, except to say that therefore, I think I can say with honesty that there is a challenge in many other parts of the world. And Federica is absolutely correct; this particular incident of violence wasn’t a specific targeting that grew out of that, but we all can do work in many parts of the world that I have seen where one minority or another or another is not able to share fully in the full integration in whatever country they happen to be living. So the world has a road to travel on that, and that’s why we continue to put such a high premium here on the issue of human rights and democracy, and to continue to push, because I think we’ve learned through our own experience the difference that it can make to the strengthening of the quality of our democracy, to our society, and people benefit when we live by that high moral standard.

    High Representative Mogherini, whose response to the question came before Kerry's, said the following:

On the integration of minorities in Europe, this is a debate, I think, that within member states in Europe, in – I would say in the global community is – has been going on for decades and probably is going on for decades. I would say that there are different models, different histories, and different traditions. What we have to get right in this moment is the fact that we need to work together. You know that very well. Victims of the attack in Paris were not only called Louis or Charb or Anne; there was an Ahmed that was killed by other people that were having names of the same roots, which means that this is a common fight. I would not go on the line of saying that this is minorities against majorities, also because we have different minorities, in Europe as in the United States. We are living in complex societies, and this is our richness. Our strength is the fact that we are different, but we are united and we live together. 

And I think that this is the core point. We would be wrong if we were to look at that as an issue of minorities-majorities. This has nothing to do with that. These are violent acts that were targeting people, persons, regardless of their names, ethnic background, minorities, majorities, whatever. And there is no link, I would stress, between minorities, majorities, and violence. A terrorist act is a terrorist act, and we should not go into that kind of discussion about how we manage, or at least manage the majorities or minorities. There is no kind of roots in that.

Note: A version of this post first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

Michelle Obama: America Has Not Achieved 'Anywhere Near Full' Equality

    First Lady Michelle Obama created a stir with her remark at the recent Summit of the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders that "the blood of Africa runs through my veins." But later in her speech, she had some observations about the country of her birth as well. Mrs. Obama cited the progress made by and for women in the United States, particularly over the last century:

A century ago, women in America weren’t allowed to vote.  Decades ago, it was perfectly legal for employers to refuse to hire women.  Domestic violence was viewed not as a crime, but as a private family matter between a man and his wife.  

But in each generation, people of conscience stood up and rejected these unjust practices.  They chained themselves to the White House gates, waged hunger strikes in prison to win the right to vote.  They took their bosses to court.  They spoke out about rape and fought to prosecute rapists, despite the stigma and shame.  They left their abusive husbands, even when that meant winding up on the streets with their children.  (Applause.)  

And today in America, we see the results of those hard-fought battles:  60 percent of college students today are women.  Women are now more than half the workforce.  And in recent decades, women’s employment has added nearly $2 trillion to the U.S. economy -– yes, trillion.  (Applause.)

    However, in spite the advances, the first lady said that the United States has not achieved "anywhere near full" equality for women in a number of areas:

Now, are we anywhere near full economic, political, and domestic equality in the United States?  Absolutely not.  We still struggle every day with serious issues like violence against women, unequal pay.  Women are still woefully underrepresented in our government and in the senior ranks of our corporations.

    Mrs. Obama has been a target of criticism since February 2008 for statements that seem to disparage America when she said twice on the campaign trail, "for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country."
    At the Mandela summit, Mrs. Obama went on to say that credit for the progress made in the United States for women has not simply been due to brave women, but to "brave men" as well:

But slowly, generation after generation, we’ve been moving in the right direction because of brave individuals who were willing to risk their jobs, their reputations, and even their lives to achieve equality.  And it wasn’t just brave women who made these sacrifices.  It was also brave men, too -- (applause) -- men who hired women, men who passed laws to empower women, men who prosecuted other men who abused women.

    As first lady, Mrs. Obama has done more than her share to give women opportunities to advance. Her White House staff is overwhelmingly composed of women, although on average the few men on her staff are paid more.

Note: A version of this post first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

John Kerry: I Get 'A Little Uptight When I Hear Politicians Say How Exceptional We Are'

    As John Kerry travels from country to country on various diplomatic missions as secretary of state (almost half a million miles so far), he often addresses the staff and their families at the US embassies in the countries he visits. Remarks at these informal gatherings are often more casual than the usual speeches or press appearances, and Kerry often jokes with the staff and recognizes employees of long standing with the state department. Monday, Kerry had one such opportunity in Vienna, Austria, the last stop on his most recent trip, and towards the end of his talk he recalled his two Yale commencement speeches, forty-eight years apart, where he discussed "sort of the world we’re in" and America's place in it:

...I was privileged to speak to the graduating class of Yale this year, and it was particularly a pleasure because it happened to turn out to be, literally, I hate to say it, 48 years to the day that I was privileged to speak as a graduating senior to my own class. And I talked to them about sort of the world we’re in right now, but at the end I tried to remind them all, which I remind you of, we are – I get always a little uptight when I hear politicians say how exceptional we are – not because we’re not exceptional, but because it’s kind of in-your-face and a lot of other people are exceptional, a lot of other places do exceptional things.

    Despite his profession of uptightness on the topic of America's exceptionalism, Kerry went on to close out his remarks explaining what he believes makes America uniquely exceptional:

But we are exceptional in a certain way that no other nation is. We are not defined by thousands of years (inaudible) of history. We are not defined by ethnicity. We are not defined by bloodline or by anything except an idea. And that idea was expressed in the Declaration of Independence and in our Constitution, the idea that people are created equal and that all people have a chance to aspire for greatness, for anything they want. Pretty amazing, right? So think about that. It’s the only country that is literally united and formed around and whose rule of law is based on that idea, one idea, and it’s pretty special. So thank you for representing it. Thank you. (Applause.)

     Kerry used similar language in his 2014 Yale commencement address, noting that the American idea is what makes America different: that all are "created equal and all endowed with unalienable rights" and that "America is an idea and we – all of us, you – get to fill it out over time."

Note: A version of this post first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

Veterans Day

Source: http://circlethewagons.net/

    When I was 18, I spent the summer at the New Jersey shore, working during the day, spending some time on the beach, and playing PacMan and DigDug video games on the boardwalk occasionally in the evenings.
    When my father was 18, he was on the deck of an ocean liner (1944) crossing the Atlantic, making sure the rest of the soldiers stayed below deck for their own safety.
    I was trying to make sure we had all 168 episodes of Hogan's Heroes videotaped.
    He began the trek across Europe, rounding up shell-shocked German soldiers, rousting them from their foxholes and into makeshift POW camps.  The first night they'd draw a line in the dirt around the camp.  If any of the prisoners crossed it, they would be shot.  They added barbed wire later, and eventually loaded the prisoners on train cars to be moved to more permanent camps.
    I began thinking about college and how I would prepare for my career.
    My uncle (now deceased), around the same age, fought his way across France a few days behind the D-Day invasion.
    Up to and including today, millions of men and women gave and are giving their lives, their youth, the innocence of their minds forever stained by the horror of war, that the rest of us might live free.  May we always be grateful for their service and sacrifice.

The Sadder But Wiser Girl

    While reading a John Hinderaker post at Powerline on Paul Krugman's attempted takedown of Mitt Romney for lying at last week's Presidential debate, one sentence leaps out at me.  Krugman excoriates Romney for pretending his proposals deal with the problem of pre-existing conditions in relation to medical insurance.  Krugman explains why Romney's free market solutions and limited governmental role is in fact no solution at all:

Also, many Americans have health insurance but live under the continual threat of losing it. Obamacare would eliminate this threat, but Mr. Romney would bring it back and make it worse. Safety nets don’t just help people who actually fall, they make life more secure for everyone who might fall. But Mr. Romney would take that security away, not just on health care but across the board.

    In that single sentence, Krugman gives away the game of the liberals: "Safety nets don’t just help people who actually fall, they make life more secure for everyone who might fall." While in one sense a truism, it is the utopian dream of the left in a nutshell.  Reduce or remove the risks of life so everyone can be more secure.  But universal achievement of that dream can't happen without universal coercion.

    To quote the lyrics from the Sadder But Wiser Girl from The Music Man, "A girl who trades on all that purity, Merely wants to trade my independence for her security." Krugman and other liberals can certainly sweet-talk the issue.  Everyone gives up some freedom so that everyone gets their fair share of security.  The problem is, as it has always been, where does it end?  Once health insurance is guaranteed, regardless of health, what about a house?  What good is health without a place to live?  And food to eat?  And child care?  Maybe even a nice vacation now and again.  Welcome to European Social Democracy.

    Social Democracy is still the Goal That Dare Not Speak Its Name, even among liberals in America.  It's still too soon to be that brazen.  But certainly we are well down that path already, and Obamacare is a huge step further down.  Let us hope that America wakes up and realizes what is happening before she herself becomes that sadder-but-wiser girl, perhaps more secure, at least temporarily, but certainly far less independent.