Tag Archives: Dinesh D’Souza

People want to live in a just society

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This is Dinesh D’Souza talking about his new book, America: Imagine a World Without Her:

The left is very successful at appealing to the principle of justice, and justice for the man lowest down. Sometimes, as conservatives, we miss the force of that. We reply by chanting “Liberty!” But we have to remember that justice is a key principle. Right, the Pledge of Allegiance: “With liberty and justice for all.” So we can’t ignore justice, and what I do in the book and film is to engage the left on its own terms. I go “Ok, let’s really look at whether or not America has been good for the common man.” Forget about the rich guy, he’s going to do well everywhere. Let’s judge a society by the kind of life it makes available to the ordinary fellow. So I’m willing to argue that the left is actually attacking ordinary people.

People do want to live in a just society and only a society based on individual freedom can deliver it, and as an added bonus it comes with prosperity as well. But we have to be prepared to say it, which first means we have to understand it. D’Souza spells it out remarkably well.

America in the eyes of its domestic enemies

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This is the text that comes with the trailer:

Having made the second-highest-grossing political documentary of all time, the team behind 2016: Obama’s America is now, as promised, following up with America. Sending up some fireworks of his own to rival the ones 2016 generated, producer-writer and kind-of host Dinesh D’Souza says of his new docu, “We answer the central moral challenge of America’s critics, which is that America’s greatness is based on theft, plunder and oppression.” Listen for other red-button phrases from interviewees describing the USA as “the new evil empire” and a “predatory colonial power” as well as referring to Mount Rushmore as “a symbol of oppression and genocide to our people.” Director John Sullivan’s film comes out two years after its predecessors — hitting theaters on the Fourth of July.

It is these enemies who are now running America. There are some who believe that America can be restored to what it once was. But then I think of D’Souza’s up coming trial and I say to myself, it’s all over for America, all over.

Of course it’s not political

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If it were political it would mean that the United States was a borderline totalitarian state. We are here talking about whether there were any political considerations in the over-the-top prosecution of Dinesh D’Souza for an illegal campaign contribution. Mr. Brafman is D’Souza’s lawyer and he has filed an application to have this prosecution stopped.

In his filing, Mr. Brafman argued there was “good reason for concern” that Mr. D’Souza, the author of the best-selling 2010 book “The Roots of Obama’s Rage,” was “selectively targeted for felony prosecution because of his outspoken, vigorous and politically controversial criticism and condemnation” of the president and his administration.

Mr. Brafman said that a review of similar campaign finance violation cases shows many were typically not referred for felony prosecution and where they were, it often took several years. “The speed with which the authorities responded to the conduct in this case is virtually unprecedented,” he wrote.

The above report is from The New York Times so they only refer to his book and not to his documentary 2016: Obama’s America which was released in the middle of the last U.S. presidential election in 2012. Because if they mentioned the documentary you might come to the conclusion that there is the possibility – very slight, but still a possibility – that D’Souza really was targeted for his outspoken views.

Here is a more straightforward report, Pundit Dinesh D’Souza says his illegal campaign finance charges may be retribution for criticizing President Obama.

The prosecutors say this claim of political bias is “entirely without merit” and so it must be. Because if there were any merit in this claim, the U.S. really would be a borderline totalitarian state where the rule of law has been replaced by the rule of personal revenge.

The hits just keep on coming

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This is a modest blogsite which I do mostly for my own interest as a kind of intellectual diary but is not really done for others. I make no effort to let others know that I even do this which is why the explosion of hits this morning has taken my hit count to five times its previous max. This required a bit of investigation, and it has pleased me to the end of the earth that the reference came from Mark Steyn, bless him. The post was on Johnny, Get Your Gun-Free Zone, a reference to Dalton Trumbo’s eerie Johnny Got his Gun which I read in my bad old student days, and this is what Mark said on his link:

Yesterday the Supreme Court struck down key elements of US campaign-finance law. As a practical matter, I’m not a fan of “money in politics”, because, at least on the Republican side, with the “smart money” the money may be smart but the fellows who give it and spend it aren’t. However, in a country with a corrupt prosecutocracy and the most politicized judiciary in the developed world, a byzantine campaign-finance regime policed by a corrupt Justice Department is far worse than the problem it purports to solve. After a recent piece of mine, this Aussie blogger wrote that “a more self-conscious society would be embarrassed by what he is revealing“:

Although quite a bit of his post is about his own efforts in dealing with Michael Mann and the hockey stick, this story he tells about Dinesh D’Souza is incredible:

‘Take Dinesh D’Souza, one of those “political enemies” who’s managed to attract the attention of the feds. For a campaign finance “violation” of $15,000, he has already been handcuffed and perp-walked, bailed for half-a-million, lost his passport and freedom of movement, and requires permission from a judge even to travel from New York to Boston. This is disgraceful. Yet D’Souza now faces the choice between confessing to something or having his life ruined. This is a disgusting, capricious system of which Americans should be entirely ashamed.’

Even if “shame” were the right word for the emotion they should be feeling, they’re not ashamed because it is not how they see it themselves.

No liberals other than Alan Dershowitz have a thing to say about the D’Souza outrage. And nor do many conservatives. Because this “is not how they see themselves”. But civilized societies do not do this over a $15,000 political-donation overspend. This system is evil.

It was, indeed, the absence of any further comment by anyone else anywhere that made me lose my bearings about this whole issue. How could this be happening to someone as prominent and important as Dinesh D’Souza without anyone but Mark Steyn saying a word. The reality is that no one is now safe.

Where is this heading?

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First there’s this:

Dinesh D’Souza, director of the 2012 documentary “2016: Obama’s America,” was arrested and indicted for campaign finance fraud on Thursday, Reuters reports.

And then there’s this:

Conservative activist James O’Keefe is accusing New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration of targeting his group with document requests and a subpoena, claiming the Democratic governor’s recent comments critical of conservatives “aren’t simply words.”

But who cares about this?

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 259.

You have to be very brave to be on the right side of politics in the United States today.