HEART VERSUS HEAD: YOUNG PEOPLE AND LEFTISM

There is a well-known and much misattributed saying: "If a man is not a socialist by the time he is 20, he has no heart. If he is not a conservative by the time he is 40, he has no brain." It might be interesting to note that the earliest version of this saying is by mid-nineteenth century historian and politician Francois Guizot, who said: "Not to be a republican at 20 is proof of want of heart; to be one at 30 is proof of want of head". He was referring to the controversy over whether France should be a republic or a monarchy. France did of course have various experiments with monarchy even after the decapitation of Louis XVI. So foolish young people want Presidents and wiser old people want Kings? Perhaps.

Nonethless, it IS true that people who are Leftist in their youth often become more conservative as they get older. In one of my research reports, I found in fact that most older people are quite astoundingly Right-wing (Ray, 1985). So how come?

I think that there are in fact four (sometimes interrelated) main reasons why the Left is more attractive to youth:

1). Simplicity:
The young do not know much so try sweeping generalizations in order to help them understand the world. Leftists supply such oversimplified generalizations ("All men are equal" etc.). So when one is young, the drastically simple "solutions" and mantras proffered by the Left simply seem reasonable. Leftism has the appeal of simplicity. When many a young idealistic person sees a problem and realises that he or she cannot fix it, the natural response is simple: “The government should do something”. Given what they are constantly bombarded with through the media and the educational system this is an understandable response to the problems of the world. It is however based on the fairly amazing idea that we can create a Utopia through the actions of governments.

As Aaron Oakley once put it to me: The problem is that the arguments for individual liberty, free markets, limited government etc are complicated but correct. The Left have it easy. Their philosophies are simple but wrong. The public grasp simple ideas much more easily than complicated ones.

So some of the young are attracted to simple solutions to the world’s problems. Most of the young do not bother, however. They are interested mainly in the opposite sex so just want politics not to bother them -- a thoroughly conservative response. Those who do adopt the Leftist simplifications do often eventually find through experience that the world really is a complex place so tend to give up the simplifications and Leftism along with that.

2). Idealism:
Some people in general, but particularly the young, are idealists -- and, as such, they find the imperfect state of the real world unsatisfying. That there is some genuine idealism even among extreme Leftists is shown by the exoduses from Communist Parties in the economically successful "Western" democracies that followed the violent Soviet suppression of the East German, Hungarian and Czechoslovak uprisings against Communist rule in 1953, 1956 and 1968. Once the real nature of Communist regimes became too clear to be denied, honest decent people whose wishful thinking had led them to believe Communist protestations of benevolence and good intentions saw the light and abandoned Communism. In the USA (in New York particularly), some liberal intellectuals even saw enough in the Soviet actions of those times to cause them to abandon "liberalism" and found neo-conservatism. Similarly in Australia of the 1950s and '60s, the Andersonian libertarians of Sydney were also intellectuals who might otherwise have been Leftists but who were united by realism about Soviet brutality.

3). Impatience:
Just as dangerous to society as the idealist is the “practical” reformer. Some people in general, but again particularly the young, are genuinely outraged by things that they do not understand and are unwise enough to want to change those things willy nilly rather than endeavour to understand what is going on. They are impatient with what they see as “obviously” wrong. In particular, they may be genuinely grieved by the unhappy experiences of others and want to fix that ASAP without being wise enough to seek for means of fixing it that have some prospect of working or that are not self-defeating. They might, for instance, be disturbed by the impact of rising rents on the poor and propose rent-control as a quick-fix solution -- though a few minutes of thought or the most elementary inquiry should tell them that rent control will after a time also have the effect of degrading and shrinking the existing stock of rental accommodation and drying up the supply of new rental accommodation, both of which make the poor much worse off in the long run.

4). Ambition:
The young are ambitious, want to have it all NOW and want to get the top -- so see "The Establishment" as an obstacle to that. So the more unscrupulous and vicious ones use any tool to attack it: Radicalism as a path to power -- a very familiar theme in history. Leftists are intrinsically power-mad

Reference:
Ray, J.J. (1985) What old people believe: Age, sex and conservatism. Political Psychology 6, 525-528.

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PACIFIST CLERGY

Janet Albrechtsen has some very good thoughts about our pacifist clergy. Opposition to war is thoroughly scriptural (Matthew 5:39) but throughout history Christians have seen the need for war nonetheless. But many of our clergy still do not seem to have found out why. Some clearly do not want to find out. The Anglican Primate of Australia (Bishop Peter Carnley) is obviously a total moral bankrupt and Leftist stooge with his refusal to condemn Saddam and his grossly insulting claim that you cannot be a Christian and a conservative too. No wonder many Anglicans worldwide are looking for more traditional leadership than they usually get at the moment.

Albrechtsen’s point that many churchmen now seem to think that the United Nations is God does help to explain why the “modern” clergy are being rejected.

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ELSEWHERE

Chris Brand points out the many absurdities that have been perpetrated in the name of distancing ourselves from a certain charismatic, vegetarian, non-smoking, teetotal lover of children and animals.

Michael Darby notes French hatreds and reports a speech by the leader of the Zimbabwean opposition.

In Britain you can get into more trouble with the law for having normal consenting heterosexual intercourse than for being a burglar. Don’t believe me? Read it! California used to be the world headquarters of crazy law. Britain now beats CA by a country mile.

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Comments? Email me. If there are no recent posts here, check my HomePage for a new blog address or visit my "First Draft" site here.

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THE RACE “MYTH”

The Winter 2002/3 issue of Occidental Quarterly included a fine article by Richard McCulloch contesting the constructivist (neo-Marxist) view that 'race' is just a social contract. In particular, a table and figure detailed the main phenomenon of world racial structure, the differences between Caucasoids, Mongoloids and Negroids - and showed in particular that the groups from which both the English and Japanese are most different genetically are the Nigerians, the Bantu, the Bushmen and the Australian Aborigines.

(Ref.: Masatoshi Nei and Arun K. Roychoudhury, "Evolutionary relationships of human populations on a global scale," Molecular Biology and Evolution, Sept. 1993 (pp. 927-943)

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“ASYLUM GYRATIONS

Accused of 'racism' by blind Home Secretary David Blunkett, the political editor of the Sun, Trevor Kavanagh, wrote in a Times column that the Government's open-door policy on asylum was a disgrace and that 370,000 Sun readers had written in to agree with the Sun's "crusade against asylum madness."

In Portland, Devon, locals met to express outrage at hearing of a Government plan to dump asylum seekers on them; subsequently the disused ten-story building intended to provide a home for the asylum seekers caught fire, ruining at least one of its floors. In Sittingbourne, locals swore they would burn down a hotel commandeered by Mr Blunkett to house the latest arrivals from Kosovo and Albania.

Times columnist and Environment Editor Anthony Browne recorded: John Lloyd, the former editor of Britain's main left-wing political magazine, the New Statesman, wrote a long article in that magazine pretty much agreeing with everything I have been arguing.

Britain's most intellectual magazine, Prospect, ran a cover story (February 2003) by a former Marxist Cambridge University economics professor entitled "In Defence of Fortress Europe." For Prospect to run a piece like this from a right-winger would have been unthinkable just six months ago; that even such unimpeachable left-wingers are coming out against mass immigration, legal or illegal, shows just how far attitudes have changed in Britain.

Even the left-wing Observer has talked of the "coming storm" over immigration - a storm which will damage Britain's 7 million coloured immigrants who misguidedly looked for support to unrealistic leftist politicians.

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PAEDOHYSTERIA AGAIN

A generously endowed Pasadena lady church schoolteacher, 27, pleaded guilty to having enjoyed six months of sex with one of her 13-year-old charges. She faced a possible life sentence in Texas but otherwise neither she nor her teenage lover seemed to have any complaints.

UK police said that the 7,000 paedophilic downloaders currently waiting for a knock on the door at dawn were only the tip of an iceberg. The 7,000 were those who had used Visa cards to access kiddie porn; but once Mastercard and Access card users were investigated the number of suspects could grow to 250,000.

{Would some senior personage at last be tempted to bring paedohysteria to a halt? British jails have official room for only 55,000 prisoners, and are already overcrowded with a prison population of 80,000; and the Sunday Herald alleged that one of the suspected downloaders held, or once held a Cabinet job - this allegation being followed by a media blackout, probably because Downing Street issued a 'D' Notice to all editors, urging suppression of the story at risk of grave official displeasure.}

THE RETURN OF THE ARCHIVES

All those who have had a close encounter with Blogspot's archiving system and lived to tell the tale know how erratic and mysterious in its workings it is. In the case of this blog, I seem to have done something that offended it mightily as it stopped offering access to most of my archives altogether.

Being the cautious academic type, I keep backups of whatever I write (Yes. And offsite backups too), so I did not suffer the grief that the good Gareth Parker and others have sometimes displayed over such losses, but it was still mildly annoying. Worst of all was that everything I have posted on this blog still seemed actually to be there somewhere, lurking in the depths of the Blogspot servers.

With the help of some canny advice from the good Michael Jennings, however, I have prevailed! I have managed to "republish" my archives. I have induced Blogspot to give them back. Just click on "Archives" (top left of this page) and you will now be able to access the full extent of my blogwisdom. Trawling through the archives of past blog entries is undoubtedly a rare and strange pursuit so I doubt that anybody ever noticed their absence but I feel rather pleased to have them back anyway.

Before Michael's sage intervention, my response was simply to re-post everything written on this blog prior to November 1, 2002 on a separate site: here. I guess I should now take all that down but I will leave it there just in case. I put it there mainly to make sure that Google do not lose it but if anybody wants to go there and mull over my earlier words of wisdom, who am I to object? I have a permanent link to it in the column over on the left of this page.

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THE GENETICS OF IQ

There is a report of some recent genetic research at Gene Expression which seems to me to be overinterpreted. Unless I am missing something, all it seems to show is that memory and IQ have different genetic determinants. Anybody who knows about idiot savants will not be surprised by that.

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ELSEWHERE

Even President Bush seems to think that "diversity" is a good thing. Why? It escapes me. I would much prefer excellence. It seems to me that diversity is what you seek when you don't know what you want. If you don't eat steak, you need a menu, as it were. But this book apparently says that the whole idea is confused anyway. Via Critical Mass

It really is strange that we now have Leftists calling for military conscription. As Dean's World says, have Left and Right switched sides when we were not looking recently? What on earth would the 60s peaceniks make of it?

Jennie T notes signs of reason about Iraq emanating from Canadian Prime Minster Chretien, no less.

Unlikely though it seems, The Spectator believes that Tony Blair's principled stand is on the verge of making Britain a great power once again. One of the Chicago boys goes even further -- saying Britain is still as great as it ever was (pity he can’t spell “cricket”, though).

As the Wall St Journal says: The "antiwar" Left seems to stand only for the proposition that the enemy of my country is my friend

This clinical description of "pathological Narcissism" sounds a lot like Leftist behaviour to me.

Gareth Parker points out some wisdom about Iraq from a political centrist.

Self-defence is now illegal in New Zealand. You are supposed to let yourself get killed. Don’t believe me? Read for yourself. I think most sane New Zealanders have emigrated to Australia by now.

As Razib says in his post of 27th: The mildly genocidal Milosevic is hauled before the War Crimes Tribunal, while the maniacal Mugabe is invited by the government of France to come to a conference. Ah, but he is black....

"Envy used to be just a human failing, but today it is a major industry. Politicians, journalists and academics are all part of that industry, which some call 'social justice'." --Thomas Sowell. Via The Federalist

Iraq to chair Conference on Disarmament. Coming on top of this: "Libya Elected to Chair U.N. Human Rights Body" I have to say that only a Leftist could take the UN seriously.

Chris Brand notes some progress towards realism over asylum-seekers in Britain.

The Wicked one is being facetious at the moment.

Michael Darby blogs about the benefits of genetically modified food and the latest Libyan idiocy at the UN.

ANTI-AMERICAN IGNORAMUSES

The German government’s anti-American rhetoric is begining to hurt German exports to the United States. Hooray! About time. Why people think they can be insulting to Americans without Americans getting annoyed I do not know. Americans are very forgiving but nobody is infinitely so. And the critics think THEY are good-mannered. They could learn a lot about courtesy from the very Americans that they knock as being “cowboys”.

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PREDESTINATION: CULTURE VERSUS PULPIT

The doctrine of predestination is associated with Protestant pioneer John Calvin of Geneva. Luther throught that your salvation depended on your faith. Calvin thought that your salvation depended on your being chosen by God. In Britain, the Scottish Presbyterians were the main enthusiasts for Calvinism but the doctrine was widely influential among early Protestants and even the 39 “Articles of Religion” of the Church of England (issued in 1571) include a version of it. Article 17 says:

Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) he hath constantly decreed by his counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind ......

But it would seem that the doctrine has now not been heard from the pulpits of ANY mainstream church for many years.

Interestingly, however, I was brought up in a family with Presbyterian loyalties (though with no great religious committment) and throughout my family predestination was constantly invoked during my childhood. I can vividly recall my Aunt Maude and others saying things like: “It was all planned out before we were born, John” and “It was meant to be”. And I have noted similar sentiments coming from others I know with a similar background.

So what it all shows is the persistence of culture. With absolutely no support from the pulpit, old docrines and beliefs live on not as dogmas but as customary beliefs and family traditions. So to dismiss the importance of culture and tradition is to miss a large part of what goes on in the lives of people.

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CHRISTIANITY = OPPRESSION?

I posted yesterday an email from a reader that claimed that Christianity was oppressive rather than being a fountain of individual liberties. One of my Christian readers has now responded with a spirited defence of the Christian contribution to liberty. See the latest post here.

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FLAG-BURNING

I have Tim Gillin to thank for this fun story:

Apparently, flag burning in the UK is a "hate crime" if "directed against minorities". Americans are a minority in the UK and some Leftists seem to have forgotten this -- and have spent time in prison for defacing the American flag! How cruel to take the Leftists’ favourite pastime away! How will they express themselves now?

See here.

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ELSEWHERE

Always Right does a good appreciation of the State of the Union Address.

I have been thinking about Bill Whittle. Just a few posts seem to have made him the blogosphere’s favourite conservative. Why? I think it is because Bill really is the decent and caring person that Leftists only pretend to be.

It seems that you have to be married to a lawyer to get justice in Britain. Disgraceful cases of government incompetence like this are the one thing that makes me opposed to the death penalty.

Famous Lefty philosopher and advocate of equality John Rawls has a son who is a libertarian!. (Via Stew)

Postcards from Prison is a fun site.

Babette Francis points out that Leftist discrimination against men can end up hurting the women it is supposed to help.

Prof. Bunyip describes this site as “Rapist’s wife”. It made me ill anyway.

The Australian Libertarian Society seems to be Canberra-based. A bit ironical seeing that the main industry of Canberra is government! Maybe the nearer you get to government the more you can see its flaws.

You Big Mouth You has lots of good stuff -- from Feminazis to Greenpeace to the Norwegian airforce.

Right-Thinking looks at a tragedy and has some good sarcasm about the uselessness of gun-control laws.

Astounding! A Boston schoolteacher got her students to read books rather than watch TV so the Principal of the school insisted that they MUST watch the TV! (Via Country Store). Bring on vouchers!

A LEFTIST VERSION OF COLLEGE EDUCATION

(Email sent to me by a victim of the “liberal” bias in academe)

I am a senior in college now and my final semester just began a few days ago. Just the other day, I started a new class called Human Resource Management (required for all who are in the school of business, such as myself).

I've had several management classes before, with nothing particular to note about them. This one was rather different, to say the least. I had heard many awful things about the alleged difficulty of the professor teaching this class. No problem there - I like to be challenged.

When said professor came into the door, however, I knew I was going to be in for a world of pain. He's a young man; could not be more than 40 - absolutely brimming with eccentric personality and energy. After a rather amusing 20 minute introduction filled with comedy and the occasional expletive, he launched into his own personal views about race and such. Immediately starting with IQ and how tests are meaningless - ANY KIND OF TEST. Actually, this was the prevalent theme for the entire two hour and thirty minute class.

One of a few phrases that stuck out was: "[regarding my tough assignments] ... but I am compassionate! Compassionate .... you know ... well ... not like the Republicans. Compassionate conservatives? No, not like that."

Ok, fair enough, the man has his views. But he kept harping at the issue of tests. Kept citing things after which he would say "It's a proven fact!". Some examples:

1) "Nobody knows what IQ is, THAT'S A PROVEN FACT! Nobody knows what it measures." "The IQ test was made by, what, a few white boys, right? Doesn't it make sense, then, that it would measure something these white boys had?" (as I thought to myself "didn't you say race didn't exist?"

2) "At the age of 18, Charles Manson had an IQ of 85. After the murders, when he was incarcerated, his IQ was 135-140. Did he get smarter after killing?"

3) "When I was in high school, my guidance counselor said, based on a standardized test that I took, that I would never go to college. That I wasn't bright enough. At my 20 year reunion, I made him address me as 'Doctor' [refering to his PHD.]" (I note this because it was another prevalent theme in his "discussion" - constantly talking about his achievements (many being noteworthy), but following them up with "AND I WAS TOLD I WOULDN'T GET INTO COLLEGE!")

4) Poetic justice had its revenge, however. When going around the room asking each of us to introduce ourselves, he got to the sole Asian girl in the class. Immediately, he said "you know, Asians, as a whole, are interesting. I mean, yes, we draw on a stereotype - but some stereotypes are good, if we can back them up. For example, asians are usually ... what? "Yes, yes, hard working is one...they generally excel at math." Somebody else calls out "Shy?"
"Yes ... well ... yes ... you can say shy. They are modest. Many Asians find it difficult to say 'the best thing about myself is...' - they are very modest people".

Whoa whoa whoa. Hold your horses here, buddy. This is coming from a guy who just spent the past hour saying how race does not exist and how blacks are treated unfairly because of it, etc etc; now you're twisting it all around?

The Asian girl in question actually responded with "Well, actually, I'm adopted from Korea, and I was raised with American values."

After taking the obligatory shot at Pres. Bush (whom he calls "baby Bush", along with "daddy Bush", not to mention "Ronnie" before that), he told us that we need to watch TV news/debate programs and be aware of the world. Fair enough. What does he suggest?

Virtually everything on CNN - especially Hardball with Chris Matthews, Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, Dennis Miller (though he had some reservations on him), the comedy of Chris Rock, etc. When one person in the class suggested The O'Reilly Factor (conservative show on Fox News - not sure what you do/don't get down where you are), said professor immediately exclaimed "Oh, Bill can be a real jerk. But, well, I guess he makes the occasional good point. Eh, you can do better."

At this point, I could continue, but I won't. I simply want to ask if you have any advice in dealing with people like this. Mind you, I try to avoid confrontation and almost always keep my views to myself, but I cannot help but feel that he is robbing the other 20+ students in my class of all sides to the story.

Ah, hell, one final example: "Now, the media misrepresents affirmative action. It is NOT this bad thing which everyone thinks - it does not say that an employer should hire a black person over a white person if they have fewer skills - that's actually illegal! Did you know that? Did you also know that quotas are illegal too? Well, in some limited government jobs there are a small amount of quotas, but they're out of necessity. Affirmative action simply states that an employer needs to get word out of a job opening to all people - they must do their best to make sure that happens." I leave you with that, to make as you will with it. This is Human Resource Management, right? Just checking.

My blood just starts boiling whenever I hear this tripe, but I feel so helpless. I suppose I just needed some reassurance that I'm not going crazy, but to be libertarian/conservative where I live (New Jersey) is not exactly a positive thing, so I don't get much sympathy. Your " MOTIVATIONS OF POLITICAL LEFTISTS" essay (along with Orwell's classic leftist critiques - he points out many of the things that this professor has already done/said) has been one of the few things keeping me at my wits.

THE FUTILITY OF CLIMATE CONTROL ATTEMPTS

REMEMBER THE STATEMENT released (7 December 2001) in Oslo at the centenary celebrations for the Nobel Peace Prize? It was edited by John C. Polyani of Canada (1986 Chemistry Prize); and the 108 signatory Laureates (30 didn't sign) told us that:

"The most profound danger to world peace in the coming years will stem not from the irrational acts of states or individuals but from the legitimate demands of the world's dispossessed. Of these poor and disenfranchised, the majority live a marginal existence in equatorial climates. Global warming, not of their making but originating with the wealthy few, will affect their fragile ecologies most. _. It cannot be expected, therefore, that in all cases they will be content to await the beneficence of the rich. If then we permit the devastating power of modern weaponry to spread through this combustible human landscape, we invite a conflagration that can engulf both rich and poor. _. (W)e must persist in the quest for united action to counter both global warming and a weaponized world."

Never mind that over the last 20 years and more, almost all warming has been north of 30 0N, with little or none in "equatorial climates" (or in the Southern Hemisphere). Never mind that Osama (Long may he live in Peace) was not "poor"; although, as the 17th of 52 siblings, he could have suffered from a poverty of paternal quality time when young. However, you can see why the Laureates are worried. When the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its Third Assessment Report in 2000, the most-publicized conclusions were: an average global surface temperature increase of up to 5.8 degrees Celsius between 1990 and 2100, and (because warm water expands) resultant sea level rise up to 88 centimeters. Frightening!

Greenhouse is a phenomenon of the atmosphere. Human-caused emissions (for example, carbon dioxide from coal-fired power stations) supplement the dominant greenhouse gas, naturally-occurring water vapour, in the atmosphere - and thus intercept a little more of the heat leaving Earth. The lower atmosphere is supposed to warm as a result; and some of this extra warmth should then be redistributed to the surface, rather than escape to Space as before. We call this consequent surface warming the 'greenhouse effect'.

But from 1979 we have satellite records. The lower atmosphere has warmed only a quarter as fast as the surface; and more, not less, heat is now departing the top of the atmosphere. The simplest explanation is that for this 23 years, at least, most surface warming is not 'greenhouse effect' warming! If there is human-caused greenhouse warming as well, it appears confined to continental areas like Alaska/Yukon, and particularly Siberia, under the very cold (and bone dry) high-pressure cells of winter. The result is a slightly longer growing-season - and stronger growth, too, because of a CO2-enriched atmosphere (think commercial greenhouses).

In Europe, the latest manifestations of a long-running ca 1500-year warm/cold cycle are the Roman Empire Warm Period, Dark Ages, Mediaeval Warm Period, and Little Ice Age. The last cold snap of the Little Ice Age was AD1800-20, with a warming trend since. Warmth is better.

Overprinted on this trend were peaks of warming in the 1870s, 1930s and 1990s. After cooling from the 1940s, the latest cyclic warming began with the Great Pacific Climate Shift of 1976/77. This sharp reduction in the upwelling of cold water in the eastern Pacific was the climatic event of the 20th Century; and it was followed by physical and biological changes far beyond the Pacific. The modest 0.6 0C of global-average surface warming during the 20th Century looks like cyclic rebound from the Little Ice Age - overlain by shorter-term cyclicity. What drives these cycles? We don't know; but I bet it's the Sun - not God's wrath, or acts by the "wealthy few".

The UN's World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg discussed at length how to stabilize global climate. And in Mozambique on 1 September 2002, PM Tony Blair said in support "we can defeat climate change if we want to". But all such efforts must fail; because, inevitably, climate will continue its natural fluctuation on many time-scales. Let me repeat: we can't stabilize climate. The same applies to extreme weather events - of course they will keep coming. Prevention is not on; and timely mitigation is the only plausible solution.

Vain attempts to stabilize climate by restricting emission of greenhouse gases will hurt us all economically, and the poor will suffer most. Instead of tilting at greenhouse windmills, the Summit would better have followed the 'Skeptical Environmentalist' Bjorn Lomborg (New York Times, 26 August 2002). He wanted it to concentrate on ways to "provide every person in the world with access to basic health, education, family planning, and water and sanitation services".

Excerpt from here

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THE SILENT MAJORITY IS STILL THERE

Northern California ranked second to Nashville in the Marine Corps' national recruiting last year. Looks like the weirdos of San Francisco are just vocal, not representative.

It reminds me of Spiro Agnew’s “silent majority” in the Nixon years.

And is similar to this:

After a local "anti-war" demonstation that was said to have brought out 20,000 people, a poll by KATU of Portland, Oregon residents showed the following breakdown on military action in Iraq:

For: 57%
Against: 34%
Not sure: 9%

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IS CHRISTIANITY ILLIBERAL?

I wrote recently on this blog: "American Christians think that Christianity is the main source of the high level of respect for individual liberties "

A US reader wrote to me in reply:

What? Individual freedom and Christianity don't even deserve to be in the same sentence together! Christians are all about oppression .... in every way. There are so many examples ... a book could be written on that topic!

It’s not my fight. Would any of my Christian readers care to reply?

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ABOUT TIME!

Britain may have to pull out of the European convention on human rights if the Government's latest measures fail to stem the flow of asylum seekers, Tony Blair indicated yesterday.

In a significant about-turn, he conceded that it might be necessary to look again at Britain's international obligations to take in refugees. He said the present situation - with alleged terrorists entering the country as asylum seekers and a former Taliban fighter seeking refuge despite having fought against American and British forces - could not be allowed to continue. The Government had to reduce the number of people seeking asylum. "The present situation is unacceptable and we have to deal with it," he said. "I am under no doubt about that at all."

The Government has been forced on the defensive by claims that Britain has become a soft touch for asylum seekers, with 100,000 arriving every year. Many disappear after their application to stay has been rejected.

Source

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ELSEWHERE

The Seventh Ohio District Court of Appeals in Youngstown, Ohio, has
ruled that it is legal for police to hide cameras in public toilets!

"Envy used to be just a human failing, but today it is a major industry. Politicians, journalists and academics are all part of that industry, which some call 'social justice'." --Thomas Sowell. Via The Federalist


“Democrats will trample over a thousand poor people to throw a rock at a rich man." --Tom Adkins of "The Common Conservative," on the Bush tax-cut plan. Via The Federalist

Babette Francis points out that Leftist discrimination against men can end up hurting the women it is supposed to help.

Prof. Bunyip describes this site as “Rapist’s wife”. It made me ill anyway.


The Australian Libertarian Society seems to be Canberra-based. A bit ironical seeing that the main industry of Canberra is government! Maybe the nearer you get to government the more you can see its flaws.

Astounding! A Boston schoolteacher got her students to read books rather than watch TV so the Principal of the school insisted that they MUST watch the TV! (Via Country Store). Bring on vouchers!

Right-Thinking looks at a tragedy and has some good sarcasm about the uselessness of gun-control laws.

More on the shambles that is American airport anti-terrorist screening at Greeblie Blog. Osama would have a big laugh at these guys.

Jeff Jacoby also writes of the continuing absurdity of “security” precautions at American airports.

Famous Lefty philosopher and advocate of equality John Rawls has a son who is a libertarian!. (Via Stew)

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Comments? Email me. If there are no recent posts here, check my HomePage for a new blog address or visit my "First Draft" site here.

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AUSTRALIA'S PAST: CAUSE FOR PRIDE

Jonathan King had an excellent article in yesterday's Australian about the Leftist nonsense that tries to portray the British settlement of Australia as a cause of shame.

He had many good points but I liked this:

The arrival of the First Fleet of convicts in Sydney Cove in 1788 [under Capt. Arthur Phillip] led to the British settlement of all six colonies and to our Federation in 1901. The hazardous voyage of 11 tall ships battling largely uncharted seas for eight months from Portsmouth was an achievement taught proudly to earlier generations of Australian students.

Phillip's safe arrival was a much greater achievement than the highly promoted six-week trans-Atlantic Mayflower voyage of pilgrims who settled America in 1620. Even though the pilgrims travelled one-tenth the distance, they still lost one of two ships and half their settlers in the first winter. By contrast, Phillip lost no ships and delivered 1350 people with few casualties. Today it would be like colonising Mars.

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CONSERVATISM IS MORE NORMAL

Matthew Cowie emailed me with an extended version of a recent post on his blog:

I noticed your item on how Chapman believes that Bloggers are more conservative because they are older. I agree with widely held view that the internet is conservative because it is an alternative to the mainstream media's leftist bent. However, two other factors could be that conservatism is more a grass roots movement than leftism, which is more of an elitist movement. That the New York Times bestseller lists are overwhelmingly dominated by even nominal conservative writers is evidence of this. As Ann Coulter stated, "Liberals don't read books - they don't read anything," she said. "That's why they're liberals. They watch TV, absorb the propaganda, and vote on the basis of urges.

The second factor could be that the youth are generally more conservative/libertarian and the users of the internet tend to be younger than the general population. School choice and Social Security privatization are heavily favored by Americans aged 18-25, for instance. More polling data is in This article from the Washington Times.

Mathew also has an interesting quiz:

Q: Why don't Liberals read books?

A: They're too busy coloring them.

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NICE RADIATION

Does "nice radiation" sound like a joke? It isn't. Radiation CAN be good for you. It's called "hormesis". I blogged on it last November (27th.) and Aaron Oakley has quite a few posts on it at the moment too. And if you are CERTAIN that radiation has to be bad for you, have a think about this:

Should we evacuate Denver?

Denver, in the Rockies, has a higher radiation level than most of the country. Should we evacuate Denver? The answer is that the death rates and cancers are lower in the high radiation areas than in the low radiation areas. Denver has a higher radiation level and lower death rate than most of the country.

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ELSEWHERE

I had to laugh! Given the latest Blix report, we seem to be about to go to war with Iraq -- so what is the leader of the Australian Left talking about? BABY FORMULA! What a galoot!

Prof. Bunyip describes this site as “Rapist’s wife”. It made me ill anyway.

The Australian Libertarian Society seems to be Canberra-based. A bit ironical seeing that the main industry of Canberra is government! Maybe the nearer you get to government the more you can see its flaws.

Andrew Bolt has some home-truths that will upset the feminists

“Democrats will trample over a thousand poor people to throw a rock at a rich man." --Tom Adkins of "The Common Conservative," on the Bush tax-cut plan. Via The Federalist

Babette Francis points out that Leftist discrimination against men can end up hurting the women it is supposed to help.

The Wicked one has a go at teachers and class sizes.

China Hand thinks Hong Kong needs a sales tax.

There is an articulate defence of SUVs here. I guess you like them or you don’t. I would not want to drive a vehicle that made me despised, however.

One of Washington’s most senior “news” reporters has just said of the USA under GWB: “We have chosen to promote democracy with bombs instead of largess”. An utter fruitcake! The real world is for her a planet far, far away.

"Envy used to be just a human failing, but today it is a major industry. Politicians, journalists and academics are all part of that industry, which some call 'social justice'." --Thomas Sowell. Via The Federalist

Michael Darby is compiling an anthology of poetry.

Chris Brand has some interesting quotes about the Nazi era.

Shishir Yerramilli has added his observations on the role of Christianity and primitivism in the origin of our liberties.

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Comments? Email me. If there are no recent posts here, check my HomePage for a new blog address or visit my "First Draft" site here.

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THE SINGLE-PARENT FAMILY DISADVANTAGE

Iain Murray has recently commented on a large Swedish study that shows clear psychological disadvantage among chilren from single-parent families. Iain and everybody else seem to be interpreting this as showing that single-parent families are a bad thing.

Such families may well be a bad thing. I believe they are. But the study cannot be used to prove that. We have to be careful about the direction of causation. An amazingly high proportion of what we are is genetically determined (even ideology -- See Martin & Jardine, 1986 and Eaves et al., 1999) so I would say that a more likely interpretation of these results is that those with enough psychological deficiencies to prevent them from forming good relationships tend to pass such deficiencies on to their children. In short, the source of the disadvantage observed in the children is genetic, not social at all. Sad news for interventionists but they will not listen anyway.

References:
Eaves, L.J., Martin, N.G., Meyer, J.M. & Corey, L.A. (1999) Biological and cultural inheritance of stature and attitudes. In: Cloninger, C.R., Personality and psychopathology. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Press.
Martin, N. & Jardine, R. (1986) Eysenck's contribution to behaviour genetics. In: S & C. Modgil (Eds.) Hans Eysenck: Consensus and controversy. Lewes, E. Sussex: Falmer

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THE GERMANIC SOURCE OF OUR LIBERTIES

I have written on several occasions now that I trace our modern Anglo-Saxon respect for liberty and democracy to our pagan Germanic ancestors. But I have not given much proof of what the pre-Christian Germans were like. So let me quote a man who knew them well, the ancient Roman Consul and historian Tacitus. Excerpts:

They choose their kings by birth, their generals for merit. These kings have not unlimited or arbitrary power, and the generals do more by example than by authority.

About minor matters the chiefs deliberate, about the more important the whole tribe. Yet even when the final decision rests with the people, the affair is always thoroughly discussed by the chiefs. They assemble, except in the case of a sudden emergency, on certain fixed days, either at new or at full moon; for this they consider the most auspicious season for the transaction of business. Instead of reckoning by days as we do, they reckon by nights, and in this manner fix both their ordinary and their legal appointments. Night they regard as bringing on day. Their freedom has this disadvantage, that they do not meet simultaneously or as they are bidden, but two or three days are wasted in the delays of assembling. When the multitude think proper, they sit down armed. Silence is proclaimed by the priests, who have on these occasions the right of keeping order. Then the king or the chief, according to age, birth, distinction in war, or eloquence, is heard, more because he has influence to persuade than because he has power to command. If his sentiments displease them, they reject them with murmurs; if they are satisfied, they brandish their spears.

In truth neither from the Samnites, nor from the Carthaginians, nor from both Spains, nor from all the nations of Gaul, have we received more frequent checks and alarms; nor even from the Parthians: for, more vigorous and invincible is the liberty of the Germans than the monarchy of the Arsacides.

Our modern-day parliamentary procedures are a little more sophisticated but the basic values and principles seem to me not to have changed at all.

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ELSEWHERE

Some recent research by Wiseman shows that “lucky” people create their own luck. It confirms Sam Goldwyn’s famous observation: “The harder I work the luckier I get”.

A British man caught a burglar in his home only to find that the police could not be bothered to prosecute. He took the burglar to court himself and won! Glad I don’t live in Britain.

Here’s a story that will make the day of all animal lovers.

Greenie dimwits who think that the heat output of the Sun is constant and that only human activity could possibly cause climate change need to read this.

In his post of 24th, Bigwig hangs an excellent anti-French rant on the recent “closer ties” agreement between Germany and France but, to be fair, it should be added that the average Frenchman will still always despise Germans -- just as he despises everyone non-French.

The Wicked one has a “we told you so” story about affirmative action and is also having another laugh at Leftist blogger Gary Sauer Thompson

Chris Brand reports that the British press is beginning to think that the paedophilia hysteria over there has gone too far and that people want the government to do more about bogus asylum-seekers.

Michael Darby shows how enormous bureaucratic negligence has made the current Australian bushfires so unprecedently bad. See also Miranda Devine

Theodore Dalrymple's article The Starving Criminal once again shows how Leftists prefer theory to facing the facts. I liked his line: "Meals here were solitary, poor, nasty, British, and short."

Great news from China. It looks like the Chinese leadership is slowly backing off from confrontation with Taiwan.

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Comments? Email me. If there are no recent posts here, check my HomePage for a new blog address or visit my "First Draft" site here.

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The Australian Libertarian Society seems to be Canberra-based. A bit ironical seeing that the main industry of Canberra is government! Maybe the nearer you get to government the more you can see its flaws.

Some recent research by Wiseman shows that “lucky” people create their own luck. It confirms Sam Goldwyn’s famous observation: “The harder I work the luckier I get”.

A British man caught a burglar in his home only to find that the police could not be bothereed to prosecute. He took the burglar to court himself and won! Glad I don’t live in Britain.

SINGLE-PARENT FAMILIES IN SWEDEN

Iain Murray has recently commented on a large Swedish study that shows clear psychological disadvantage among chilren from single-parent families. Iain and everybody else seem to be interpreting this as showing that single-parent families are a bad thing. Such families may well be a bad thing. I believe they are. But the study cannot be used to prove that. We have to be careful of the direction of causation. An amazingly high proportion of what we are is genetically determined (even ideology -- See Martin & Jardine, 1986 and Eaves et al., 1999) so I would say that a more likely interpretation of these results is that those with enough psychological deficiencies to prevent them from forming good pair bonds tend to pass such deficiencies on to their children. In short, the source of the disadvantage observed in the children is genetic, not social at all. Sad news for interventionists but they will not listen anyway.

References:
Eaves, L.J., Martin, N.G., Meyer, J.M. & Corey, L.A. (1999) Biological and cultural inheritance of stature and attitudes. In: Cloninger, C.R., Personality and psychopathology. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Press.
Martin, N. & Jardine, R. (1986) Eysenck's contribution to behaviour genetics. In: S & C. Modgil (Eds.) Hans Eysenck: Consensus and controversy. Lewes, E. Sussex: Falmer

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CONSERVATISM IS MORE NORMAL

Matthew Cowie writes:

I noticed your item on how Chapman believes that Bloggers are more conservative because they are older. I agree with widely held view that the internet is conservative because it is an alternative to the mainstream media's leftist bent. However, two other factors could be that conservatism is more a grass roots movement than leftism, which is more of an elitist movement. That the New York Times bestseller lists are overwhelmingly dominated by even nominal conservative writers is evidence of this. As Ann Coulter stated, "Liberals don't read books – they don't read anything," she said. "That's why they're liberals. They watch TV, absorb the propaganda, and vote on the basis of urges.

The second factor could be that the youth are generally more conservative/libertarian and the users of the internet tend to be younger than the general population. School choice and Social Security privatization are heavily favored by Americans aged 18-25, for instance. More polling data is in This article from the Washington Times.

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FOR FEMINISTS TO PONDER

An anti-feminist book that was turned down for publication by 55 publishers has to be pretty good! Prof. Goldberg says that men are naturally dominant because of their different hormones etc. Fortunately for freedom of speech it did eventually get published. Here is a summary. His critics have found him hard to argue with. See here.

Babette Francis points out that Leftist discrimination against men can end up hurting the women it is supposed to help.

Why are there so few women who are top achievers (famous composers etc.) in so many fields? Denis Dutton has made a study of genius and says: This variability characteristic insures that there are more crazy, subnormal males than females off at the low end of the curve [and] it also makes for more above-normal males, crazed or sane, at the high end. In other words, more women are “normal” -- for good or ill.

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