ELSEWHERE

Further to my post yesterday about the Leftist origins of Fascism, a reader has pointed me to another excellent essay that probably makes the point better than I do. It is called "American Fascism" and is originally from "The Laissez Faire City Times", whatever that may be. It starts out well: "But the issue of who is a Fascist can't be addressed by any measure from the modern philosophical left because their fundamental tenet is the lie. For them, that's the first principle of the art of war. They use it, they excuse it, and they in fact worship at its feet".

David Boxenhorn has also taken up the discussion of what Fascism is with a note that Arab regimes generally are very similar to historic Fascist regimes -- though they don't seem to have the same strong welfarist orientation or the rhetoric of looking after the worker in particular.

Good to see Christopher Hitchens taking on Australia's chief Leftist ratbag -- Philip Adams. ("ratbag" is Australian slang for a person obsessed with improbable ideas). Adams doubts all the evidence that Saddam was a mass murderer. He has joined the ranks of the holocaust deniers. He will be saying that Ausschwitz, Buchenwald and Treblinka are a fairy-tale next. If it became widely realized that Hitler was a Leftist, he would no doubt argue just that. Leftists have never had much interest in the facts. They have conclusions that they want to reach and only see evidence that supports those conclusions. They argue backwards from their conclusions, not forward from a full consideration of the facts. They are impenetrable to reason. That's why I personally rarely talk to them at all. I talk only to people who are interested in the facts -- people who can handle how complex and surprising the facts often are.

Multicultural England: "A festival to celebrate a city's multiculturalism ended with rival ethnic groups involved in running street battles. The East of England Anand Mela festival was organised by the Indian community in Peterborough to demonstrate its culture, music and food. But about 90 Pakistani and Iraqi youths exchanged blows and hurled chairs on Saturday night." Coppersblog has some amusing background to it.

For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH and POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH. Mirror sites here and here

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Puzzle: Leftists always say that human nature is fundamentally good and that people can be trusted. So why do they say that whilst at the same time wanting to regulate everybody to death and take as many decisions and choices out of the hands of the individual as they possibly can? Easy: They say that about human nature because, if it is true, then THEY are good at heart and can be trusted -- and, given their destructive deeds, they need all the propaganda help they can get in that regard.

The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and people who will say anything to win applause

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