ELSEWHERE

Australia's Leftist historians have now become a laughing-stock: "As the elite of the nation's academic historians met in the stately rooms of the Newcastle Town Hall, fear and loathing lurked the corridors. The Australian Historical Association spent virtually an entire day trying to work out strategies to deal with the menace. Would there be safety in numbers if academics stood together? What should be done when the terror struck again? How could anyone survive when the mass media was in on the conspiracy? Over 18 months after Keith Windschuttle published his book The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, the academic world is still anguishing over its impact. It is terrified of what he will do next. Windschuttle struck at the heart of the accepted view of Australian colonial history in the past 30 years - that the settler society had engaged in a pattern of conquest, dispossession and killing of the indigenous inhabitants. The facts, he said, did not stack up".

Supreme Court not supreme: "In 1985, Edwin Meese, President Reagan's attorney general, created a furor when he attacked judicial supremacy. He argued that the executive and the legislative branches of government-- not just the judicial one-- had an obligation to interpret the Constitution. Supreme Court rulings may be final in a given case, he granted, but they could not settle the meaning of the Constitution, which remains independent of any one interpretation. Thus the president and members of Congress were free to reject court-fabricated rules, such as the "right" to an abortion.... Now, nearly 20 years later, Larry Kramer, dean of the Stanford Law School and a member of what he himself calls "the liberal academy," argues that Mr. Meese was right all along."

America's immigration control farce again: "Once we connect these dots, it becomes obvious that the presence of thousands of Arab terrorists in two separate areas of South America and the illegal entry of hundreds of Arabs via the Mexican border portend massive terror assaults against American and other targets in South America and within this nation."

The terrorism/poverty connection is Leftist bunk: "Reducing poverty in the Third World is a moral as well as a political and economic imperative, but to expect from it a decisive change in the foreseeable future as far as terrorism is concerned is unrealistic, to say the least. It ignores both the causes of backwardness and poverty and the motives for terrorism".

The Leftist "food desert" theory (Yes. That's desert, not dessert): "As one who in his professional life has heard numerous complaints about the alleged "oppression" that is created by the presence of a Wal-Mart or some other large chain store, it is interesting to see how the academic left shifts gears and now blames these same retailers for not having enough stores in existence. Social activists have worked overtime to keep the Wal-Marts and Safeways from opening in rural and urban areas; now we see that the real problem, according to activists, is that many rural and urban people do not have access to the inexpensive food that these markets sell."

Conservatives anonymous has a good brief post on why the American revolution was a conservative one. I agree. The idea that conservatives can also be revolutionaries sure must upset the simple minds of those on the Left (like these supposedly educated galoots) who think that conservatism means kneejerk support for the status quo. (I reply at length to the supposedly educated galoots here).

I have just put up an amusing chapter from my 1974 book on conservatism. It describes a group of weirdos who have not changed much since the chapter was written. See here.

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

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Leftists acclaim "diversity" yet say "All men are equal". Figure that one out.

Why can those who claim to understand the dangers of meddling with a complex ecosystem like the natural environment, not understand that government interference with a complex system like the economy is perilous too?

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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