ELSEWHERE

There is a long and well-informed article by Sherwin Nuland (a doctor) in the Left-leaning "New Republic" about the history of eugenics. He of course hardly mentions that the support for eugenics in the 1920s and 1930s mainly came from the Left of the day but he does at least note that people like himself would probably have supported eugenics if they had been around in the Hitler era. He also notes that America was well ahead of Germany in introducing eugenic policies such as the forcible sterilization of the "unfit". His conclusion is perverse, however. He compares pre-war eugenics with the possibilities of genetic engineering today and implies that the two are just as dangerous. He concludes: "It all sounds very familiar. Looking backward, we can now see the danger in state-enforced policies of improvement, but too many of us have yet to awaken to the equally dangerous reality of improvement that is self-determined. We are once again standing on the slope, from the top of which the future we may be wreaking is already visible". In other words, he cannot see the difference between something that is voluntary and something that is State-enforced! How Leftist!

I made some disparaging remarks about Harry Truman a little while back designed to show that conservatives accept too uncritically the claims to fame of former Democrat Presidents. There often seems to be a view that the Democrats of yesteryear were really good guys who were not nearly as Leftist as Democrats today. I think there is something in that if we are talking of J.F. Kennedy but certainly not if we are talking about FDR, LBJ or Truman. I liked this summary of Truman's domestic policies by Oliver Kamm: "In the wider context of domestic as well as international policy, there has never been a President as hostile to business as Harry Truman. In November 1947, he proposed an economic programme of extensive price and credit controls, federal direction of capital to business, and rationing of consumer goods. The next year - Congress having refused to go along with the programme - he sent one bill after another to what he termed a "do nothing Congress" proposing price controls, a massive federal housing programme, a law requiring the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates low, and subsidised utilities".

Another indication of how far-Left the BBC is. Note this description of the ghastly North Korea: "North Korea emerged in 1948 amid the chaos following the end of World War II. Its history is dominated by its Great Leader, Kim Il-sung, who shaped political affairs for almost half a century." Note that the regime "emerged" rather than being the product of a Moscow-backed takeover by Communists and that the grisly Kim Il Sung is unapologetically assigned his own claimed title of "Great Leader".

Davids Medienkritik asks whether Saddam's WMDs were "fake but accurate" too.

New blog! Mike Jericho has just started a new group blog called "The Man Blog". There are lots of established bloggers in the group so there should be new stuff popping up there all the time. Mike asked me to join in so I have put up a few posts there to help get the ball rolling.

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

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Anti-Americanism is in epidemic proportions in France and Germany but most people don't realize that it is in epidemic proportions in South Korea too. And what do those three countries have in common? They were liberated by America. And what is probably the most pro-American country in the world? Poland. They liberated themselves. Ego defeats rationality all the time.

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

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