AMERICA CREDULOUS?

A good comment from a reader about some of the amazingly stupid things outsiders say about America -- nearly as stupid as the things that American Leftists like Michael Moore say about America:

"I followed your link to The Times column by Gerard Baker, enticed by the quote you selected. Wow, I thought, a column by a European who actually "gets" America and our optimism, self-confidence, idealism and lack of cynicism. But while it is true that he does actually see that aspect of America, it seems though that he really views it from the perspective of our sophisticated, condescending, European betters as little more than a quaint, simplistic characteristic that he finds cute maybe once a year, as this quote from the end of the column reveals:

"At other times, I can't quite take all this American idealism and sentimentality. It is just a bit too much at odds with a complex world. As the country's critics never tire of observing, it can lead to a little too much certainty and self-belief and a deficit of doubt and acknowledgement of error."

It seems quite clear to me that far from being "too much at odds with a complex world," that our idealism, optimism and self-confidence along with the political, legal and financial institutions inspired by them have proven over the past 2 centuries to be far more successful in dealing with a "complex world" than any other in the history of civilization. We have been steadily expanding the perimeter of freedom here at home while weathering the many perfect storms of totalitarian ideologies enthusiastically generated by the quite prolific European political imagination.

It is astonishing that a man like Baker, who apparently lives in the US, could say that we suffer from a "deficit of doubt and acknowledgement of error." This seriously calls into question his powers of observation. Since 9/11 we have had an incredibly rich and dynamic debate about everything from just about every political perspective in newspapers, magazines, journals, think tanks, blogs, films, in the streets, in Congress and in our homes. It seems that yet again the Left is projecting its own flawed characteristics onto the United States. I think that if there is a "deficit of doubt and acknowledgement of error" anywhere it can be found in Brussels, Berlin and Paris where the massive failure that is the European welfare state goes merrily along producing stagnant growth and 9% unemployment. It just boggles the mind."

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HISPANIC IMMIGRATION AND IQ

American conservatives and libertarians are greatly divided about the mostly illegal Hispanic influx into the USA. I contribute regularly to a blog that is concerned with minority/majority issues and I have just put up a post there on the issue of Hispanic IQ. For those who are interested see here. For convenience, I have also combined my latest post with my previous posts on immigration to make a single article. See here or here.

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ELSEWHERE

The American Left still love Castro: "Leave it up to a liberal university to pony up big bucks - some of it taxpayers' - to give to a cruel dictator. So it is that the University of California at Davis is gleefully helping Castro's dollar-strapped Cuban economy by paying more than $100,000 to his government for allowing 10 Cal-Davis students to study in Cuba".

Michael Darby has up the latest report from his source in Zimbabwe. Pretty grim!

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

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions.

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