THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY AS AN OBSTACLE TO LIBERTY

Most readers of this blog will be unsurprised to hear that my political sympathies are thoroughly libertarian. I don't care what homosexuals do among themselves (though I'd rather not think about it), I think pornography is in the eye of the beholder, that prostitution is just another form of private enterprise (very private at that), that there is not much difference between taxation and theft and that government is just about the worst way of doing almost anything. But I nonetheless find a lot of the libertarian literature I see -- particularly stuff emanating from supporters of the Libertarian Party -- to be just as crazy as the stuff coming from the Left. I am not alone in that. A couple of other libertarian bloggers have said much the same recently. See here and here.

What I think has happened is that libertarian ideas have gradually had a pervasive influence throughout politics. Perhaps the most striking instance of that is the recent introduction of a "congestion charge" by London mayor "Red Ken" Livingstone as a (very successful) way of solving inner-London's traffic problems. Livingstone is on the far-Left of the British Labor Party but himself admits that he got the idea from Milton Friedman. And that the Democrat's most adored President saw fit to proclaim (falsely) that the era of big government is over is another telling symptom. And who said this over a quarter of a century ago? "If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism". It was Ronald Reagan -- in an interview in which he also revealed himself to be a student of Bastiat, von Mises, Hayek and Hazlitt. And don't forget that Reagan's degree was in economics so it is not surprising that he should know such writers. So the huge American economic success that Reagan launched was not just some folksy accident but a deliberate application of sophisticated libertarian thinking. To see Reagan as merely folksy is to mistake the sales pitch for the product.

So it seems to me that libertarian ideas are now generally respectable and that the challenge is how to implement them in a context where most people are used to turning to government as a solution to all their problems.

And that is where the Libertarian Party fails. They have not got a blind clue about how to win the mass support that they need in order to achieve anything. Their only proposal for winning the influence that they need is the "Free State" project -- the idea that all libertarians should migrate to some small State such as New Hampshire and thus muster enough votes to take over (and presumably abolish) the State government! Hell will freeze over first.

So all the mentally well-balanced libertarians have by now joined one of the major parties where they might do some good (as Reagan did) -- leaving the fruitcakes in the LP.

And there is certainly nothing hypocritical about joining the GOP. Most libertarian-inclined people I know are minimal-statists rather than anarcho-capitalists -- i.e. they do see SOME (very limited) role for governement. And waging defensive war is certainly one of those roles. And how you defend yourself militarily is not something that can be judged according to any set of abstract principles. Reality is too complex and ever-changing for that. And it is a truism that offence can sometimes be the best and safest form of defence -- which is why I and many others support the efforts of GWB in the Middle East.

And one would think that even an anarcho-capitalist (and I was once one myself) could see that half a loaf is better than no loaf at all. So surely even an anarcho-capitalist could work within the GOP on such badly-needed projects as the defence of free-trade. Given the amazing worldwide influence of rural gamblers (farmers) we may never get completely free trade but even some freeing up of trade would be beneficial to everybody. Anarcho-capitalists who cannot see that are just fanatics as far as I can see.

So the damage done by the LP is twofold: 1). The Florida debacle in the last election shows that the tiny number of votes that the LP gets just COULD siphon off enough GOP votes to put the old-Left John Kerry in the White House, and; 2). It deprives the major parties of libertarian ideas, influence and input from among their own ranks. If all the LP supporters came down to earth long enough to join one of the major parties, we might see a little more economic rationality and interest in freedom in the parties concerned. And that is all that I ever plan to say about the LP.

My personal credo as a libertarian conservative: I think all attempts to reform your fellow-citizens or tell them how to live their lives are arrogant and tyrannical. THAT'S why I oppose Leftism. I want people to be free to manage their own lives. "Reform" is just authoritarianism. People are not playthings for anybody's theories or obsessions.

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ELSEWHERE

Further to my recent post about the Moore that we need less of, there a couple of other catalogues of the deceit in his "9/11" film here and here. And the WSJ sees the film as an exercise in reinforcing Leftist elitism.

Dick McDonald summarizes the Sandy Berger coverup with admirable brevity. You won't hear about it on CBS, though. And the Kerry campaign seem to be in coverup mode about it too.

Amusing: John Kerry thinks he knows Catholic doctrine on the death penalty better than the Catholic theologians do!

A comment from one of my medical correspondents: "Where are the "feminazis" when it comes to John Edwards? Edwards and his kind have caused the physical mutilation of more women in the US than any other group - by creating such hysteria against malpractice that the number of unnecessary Caesarians has skyrocketed - not only greatly increasing the cost, but at the price of a sliced belly and all the pain and complications that result. These "liberated women" are anything but - they are slaves to the trial lawyers - and they tend to vote Democratic"

A good one from Taranto: "Everyone agrees that black holes suck, but "after 29 years of thinking about it, Stephen Hawking says he was wrong" about them... Can we conclude that HAWKING LIED!!!!, or is this just an intelligence failure on a cosmic scale? One thing we're sure of: The U.N. should have sent more inspectors to black holes.

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

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Puzzle 1: 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.

Puzzle 2: Why do "postmodern" Leftists make the strange claim that everything ever written has to be interpreted in terms of how it serves power? Easy: Because everything THEY say is directed towards getting themselves power

Comments? Email me or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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FREE TRADE

I am afraid this is true: "Over the past three years, President Bush has positioned himself as one of the more hostile opponents of free trade. Last week the Bush administration announced it was levying antidumping duties on shrimp imported from China and Vietnam, with more countries perhaps to be added soon. Last year, a tariff on catfish from Vietnam was enacted. These, in addition to antidumping duties on bras and wooden furniture, the now-infamous steel tariffs, and a heavy dose of agricultural subsidies, expose a President who is as openly hostile to free trade as any in modern history."

The "dumping" excuse: "Do you like shrimp but wish it cost more? Need bedroom furniture but hate getting a good deal on it? If so, you're very different from most Americans. You are, however, one of the few who can rejoice in our national trade policies. Politicians know U.S. consumers are more than happy to buy foreign goods if the quality is sufficient and the price is right. They also know explicit efforts to shut out imports are usually political fool's gold, more likely to bring defeat than victory at the polls. So how can our leaders cater to corporate executives and workers who resent competition, without looking like hidebound protectionists? Simple: They don't attack trade -- they attack 'dumping.' When it comes to trade, many Americans cherish the notion we are victims of our innocent good-heartedness. In this picture, we're always being cynically exploited by underhanded foreigners while our own companies play by the rules."

Free trade always beneficial: "Free trade intertwines international voluntary exchanges to such an extent that war is unthinkable to the participants; it is a doctrine of international peace in which the frontiers of nations are immaterial to their citizens. Any voluntary exchange benefits both participants. No fact about trade is more superficial than the particular pieces of geography concerned, so a single nation pursuing free trade unilaterally still gains."

Ten truths about trade: "Is globalization sending the best American jobs overseas? If you get your news from CNN's Lou Dobbs, the answer is 'of course' and the only real issue is how many trade restrictions should be applied to stem the bleeding. But the recent scare about 'offshoring' is just the latest twist on an inaccurate, decades-old complaint that global trade is stealing jobs and causing a 'race to the bottom' in which corporations relentlessly scour the world for the lowest wages and most squalid working conditions."

Icelandic blogger Ice & Fire takes a big interest in the Left/Right basics. One quote: "When jobs are competed for on an international scale, low-skilled manufacturing jobs often move to poorer countries, thereby decreasing the power of local unions often controlled by the Left. All other reasons for the Left to fight free trade worldwide are derived from this reason".

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ELSEWHERE

More hilarious Leftist nonsense: "It's a rarely stated truth that global terrorism is a monster of the West's own making". I guess Mohammed had nothing to do with it.

Riots! Good news for Britain. Similar riots in Australia caused "refugees" to stop coming: "Hundreds of asylum-seekers were being held in prison and police cells last night after a riot at an immigration centre. Inmates seized control of the Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre in west London for several hours in a protest that threw a harsh light on the handling of failed asylum-seekers."

Marxists and Islamists unite: "When the US-led coalition invaded Iraq in March 2003, few would have imagined that the move might lead to the formation of an alliance between the radical Left and hard-line Islamists in Western Europe. But this is precisely what happened. In Britain, the new Marxist-Islamist alliance is the offspring of the so-called anti-war coalition set up two years ago to prevent the liberation of Iraq. The coalition has a steering committee of 33 members. Of these, 18 come from various hard Left groups: communists, Trotskyites, Maoists, and Castroists. Three others belong to the radical wing of the Labor party. There are also eight radical Islamists. The remaining four are leftist ecologists"

Non-Advancing Blacks: "Last week, for the fourth year in a row, President Bush declined the NAACP's invitation to speak at its annual convention. Predictably, NAACP President Kweisi Mfume railed that the Bush administration failed to recognize the nation's oldest and largest civil rights group as being significant or important in any way. The sad thing is, the Bush administration's attitude toward the group is justified. The NAACP is stuck in a mind-set that worked 30 years ago but makes little sense today.

Mark Steyn has some interesting stuff up on crime in Britain -- pointing out that it is gun-controlled Britain that has high rates of crime rather than America. If you took out black-on-black crime the difference would be even more stark. I was intrepid enough to point out years ago that the percentage of blacks in a community was overwhelmingly the strongest of all predictors of crime in the USA.

That unending TV "news" bias: "With the scandal surrounding former Clinton national security adviser Sandy Berger deepening in the rest of the media, Dan Rather and his colleagues decided to ignore the story, proving once again that while any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, any sufficiently biased journalism is indistinguishable from official propaganda. .... Back when the Wilson/Plame story broke, CBS cast the disclosure in severe terms.... Now that a Democrat was accused of committing a felony, however, CBS has changed its tune.... After jumping all over the Plame disclosure story, none of CBS's news shows ran anything on the Berger story Wednesday."

A comment from a Sydney reader on multiculturalism and "diversity": "Strange that the multicultis are also anti-American. Having a McDonalds in your suburban shopping strip is a sign of cultural invasion but the half dozen or more Thai or Indian restaurants on the other corners are not. Where I live in the Eastern suburbs, the Thais outnumber the McDonalds by maybe 20 to 1 !!"

Gutless Filipinos: "How many more people will lose their lives because the Filipino government has no balls? Do you think if we kidnapped and threatened to behead a Filipino in New Zealand they might send their troops back to Iraq? There is one thing that is worse than evil and that is cowardice in the face of it. How do Filipino politicians sleep at night?"

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

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Puzzle 1: 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.

Puzzle 2: Why do "postmodern" Leftists make the strange claim that everything ever written has to be interpreted in terms of how it serves power? Easy: Because everything THEY say is directed towards getting themselves power

Comments? Email me or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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MOORE IS LESS

Michael Moore and the consecration of victimhood: "...the film, and in fact Moore's entire oeuvre, revolves around the consecration of victimhood. After all, this is a man who hides behind the crippled, the bereaved, and the deceased whenever he tries to make a point. In Bowling for Columbine, he swaggers into Wal-Mart's head office pushing a wheelchair-bound, bullet-ridden teenager, and demands that the supermarket chain stop selling bullets... The assumption that underlies Moore's work is that victims have greater moral authority than anyone else, simply by virtue of their victimhood. This approach does a disservice to those disenfranchised individuals it purports to help, because it casts their predicament in crude emotional terms and thus precludes arriving at a rational understanding of it. Such an approach may appear compassionate, but it is actually about the egotistical display of Moore's own emotional credentials."

"The cinema is fast becoming a pulpit. And Michael Moore is not the only preacher in town. Showing in Europe are two companion pieces to Fahrenheit 9/11, both by acolytes of the American controversialist.... American power seems to loom so large in the Left imagination that the rest of the world is occluded from view. One rarely hears any discussion of the real global crisis: poverty.... An interesting configuration seems to be taking place. The Left is angsting about the US - the latest edition of Courrier International, titled Made in Bush, is entirely dedicated to American ugliness - while the US is beginning to talk about the world.... If your politics are fed by popular culture, particularly by the new trend in cinematic pamphleteering, you probably have the impression that only one thing really matters: the US. But this is easy politics - too easy. It is being fed by an alliance between film culture and Left politics; unfortunately, however, it represents shallow culture and narrow politics".

"Moore isn't just antiwar and anti-Bush; he is also virulently anti-American. That's a label some right-wing pundits tend to slap on anyone critical of the war and of President Bush. In Moore's case, however, the label fits."

Australian Treasurer Peter Costello has an accurate description of Moore after Moore said that both the Australian Prime Minister and GWB were idiots: "Mike Moore is entitled to his opinion but that's the quintessential ugly American, sitting down attacking the Australian prime minister,"

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ELSEWHERE

An amusing article by a Leftist here -- accusing the GOP of an unprincipled desperation that will make it do anything to hang on to power. Classic Leftist projection! Seeing your own motivations in others! The Left themselves are so desperate to gain power that they have put up a man whose proclaimed policies are almost identical to those of the despised Bush! Given that same man's far-left congressional voting record, who is the desperate and unprincipled one?

LOL: Another self-revelatory article by a Leftist here: He goes out and interviews ordinary non-intellectual GOP voters and finds that, like most ordinary people, they don't have much grasp of political minutiae. He finds that they vote for GWB simply because they see him as a man of good character. Our Leftist does not understand that at all. Character? What is that? The best explanation he can come up with is that it is some kind of religion! The Leftist's poster-boy is the psychopathic Clinton -- a man of no character at all but who can talk the feelgood talk. So Leftists love him. The warm inner glow of feeling superior is all that matters to them.

A good quip: "Now that obesity is a disease, we don't have to work. All we have to do is call in fat!"

Theodore Dalrymple on multiculturalism in Britain "if we are to avoid violently disaffected and resentful ethnic enclaves in our midst, we need to teach immigrants that the freedom, prosperity, and tolerance that they enjoy result from a long spiritual and cultural development, not to be taken for granted, and that they have a magnificence and grandeur. In the modern multicultural climate, though, there is no quick way of doing this.

Peaceful Muslims ignored: " President Bush likes to talk about nurturing democracy within the Muslim world, but he's doing little for the pro-Western Muslims of the Western Sahara whose future rests in his hands... They have been languishing in refugee camps in western Algeria for nearly 30 years and will remain there until the United States stops playing chief enabler to a Moroccan government that invaded and seized their country when it was freed from colonial rule by Spain in the '70s."

Leftist racism OK? "Because of the racially-insensitive content of a recent cartoon, members of the African-American leadership network Project 21 are asking Universal Press Syndicate to cease the distribution of comics drawn by Ted Rall. Project 21 also is challenging several other civil rights-oriented groups to join in the demand. A July 1 comic by Rall suggests "appropriate punishments for deposed Bushists" that parodies alleged treatment of Iraqi detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison. The panel featuring Bush Administration national security advisor Condoleezza Rice has her saying "I was Bush's beard! His house nigga. His..." She is interrupted by a character wearing a shirt reading "You're not white, stupid" who says, "Now hand over your hair straightener.".. "Is it OK for Ted Rall to use such vile language because he's using it against a black conservative?" asks Project 21 member Michael King. "I'm beside myself with anger over this comic."

Hitler idealized youth too: "For liberals, obsession with the support of 'the youth' is power worship too, but it's something as well. Liberals believe that youth has a moral authority independent of the substance of its arguments. Youth politics is a variant of identity politics which imbues in young people an authority they did not purchase with work or with insight -- just as liberalism does with gender, race, infirmity, etc"

Prof. Bunyip is good at mockery. On seducing his students: "True, one must listen to all sorts of late-teenage emptiness en route to boudoir or the floor of one's office, but that's really par for the course, as a willingness to nod and agree with vigourously asserted vacuities is the prime prerequisite for building and preserving a relationship with any woman. When they're young, it's all about sympathising with observations about illegal aliens and how we must do something to ease their plight, and how -- my word, isn't that a coincidence! -- it is indeed really, really special when a young woman comes across an older gentlemen who genuinely digs unicorns, too"

Which German to choose? "German law bars any trade using Hitler portraits, swastikas or National Socialist symbols." But communist symbols are perfectly acceptable; Germany even produces Karl Marx vodka."

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

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Puzzle 1: 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.

Puzzle 2: Why do "postmodern" Leftists make the strange claim that everything ever written has to be interpreted in terms of how it serves power? Easy: Because everything THEY say is directed towards getting themselves power

Comments? Email me or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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MORE ON IMMIGRATION

Defenders of recent American immigration practices like to defend them in terms of 'multi-culturalism' and 'diversity'. But as Samuel Huntington points out, the diversity argument backfires. "...the new immigration intake is much less diverse than the immigrants in earlier periods. In brief, one half of new legal immigrants come from Latin America-- and 25 percent of them from a single national source, namely Mexico."

The Australian electorate was once somewhat welcoming of immigration, something polls show has hardened up in recent years. Just compare the 1951 results listed here to these 1996 results here. 48% wanted to reduce immigration in 1951 but this had risen to 65% in 1996. Nothing to do with the welfare price-tag now attached to each newcomer courtesy of the multiculturalism industry, of course. Migrants were once left to sink or swim so it was clear to all that they deserved their success and were not leeches on the taxpayer.

Hispanic kids NOT assimilating: "Before immigration optimists issue another rosy prognosis for America's multicultural future, they might visit Belmont High School in Los Angeles's overwhelmingly Hispanic, gang-ridden Rampart district. "Upward and onward" is not a phrase that comes to mind when speaking to the first- and second-generation immigrant teens milling around the school this January. "Most of the people I used to hang out with when I first came to the school have dropped out," observes Jackie, a vivacious illegal alien from Guatemala. "Others got kicked out or got into drugs. Five graduated, and four home girls got pregnant." Certainly, none of the older teens I met outside Belmont was on track to graduate.... Debate has recently heated up over whether Mexican immigration-unique in its scale and in other important ways-will defeat the American tradition of assimilation. The rise of underclass behavior among the progeny of Mexicans and other Central Americans must be part of that debate. There may be assimilation going on, but a significant portion of it is assimilation downward to the worst elements of American life."

Surprise, surprise! "More than nine out of 10 white Britons have no or hardly any ethnic minority friends, according to a poll that reveals the continuing gulf between races and religions more than 40 years after the UK became a multicultural society."

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ELSEWHERE

That pesky IQ again. Yet again a team of researchers have found what Terman & Oden reported over 50 years ago -- that high IQ kids grow up to be healthier adults. The latest findings are by Martin, Fitzmaurice, Kindlon & Buka in The Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health of 2004, vol. 58, pp. 674-679. The full report is here (PDF) and a summary is here. The reason for such findings would be obvious if it were not for politics: High IQ signifies good brain function but the brain is part of the body so good brain function tends to go with good body functioning generally. People who pooh-pooh the importance and centrality of IQ have got a lot of explaining away to do.

And another study tracking down the brain-basis of IQ: "General human intelligence appears to be based on the volume of gray matter tissue in certain regions of the brain, UC Irvine College of Medicine researchers have found in the most comprehensive structural brain-scan study of intelligence to date." Leftists long tried to deny that IQ scores corresponded to real differences between brains -- "all men are equal", of course. But modern neuroscience is constantly proving them wrong -- unsurprisingly. Not that facts interest them. Simplistic theories are their forte.

There is a wonderful story about Ronald Reagan here. Leftists despise ordinary people. Ronald Reagan loved them.

Childish Islamic hatred explained: "The Islamic world is a society dominated by "shame." Pride is an overwhelming value, where an obsession on dishonor means tremendous weakness. This is the underlying reason why America and Israel are hated with such passion. The incredible successes of our religious societies coupled with overwhelming military power gives "envy" a new meaning."

Sowell: "In today's climate, too many teachers think they are doing black students a favor by feeding them grievances from the past and telling them how they are oppressed in the present - and how their future is blocked by white racism. These are the kinds of friends who do more damage than enemies. Why endure all the hard work, self-discipline and self-denial that a first-rate education requires if The Man is going to stop you from getting anywhere anyway? People who have been pushing this line for years are now suddenly surprised and dismayed to discover that many black students across the country regard academic striving as "acting white."

Hope for American education? "Sol Stern argues that President George W. Bush's much-maligned education reforms represent real progress. Stern says the president's No Child Left Behind act, though flawed, is expanding education choices for poor parents and prodding school districts to rely on scientific standards instead of ideology in selecting reading programs-essential to closing the reading gap that underlies the black-white education gap. What's more, a new Bush-promoted voucher program for Washington, D.C. may point the way toward further education reform in a second Bush term.

The usual Leftist stupidity: "As the election looms, Labor's industrial relations policy will attract attention not just as a focus of business alarm but because it is a threat to the growth economy that Mark Latham champions. The recent report by Access Economics on the ALP's industrial platform, commissioned by the Business Council of Australia, finds a conflict between Labor's economic rhetoric and its policies..... Access Economics begins its report by listing Labor's main goals - maximising economic growth, a high wage and high-skilled workforce, an unemployment rate below 5 per cent and equity for all. The issue, of course, is how to achieve these goals - and Access forms the lethal conclusion that Labor's industrial platform actually undermines them. Access says the ALP platform's "emphasis on greater centralisation and regulation of labour markets contrasts with the direction of reforms over the past decade and more [and] it also contrasts with the thrust towards greater decentralisation of regulation in other Australian markets".... Its core argument is that Labor's policies will undermine the productivity gains that are the key to higher wages and sustainable lifts in living standards".

There is a Belgian site here devoted to recording Leftist street violence. The descriptions are all in Flemish but the pictures are good. Strange that there is no collection of conservative street violence! As soon as the Berlin wall came down, there was some anti-immigrant violence from unemployed East German youth but they were all the product of a good Communist education!

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

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Puzzle 1: 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.

Puzzle 2: Why do "postmodern" Leftists make the strange claim that everything ever written has to be interpreted in terms of how it serves power? Easy: Because everything THEY say is directed towards getting themselves power

Comments? Email me here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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SOME IMMIGRATION FACTS

Germans more "xenophobic". Does nothing change? "46 percent of Americans said immigration was a bad influence and 42 percent a good influence; 57 percent of Germans rated immigration bad and 39 percent good in Germany"

Australians will laugh about this one: "As of June 20, 2002, there were 414,000 New Zealanders living in Australia; the migration of New Zealanders to Australia is the highest rate of migration between industrial countries". But the socialist N.Z. government won't be laughing. How come people never vote with their feet TOWARDS that comfy socialism? (Don't tell me. I know. Socialism = poverty).

"Apprehensions of Mexicans just inside the US border totaled 1.1 million in FY03, and are on track to top 1.2 million in FY04"

About 10 percent of the 115 million persons born in Mexico have migrated to the US, and Mexicans continue to settle in the US at the rate of about 500,000 a year. Mexicans are coming from most areas of Mexico"

"On July 1, 2003, the US had 39.9 million Hispanics, up from 35.6 million in April 2000; there were 38.7 million Blacks and 237.7 million non-Hispanic whites. The number of Asian-Americans was 13.5 million, up from 12 million in 2000.... Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in June 2004 said he opposed giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. .... The "Protect Arizona Now" (PAN) Initiative appears to have qualified for the November 2, 2004 ballot. If approved by voters, it would deny state-funded services to the estimated 350,000 unauthorized foreigners in the state, require people registering to vote in Arizona to prove they are U.S. citizens and to show an ID when voting, and make it a misdemeanor punishable by a $750 fine and up to four months in jail for any state employee to fail to report illegal immigrants applying for services".

Canadian nonsense: "Almost two-thirds of the professionals arriving in Canada under the point system are engineers, but many cannot get licenses to work as engineers... Canada has an estimated 600,000 Muslims, and critics say the government does not do enough to prevent the immigration and naturalization of terrorists. Algerian-born Ahmed Ressam was arrested in December 1999 trying to enter the United States from Canada in a car packed with explosives. Ressam ignored a Canadian deportation order and managed to obtain a Canadian passport.... Some 880 foreign women received work permits to be nude dancers in Canada in 2003. Two-thirds were Romanians with one-year work permits. Exotic dancers are considered a shortage occupation by Canada's Labor Department".

Even the Dutch are learning: "The Dutch, who took over presidency of the expanded EU on July 1, 2004, called for tough new EU-wide immigration laws that would speed the expulsion of unsuccessful asylum seekers and unauthorized foreigners. The Dutch Parliament recently adopted a bill that should result in deportation of 26,000 failed asylum seekers, many of whom have been in the country for years."

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters, a Maori who opposes higher immigration levels, charged that New Zealand was being turned into an "Asian colony"

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ELSEWHERE

USA Today really sinks the boot into the mainstream media over their "hiding" the news that GWB did NOT lie or twist the truth over Iraqi attempts to buy uranium: "But now that the Wilson case has been debunked, it is interesting to note that the news media, so eager to build him up, and tear Bush down, now seem reluctant to tell the rest of the story, or at least the next chapter. Wilson, who had been a fixture on television, now seems to have disappeared. Democrats are silent. Why were the media so willing to believe Wilson when he was an obvious Democratic partisan?" They don't want to mention that it is Democrat operative Wilson who was the "liar". Safire In the NYT does however do his bit to set the record straight. And Michael Barone also takes apart the "Bush Lied" lie.

An excellent essay in the WSJ about Americans being called "cowboys": "When foreigners see us as cowboys, they are not mistaken. As a people, we still exhibit a high degree of courage, independence, aggressiveness, competence, and spirit. Diplomatic Europeans have responded to tyranny over the latest century mostly with accommodation... Cowboy Americans, on the other hand, have hungered to confront and defeat tyrants, in real life as in legend". The whole essay is an excellent evocation of the American spirit.

Sign of the times: There is a big article on Iraq in the WSJ by an Australian blogger! They had another article up by Australia's Foreign Minister a few days before. Bloggers in the same company as top government officials? The WSJ even has Prime Ministers writing for it at times.

A recent Australian government white paper seems to pour cold water on the Leftist claim that Al Qaeda terrorism is linked with the Palestine/Israel conflict. "It ...challenges the furphy of a link between al-Qaeda and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As the scholar of political Islam Olivier Roy has pointed out, the new generation of radicals did not flock to Palestine to fight, they went to Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia and more recently to New York and Madrid. Peace between Israel and the Palestinians may starve the fire of some fuel, but it won't put it out."

France fears being left with Muslim dregs: "France has denounced a call by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to French Jews to emigrate to Israel because of the level of anti-Semitism in the country. "We immediately made contact with the Israeli authorities to ask them to explain these unacceptable comments," a foreign office statement said. Earlier, Sharon told a meeting of an American Jewish association in Jerusalem: "Altogether I have to advocate to our brothers in France: move to Israel as early as possible. That's what I say to Jews all around the world, but there (France) I think it's a must. They have to move immediately.""

Pathetic: "It's probaby not the most pressing issue of the day, but it's typical nanny state activism. A consortium of fire safety groups wants a federal ban on consumer fireworks."

I have revised slightly the photos on my home page. So there are now two photos of me in ethnic dress! See here or here

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

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Puzzle 1: 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.

Puzzle 2: Why do "postmodern" Leftists make the strange claim that everything ever written has to be interpreted in terms of how it serves power? Easy: Because everything THEY say is directed towards getting themselves power

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KEILLOR: A SELF-RIGHTEOUS FOOL

This review of a book by the righteous Garrison Keillor is amusing. After hearing a torrent of mindless abuse directed at conservatives in the usual Leftist style, we learn that in his youth Keillor "joined the campus radio station, unwittingly broadcasting the news for six months to nobody because the transmitter had burned out". Definitely a man of good judgment and realism, wouldn't you say? Sounds like typical Leftist lack of reality-checking to me. Like all Leftists, Keillor asserts that anyone who does not share his simplistic approach to welfare therefore opposes all welfare -- completely ignoring the fact that the three greatest welfare innovators in history -- Disraeli, Bismarck and TR -- were all conservatives! See here. Did you ever wonder why the U.S. Social Security Administration has a picture of this Prussian militarist up on their site? It's not only because of his great hat.

From Keillor, you would never guess that twenty-seven out of thirty-three Republican senators supported the famous 1964 civil rights bill or that twenty-one Democrat senators voted against it. And the Garrison that Garrison Keillor was named after was presumably the great anti-slavery activist, William Lloyd Garrison, who "remained an active Republican until his death in 1879". Leftists are good at propaganda but only because they ignore the facts. (Link to the review via What If).

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ELSEWHERE

About the occupation of conquered Germany just after World War 2: "John Dos Passos, a communist, wrote in Life magazine in January 1946, "Americans Are Losing the Victory.. Never has American prestige in Europe been lower," a phrase oft repeated by former Vice President Al Gore when speaking about Iraq."

German TV loved Michael Moore and the Abu Ghraib abuses but not a single station has agreed to broadcast a more balanced account of U.S. troops in Iraq. Childish envy of America's dynamism and power is what they display.

Another group of "social" Christians shows what they are: "By an overwhelming vote of its general assembly, the Presbyterian Church USA, boasting 3 million members, is siding with Palestinian Arabs and against Israel, choosing to divest from the Jewish state as it did only with apartheid South Africa.

Iran and El Qaeda : "A senior U.S. official told TIME that the Commission has uncovered evidence suggesting that between eight and ten of the 14 "muscle" hijackers-that is, those involved in gaining control of the four 9/11 aircraft and subduing the crew and passengers-passed through Iran in the period from October 2000 to February 2001. Sources also tell TIME that Commission investigators found that Iran had a history of allowing al-Qaeda members to enter and exit Iran across the Afghan border". See also here.

Sometimes in war you need to kill people to win: "Faced with implacable enemies who would kill every man, woman, and child in our country and call the killing good (the ultimate war of attrition), we must be willing to use that power wisely, but remorselessly. We are, militarily and nationally, in a transition phase. Even after 9/11, we do not fully appreciate the cruelty and determination of our enemies. We will learn our lesson, painfully, because the terrorists will not quit. The only solution is to kill them and keep on killing them: a war of attrition. But a war of attrition fought on our terms, not theirs".

Rap music: "For some people this music is a religion.... It's a body language, it's a way of speaking. It's a creed. It's literally a religion." It's a religion that McWhorter finds deeply repellent. In his interpretation, rap preaches "recreational outrage" to the black community, encouraging "oppositionalism" for the sake of it. McWhorter's main gripe is with gangsta rap, which originated in Los Angeles in the mid-1980s and represented, for a time at least, the music's most popular genre.... "The point is the thug attitude is what anchors rap and what sells most," he says. "No matter how much consciousness rap brings, no matter how many cuts there are that are constructive, what really drives it is that thug pose.

One bishop who does not waffle: "Denver's Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput was interviewed on Colorado Public Radio about his position in the debate over giving communion for Catholic public officials who support abortion. He wrote a column, one of a continuing series, in which he said that Catholics' who support abortion are not really Catholics, but "a very different kind of creature."" (Via Mark Shea)

"Homophobia"? "The idea that opposition to homosexual activity and its public sanction is equivalent to or leads to hatred of individual homosexuals is a "big lie" created to demonize, intimidate, and silence opponents of the "gay rights" agenda. And the data confirms the "big lie." Every crime of violence against another human being is reprehensible, but according to the latest FBI Hate Crimes statistics, it is estimated that less than 0.0001 of homosexuals were victims of violent assaults; not exactly an epidemic of homophobic rage spreading across America"

Wayne Lusvardi has a rather Straussian account of why the USA invaded Iraq here. I myself think it was simpler than that. Saddam was the most dangerous and defiant anti-American in the Middle East so was the logical next target after Afghanistan. The invasion was a lesson that America WILL strike back when attacked.

Marc Miyake and David Boxenhorn are having an amusing debate about "existence". They seem to think that believing in existence is an act of faith! I would like to know what a non-faith belief was like in that case!

Australian illustrator Kilmeny Niland, one of the two artistic daughters of famous Australian author D'Arcy Niland has just put up a most impressive gallery of her art. How do I know that? Australian philosopher Rafe Champion tells me so. I believe he has a personal interest in the matter.

Wicked Thoughts is recommending an essay by Tom Wolfe and has a link to a hilarious story about the Nigerian scammers.

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

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Puzzle 1: 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.

Puzzle 2: Why do "postmodern" Leftists make the strange claim that everything ever written has to be interpreted in terms of how it serves power? Easy: Because everything THEY say is directed towards getting themselves power

Comments? Email me or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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THE INSANITY OF DRUG PROHIBITION

"Drug prohibition is an incredibly important policy in the United States, and it affects millions of lives every day. We lock up hundreds of thousands of people. We arrest approximately one-and-a-half million a year on drug-related charges. We spend tens of billions of dollars, and forego billions of dollars in tax revenue that could be collected if drugs were legal instead of being prohibited....

a very simple observation, which may seem trivial-prohibition doesn't eliminate the supply or demand for drugs. It seems really obvious, but it's important to emphasize, because policy makers, advocates of prohibition, sometimes act as though, gee, if we prohibit drugs, there won't be drugs. The problem will go away. That's patently untrue....

for the past 20 to 25 years in the United States, the attempts to enforce drug prohibition have escalated enormously. We're arresting way more people. We're incarcerating four or five times more people than we were 25 years ago. We're spending four times as much money for the Drug Czar's office and things like that. Yet drug prices have fallen by a factor of about 80 percent. If prohibition is an effective policy, if it's useful for raising the cost of supplying drugs, that's exactly the opposite of what one would expect to see. In fact, the decline in drug prices has been dramatic...

The prohibition itself creates violence, because the participants in a black market cannot resolve their disputes using lawyers, and arbitration systems, and judges. They have to resort to guns, or knives, and other forms of violence, because they don't have access to the non-violent legal dispute resolution system... If prohibition raises drug prices, then there is more incentive for people who use drugs, low-income persons who use drugs, to commit theft, robbery other income generating crime, to be able to afford their drug habits. A second reason prohibition might generate crime more generally, is that prohibition diverts the police from trying to deter standard crimes such as murder, robbery, rape, arson, etc., because they're off-the police are busy, preoccupied, trying to deter a drug crime". More here.

And as it says here: "We just passed the halfway point of 2004 and it is time for an update on the "war on drugs." Sad to say, it is still going strong. According to the website www.drugsense.org, we have spent more than $20 billion so far this year on this "war," putting us on a pace to surpass last's year's expenditure of $39 billion."

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ELSEWHERE

Wow! Clinton has just cut the legs off Kerry: "Bill Clinton says that no government could have failed to act against Iraq after the 11 September 2001 attacks in view of intelligence provided". Lots of people have been saying that the Clintons don't want Kerry to win. Dick McDonald has some stuff up to that effect.

But Kerry has quickly jumped on the bandwagon: "Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry said Friday he would be willing to launch a pre-emptive strike against terrorists if he had adequate intelligence of a threat. Kerry offered some support for one of the most controversial aspects of President Bush's national security policy" (Though how he jumped on a bandwagon without legs is a mystery!)

Tim Berners-Lee has just been knighted by the Queen for inventing the Worldwide Web. Al Gore must be jealous.

Blogger.com's recent changes have traps for the unwary. There are now two ways of inputting text. If you choose "Compose", you get more things that you can do but you lose all your breaks between paragraphs! The "Edit html" option is the one you need if you don't want to re-do all your paragraphing manually.

An interesting article on 19th century Russian "Liberals". They were remarkably like American "liberals" today. And 19th century Russian "liberals" ended up producing the Russian revolution: "We might wonder, then, if the liberal worldview would survive a successful ascent to political power. Or would most of it be shed along the way in favor of, say, opportunistic morality and lack of concern for human suffering? We do know that when the originally liberal and humanitarian Russian intelligentsia finally took power in 1917, the results were catastrophic in those precise directions."

Interesting book by a Russian writer: He says that Russians feel a need for a strong father figure as their ruler. It would explain the rather amazing popularity of President Putin -- particularly when you contrast it with the chaos that preceded him.

Even the UN disses Arafat : "After more than 20 years of championing the Palestinian cause, the U.N.'s Middle East peace envoy lashed out at Yasser Arafat and received a stinging rebuke. Expressing frustration as he winds up his Mideast mission, Terje Roed-Larsen blamed Arafat for lack of progress toward vital reforms and peace moves backed by the world body. He was speaking Tuesday before the U.N. Security Council.

The affirmative action myth: "The Supreme Court decided one year ago that racial preferences at public universities are legal, as long as they aren't too mechanically applied. But this has proved cold comfort to affirmative action supporters besieged by evidence that preferences can't deliver the results desired. ... Just what is affirmative action supposed to do? Educators trumpet the virtues of 'diverse' campuses, but their enthusiasm dates suspiciously to a 1972 court decision suggesting diversity as a legal justification for preferences. Ordinary Americans are more practical. Those sympathetic to affirmative action assume that it offers concrete benefits to disadvantaged students. They hope that preferences will narrow our nation's painful racial divide along such metrics as income, literacy, home ownership and health. But affirmative action in this sense is a myth."

"UK home secretary David Blunkett is having another go at banning the incitement of religious hatred.... Laws against religious hatred will grossly infringe on our right to free speech and our ability to criticise religions however we please.... the whole point about free speech is that it is free - and that it's not up to Blunkett or anybody else to decide whether your opinion is reasonable or not. Unless we are able to be wrong, rude and offensive, about Allah, Jesus or even the home secretary, then the right to free speech exists only in theory rather than in practice"

There is a pretty insightful article in Quadrant -- Australia's best-know conservative publication (apparently once financed by the CIA!) about the homosexual marriage issue. I rather liked this report of a typically pungent comment from Australia's most recent Leftist Prime-minister: "Very many heterosexual people will be inclined to remark, as former Prime Minister Keating is reputed to have done in cabinet, "I don't care what you say - two blokes and a cocker spaniel don't make a family.""

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

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Puzzle 1: 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.

Puzzle 2: Why do "postmodern" Leftists make the strange claim that everything ever written has to be interpreted in terms of how it serves power? Easy: Because everything THEY say is directed towards getting themselves power

Comments? Email me or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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