ELSEWHERE

Whoopee! The dreadful Sandra Day O'Connor is going from SCOTUS. Now the hijinks start. I predict Estrada will be GWB's nominee to replace her. GWB has already renominated "rejects" for the circuit courts.

Do you know what the ultimate symbol of Republican corruption is? Have a guess: Money? Power? Sex? Nope. You've got it all wrong. It's golf! Yes. Golf. Don't believe me? It's all explained here. Seems to me a pretty big compliment, actually. If a love of golf is all the Left can dredge up to criticize, then the GOP are doing very well indeed. I wonder what the ultimate symbol of Leftist corruption is? Multi-million dollar fortunes, perhaps? Think John Kerry, John Edwards, George Soros, Ted Kennedy, Ted Turner, etc etc.

There is a big comment thread here about that sad mini-Chomsky, Brian Leiter. Leiter admits that his blog is just a Leftist rant that makes no attempt at rational persuasion on political matters. I am actually quite amused by Leiter's far-Left dogmatism. It means he has despaired of persuading anybody. All he can do is preach to the choir. It is a confession of defeat. And it is no good saying that nobody can be persuaded. There are heaps of libertarians in the blogosphere who could (and do) go either way on Left/Right issues. But I am sure that Leiter is getting his rocks off over just the fact that people are discussing him -- no matter how derisive the comments might be (and generally are). [Links from Keith Burgess-Jackson]

A claim of good intentions can excuse anything: "Now will someone explain the moral difference between enthusiasm for Fidel Castro and enthusiasm for Augusto Pinochet? Both are appalling Latin American dictators. Both have bad human rights records. Both have had their misdeeds winked at, one way or another, by Uncle Sam. Tell me, O ye coolers and groovers, why is it OK to wear a badge with Fidel on it, but very much not OK to wear a badge showing Pinochet? How is it possible that in Lithuania there is now a Stalin theme park, complete with 13 giant effigies of Lenin (remember: he killed five million)? Why is it somehow post-modern and ironic and slick to commemorate these thugs, while any theme park in honour of the Nazis would be rightly denounced as mad and in the height of bad taste? Why is it so obvious to everyone that [Soviet spy Melita Norwood] should be left to a quiet old age in Bexleyheath - with not even a whiff of a prosecution - when we continue to chivvy out every last collaborator with the Nazis, now matter how decrepit, and herd them into the courts? Lefties are somehow assumed to be doing things for idealistic reasons, and for the collective good, and their high motives excuse their appalling solutions. That is why the servants of communist tyranny get sympathetic obits, and modern British girls wear CCCP T-shirts, and that is why a Labour Government can enact a series of authoritarian measures that a Conservative government could not contemplate. I cannot explain this injustice: I merely point it out".

The Irish triumph: "Here's something you probably didn't know: Ireland today is the richest country in the European Union after Luxembourg. Yes, the country that for hundreds of years was best known for emigration, tragic poets, famines, civil wars and leprechauns today has a per capita GDP higher than that of Germany, France and Britain. How Ireland went from the sick man of Europe to the rich man in less than a generation is an amazing story.... In a quite unusual development, the government, the main unions, farmers and industrialists came together and agreed on a program of fiscal austerity, slashing corporate taxes to 12.5 per cent, far below the rest of Europe, moderating wages and prices and courting foreign investment. In 1996 Ireland made college education basically free, creating an even more educated workforce. The results have been phenomenal. Today, nine out of 10 of the world's top pharmaceutical companies have operations in the country, as do 16 of the top 20 medical device companies and seven out of the top 10 software designers. And overall tax receipts are way up. In 1990 Ireland's workforce was 1.1 million. This year it will hit 2 million, with no unemployment and 200,000 foreign workers (including 50,000 Chinese)."

Chris Brand has just done a new post on causes of wealth and poverty. See here.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 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.

Leftist ideologues 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 and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist"

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