ELSEWHERE

I do occasionally get derisive emails from unwary Leftists who don't expect the sort of effective response that they get from me. One of the most amusing such Leftists lately has been Steve Getto (gettos@fdn.uq.edu.au) -- apparently an academic or student from my Alma Mater (the University of Queensland) in my home town of Brisbane. He initially emailed me to express great scorn for my demonstration that Nazism was Leftist. I gave him more to think about than he expected, however, and he has been in continual backdown mode since. His most recent email to me was most amusing. He was trying to defuse the trenchant criticisms of the Left by George Orwell and this is what he wrote: "Oh hehe ... so does this mean you are sincerely interested in a fairer and more equitable society? Gimme a break. Orwell *was* deeply incensed at the behaviour of elements of the Left, yes. And some of your criticisms of socialists and socialism are valid. But Orwell never gave up on the idea of the basic principles of socialism. Some socialists have no right to quote Orwell, agreed. But right wing champions of capitalism like you have even less. How about replacing the Orwell references to a more suitable one like Andrew Bolt. Trying to glorify your crap with literary citations is absurd and offensive to people's intellect. Ugh. Intellectual fascism. Give me Nazism any day. At least they had the guts to admit they were scumbags. Yours to the strains of the Internationale (by way of waving a red rag to the bull)". [Talk about being condemned out of your own mouth! He denies that Nazism was Leftist and then, as a Leftist, expresses a liking for it! What a laugh.] Update: In a subsequent email Getto described himself as being of a "general revolutionary Marxist political persuasion". How unsurprising!

There is a good post here on how the moral degeneracy of the French (and the French Left in particular) has got them into their present pickle.

There is a huge debunking here of this attention-seeker: "For more than a year, former Marine Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey has been telling anybody who will listen about the atrocities that he and other Marines committed in Iraq. In scores of newspaper, magazine and broadcast stories, at a Canadian immigration hearing and in numerous speeches across the country, Massey has told how he and other Marines recklessly, sometimes intentionally, killed dozens of innocent Iraqi civilians... Massey was discharged in December 2003, shortly after returning from Iraq due to depression and post-traumatic stress syndrome." The media of course lapped it all up without doing any checks on the truth of his stories at all

Socialist envy thriving in Britain: "Having a nice view or living next door to a golf course are going to cost householders more in council tax under Labour plans. Taxpayers are set to be charged hundreds of pounds extra a year if they are in a conservation area, next to an open space, have a swimming pool or tennis court or enjoy full or partial views of the sea, hills, mountains, lakes or rivers. Extra charges are also expected to be levied on homes with more bedrooms than average, conservatories, large patios or gardens, roof terraces or balconies. Homes in "gated communities" will also face higher bills. Official documents show that ministers are going to extraordinary lengths to build a detailed database of properties across England, with the intention of placing them in a higher council tax band.... A whole range of details - from "equestrian facilities" to patio size - will be tabulated. No fewer than 10 "value-significant codes" detail a range of possible views that a property can offer".

Socialist stupidity in Scotland: "Last month must have seen an especially potent full moon, because several Scottish economic bigwigs started behaving distinctly out of character. First, Sir John Ward, the chairman of Scottish Enterprise, declared that, according to his agency's own calculations, the post-devolution public sector now accounted for no less than 55 per cent of the Scottish economy. Ward was rightly scathing of this development. In booming Ireland, the figure is around 34 per cent. He went further and claimed that in certain areas of Scotland three-quarters of the local economy is dominated by public spending."

Anti-Americanism is now the Left's only real ideology: "After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disappearance of the Soviet Union, the Left everywhere stopped offering options for governance or serious theories about development and equity and sought refuge in protest. The enemies of globalization explain their ideas by stoning McDonald's to smithereens. Anticapitalists hurl pies at the president of the International Monetary Fund. Anti-Americanism has turned into ideology. The communists have exchanged Das Kapital for T-shirts with the image of Che Guevara and choruses of brief (and badly rhymed) slogans. The Left today is nothing but circus and street violence. But that strategy, along with the corruption and follies of many governments, has burrowed deeply, especially in Latin America, where a growing number of citizens despise democracy as a method to organize coexistence and reject the market economy as a way to create and assign wealth".

Article III, Section 3, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution states: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort". Officer's Club thinks some of the pro-Jihadi American Left have gone so far as to be guilty of treason by that definition.

China Hand has a new post up about how personal helpfulness overcomes bureacracy in Chinese banking.

Ovi Magazine is out again with its usual broad coverage of interesting topics.

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

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

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" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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