THE REGULATORS ARE MORE DANGEROUS THAN THE REGULATED

This article from "Spiked" (which is well worth reading in full) argues that the debate about "designer babies" is driven largely by a resentment of the power over their lives and futures that modern technology gives to ordinary people: "Running through the debates about designer babies, from disability to sex selection to 'designing' a baby to treat a sick sibling, is a deep mistrust of individuals". The elites want all powers of decision in THEIR hands. They do not want ordinary people empowered. They are sure that they can do better for children than the parents of the child can. This is classic Leftist rubbish, of course: "Big brother" knows best. There are of course bad and uncaring parents but there are proportionately far more bad and uncaring bureaucrats. Let people make their own reproductive decisions. It is not a proper sphere for government and the courts. The elitists will be wanting to dictate whom we can have sex with and whom we can marry next.

Being myself a parent of an IVF child of whom I am immensely proud (pic here), I would like to punch some of these "ethicists" in the mouth. What right do these tinpot Hitlers have to tell other people what children they can have? There can be few children more wanted than an IVF child so the chances of such a child being mistreated in some way by its parents are vanishingly small. Compare that to how children are often treated whilst under "official" care in orphanages and the like.

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BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU

Bureaucrats in Melbourne (Australia) accused a woman of illegally sub-letting her apartment. They cancelled her rent rebate, upped her weekly rent by $110 and demanded bank statements and income receipts for her live-in companion, Barnaby, the teddy bear. Collingwood public housing authorities assumed she was living with someone because she mentioned the teddy bear on her answering machine. They could not be convinced otherwise until a consumer advocacy group intervened on her behalf.

Herald Sun (Australia) via news.com.au 8-Apr-03. Via Jerry Lerman.

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DO AMERICANS WORK HARDER THAN BRITS?

I never thought I would agree with a Pop star about anything but from my experience "Madonna" is entirely fair and accurate in these remarks:

The singer has declared that Britons don't work as hard as Americans.
"They're not willing to work - you know, stay in the office for 12 hours a day," Madonna said in remarks unlikely to impress many hard-pressed employees. "I find that people in Europe are much more interested in the quality of life. They're not so work-orientated”. "It's different. They know how to enjoy life better. But Americans know how to get things done quicker," she said.

Madonna, 44, who enraged British builders two years ago by accusing them of laziness - "the working week starts at noon on Monday and ends at noon on Friday" - added that living in England had made her appreciate the US more. "It was really important for me to get outside of America, to live in England and appreciate the fabulous things about America, like customer services and stuff."

But I think most Australians find the Poms to be resentful that they have to work. It seems probable that for centuries it was mostly the slackers who stayed at home in England while the more energetic Englishmen emigrated to where greater opportunities were to be found. Australians and Americans are the descendants of the emigrants. {Only about 3% of Australians have convict ancestry (though I am one of them) -- the rest are the descendants of free emigrants.}

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THE LOOTED IRAQI MUSEUM

We have an amazing sequel to the tale of woe about the Iraq national museum looted by the liberated Iraqis. I am sure that I am one of many who felt heartsick at the news of the losses but look what we find now:

Donny George, the director-general of restoration at the Iraqi Antiquities Department, Wednesday said his staff had preserved the museum's most important treasures, including the kings' graves of Ur and the Assyrian bulls. These objects were hidden in vaults that haven't been violated by looters. "Most of the things were removed. We knew a war was coming

Donny George? Not Abu Mohammed Hamas or some such name? Sounds like an American or a Brit to me. So our people DID protect the Iraqis from themselves after all! And why didn't US forces stop such looting as did take place? Because there were people in the museum who were firing on the US forces!

There is also an article here that says that in fact Saddam and his son Uday were the chief looters.

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ELSEWHERE

Here is a good cartoon representation of what has just happened to Jacques Chirac.

Michael Darby presents a program for practical reform in Africa.

The Wicked one has a quite amazing post on the bumbling bureaucracy of socialized medicine.

Chris Brand points out that Prof. Pinker gets the wobbles when he uses his knowledge of genetics to address issues concened with race.

In my academic posting of April 17th here, I point out that “conservative” -- with its meaning of “opposed to change” -- is no longer an appropriate name for the political Right as there are in fact heaps of things about modern society that Rightists would like to change. I urge that academics at least should just call Rightists Rightists and stop calling them conservatives.

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FRENCH DECADENCE

There is an interesting book review here about the fall of France to the Germans in 1941. The combined British and French forces were in fact larger than the German forces so the defeat of the French, like the defeat of the Iraquis, happened so quickly mainly because the French did not want to fight. It argues that the French emphasis on culture, philosophy and the soft life made them unwilling soldiers and also made them arrogant towards everyone non-French. Not much has changed.

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FRENCH RACISM

A recovering Francophile tells us that antisemitism and racism generally is widespread in France with antisemitism being pervasive among the French Left:

There is little anti-Semitism among French conservatives today. They certainly do not make alliances with, or excuses for, people who cite the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as evidence of anything. Alas, this cannot be said for the old and young left that once prided itself on its principled animus to racisms of all sorts. La Nouvelle Judeophobie, written by Director of Research at the Centre Nationale de Recherche Scientifique Pierre-Andre Taguieff and published in 2001 by Fayard, painstakingly documents how the core expressions of the self-described "anti-racist" left-- its intellectuals, academics, journalists, bien-pensants, and artists-- are downright anti-Semitic.... And their views are echoed by the polled public opinion of ordinary Frenchmen.

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NO “ROADMAP” TO PEACE POSSIBLE

In this review of Palestinian history, the author points out that all the evidence shows that the vast majority of Palestinians want nothing less than the total destruction of Israel and that they have held Jews in contempt for generations. So there is just no basis for our Western ideas of compromise there. I think the present Israeli policy of simply walling off the Palestinians from the Jewish areas is in fact the only viable solution. Excerpt:

I have come away from my examination of the history of the conflict with a sense of the instinctive rejectionism that runs like a dark thread through Palestinian history- a rejection, to the point of absurdity, of the history of the Jewish link to the land of Israel; a rejection of the legitimacy of Jewish claims to Palestine; a rejection of the right of the Jewish state to exist. And, worse, this rejectionism has over the decades been leavened by a healthy dose of anti-Semitism, a perception of the Jew as God's and humanity's unchosen

(This item crosposted on Dissecting Leftism and Israpundit.)

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POLITICAL CORRECTNESS IN THE AUSTRALIAN ARMY

“An SAS soldier has been charged with kicking a corpse and will be tried by a Defence Force magistrate.” How insane and trivial-minded can you get? How are soldiers supposed to express their feelings towards somebody who has just tried to ambush them? This is yet another bout of crazy political correctness -- one that the Army could certainly do without.

(This item crossposted on Dissecting Leftism and PC Watch)

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ELSEWHERE

One-time Leftist, William Shawcross has written a great article pointing out how hollow the usual criticisms of GWB are. A rather inspiational article, in fact, that expresses considerable admiration for GWB’s vision.

Good comment via The Federalist: “UN Secretary-General Annan said he thinks the arms inspectors should resume looking for weapons in Iraq. Forget looking for arms in Iraq -- how about looking for backbones in the UN?”

What a joke! “U.N. arms inspectors are ready to get back into Iraq to finish the job of looking for any chemical, biological or nuclear weapons but don't want to work under a new U.S.-led disarmament effort”

Snoofmadrune, who appears to be a bit of a linguist, has an amazing report from France. Apparently French “peace” marchers are claiming that THEY got rid of Saddam! You can’t beat French logic.

Michael Darby has a post about the destructive arrogance of Greenie bureaucrats in Sydney.

Chris Brand has just got a letter into The Times of London defending race realism.

The Wicked one has a bit of a laugh about a recent “time traveller” report.

In my academic posting of April 16th here, I try to point out to my fellow psychologists that conservatism in the sense of rejection of all change is essentially irrelevant to the present-day Right-Left divide and that studies of Rightism which define it as opposition to change are therefore irrelevant to current politics

Carnival of the Vanities is up again. If variety is the life of spice it is very spicy.

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THE IRAQ INVASION AS A WARNING

From the latest newsletter from David Horowitz:

The threat of pre-emptive war is a form of protection. It tells Iran and Syria -- the sponsors of Hizbollah and Hamas and al-Qaeda terrorists who have killed American citizens -- that the consequences of their covert aggressions can be deadly, to them. Syria and Iran have already done no less than the Taliban regime in Afghanistan when we attacked it. Should the United States tie its hands and force its citizens to wait for another World Center scale attack before allowing them a response?

Critics of the war in Iraq, claimed that the Administration should have allowed Saddam Hussein more time to continue his evasion of the UN resolutions and focused on the nuclear threat from North Korea instead. What credibility would American demands to North Korea have had, however, if we had continued to appease Saddam and ignore his defiance of UN resolutions? Far from being a distraction, the pre-emptive war against Saddam Hussein has enhanced the ability of the United States to deter North Korea from its sinister plans.

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DUBIOUS EU ENLARGEMENT

5000 pages of red-tape for the newcomers and little gain in economic clout

EIGHT former members of the Soviet bloc and two Mediterranean islands have signed treaties to join the European Union next year and reunite the continent a decade and a half after the fall of the Berlin Wall... The leaders of the EU's 25 current and soon-to-be member states met in the shadow of the Acropolis in Athens, the birthplace of democracy, to sign the 5000-page accession treaty... The EU is now set to expand to 450 million people, surpassing North America as the world's biggest economic zone.
But the new members will bring comparatively little to the table – their collective gross domestic product is the same as the Netherlands'

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HOW TWISTED CAN YOU GET?

From the WSJ:

But the majority of the American left, and especially its leading media voices, remain flummoxed if not embarrassed by America's Iraq victory. These include most Democrats in Congress, the editors (though not all reporters) of the New York Times and its acolytes at CNN and the major networks, and of course most academic experts. They can barely bring themselves to celebrate the downfall of a tyrant

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ELSEWHERE

Today’s silliest article: “USA Today” argues that Islamic terrorists have a presence in Africa and that the USA should therefore solve the problems of Africa. I think it would take the second coming of Christ to solve the problems of Africa. The British spent decades building up modern societies and economies in their African colonies and left thriving countries behind them when they pulled out. It has been all downhill in Africa since. The idea that the USA could suddenly reverse that is typical knee-jerk liberal nonsense.

Theodore Dalrymple explains why no African country will ever be like a Western one and why Westernizing tendencies make things worse rather than better for Africans.

Today’s silliest headline: HOW WE LOST THE IRAQ WAR. It is of course the work of a far Leftist -- Ted Rall. He claims that the Iraqis did NOT welcome US troops and that what we saw on TV was all a put-up job. What a sad dreamer!

Bill Clinton has just blasted current US foreign policy. Asked what he would do instead he said that that he would scrap the tax cut! Good liberal logic there!

Thousands of illegal immigrants find their way into American hospitals every year for care they can neither get at home nor pay for in the United States. The good old generous American taxpayer!

Several people have made the point that Saeed al-Sahaf, Saddam’s delusional TV spokesman, would be perfect for a slot pontificating on public radio. His views would be respected among those who argue that there are “many realities”.

In her post of 11th, Kimberly Swygert points out that 72% of African American students in Los Angeles cannot read by the 10th grade level! So who said that the very low average score gained by blacks on IQ tests is meaningless or misleading?

Fun! Drinking bottled water has been linked to tooth decay.

Bulk, unsolicited email, or spam, will be outlawed in Australia, possibly by the end of this year, the Minister for Communications, Senator Richard Alston, said on Wednesday. Good if it has any effect.

Michael Darby has more bad news about Zimbabwe plus some optimism about Iraq

Chris Brand defends a Scotsman who was accused of racism for wanting to preserve traditional Gaelic culture.

The Wicked one thinks that “Pro-life” is a misnomer sometimes.

In my academic posting of April 15th here, I show that there is a slight tendency only for less educated people to be conservative.

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MONARCHY FOR IRAQ?

REALLY conservative readers may be interested to note that a leading member of the opposition Iraqi National Congress is also the head of the Iraqi Constitutional Monarchy Movement. He is Sharif Ali Bin Al-Hussein, an urbane, sophisticated and widely respected man, and a former investment banker. In fact, from its formation under the British mandate after the First World War, until the bloody coup in 1958 when most of the Royal Family were murdered, Iraq was a constitutional monarchy. More here

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WHY REDS ARE PREFERRED TO NAZIS

It really is pretty strange how being a Communist is usually seen as a minor peccadillo these days whereas being a Nazi is totally execrated. I would have thought that there was not much to choose between the two. A reader sent the following explanation to me:

You know how Hannah Arendt claims, in Antisemitism, that part of the reason why antiSemites hate Jews is that they fear that Jews might really be the "Chosen people"? Well, by the same line of reasoning, one could argue that the reason Americans hate the Nazis is this: Americans fear that the Germans might really be the Superior Race. That is probably why the U.S. Media focuses so much more on the crimes of Nazi Germany than those of Soviet Russia and Red China, despite the fact that Soviet Russia and Red China were each chock full of Concentration Camps too, and were at least as vicious and savage about how they had captured, tortured, and killed their victims.

I wonder if there is a grain of truth in that? I simply do not know. The idea that Northern Europeans are innately superior in any way is SO politically incorrect these days that one wonders whether a fear that the idea might have some truth in it might be part of the reason why it is rejected so furiously. I think the main reason for the difference, however, is that Communists are better hypocrites. They pretend to be compassionate where the Nazis did not so people give Communists the benefit of the doubt. No-one who knows history would do so, however.

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ELSEWHERE

The UCLA Faculty Senate has voted 180-7 to condemn the war, making it the first university to do so since Iraq's liberation. The value of a university education is becoming increasingly doubtful. I think all the people with real brains must have gone into business by now.

Great! The United States has invited its coalition partners to talks on rebuilding Iraq — but it has left out countries that opposed the war, including Germany, France and Russia.

Funny that! One day after the White House cancelled a trip by President George Bush to Canada due to what it said was lack of time, it announced the president would host the Prime Minister of Australia at his ranch in Texas

What a joke! THE Italian parliament has approved sending a contingent of paramilitary police to Iraq to help restore law and order. Italians are great people but nobody can be good at everything.

Speaking of the still-marching “peace” demonstrators, China hand asks: Now that order is returning to Baghdad one wonders what will the foam-flecked ones find to remonstrate against then? “Bring back Saddam”, maybe? China Hand also thinks that the recent “progress” with North Korea may be China’s doing.

An American Leftist’s comment on the recent American victory in Iraq: "It's demoralizing, there's no question about that,"

A committed Maoist gives his view of the way the mainstream Left opposed the Iraq war:
“It is too late for the so-called Left in Australia to stand anywhere but condemned for its failure to support the successful war to liberate Iraq. It stood on the side of reaction, and the history books must place its leaders alongside the British pacifists of the '30s who, as George Orwell pointed out, gave comfort and objective support to Hitler. The pseudo-Left proved not just that it can be wrong but that in the name of anti-Americanism it can support fascism.” Hard to argue with that.

The Times of London comments: “Tony Blair staggered the last stretch of his war marathon yesterday, a man now running on pure willpower, gaunt, gritted, visibly elated, and profoundly, knee-saggingly knackered“. The world certainly owes the Prime Minister a great debt of gratitude for the immense effort he put into this. His place in history as a truly sincere and committed humanitarian is now secure.

And a good comment from the Times on the leader of the British Liberals: With bright pink face and orange hair over a sludgy green tie, the leader of Liberal Democrats looked like a sunset over a sewage farm.

A very naughty question from Silflay Hraka: “If the Canadian healthcare system is so much better than that of the United States, why are there no SARS deaths here and 13 there?”

Chris Brand has just had a new essay on IQ published in an academic journal.

Michael Darby has a story from a peacenik who woke up to what was happrening in Iraq before the war.

In my academic posting of April 14th here, I point out how a comparison between two Australian States shows that high levels of education in the population can go with a SLOWER rate of economic development. Having lots of people in the population with university education can be bad for prosperity. It is not hard to think of reasons why.

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DEMOCRACY, MONARCHY AND WAR

The great hopes that are presently riding on a transition to democracy in Iraq remind me of a claim still popular in some circles: That democracies never make war on one another. It would be nice if that were true but those who know their ancient history point to the attack of the Athenian democracy on Syracuse as a counter example and those who know their modern history point to the American civil war as a counter-example. The Confederacy was roughly as democratic as the Union.

Those who favour the “peaceful democracy” theory manage to hem and haw their way out of the examples concerned by adding limitations to their theory, however, so let me point out another VERY large exception: World War I. Germany in 1914 was a democracy! And a rather enlightened one at that which took better care of its people than almost any other country at that time did. Wartime propaganda which portrayed the war as the doing of “Kaiser Bill” still lives on but the legal powers of the German monarch were in fact not dissimilar to those of the British monarch. This entry about the Kaiser from the Encyclopedia Britannica is a useful starting point for understanding what actually went on:

William often bombastically claimed to be the man who took the decisions. It is true that the German constitution of 1871 put two important powers in his hands. First, he was responsible for appointing and dismissing the chancellor, the head of the civil government. Admittedly, the chancellor could only govern if he could get a majority in the Reichstag, but this limitation on the emperor's freedom of choice was more apparent than real, because most members of the Reichstag felt it their loyal duty to support whomever the Kaiser appointed. Secondly, the German Army and Navy were not responsible to the civil government, so that the Kaiser was the only person in Germany who was in a position to see that the policy followed by the soldiers and sailors was in line with that pursued by the civil servants and diplomats. Thus, British journalists and publicists had some justification when during and immediately after the war they portrayed the Kaiser as Supreme War Lord, and therefore the man who, more than anyone else, decided to make war.

As time passes, however, historians are increasingly coming to see William as an accomplice rather than an instigator. In the years after 1890 the German upper and middle classes would have wanted a larger say in the world's councils no matter who had been on the throne, and this "urge to world power" was almost bound to bring them into collision with some of the existing great powers. The chief real criticism to be made of the Kaiser is that, instead of seeing this danger and using his influence to restrain German appetites, he shared those appetites and indeed increased them, particularly by his determination to give Germany a navy of which it could be proud. He was a quick-witted, well-meaning man who went with the stream instead of having the vision and strength of judgment to stand out against it.

So the difference between the British and German monarchies was not so much one of different legal powers but of different styles. The Queen is also legally the one who appoints British Prime Ministers and who is head of Britain’s armed forces. Just because the British monarch normally does not exercise visible power may create the illusion that he/she has no power but the power is in fact there. This is best shown in Australia, where the royal powers are vested in the Governors and Governors General. These viceroys have in fact twice in the last century exercised their vice-regal powers to dismiss elected governments! And if the newly restored King of Spain could face down a military coup in 1981, how much more authoritative the Queen of England would be if any such crisis arose!

I might add that the Britannica’s comment that the German parliament felt duty-bound to support whatever Chancellor (Prime Minister) the Kaiser chose is a gross exaggeration. Even the brilliant Chancellor Bismarck had a lot of trouble with German parliaments. Germany was undoubtedly in 1914 as much a democracy as the Britain it went to war with. Democracy is unquestionably a good thing but it is no guarantee of peace.

For those who take an interest in ancient history it is clear from the account of the Athenian attack given in Thucydides that Syracuse was also democratic. We read:

". . . Meanwhile the Syracusans burned their dead and then held an assembly, in which Hermocrates, son of Hermon, a man who with a general ability of the first order had given proofs of military capacity and brilliant courage in the war, came forward and encouraged them, and told them not to let what had occurred make them give way, since their spirit had not been conquered . . ." [later] "The Syracusans heard him, and voted everything as he advised, and elected three generals . . "

And as far as mediaeval history is concerned we might note that many of the Italian city States (such as Venice) were both democratic and aggressive. Although not exactly a case of one democracy attacking another, the account of the ancient and blind Doge (President) Dandolo sailing off at the head of the Venetian fleet to loot Constantinople is still one of history’s most remarkable and dastardly tales.

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ELSEWHERE

Is GWB smart? Success in Iraq proves Bush is smarter than his Leftist critics anyway.

One good thing about the Baghdad looting: “At the French cultural center, where looters burst water pipes and flooded the ground floor, books were left floating in the reading rooms and corridors, and a photograph of Jacques Chirac, the French president, was smashed.” I think that counts as very restrained in the circumstances!

Michael Darby has a letter of repentance from a Scotsman who now appreciates America much more than he once did.

Chris Brand thinks that the wide variety of choices now available to women will lead to a variety of reproductive contracts between people rather than the traditional monogamous marriage contract. Polygamy anyone?

The Wicked one is rather derisive about a practitioner of “Wicca”.

In my academic posting of April 13th here, I point out that some researchers who found conservatives to be “despairing” did not know how to measure despair.

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WONDERFUL NEWS

Maybe I am a sentimental old fool but I must admit that this comment about the seven rescued U.S. troops brought a tear to my eye: “This morning our family joins America in rejoicing over the news of the safe return of seven brave heroes to U.S. military custody in Iraq" I think that knowledge of the horrific treatment Saddam used to mete out to those who opposed him would make any civilized person glad that the troops were recovered alive and well. Pfc. Jessica Lynch, who was rescued earlier, suffered a head wound, a spinal injury and fractures to her right arm, both legs and her right foot and ankle. At least it must be great for her to be back home in the USA.

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CHEEESH!!!

Blogspot was off the air for hours yesterday and now the host for my mirror site seems to be having a whole day off! But I will beat the Bs yet! I keep my blog entries as a file so it took me only two minutes to put up my stuff on a second mirror site! The site concerned is on Geocities and there is something about my code that causes them to give you no background colour until you hit the “Refresh” button. Exactly the same code works fine elsewhere. Weird!

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MORE GREENIE LIES

Both the Left and the Greens will lie and mislead at the drop of a hat. The truth is so inconvenient to them that they NEED to be liars. Note this Greenie comment on the retirement of the Concorde supersonic airliner “[New York residents] know all too well the Concorde's windows-rattling roar, and its seeming inability to stay in one piece," he said. "It should have been grounded a long time ago." Far from falling apart all the time, the Concorde has had only one crash in 30 years -- a better safety record than most. And the only reason why the Concorde was originally allowed to fly into New York was that it was found to be no noisier than other jets using the airport.

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ANOTHER VIEW OF HITLER

There is much of interest in Leonard Peikoff’s book. One quote:

Contrary to the Marxists, the Nazis did not advocate public ownership of the means of production. They did demand that the government oversee and run the nation's economy. The issue of legal ownership, they explained, is secondary; what counts is the issue of CONTROL. Private citizens, therefore, may continue to hold titles to property -- so long as the state reserves to itself the unqualified right to regulate the use of their property.

Sounds just like the Leftists of today.

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ELSEWHERE

Next stop Syria? It would be great to see another Arab Fascist regime go down. Syria is ruled by the same Ba’ath party that Saddam represented.

When so much of the media worldwide is Leftist, it is gratifying to see that Australia’s Rupert Murdoch used his many media outlets to support the war.

There is rather a good day by day account of the war from a journalist who was with the troops here.

I like it! Samizdata refer to France, Germany and Russia as The axis of feeble. He also calls them a Triumvirate of gilded irrelevences. We must not forget, however, that they do command great economic and military power between them so let us be glad of GWB’s “softly, softly” approach to them.

Further to my comment yesterday on many children's comic books now having a Leftist slant, Marc Miyake has emailed me to say that it is not as bad as it seems because “Captain America” and other Marvel comics are now almost exclusively bought by young male adults who presumably know about and like the slant they are getting. He says the comic-book writers concerned are just would-be Hollywood types.

Under the heading: The bigotry of low expectations, Marc Miyake makes a very strong case that racism is pervasive among Leftists today. Marc is a Japanese American so one would think that the alleged love of “diversity” among Leftists would cause him to be seized on eagerly for teaching jobs at American universities. But -- strangely -- the reverse appears to be the case.

"Sex Offenders vote Democrat" Why wouldn't they? It is the Dems who are soft on crime. The Dems sure have some great constituencies.

Glenn Reynolds says that the BBC is the mouthpiece of the 'new class' of State-funded elitists. His recommendation: 'ignore them'; That's the one thing they hate.

Michael Darby has a backgrounder on the Assyrian Christian minority in Iraq.

Chris Brand continues his series of comments on sex in the 21st century. He seems to think that the welfare state is good for women and bad for men.

The Wicked one has another example of the crazy Leftist doctrine that nobody is responsible for their own actions at work in the courts.

In my academic posting of April 12th here
I refer to an interesting research summary that seems to show conservatives as the luckier members of society, with better mental and physical health and greater satisfaction with their lives.

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THE WAR HAS OPENED SOME EYES LONG SHUT

John Lloyd, a columnist for Britain's Leftist New Statesman has finally given up on the Left after the Iraq war. He says:

A large part of the British left - and the left elsewhere - has made a fundamental mistake. In opposing the invasion of Iraq, it has shown itself incapable of thinking through not only the nature of the world as it is today, but also its own claims to be the leading force in making the world better.

I must say that he is only stating the obvious. Their support for the terminally brutal Saddam has forever exposed as a fraud the Left's claim to be "compassionate". If the Left were half-decent, this war would have been fought with virtually universal support rather with the support of conservatives only.

Though there was of course a tiny minority of decent Leftists (such as this writer) who supported the war from early on. I know of none of them who marched FOR war, however. And even the normally very moderate Australian Labor Party opposed the war.

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TOBACCO INJUSTICE IS INJUSTICE FOR US ALL

I personally detest smoking and am outraged when smokers think that they can impose their foul smells and pollution on me. As far as I am concerned, smoking should be something that occurs only between consenting adults in private.

But the way in which both the U.S. Federal government and private plaintiffs are overturning every concept of justice to steal from tobacco companies whatever assets they have is surely a warning to us all. The politically correct Leftist notion that people are not responsible for their own actions has now been enshrined in law and is the main instrument being used to rip off the tobacco companies. The companies are being prosecuted for what OTHER people in full possession of their faculties voluntarily did -- despite upteen warnings that what they did was risky.

That is a terminally dangerous precedent for us all. ANYONE who is worth suing could find himself stripped of all he owns now. All it needs is for someone to blame you for something that THEY did. The tobacco cases mean that there will now be NO defence against such a claim available in most such cases. We must do all we can to bring back a system where the person who is primarily responsible for his own misfortune must bear the full blame for that misfortune. None of us will be safe otherwise.

A reader refers to the famous poem by Pastor Niemoller:

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
etc

And suggests it is now a case of "First they came for the tobacco companies" and maybe "Then they came for the xenophobes" and maybe "Then they came for the gun owners".

And we will almost certainly have to fight this one ourselves. The snivel libertarians have other, much more important fish to fry.

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ELSEWHERE

Hear here! “US Secretary of State Colin Powell today challenged Russian, French and German leaders' contention that only the United Nations has the authority to rebuild post-war Iraq.”

Retired Australian politician and one-time Leftist Michael Duffy addresses those who are still marching for "peace" with the question: “Why are 600 deaths caused by liberating forces so much worse than 66,900 deaths a year caused by Saddam Hussein?”

In case you have not seen it, here is the fan site for Saddam's incredible TV spokesman

It is disgusting how anti-American rubbish is now being spewed out by certain
children's comic books. I hope parents soon become aware of this and get something else for their children instead.

Chris Brand also comments on the defection of Leftist John Lloyd.

Michael Darby hopes that Iraq will not make us totally forget the ongoing humanitarian disaster in Zimbabwe. Toppling the Zimbabwean dictator would take only one thousandth of the force that it took to topple Saddam, so why not do it? The British DID intervene in Sierra Leone and the French intervene in Africa all the time so there is precedent.

The Wicked one has rather a fun posting about a maverick environmental scientist who thinks we should eat whales to save the planet.

In my academic posting of April 11th here I expose some absolutely crap research reported in a medical journal. At least the journal printed my critique.

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ISLAMIC FANATICISM MAY GET WORSE, NOT BETTER

Australian political scientist, David Martin Jones has a long article on Islamic fundamentalism that points out that it is primarily a PRODUCT of modernization and affluence -- with its most dedicated members being largely Westernized and often living in Western countries. Thus modernization and democratization is not going to cure it -- the reverse if anything. Apparently, modern-day, skeptical Western civilization with its lack of any certainties is profoundly alienating for many not born to it and fundamentalist Islam is something that such people turn to as a more satisfying alternative. Thus the Islamic enemy will always be nearby hating us and endangering us unless we become intolerant enough to exclude or crack down on him in some way

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MUSLIM "CIVILIZATION"

We hear a lot about the contribution of the Arabs to the maintenance of civilization in the Middle Ages when Europe had become relatively backward compared to how it was in the days of the Roman Empire. Most of the story is a pious myth, however. It is true that ancient civilization was better known among Muslims at that time but the Muslims did NOT invent or originate any significant part of the knowledge concerned. They borrowed it from the Greek Christians of the still-thriving Eastern Roman empire centred on Byzantium (in what is now Turkey), and from peoples that they conquered, such as the Persians, the Northern Indians and the Assyrians. There is a good summary here showing that most of the famous "Moslem" scholars of the Middle Ages were in fact from the Assyrian Christian community, though not all were very religious. Note also this summary:

The next great luminary of the Islamic world is Abu Ali Sina, known as Avicenna in the West, his "major contribution to medical science was his famous book al-Qanun, known as the "Canon" in the West. The Qanun fi al-Tibb is an immense encyclopedia of medicine extending over a million words. It surveyed the entire medical knowledge available from ancient and Muslim sources. Due to its systematic approach, formal perfection as well as its intrinsic value, the Qanun superseded Razi's Hawi, Ali Ibn Abbas's Maliki, and even the works of Galen, and remained supreme for six centuries. This book was taught as the textbook to the students of Medicine in the University of Bologna until the 17th Century.

Avicenna's philosophy was based on a combination of Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism. Contrary to orthodox Islamic thought, Avicenna denied personal immortality, God's interest in individuals, and the creation of the world in time. Because of his views, Avicenna became the main target of an attack on such philosophy by the Islamic philosopher al-Ghazali and was even called apostate.

There is also Al-Ma'arri, (973-1057) the greatest Syrian poet. He referred to religion as "noxious weeds" and called it a "fable invented by the ancients", worthless except for those who exploit the credulous masses.

Other examples are Omar Khayyam and Ibn Rushd an important philosopher and scientist, known in the Western world as Averroes.These great men upon whose shoulders rests the glory of the golden age of Islam were not Muslims and even were critical of it..

(Crossposted on Israpundit)


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SELECTIVE OUTRAGE SHOWS RACISM

In response to my posting yesterday about the lack of Leftist outrage over vast atrocities in Africa, Marc Miyake emailed me this comment:

They're not just Leftist but also racist. It's the same racism you refer to in your anti-racism as a sham post. Leftists probably think to themselves, "Africans don't know any better, so who cares?" Mutatis mutandis for Iraq: "Arabs are hopeless, so let 'em die." But bring up Israel and America, and suddenly the standards get raised sky-high. Why? Because only Israeli and American oppressors are responsible for the 'evils' that they allegedly do. Of course Europeans hold the moral 'high' ground and are beyond reproach. All others are just subhuman animals of color, useful for a protest now and then, but otherwise expendable.

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ELSEWHERE

Today’s most amusing headline: “Anti-War Groups Fear Loss of Momentum”

Textbooks widely used in New York's Islamic schools contain passages that are blatantly anti-Semitic, condemning Jews as a people

I suppose it is worth mentioning that the Iraq war was another defeat for the Palestinians too. The Ps have long had a love-affair with Saddam so after the first Gulf war the Kuwaitis kicked out over 100,000 Ps who had been working in Kuwait. Now the Ps will have the enmity of the Iraqui people as well, who loathe anything to do with Saddam..

Jeff Jacoby says that the USA should now topple the Castro regime in Cuba. It would certainly be acclaimed by the Cuban people.

Chris Brand pities the Kurds of Iraq for the way political correctness is set to betray them.

Michael Darby has a post that pities Iraq if the U.N. get to “help” with their reconstruction.

The Wicked one points out that GWB was quite a Greenie when he was Governor of Texas -- at great cost to Texans.

In my academic posting of April 10th here I point out that there are alternatives to the very loose ways in which Leftist psychologists customarily use the term “authoritarian”

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THE "ANTI-RACIST" and "HUMAN RIGHTS" SHAM EXPOSED NOW

In the first half of the 20th century, many Leftists were enthusiastic racists -- making it probable that their anti-racist hysteria in the second half of the 20th century was just a self-promoting sham. The antisemitism we now see among Leftists on college campuses was beginning to expose that sham but their support for Saddam Hussein makes the case pretty conclusive -- for there have been few people more racist than Saddam. But the Left just ignored well-known facts in that regard. As the National Review says:

The left's neglect of Saddam's lengthy track record of hate and intolerance is baffling. Indeed, Saddam is a racist by the truest definition of the word: He hates certain groups, and even tries to murder people in those groups, precisely because of their mere race. Saddam is not a bigot because, say, he opposes racial profiling at airports. He is a bigot because he tries to exterminate entire groups of people based solely on their race. Some of his frightening actions constitute genocidal racism. Nowhere has Saddam's racism been more apparent than in his actions against Iraq's Kurdish minority, where his personal hatred of Kurds achieved horrific dimensions.

And, as Richard Pollock says:

Embedded reporters have filed stories of Iraqi soldiers shooting civilians and forcing teenagers at gunpoint to fight the war. Also, there are published reports of Iraqi women and children being executed by the Saddam-loyal Fedayeen. Such evidence (and more) reveals Iraq's human rights violations and continual breach of international laws that govern warfare. But you wouldn't know it if you listened to the "mainstream" human rights groups. They apparently can find abuses everywhere except in Iraq.

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MORE SELECTIVE OUTRAGE

Below are two headlines from Agence France Presse which came up juxtaposed recently:

Media deaths spark outrage

AFP - The killing of three journalists in two separate attacks by US forces fighting for control of Baghdad triggered a torrent of criticism from international media watchdogs and officials.

Congo war claimed 3.3 million lives

AFP - The war in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has claimed 3.3 million lives and was "the deadliest documented conflict in African history," a US-based refugee agency said.

An accident or misjudgement of war is an outrage if the U.S. is responsible for it but blacks can do ANYTHING without it being an outrage. Much of the media seem to be moral imbeciles. They would not be Left-leaning by any chance, would they?

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ANTI-WAR DREAMING

An "anti-war" advocate wrote to me:

We have undermined international law in pursuing this war without allowing time for due process within the UN. The ramifications for the future in an increasingly nuclearised world is alarming and you don't have to be of the "left" to believe this

I replied

I think the resolve of GWB offers a lot more safety in a nuclearized world than a paper tiger like the UN does. Remember: The predecessor of the UN did no good because the dictators ignored it. We could not let Saddam do the same. And don't forget that it was the resolve of Ronald Reagan that caused the Soviets to give up and thus remove the biggest nuclear threat of all.

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ELSEWHERE

World's most improbable headine in yesterday's Brisbane "Courier Mail": Iraquis topple dictator. Who did? Were there any Americans there? Media bias anyone?

The WSJ points out that the U.S. army in Iraq IS a multinational force -- in that people of many national origins serve in it.

The US plan to end the Israel conflict “calls for a cease-fire, a Palestinian crackdown on militants, an Israeli troop withdrawal from Palestinian towns, an Israeli settlement freeze and a Palestinian state in provisional borders”. What a joke! Hell will freeze over before any of that happens. Walling off the Palestinians (already in progress) is the only solution.

New Zealand did NOT join Australia in sending troops to Iraq. Anton Kelly notes a good proposal for a new N.Z. flag: “I suggest a bright yellow flag with a red and green jellyfish in the centre. The yellow represents our cowardly Members of Parliament, the red and green represent the Government of the day and the jellyfish represents the spineless individuals who are meant to represent us...”

The Wicked one has another joke about the French military.

Michael Darby has a post with lots of good news about genetically modified crops.

Chris Brand is disappointed at the Bush administration’s support for affirmative racism.

In my academic posting of April 9th here I point out that much of the basis of political psychology is founded on a mistake -- identifying as “authoritarian” people who are simply old-fashioned.

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AND THE WORLD SAID “NO” TO THIS?

Describing the scenes of jubilation in Baghdad after the entry of US troops as "breathtaking", Rumsfeld today compared the events to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the ensuing collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. "Saddam Hussein is now taking his rightful place alongside Hitler, Stalin, (Vladimir) Lenin and (Romanian dictator Nicolae) Ceausescu in the pantheon of failed, brutal dictators," he declared. "The scenes of free Iraqis celebrating in the streets, riding American tanks, tearing down the statues of Saddam Hussein in the centre of Baghdad, are breathtaking. "Watching them, one cannot help but think of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Iron Curtain

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RESOLVE REWARDED IN AUSTRALIA

THEY clapped and cheered and held out their babies for him to kiss. There could be no doubt who was the hero of the hour when John Howard met Australian Defence Force families in Brisbane yesterday. The latest meet-and-greet exercise for relatives of Gulf service personnel turned into a love-in with the Prime Minister - and yet another pointed reminder to Simon Crean that he is struggling in the battle for hearts and minds on the home front. Even Mr Howard seemed taken aback by the enthusiastic reception at Government House. After cheering him on arrival, people stood five deep to shake his hand and queued to have their photograph taken with him.

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THE ARAB MIND

Arabs watched in disbelief on Wednesday as Iraqi President Saddam Hussein lost Baghdad to U.S.-led forces without a fight. Three weeks of war in Iraq have sparked anger across the Arab world. Protesters at hundreds of rallies have chanted praise for "beloved" Saddam and held his picture aloft. Rabat perfume shop owner Lahoucine Lanait described Saddam as the Arab world's "best dictator."

In Oman, some said Saddam, whose fate is unknown after he was targeted by U.S. planes, symbolized resistance. "It is irrelevant whether Saddam is dead or not. His memory will live on to inspire many Arabs to stand up against all the injustices committed by the U.S. and its friends in Israel," Belqees Hamood, a university student, said.

Adel in Beirut disagreed. "So he was the only Arab leader to stand up to the Americans. Look what happened, no one else will dare try that again." Fahd Saleh of Saudi Arabia expressed equal dislike for President Bush and Saddam. "Saddam is a terrorist but he's not alone. Bush too is a terrorist but Saddam is weak and Bush is strong. That's why he has won, because no one opposes a strong person," said the 33-year-old Saudi government employee.

All they understand is the “big stick”.

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COULDN’T HAVE SAID IT BETTER MYSELF

THE UN had failed its mission in the lead-up to the war on Iraq, the Australian federal Government said yesterday, and that failure would reverberate as the world tackled other despotic regimes after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Defence Minister Robert Hill said the UN Security Council had failed the world badly. "They passed 12 years of resolutions (on Iraq) but it wasn't prepared to enforce them," Senator Hill said in Brisbane. "That sends a very unhelpful message to dictators who develop weapons of mass destruction and are prepared to use them on their own people and on their neighbours."

But Prime Minister John Howard maintained the UN would play an important role in the reconstruction of Iraq, particularly in delivering humanitarian assistance.
Speaking in Brisbane, the Prime Minister repeated a US-led interim administration was the only "practical" option. Mr Howard said the UN would have a "major role" in post-war Iraq, but it would not be leading the administration of the country.

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ELSEWHERE

I found this amusing: “As Saddam’s statue fell in Baghdad, some Iraquis threw shoes and slippers at the statue — a gross insult in the Arab world”. I guess it is noisy cats and dogs you normally throw shoes at.

I particularly liked this report from Baghdad: “Cheering crowds earlier sacked U.N. headquarters in the Canal Hotel and drive off in U.N. cars. The building had housed U.N. aid workers as well as arms inspectors, who were withdrawn shortly before the war began on March 20.”

The crew of the British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal are switching off the BBC. I wonder why? People HAVE been referring to the BBC as the Baghdad Broadcasting Corporation lately. Leftist bias anyone?

The Carnival is up again -- more legible this time.

Chris Brand has a posting about a book that explains how sexual attraction works.

Michael Darby has a post about the evil Zionist oppressors in Israel.

The Wicked one shows us why we should love bureaucracy.

In my academic posting of April 8th here I show that people who like and identify with the community in which they live do not do so out of a need to be loved.

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MANY LEFTIST TENTACLES

A reader writes:

It seems to me that the common core of beliefs for ARM Republicans, most Greens, the Big M Multiculturalists is really "democratic centralism". That is why these three views (anti-monarrchy, environmentalism and multiculturalism) , logically independent, usually are batched together, along with 'liberal' views on gay rights, gun control etc.

I think it was Alexis De Toqueville who highlighted the risk to liberty from democracy and argued that there were two rival strands of democratic thought. What we can call a Jeffersonian strand with an emphasis on breaking up power centres ('decentralisation of power') and a Jacobin strand that sees the common will as the ultimate goal to which all must bow.

I think the main streams in the contemporary left certainly have a Jacobin impulse but it is elitist not populist. They only recognise a popular desire as authentic when it goes along with their ideology, otherwise they call for government 'leadership' to overcome the popular demand.

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FALSE MEMORIES AND FALSE ACCUSATIONS

This (Australian) ABC News Radio "Health Minute" has a summary of recent research on False Memory Syndrome. This is a controversial field and goes to the heart of recent public concerns over child abuse. It shows the urgent need to develop protocols to take account of FMS in cases of child abuse so the accused's rights are protected. Without these protocols in place all child abuse charges, true or false, will be subject to increasing skepticism.

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PINE TREES CAUSE ACID RAIN!

What a dilemma for the Greenies this must be: Even pristine forests can contribute to air pollution. In fact, researchers now say that northern pine forests exude a family of nitrogen oxides and do so in quantities that may rival those produced worldwide by industry and traffic. Nitrogen oxides can react with hydrocarbons to yield nitric acid, a primary ingredient in acid rain. They can also help produce smog-causing ozone. Scientists generally peg automobiles as the prime source of nitrogen oxides. Trees, on the other hand, are usually credited with sopping up air pollutants

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ELSEWHERE

US President George W. Bush pledged the United Nations will play a vital role in post-war Iraq, offering reassurances that Washington will not act unilaterally in rebuilding the country. The USA must be the most generous and forgiving nation in history.

The Australian government has positioned a small group of federal officials in Kuwait as part of the government-in-waiting of occupied Iraq. The Bush administration invited the federal government to supply specialists to the staff of the US-run Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, which will govern Iraq after the war until an elected Iraqi government is in place.

The silent majority again: Sometimes we think only lunatics live in the San Francisco Bay Area, but the San Francisco Chronicle has a poll that suggests that's not true. Sixty-three percent of Bay Area residents support the liberation of Iraq

Peter Hitchens argues we need to return to the idea of punishment if we are to avoid both the continued escalation of crime and the Big Brother surveillance state the popular reaction to out of control crime will produce.

Prominent Australian historian, Geoffrey Blainey has reviewed Windschuttle's book on Tasmania and credits Windschuttle with demolishing a Leftist myth about the “genocide” of Tasmanian Aborigines by early British settlers. Speaking of the Leftist historians, Blainey says: But many of their errors, made on crucial matters, beggared belief. Moreover their exaggeration, gullibility, and what this book calls “fabrication” went on and on.

Matt Ridley has some good things to say about GM technology and criticises Europe's techno-pessimism, which is now HURTING the environment

China Hand has just had a shot at Australian school-teachers -- asking whether such government-cosseted people can really be called "professionals"

Chris Brand points out that Political correctness has made SARS pneumonia much more dangerous than it might otherwise have been.

Michael Darby has a few notes on the history and thoughts of Daniel Pipes -- the man who more or less predicted the 9/11 events.

In my academic posting of April 7th here I look at a claim that Rightists have been shown as opposed to human rights. I point out that the result arose because “human rights” were defined in a Leftist way.

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POSTWAR IRAQ

My nomination for the stupidest headline about Iraq in Australia’s Left-leaning press: Time to stand up to America. What hate-filled Leftist nutcases like this forget to mention is that Australia would have no influence at all in Iraq if we had not done our bit to help the USA put down a brutal madman.

As it is, it is good to see that Australians will likely be part of the US-led post-war administration in Iraq, although not in key roles, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says. Mr Downer has just returned from the US where he discussed with President George W Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell US plans for the reconstruction and administration of Iraq.

Australia’s foreign minister Alexander Downer also says that the UN should supervise eventual elections in Iraq. I agree with that but cannot see any other justification for having the U.N. there.

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MILITARY HELICOPTERS

The U.S. has lost a few helicopters in the Iraq war. But:

Gibson and other helicopter experts say, it should be a very different story if the U.S. is unfortunate enough to have to return to this or any other battlefield in the future. There's a new generation of copters coming on-line in the next five years that can fly lower, faster and more stealthily than anything deployed in Iraq. New night vision and radar technology will help pilots identify their targets from four to five times farther away than is currently possible. They also promise to be easier to maintain, cutting down on crashes. By the end of the decade, some helicopters will even be capable of flying more like fixed-wing aircraft

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OSAMA AND SADDAM

There is a very interesting summary here of the links between the Iraquis and Osama bin Laden. It all seems to be well-documented -- insofar as one can document what would be closely-guarded secrets. The home page of the article has a whole lot of other documentation on Iraq and Saddam as well.

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LENIN ON THE STATE

“Essentially the state is the power exercised over the masses by a group of armed men separated from the people.” From the April Theses See here

“The state is a special organization of force: it is an organization of violence for the suppression of some class” From The state and revolution. See here.

That makes the Leftist position pretty clear, I think. The State exists to suppress people. No wonder power-mad people such as Leftists like big government!

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ELSEWHERE

Arabs throughout the Mideast were dismayed by television images of American tanks rolling through the heart of Baghdad and some rushed to sign up for holy war against U.S.-led forces. "As Arabs, we cannot see this and not move," said a man in his early 30s.. It seems clear that it is the Arabs who define us as the enemy rather than vice versa. They sure love suicide.

Good: Oakland police fired rubber bullets and wooden pellets on Monday to disperse hundreds of anti-war protesters in what was believed to be the first such use against U.S. protesters since the American-led war on Iraq began. Demonstrators were seeking to block access to American President Lines, a shipping company they claimed was profiting from the war in Iraq when police said they used the pellets and bullets to disperse about 750 protesters.

Great news! Britain is going to deport “Captain Hook” -- their pro-terrorist Muslim leader. Is British justice finally beginning to target the dangerous ones? About time!

And even the U.S. Justice Dept. seems to be overcoming their political correctness long enough to get some terrorist-supporting Muslims convicted! Is sanity breaking out everywhere?

Claims that man-made pollution is causing "unprecedented" global warming have been seriously undermined by new research which shows that the Earth was warmer during the Middle Ages

Michael Darby has an article that reminds us that Muslims think they should still own any territory that they once controlled.

Chris Brand has a post on the psychological reasons why women no longer need marriage.

In my academic posting of April 6th here I look at a claim that working class people are particularly authoritarian and show that some are and some are not -- with no overall trend one way or the other.

Mike Kerrigan, a Canadian university student, obviously has a lot of fun. He has created two big posters which he uses to taunt the Leftists around him about the Leftist policies of Hitler and Mussolini. I alluded briefly to them yesterday but if you missed them you can see them here.

The Wicked one has a joke in the “oldie but goldie” class.

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A LEFTIST HITLER AND RIGHTIST NEO-NAZIS?

I have just put up here an interesting email about the historical Hitler and modern-day Neo-Nazis. The writer makes several good points which question my own formulatuion that Hitler was simply the most nationalist of the extreme Leftists. I would like to look here therefore at his three main points. Firstly, though, readers here might like to read what I am replying to, as it does embody some common misconceptions and assumptions.

1). I have previously pointed out at some length that Hitler’s eugenic ideas were in fact typically Leftist for his times and were supported in America by “progressives” of the day. My correspondent then asks how I square that with my general support for Chris Brand today -- who also has some eugenic ideas. Am I being inconsistent?

For a start, although I support some of Chris Brand’s ideas, I do not support them all. I assist him to circulate his ideas mainly out of free-speech considerations -- as there have been great efforts made (sacking him from his university job, pulping his book) by Leftists to suppress him. And I myself have never commented on the eugenic ideas he occasionally raises. Nonetheless, I do think it is absolutely stupid to condemn an area of science or scholarship just because it has been misused in the past. One might as well condemn all dog-lovers because Hitler loved dogs. So just because Hitler and the American “progressives” of the interwar era had the perverse and ridiculous idea that Jews were genetically inferior does not mean that all and any genes are therefore equal in any sense. The rise of genetic engineering -- with its capacity to filter out genetic defects in children -- has in fact really made the matter a non-issue. Genes are ALREADY being selected for and against by medical science in today’s world with little controversy. And Jews, ironically perhaps, are one of the major beneficiaries of that, with the recent virtual elimination of Tay Sachs disease.

2). The second point made is a common one: That the Fascists of the 1920s and 1930s were opposed in their day by other Leftists and admired by many mainstream politicians in Britain and America. Mussolini in fact achieved the remarkable feat of being admired not only by Hitler but also by Winston Churchill and F.D. Roosevelt! All that, however, is really no more than an illustration of how radicalized interwar politics had become in Europe. If Hitler and Mussolini were seen as moderate and reasonable by nervous Anglo-Saxon politicians and businessmen, how radical must have been the alternative? And the alternative was very radical indeed. Stalin’s Russia was to the forefront of everyone’s mind with the unprecedented challenges it presented to almost the whole of society’s traditonal arrangements. And Stalin’s Russia had extensive support throughout Europe. So it is no wonder that slightly less radical Leftists (Nazis and Fascists) were gladly greeted for their apparent capacity to prevent the Communists from taking over the whole of Europe. And the Communists, of course, were not oblivious of the effective opposition provided by their Fascist rivals. So Communists and their symathizers did indeed hate and oppose the Fascists. Mainstream democratic Leftists -- such as Germany’s Social Democratic Party -- however were much less opposed to Hitler and in fact voted with the Nazis in critical Reichstag votes. For a fun poster that makes crystal clear how Leftist Hitler’s ideas were see here.

Interestingly, the basic economic policies of the Fascists and the Nazis -- permitting private business to continue but only under tight State controls and supervision -- were radical in their day but are now the staple of Leftist political parties worldwide. The greatest affinities of the Fascists and Nazis were then not with the Communists but with parties like the Democrats of the modern-day USA and the Labour Party of modern-day Britain! The Fascists were in fact the first of the modern Leftists -- something that I have already set out at great length here.

3). The third major point is that Hitler's few remaining admirers in at least the Anglo-Saxon countries all seem to be on the political far-Right. If Hitler was a socialist, how come that some modern-day far-Rightists admire him?

In considering this, the first thing to ask is whether the description "Far-Right" is an accurate one for the people we are talking about. I think it is. The American far Right do share important basic values with mainstream "conservatives": They are independent, individualistic, suspicious of big-government and find great wisdom in traditional American values and arrangements. But they seem to be much more doctrinaire about it all and sometimes carry their independence and individualism so far as to become "survivalists" -- trying to live as independently of government and of what they see as a corrupted society as they can. But the far Right is a broad church with many opinions within it and it must be noted that only some of them have added pro-Hitler and antisemitic attitudes to their gospel.

So although support for antisemitism was in Hitler's day widespread across the American political spectrum -- from Henry Ford on the Right to "Progressives" on the Left -- it has lived on during the postwar era mostly on the extreme Right. (Though recent upsurges of "Anti-Zionism" among Leftists on university campuses seem to be a harbinger of big changes in that situation). Why?

The pro-Hitler, antisemitic orientation of some modern Rightist fringe groups goes back to the fact that Marxism and Leninism were internationalist. Marx and Lenin despised nationalism and wished to supplant national solidarity with class solidarity. That this was the best way to better the economic position of the worker was, however, never completely obvious. The Fascists did not think so nor did most Leftists in democratic countries. Nonethless, it did have the effect of identifying Leftism with skepticism about patriotism, nationalism and any feeling that the traditions of one's own country were of great value. The result of this was that people with strong patriotic, nationalist and traditionalist feelings in the Anglo-Saxon countries felt rather despised and oppressed by the mostly Leftist intelligentsia and sought allies and inspiration wherever they could. And Hitler was certainly a great exponent of national pride, community traditions and patriotism. So those who felt marginalized by their appreciation of their own traditional values and their own community tended in extreme cases to adopt Hitler and blot out of their minds or otherwise rationalize the fact that he was also a socialist. And the Leftists also blotted out of their minds or otherwise rationalized Hitler's socialism for exactly the same reason -- because Hitler was also a nationalist. The Rightists liked Hitler's nationalism and the Leftists did not but it suited neither to acknowledge his socialism. It did not suit the Leftists because it would have associated them with a failed and condemned figure and it did not suit the Rightists because socialism was no part of the traditional independent culture that they wished to preserve.

So antisemitism lived on in the postwar era among the extreme Right for two reasons -- firstly because such people are traditionalists and antisemitism had been traditional in European societies for roughly 2,000 years and secondly because it was a central part of Hitler's doctrines. Their liking for Hitler's national and ethnic pride led to their adopting his antisemitism too.

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ELSEWHERE

Chris Brand has some rather amazing revelations about the role of sex in the Russian revolution.

Michael Darby has a post on how the African AIDS epidemic could be beaten.

The Wicked one has a heartening report about resistance to anti-war tyranny.

In my academic posting of April 5th here I look at a claim that drug abuse in young people is caused by their “authoritarian” parenting. I point out that the authors concerned did not really know how to measure authoritarianism and that they were treating as significant a relationship which was in fact negligible.

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A MEMOIR OF SCOTLAND

My post about Scotland yesterday got me thinking about my various visits to Scotland. A few recollections:

The most beautiful scenery I have ever seen was Scotland's Western Highlands. I have never been much of a one for scenery but this even got to me. The only thing in Australia that I know of which comes close is the road from Cairns to Port Douglas.

My wife and I made a detour to visit the Isle of Skye. I was glad we did. It too was really beautiful. One morning I looked out the window of the bed and breakfast place in which we were staying and literally saw "a bright golden haze on the meadow" there.

After Skye, we drove further up the coast and eventually took a Caledonian McBrayne ferry across to Harris and then drove straight up the island to Lewis. When my wife and I got to the main centre on Lewis it was 11pm but still broad daylight and we had no trouble getting accommodation at a bed and breakfast place (i.e. a private home).

At the Northern tip of Lewis was a nice white sandy beach and I decided the next morning that a swim in Sub-Arctic waters would be worth a try. By the time I got in up to my knees I could not feel my toes so thought the better of it. Nobody else tried. I later did the same thing off a beach at Herm in the Channel Islands -- with similar results. I felt rather at home on Lewis. Everyone seemed to have skin that was as fair as mine.

On our way back South we stopped in Glasgow, where my wife had relatives. I got to know a fair bit about Glaswegians and really got to like them. I particularly liked their sense of humour. Billy Connolly’s humour is in many ways simply an exaggerated form of typical Glaswegian humour. They are incredibly status-conscious, however. My being a Doctor went down exceedingly well! Education is, of course, the thing Scots most respect.

The most notable thing about Glasgow was that it looked as if it had just been heavily bombed. Whole suburbs were in rubble. But it wasn't the Luftwaffe that did it. It was smart-alec town-planners and Leftist social engineers. They bulldozed the "slums" such as the Gorbals. Beautiful old stone terrace houses which would have been snapped up for renovation in Australia were witlessly destroyed. They moved the slum-dwellers out to new estates such as Easterhouse which then also became pretty slum-like. I know. I later did a social survey there and saw for myself.

I did the social survey on my second trip to Glasgow. On that occasion, one thing I noted was that Scots are great lovers of ritual and "the done thing". They seem to love rules. They have a custom for every occasion. I went to a party in Glasgow at one stage and it was some occasion (Halloween?) on which "Apple Dooking" was practiced. You have to grab an apple with your teeth only while it is bobbing in a pail of water. Being a rather dour sort, I did not think much of the idea so said "No thanks". To an English person that would have been it. They would have been embarrassed to press me further. Not the Scots. In the most friendly way they simply insisted. They just did not understand the idea of not doing something that was customary.

That aside I felt very much at ease among the Scots. Australians are popular there. Scots see Australians as being "enemies" or "victims" of the English --- which is also how they see themselves. As I moved around Scotland it was interesting to see how my reception changed when Scots discovered that I was not English. It was a transformation: From correct formality to warmth. I think I slightly prefer the Scots to the English. I like their greater spontaneity. Though I appreciate English reserve too.

The only thing I dislike about the Scots is their ingrained Socialism. When Mrs Thatcher came to power in a landslide, Scotland actually at the same time swung away from the Tories. Still, Edinburgh is a lot more conservative than Glasgow (where 50% of the Scots live), so maybe I would enjoy living in Edinburgh if I could hack the climate. Glasgow has a reputation for ugliness which is undeserved. There are quite a lot of nice places in Glasgow.

When I was doing my social survey in Glasgow (mainly concerned with Scottish nationalism) I tried to look up various books on Scottish nationalism in the various libraries there. One I could not find anywhere. No library had bought it, I gathered. Because of funding limits, a lot of books are hard to find in British libraries, even University libraries. When I got back to Australia the book I had been seeking was just sitting there on the shelf at my own University of N.S.W. library! They could afford a book on Scottish nationalism that the Scots themselves could not. Wealth and poverty do make a difference and socialist Scotland certainly was poor when I was there.

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POSTWAR IRAQ

Stanley Kurtz has a long and learned article in Policy Review about what America should do with Iraq once Saddam is ousted. GWB and many others think that an effort should be made to set up democracy there but since the last effort to do just that led to Saddam Hussein’s rise to power, the critics are skeptical that Iraqui democracy is possible.

Kurtz relies heavily on the way the British Empire gave birth to modern Indian democracy out of a traditional society and also argues that short term control by America worked well in setting up Japanese democracy after WWII. He does however see huge difficulties and a long haul ahead in Iraq.

I am inclined to think everybody is being too pessimistic about postwar Iraq. I think that after Saddam, ordinary Iraquis will be dead keen to try the American way. I know that there are important cultural differences between Iraq and Europe but I still think that the example of central Europe and the Baltic States is instructive (Poland, Estonia etc.). After they all escaped from Soviet rule there is no doubt that America was thenceforth the model that they have all tried in various ways to follow. Saddam has obviously been as bad for those he ruled as the Soviets were so I think the response of Iraquis too will be keenness to try everything that is opposite to the Saddam regime.

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ELSEWHERE

Chris Brand documents some fairly astonishing ignorance about autism by someone who is supposed to be an expert on it. Apparently all that naughty evidence about genetic factors must not be mentioned. Even blaming mothers is apparently preferable to that.

Michael Darby has a post pointing out that science and technology is CREATING resources all the time.

The Wicked one takes a swipe at Canadian wimpishness.

In my posting of April 4th here, I have a bit of a laugh at how some Dutch colleagues were completely unable to understand their own research results because those results contradicted their Leftist expectations.

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POSTMODERNISM DECONSTRUCTED

To most people the ideas of postmoderrnism -- that truth is nonexistent etc -- simply seem too bizarre to be worth further consideration. They are just a sort of intellectual masturbation for Leftists. Life goes on BECAUSE we recognize some statements as true and others as false. If I ring the WRONG telephone number I will not speak to the person I want to speak to. A recent article by Simon Blackburn makes a similar point at much greater length and thoroughly dissects the theories of Richard Rorty -- one of the chief postmodernists. Warning though: The first two thirds of the article sets out the postmodernist position. You may want to skip straight to the final third of the article to get to something worth reading.

Simon Blackburn is the professor of philosophy at the University of Cambridge and appears to be something of a Leftist himself. He is however thoroughly within the tradition of British empiricism in philosophy. The British have always seen the purpose of philosophy as being to clarify and EXPLAIN whereas French philosophers (and France seems to be the prime source of postmodernism) from Descartes, through Sartre to Derrida have always seen being clever as the prime role of philosophy -- and they have generally equated being clever with an ability to CONFUSE any issue they touch on.

In the circumstances, it is no wonder that the Anglo-Saxons are so much more influential in the modern-day world than are the French. Someone recently said that the French are basically a Chihuahua that wants to be a bull-terrier. The Ango-Saxons really are that bull-terrier. And, as a former bull-terrier breeder, I can asssure you that, despite their power, bull-terriers are extremely good natured.

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