THE LAW

"Some 'taxes' are invisible, hidden in the higher prices of things we buy. One such 'tax' is huge, costing the average American family of four at least $2,884 every year .... Call it the 'Lawsuit Tax,' the huge cost that lawsuits and the threat of lawsuits adds to everything. One member of Congress has done more to increase this secret tax on Americans than has any other lawmaker. John Edwards is a Democratic U.S. Senator from North Carolina, elected to his first and only term in 1998 with massive financial backing from his fellow trial lawyers."

Lawsuit Abuse Fortnightly: In this issue: "Jury Ignores Science Panel In Maine Trial;" "Disability Laws Fleece Mom & Pop Shops;" "California Cap Law Lowers Malpractice Awards;" "Lawyer Forced to Apologize for Frivolous Suit;" "Trial Lawyers Triumphant--For Now;" "Senate Sends Tort Reform Down the Tubes;" "Now Here?s a Law that Needs Changing!;" and, "Your Cheating Heart Turns Into Gold"

Some courts do respect the law: "San Francisco's 20-year-old program to promote women and minorities in city contracts suffered a potentially fatal blow Tuesday when a judge ruled that it violated Proposition 209, the voter-approved state initiative banning preferential treatment based on race and sex. Judge James Warren of San Francisco Superior Court said the city's contracting law giving bidding advantages and preferences to women and minorities is similar to a San Jose ordinance that the California Supreme Court struck down in 2000 because it violated Prop. 209. Based on that ruling, Warren barred San Francisco from enforcing the law 'or any other public contracting law that discriminates against or grants preferential treatment to any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin.' City officials said they will appeal."

Buchanan knows the constitution: "[The Marriage Protection Act] will be a critical test of the GOP majority in the Senate. If it stands with the House and President Bush, the first and second branches of the U.S. government will be telling the third, the U.S. Supreme Court: Your right of review of all U.S. law is not absolute, but subject to our restrictions. You are hereby instructed to return to the stall into which the Founding Fathers placed you."

The law is not your friend: Harris County, Texas, Resident Blair Davis found himself staring down the barrel of a pistol after his door flew open and 10 members of the Harris County Organized Crime and Narcotics Task force came tearing in, guns drawn, and yelling at him to get down, which he did, for about an hour, as the police searched his home for drugs after mistaking the common Texas Star hibiscus plant on his front lawn for a marijuana plant. Yes, the Harris County Narcotics officers do not know the difference between a marijuana plant and the common native growing Texas Star hibiscus plant. At one point, Davis said, the officers were discussing amongst themselves whether the red and gold bamboo plant in his window might be marijuana. They also asked Davis what he did with the watermelons and cantaloupes growing in his back yard. They eventually left . without apologizing.

Your police "service" "A government scientist finishing a candy bar on her way into a subway station where eating is prohibited was arrested, handcuffed and detained for three hours by transit police. Stephanie Willett said she was eating a PayDay candy bar on an escalator descending into a station July 16 when an officer warned her to finish it before entering the station. Both Willett and police agree that she nodded and put the last bit into her mouth before throwing the wrapper into a trash can. Willett, a 45-year-old Environmental Protection Agency scientist, told radio station WTOP that the officer then followed her into the station, one of several in downtown Washington. 'Don't you have some other crimes you have to take care of?' Willett said she told the officer. Washington has been under heightened security because of the continuing threat of terrorism. And last week, police declared a citywide crime emergency over rising juvenile crime."

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ELSEWHERE

In John Kerry's nomination speech he said: "As president, I will bring back this nation's time-honored tradition: The United States of America never goes to war because we want to; we only go to war because we have to. That is the standard of our nation." As it points out here, that is a typical Leftist barefaced lie, justified only by its sounding good. The USA has in fact mostly gone to war when it did NOT have to -- on humanitarian grounds etc -- and often at the behest of Democrat Presidents, including Clinton in Yugoslavia. Qando has some good comments on the matter too -- including the excellent point that the Kerry doctrine is simplistic -- which is exactly what the Left accuses conservatives of being. That good old Leftist "projection" again.

There is a most amusing article in the NYT reporting that America's millionaire Leftists (or as they self-congratulatingly call themselves: "Progressives") have become frustrated at the lack of any new ideas or new Leftward moves in the Democratic party. They have apparently decided that they need to create new Leftist ideas by spending hundreds of millions to encourage fringe Left groups! I liked this quote about how they see the present scene: "Now, you're a 32-year-old Democratic state legislator, and what you do is you learn how to check boxes," he continued. "You learn how to become pro-choice. You learn how to become pro-labor. You learn how to become pro-trial lawyer. You learn how to become pro-environment. And you end up, in that process, with no broad philosophical basis. You end up with no ideas about national security. You end up with no ideas about American history and political theory. You end up, frankly, with no ideas about macroeconomics and economic policy, other than that it's scary."" Who am I to argue with that? Hate and anger and envy are what Leftism has always been about, not ideas.

And here is another Leftist who is depressed at the Left's failure to achieve much in America recently -- despite their dominance of education, the media etc. At least he puts his finger on one of the big problems of the Left -- their elitism: "Can they rid themselves of a nagging contempt for the unhip, the poorly educated, and the God-fearing? If the left is not a movement of and for working people— blemishes and all— then it has little chance to regain its previous influence".

More Leftist encouragement for crime: "Inmates in California prisons may not be learning any job skills to help them stay straight once their terms end, but at least they're being taught to feel good about themselves. In a policy shift so irrational it could only have been designed by the state prison guards union, 300 vocational education classrooms in state prisons were shuttered at the beginning of the year. This might be understandable if it were a cost-cutting move, but the state is saving little or nothing by closing the courses. The instructors who formerly provided inmates a chance to succeed in the outside world are now conducting self-esteem "modules" instead. These use workbooks hammering the sort of feel-good lessons that some prison experts believe increase, not decrease, recidivism... Research shows that California inmates who spend more time in vocational programs are less likely to return to prison. Unless we're prepared to support such programs, we'd better be prepared to build a lot more prisons".

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

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Perhaps the original example of Leftist "projection": Marx condemned conventional religion as the "opium of the masses". Why? Because he had an opiate to peddle.

Why can those who claim to understand the dangers of meddling with a complex ecosystem like the natural environment, not understand that government interference with a complex system like the economy is perilous too?

The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and people who will say anything to win applause

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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REALITY: IT IS LEFTISTS WHO HAVE LOWER IQs

I note that Keith Burgess-Jackson has once again tackled the common Leftist claim that Leftists are more intelligent than conservatives. Keith however simply answers assertion with assertion. Leftists say that they are obviously more intelligent and Keith replies that there is obviously no difference. Nobody ever seems to quote any research findings on the subject. But there ARE findings in the academic literature that bear very directly on the question. I know. I had a minor part in writing them up. They have been in the academic literature for over 30 years and are also on the internet. So why are they never quoted? I suspect that I hardly need to mention one reason: Because they show LEFTISTS to be less intelligent! Another reason, however, is that academic papers are very hard for most people to decipher. So I have just posted a fresh copy of the paper on the net to which I have added an explanatory addendum that explains the findings in layman's terms. To go straight to the addendum click here.

Note that no correlation is ever perfect in the social sciences so it is perfectly consistent to have some very intelligent Leftists even though most Leftists are of lesser intelligence. Note also that the finding is yet another example of Leftist "projection" (seeing your own faults in others). If you want to know what is true of Leftists, just read what they say about conservatives.

And the Conning Tower gives a few examples of how clueless even prominent Leftists can be. Given how much Leftists fail to take account of (in human nature and much else besides), there is certainly zero difficulty in seeing Leftist policies as unintelligent.

The sheer arrogant prejudice involved in the Leftist claim of superiority is clearly revealed in the recent claim by a
major German news magazine that John Kerry may be too smart for America. They have convinced themselves that America as a whole is dumb. I think the history of the last 100 years reveals who the dumb ones are!

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ELSEWHERE

"If Vietnam veterans speak out against John Kerry but the media doesn't cover it, does anyone hear them? In a convention report about Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's relationship with his fellow Vietnam veterans, Dan Rather did not talk to a single one who opposes the Massachusetts Democrat's quest for higher office. That's especially odd considering that a new book featuring the accounts of a number of veterans who served with Kerry has been in the news of late".

The troops don't like Kerry: "John Kerry's heavily hyped cross-country bus tour stumbled out of the blocks yesterday, as a group of Marines publicly dissed the Vietnam War hero in the middle of a crowded restaurant.... "He imposed on us and I disagree with him coming over here shaking our hands," one Marine said, adding, "I'm 100 percent against [him]." A sergeant with 10 years of service under his belt said, "I speak for all of us. We think that we are doing the right thing in Iraq," before saying he is to be deployed there in a few weeks and is "eager" to go and serve."

Typical Leftist reliance on deception: John Kerry is doing his damndest to prevent people from knowing about the book he wrote when he was an antiwar activist. His team threatens people with lawsuits if they even reproduce the cover of the book. But it tells you here how to get a look at it while you can.

Heroic manipulator: "Mr. Kerry was assigned to Swiftboat 44 on December 1, 1968. Within 24 hours, he had his first Purple Heart. Mr. Kerry accumulated three Purple Hearts in four months with not even a day of duty lost from wounds, according to his training officer. It's a pity one cannot read his Purple Heart medical treatment reports which have been withheld from the public. The only person preventing their release is Mr. Kerry.... And within four days of his third Purple Heart, Mr. Kerry applied to take advantage of a technicality which allowed him to request immediate transfer to a stateside post."

It looks like I was right about Jason Soon yesterday. See towards the bottom of this article. A definite hater. A hater of those with more power and influence. Very Leftist but always sad to see when an intelligent person falls into such folly. But highly educated people are particularly prone to such hatreds. I set out why here.

A fabulous pro-American colmn by a Canadian here. (Via Peg Kaplan). Too good to excerpt. It always amazes me how anybody can overlook the basic truths about America. It just shows the dismal motivations of the critics.

An excellent statement here from a U.S. Marine about the importance of acknowledging evil in the world. Leftists HAVE TO deny that there is evil in people to cover up the evil that is in their own hearts -- as we see whenever Leftists get complete power (Stalin, Pol Pot etc.)

Arrogant Leftist elitism still thriving in Germany: "Michael Muller, deputy head of the Social Democrats' parliamentary party: Rejecting the idea of a referendum, he loftily declared, "Sometimes the electorate has to be protected from making the wrong decisions."

The memoir of the Iraq invasion by American commander General Tommy Franks sounds like good stuff. The American forces were CLEVER! How awful for the critics.

Wayne Lusvardi has given us a quick guide to who and what the current Islamic "Z Men" are

Dick McDonald reports a priceless bit of Democrat arrogance and elitism from the wife of the Iowa governor. She even dissed Black English! Imagine the explosion if a Republican did that! More here

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

New rubric below:

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Perhaps the original example of Leftist "projection": Marx condemned conventional religion as the "opium of the masses". Why? Because he had an opiate to peddle.

Why can those who claim to understand the dangers of meddling with a complex ecosystem like the natural environment, not understand that government interference with a complex system like the economy is perilous too?

The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and people who will say anything to win applause

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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WHY THE LEFT LOATHE GWB

The Left may have lost the Cold War but they have won the culture war. They and their politically correct assumptions dominate in the bureaucracy, the media, the educational system and Hollywood. Even business has largely been forced to kowtow to what Leftists think is a good thing. And that is why Leftists hate holdouts from the old order -- such as George W. Bush, Christianity and Fox News. The complete domination that they pant for is so close and yet still not complete. It is being spoilt by these stupid and evil renegades who cannot and will not see what is obviously right and proper. And Bush is a Texas oil-man, for God's sake! How incorrect can you get? A genuine robber baron from the 19th century who has somehow grabbed the levers of power that belong to them! And he looks and sounds so ordinary! He has no high-flown interests, likes sports, mangles his speech and does not have a head full of theories. He sounds more like a shoe-shine man than someone who can talk the feelgood Leftist talk -- as Clinton can. And worst of all, he is an old-fashioned Bible Christian! He is the exact opposite of the elite that should be running the show. He is the spoiler, the barrier, the last obstacle to their "brave new world".

Simple, isn't it?

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ELSEWHERE

Leftist compassion a fake: "When the labels "conservative" and "liberal" are brought into a political discussion, the common perception is that Democrats, or liberals, are inherently more compassionate than Republicans, or conservatives. However, in the first study to test whether this perception conforms to reality, a University of Missouri-Columbia researcher finds that liberals do not show any more compassion than conservatives in similar settings.... Mr. Milyo, along with colleagues Lisa Anderson and Jennifer Mellor at Virginia's College of William and Mary, examined differences in the behavior of liberal versus conservative subjects in two experimental settings".

Minimum wage turnabout "In academia, when scholars change their minds about something, they admit it publicly and explain why, even if the previous error causes a bit of embarrassment. Thus we recently saw renowned physicist Stephen Hawking say he was wrong in his theory of 'black holes.' He knew it was a necessary, if painful, thing for him to do so research on these celestial objects can move forward. I believe public opinion leaders have the same responsibility to explain themselves when they switch gears. If I were suddenly to endorse a higher minimum wage, after opposing it for many years, I would owe my readers an explanation. ... This is not the view of the New York Times. For decades, the paper carefully and consistently editorialized against the minimum wage. But five years ago, for no apparent reason, it reversed a policy dating to 1937 and suddenly endorsed a higher minimum wage."

Whoopee! "A panel created by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is proposing a top-to-bottom overhaul of state government that would leave virtually no piece of the state's sprawling bureaucracy intact. It would wipe out more than 100 boards and commissions, consolidate a tangle of state services and give departments fresh mandates in an ambitious bid to make government leaner and improve its performance"

What a laugh! "The continuing decline in numbers in the Anglican Church has prompted calls for leaders to consider potentially radical changes in the way the church ministers to the faithful, including implementing cafes in churches. A report from Wayne Brighton, a researcher with the General Synod Office of the Anglican Church, has painted a bleak outlook for the church, with a diminishing and greying congregation." Cafes indeed! They should learn from the vibrant Sydney diocese. THEY preach the Gospel.

Ecumenical economic ignorance: "Conservative Protestants are wary of ecumenical organizations because these groups are so often predisposed toward radicalism and extremism. This disposition may strike some as odd, given that ecumenical bodies are forever issuing blanket affirmations and urgent appeals for the unity of the faith. But Protestants suspicious about the ecumenists will have plenty to worry them later this week when the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, an umbrella group based in Geneva, takes up the issue of economics and global trade."

Maybe pigs do fly! "World Trade Organization members approved a plan Sunday to end export subsidies on farm products and cut import duties across the world" Marvellous if it happens.

Rip van Winkle awakes: "The Vatican on Saturday denounced feminism for trying to blur differences between men and women and threatening the institution of families based on a mother and a father."

Arnold Kling: "To prevent future acts of terrorism, we have to kill people. This is not a good thing. War is horrible. It is repulsive. In every war, soldiers commit atrocities and die senselessly, often because of the mistakes of their superior officers. If World War II were shown to the American people in slow-motion freeze frame, it would look every bit as ugly as the war against Islamist terrorism... For all practical purposes, most of the Muslim world is undecided between Islamism and America. If we adopt a more aggressive approach, some of these Muslims will jump off the fence and onto the other side. But passivity and weakness on our part would be even worse. To regain support of moderate Muslims in the long run, we will have to take steps in the short run that risk upsetting them.... We could not have won World War II with "soft power," trying to win the hearts and minds of ordinary Germans as a way of defeating the Nazis... Eventually, I believe that we can win over the hearts and minds of most Muslims to the concepts of peace and moderation. But not before we have eliminated most of the radicals."

There is a good cartoon about Fascism here

Peg Kaplan has an excellent post on the REAL two Americas.

Hmmm... I used to think that Australian blogger Jason Soon was conservative-leaning but some of his/her recent posts suggest Leftist elitism more than anything else -- such as this one -- where he/she dismisses one of Australia's most brilliant and successful business entrepreneurs as a "vulgarian". Why? On the basis of a conspiracy theory. Yuk! I think we have a nasty little envier there.

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

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Puzzle: 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.

The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and people who will say anything to win applause

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 MAN OF THE MOMENT

And hopefully for not too much longer than that

Email from Wayne Lusvardi: "From the just released excerpts of John Kerry's acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention in Boston on July 29, 2004: "I defended this country as a young man and I will defend it as President. Let there be no mistake: I will never hesitate to use force when it is required. Any attack will be met with a swift and certain response. I will never give any nation or international institution a veto over our national security. And I will build a stronger American military." From the above can be deduced what might be called The Kerry Doctrine: Once the U.S. is clobbered, he will figure out a way to strike back. Call this the Kerry's Klobbered Policy. Contrast this with the Bush Doctrine: Pre-emptive actions to prevent further attacks. The Bush Doctrine is not some reckless policy of a wild cowboy. It is the reluctant intervention after decades of provoking attacks on U.S. embassies, military barracks, navy ships, diplomats, tourists, FBI agents, and civilian aircraft. Which one would you choose? Which one do you believe the U.S. public is going to vote for?"

A rather nauseating story here. Apparently John Kerry took a portable movie camera with him to Vietnam and kept filming himself there to generate proof of how heoic he was.

Sowell lands some heavy hits: "Much of what is being said and done at the Democratic convention in Boston is so 1960s. The old favorite songs of the left, the old rhetoric, the old gestures, the delegates swaying together, all take you back to a time 40 years ago when the liberal vision seized the imagination of so many who were young then -- and who are now old enough to know better. After all, we now know with hindsight what the heady ideas of the 1960s actually led to in practice -- declining test scores and rising rates of teenage pregnancy and venereal disease, while rates of crime in general and murder in particular skyrocketed, along with unprecedented waves of riots that devastated city after city across the country, while families began a disintegration from which they may never fully recover in our lifetime".

When Lee Harvey Oswald shot John Kennedy, where was Oswald's Russian wife living? You won't believe it -- At John Forbes Kerry's place. What a happy little Leftist family!

"The Democrats have traditionally relied on a simple technique: appeal to the values of American individualism, while actually selling the American people the virtues of the all-powerful collective. That is the theme that emerges from the first three nights of speeches at the Democratic convention. Note the pattern of this bait-and-switch philosophy... The man who made this technique most explicit was Ted Kennedy. Speaking Tuesday night, he freely invoked Boston's Revolutionary War heritage. But what, in his view, is that heritage? "Ideals like freedom and equality and opportunity and fairness and common decency for all-ideals that all Americans yearn to reclaim." .. Equality" had a specific meaning to the Founders: equality of rights. It meant that no class of aristocrats possessed special rights at the expense of other citizens. They never endorsed egalitarianism. But you wouldn't know that by listening to Ted Kennedy... In fact, the Constitution exists to protect our rights and to limit the power of government. But Kennedy believes it exists to "bind us together" to collect our "common wealth" for the "common good." This is not an appeal to American values, but a total inversion of them".

Outspoken Left frustrated: "So far, the Democratic National Convention has been a gathering to drive the ideologues to distraction. Since Howard Dean's candidacy collapsed, the Democrats' angry left wing has contented itself with the notion that Dean had breathed fire into a moribund party. And that he had proved that what was important was not courting swing voters but rather energizing the party's base. (No matter that, as consultant Bill Carrick quips, any more energy and the left might well have a collective heart attack.)"

The media know what side they are on: "During live coverage of tonight's speech by Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards, Dan Rather referred to Vice President Dick Cheney as "a hitman for their side." Here's the full quote: "Question, Bob Schieffer. We know after considerable consideration, the Bush-Cheney campaign decided to send Vice President Cheney out this week as a kind of hitman for their side, believing it was time to frontally assault the Kerry-Edwards ticket."

And you would never know it from John Kerry's advertisements but only 2 out of 23 of his fellow Swift boat commanders from Vietnam support his candidacy. See here for the details.

Dick McDonald has blanket coverage of Kerry's failings.

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ELSEWHERE

Further to my post yesterday about the Leftist origins of Fascism, a reader has pointed me to another excellent essay that probably makes the point better than I do. It is called "American Fascism" and is originally from "The Laissez Faire City Times", whatever that may be. It starts out well: "But the issue of who is a Fascist can't be addressed by any measure from the modern philosophical left because their fundamental tenet is the lie. For them, that's the first principle of the art of war. They use it, they excuse it, and they in fact worship at its feet".

David Boxenhorn has also taken up the discussion of what Fascism is with a note that Arab regimes generally are very similar to historic Fascist regimes -- though they don't seem to have the same strong welfarist orientation or the rhetoric of looking after the worker in particular.

Good to see Christopher Hitchens taking on Australia's chief Leftist ratbag -- Philip Adams. ("ratbag" is Australian slang for a person obsessed with improbable ideas). Adams doubts all the evidence that Saddam was a mass murderer. He has joined the ranks of the holocaust deniers. He will be saying that Ausschwitz, Buchenwald and Treblinka are a fairy-tale next. If it became widely realized that Hitler was a Leftist, he would no doubt argue just that. Leftists have never had much interest in the facts. They have conclusions that they want to reach and only see evidence that supports those conclusions. They argue backwards from their conclusions, not forward from a full consideration of the facts. They are impenetrable to reason. That's why I personally rarely talk to them at all. I talk only to people who are interested in the facts -- people who can handle how complex and surprising the facts often are.

Multicultural England: "A festival to celebrate a city's multiculturalism ended with rival ethnic groups involved in running street battles. The East of England Anand Mela festival was organised by the Indian community in Peterborough to demonstrate its culture, music and food. But about 90 Pakistani and Iraqi youths exchanged blows and hurled chairs on Saturday night." Coppersblog has some amusing background to it.

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

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Puzzle: 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.

The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and people who will say anything to win applause

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 LEFTIST MISREPRESENTATION OF HISTORY

A reader has pointed out to me that this Leftist version of what Fascism is/was has been much reproduced on the net. It now seems to be widely accepted as gospel among Leftists. Needless to say it is a totally bigoted coverup. The author mentions 14 characteristics of Fascism without including any mention of the fact that it was both socialist and an offshoot of Marxism! What frauds Leftists are. In a way I understand them, though. They desperately need to deny that Fascism was Leftist. It would do them enormous harm if everybody came to realize that ALL the great totalitarian regimes of the 20th century were Leftist!

The article also claims (surprise, surprise!) that the USA is Fascist and I have just posted here a detailed reply to that.

As one way of countering the misrepresentations, I have reposted both the latest lot of misrepresentations and a similar set of misrepresentations from another author on one of my sites -- only the version I have posted has a redirection in red to point people to a truthful history of the matter. I am hoping that anybody with a website reading this will link to my "revised" versions of the sites concerned and thus push them high enough up the Google rankings for people to see my revised site as well as the originals when they google "fascism". My "revised" sites are here and here.

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ELSEWHERE

Jimmy Carter the "projectionist" : "He ends on the biggest whopper of the evening: "Elsewhere, North Korea's nuclear menace, a threat far more real and immediate than any posed by Saddam Hussein, has been allowed to advance unheeded." Does anyone remember who brokered the 1994 deal in which the Clinton administration agreed to provided food and oil to North Korea, in exchange for its promise not to develop nuclear weapons-a promise the North Koreans promptly broke, allowing them to threaten us with a nuclear bomb today? That's right: it was Jimmy Carter. This is the same psychological projection Carter employed in 1979. Back then, he suffered a crisis of confidence that left him paralyzed before the fateful challenges of the day-yet he projected his malaise onto the America people."

Leftist "projection": A quote from the 1976 book, "The Russians," by former New York Times Moscow correspondent Hedrick Smith. Smith interviewed Valentin Turchin, a dissident scientist and close friend of Andrei Sakharov. Turchin said, "Homo Sovieticus is like the prostitute who believes that all women are whores because she is. Soviet man believes that the whole world is divided into parties and that every man is a member of one party or another, and there is no real honesty. No one stands for the truth. And if anyone says he is above Party and is trying to speak the truth alone, he is lying. People can travel to the West and hear Western radio broadcasts and it makes no difference, as long as there is this pervasive cynicism that it is just the other side speaking."

Sowell on ignoring the obvious: "A record-breaking new class-action lawsuit against Wal-Mart claims the retail chain discriminates against women, for which of course vast millions of dollars are demanded. The New York Times aptly summarized the case: 'about 65 percent of the company's hourly paid workers are women, but only 33 percent of its managers are.' The grand fallacy of our times is [that] various groups would be equally represented in institutions and occupations if it were not for discrimination. This preconception has undermined, if not destroyed, the crucial centuries-old legal principle that the burden of proof is on the accuser. ... In many ... situations, women have avoided jobs that demand such long hours of work, or so much travel, that it would caring for their children virtually impossible. The biggest difference in income is between married women and everyone else. Women who never married have long held their own economically."

Morgan Spurlock brought his 'Super Size Me' sideshow to Capitol Hill yesterday. Sharing the stage was the animal rights-supported Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), a controversial group which, despite its name, has very few medical doctor members. It does, however, have close ties to radical groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA), and militants from Animal Liberation Front and Stop Huntington Animal Cruelty. So what's missing from Mr. Spurlock's sideshow? Facts."

Cultural anti-Americanism: "Riots, vandalism, raucous protests -- we're all familiar with hard-edged displays of anti-Americanism abroad these days. But this pernicious envy also takes other forms. Not all of them involve demonstrators screaming slogans or throwing stones, nor do they all take place in the street. This 'soft' anti-Americanism rarely makes the headlines. Let's take a look at one such case. An alliance of about 60 governments called the International Network on Cultural Policy will meet in Shanghai, China, in October to denounce freer trade in cultural products, such as films, books, and television programs."

Good step in the U.K.: "New powers to tackle animal rights extremists by clamping down on protests outside people's homes and providing further protection for companies against harassment are to be announced later this week by David Blunkett, the home secretary. He is expected to introduce a specific criminal offence of protesting outside someone's home in an intimidating way and to make it an arrestable offence to return to someone's home after being found guilty of aggressive behaviour." Animal-rights terrorists should be targeted as heavily as any other terrorists.

A brief article here on George Washington as a slave-owner. Australia has managed quite well without ANY "founding fathers" so has been spared such embarrassments.

Although I admire America as the most moral and most generous country the world has ever known, there are a few ways in which I do feel sorry for Americans. One is that they will never understand "Royal fever"! More here. Subjects of traditional monarchies (and I am one) don't need "founding fathers". They have continuity and tradition instead. What Americans took two bloody civil wars to arrive at (independence and central government dominance) Australia arrived at without shedding a drop of blood. Australia started out as a military dictatorship and two of my own ancestors came to this country chained up as cargo in the holds of sailing ships but Australia arrived at roughly where America is simply by patience, moderation and civility -- things which characterize Australians to this day. Not being founded by communistic religious fanatics was clearly a considerable advantage for us. More here.

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

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Puzzle: 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.

The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and people who will say anything to win applause

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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SOME ECONOMICS

GWB's tax cuts: "Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said yesterday that Bush's three rounds of tax cuts helped ensure the 2001 recession was mild and brief and have provided critical stimulus to keep the economy on track. In other words, the Bush tax cuts are the engine that have powered today's recovery."

How outsourcing creates jobs for Americans: "Though the pace of U.S. job creation has quickened recently, some 'Benedict Arnold' companies are still being criticized for outsourcing work from the United States to other countries. U.S. manufacturers have outsourced operations to countries such as China to lower wage costs and escape from high taxes, burdensome government regulations and intransigent unions at home. For similar reasons, service jobs in information technology (IT) are outsourced to India. Less well known, though, is that increased economic globalization has caused jobs to move to the United States as well as away from it."

Ten recurring economic fallacies: "As an American historian who knows something of economic law, having learned from the Austrians, I became intrigued with how the United States had remained prosperous, its economy still so dynamic and productive, given the serious and recurring economic fallacies to which our top leaders (political, corporate, academic) have subscribed and from which they cannot seem to free themselves -- and alas, keep passing down to the younger generation."

Good explanation! "Special interest politics is a simple game. A hundred people sit in a circle, each with his pocket full of pennies. A politician walks around the outside of the circle, taking a penny from each person. No one minds; who cares about a penny? When he has gotten all the way around the circle, the politician throws fifty cents down in front of one person, who is overjoyed at the unexpected windfall. That process is repeated, ending with a different person. After a hundred rounds everyone is a hundred cents poorer, fifty cents richer, and happy."

A flying pig!: "Australian farmers are on the cusp of a $70 billion trade victory as negotiators edge close to an agreement to abolish farm subsidies across the US and Europe.... "What they are looking at is the possible abolition of all subsidies for agriculture," Cattle Council president Keith Adams said. "It's really been the last 24 hours that have seen the ground shift."

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ELSEWHERE

Can you beat this for a dumb headline on Yahoo news: "Edwards to slam GOP in convention speech". What the hell did they THINK he was going to do?

What a laugh! The haters speak. Leftist "projection" again: "Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards called on Americans on Wednesday to reject what he denounced as the Republicans' "hateful, negative politics" and embrace John Kerry and his "politics of hope.""

In case you have not seen it yet, here is a link to the "censored" Ann Coulter column about the Democrat convention -- together with final proof that Leftists are humour-impaired. It must be a miserable life being a Leftist -- nothing satisfies; all is complaint.

Far-out Dems: "Democrats filling the hotels, sidewalks, cafes, bars and restaurants of Boston and swarming through the FleetCenter this week have a message they desperately want the rest of America to hear. We are not liberal... Unfortunately for them, the Boston Globe published a poll of delegates to the convention. What they found was a group of individuals whose beliefs on a wide range of issues differ greatly from those held by most Americans: 62 percent support gay marriage, and 83 percent support civil unions. At the time the Iraq War began, 80 percent opposed it. Today, 95 percent do. 86 percent think the United States is not winning the War on Terror. 89 percent support laws to restrict the availability of firearms. These are not mainstream American views, which is why the Democratic Party has gone to great lengths to control the message and the messengers."

Animal Lib loon: "An 18-year-old man has admitted to setting fire to an animal science facility on the Brigham Young University campus on behalf of a militant animal-rights organization, according to court documents made public Monday. Harrison David Burrows appeared Monday afternoon in U.S. District Court.... Combined, the charges carry a minimum 35-year prison sentence and a maximum 50-year term. BYU Police Chief Larry Stott on Monday praised the prosecution against Burrows, saying he hoped it would stop the attacks on the farm. Stott said the farm houses llamas, goats and rabbits used in "basic feed experiments" that do not harm the animals. "It really does not make a lot of sense to attack that area," he said. "Animals are not being mistreated there."

House nigger? "Q. What do you call a black conservative who works for the Bush Administration? A. A house nigger! Ha-ha-ha! Now pass the cornpipe, paw. Where would you expect to find such a joke? Why, in the Washington Post, of course."

Black sheep: "As a black American who's adopted conservatism, I'm fully aware that this particular commentary is going to spark more than its share of controversy. But I've grown exasperated with the incessant outpouring of half-truths, toxic rhetoric, and outright lies told to black Americans and especially about black conservatives by the NAACP."

Indeed: "Wealthy nations and international organizations, including the World Bank, spend more than $55 billion annually to better the lot of the world's 2.7 billion poor people. Yet they have scant evidence that the myriad projects they finance have made any real difference, many economists say."

A good satirical comment here about an American cyclist winning the Tour de France. I suspect that a certain cycling philosopher might approve.

Carnival of the Vanities is up again. Take no notice of the wacky categories Jeff Doolittle has provided.

Eugene Rants has up a tribute to Australia's most admirable security guard.

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

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Puzzle: 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.

The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and people who will say anything to win applause

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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FROM BROOKES NEWS

President Bush: deficits and interest rates The Democrats and their media supporters screamed that deficits would raise interest rates and dampen the economy. They were wrong.
Berger's contempt for US national security Berger, Bill Clinton's longtime National Security Advisor, stuffed highly classified secret documents into his pants and socks. Now why would he do that?
Republicans' record on blacks beats the Democrats hands down Republicans' record on civil rights for blacks is far superior to the Democrats' record. Only in our Orwellian world could the Republicans be successfully painted by the Party of Jefferson Davis as the party of Jim Crow.
The Dems rich supporters and the stench of fascism Steven Kirsch gave the Gore war machine $250,000 so that it could disenfranchise 25,000 absentee residents of Seminole and Martin Counties. This is what rich Democrats mean by democracy.
The Democrats want to exterminate the Republican Party Democratic Party - meaning its intolerant activist core - is not democratic, except in the Leninist sense of the word.

Details here

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ELSEWHERE

Neurobiology says we need our mothers "Science now tells us without shadow of a doubt that mothers in constant contact with their babies are actually forming the baby's brain, particularly in the right hemispheric orbitofrontal cortex ... those cortico-limbic lobes and intricate connections which will determine his or her emotional well-being and sense of self for the remainder of his or her life."... The second discovery - and this is alarming for mothers who rely on child-care centres - is that this brain growth cannot be achieved by part-time carers. These carers can attend well to physical needs, but not to early brain growth. Science has also established that if this stimulation is not given and the cortico-limbic lobes are not developed, the individual will grow up seriously deficient in all those areas of self that make him or her respond to others in appropriate ways.

A powerful article by Ralph Peters on Front Page. Just one excerpt: "The silence of the Left in the face of uncomfortable truths is a hallowed tradition, of course, dating back to the earliest crimes of the Soviet Union. When the reality confronting the Left contradicts the theory, the theory must be preserved at any cost. And there's no sign of improvement, not a glimmer of the least scrap of conscience or integrity on the Left. It's all about revenge against a democratic system that gives a blue-collar worker a vote equal to that of a university professor's ballot, about hatred for the free market for providing better lives for the great majority while Marxism drowned in the bile of its victims. There's no one the new American Left so despises as the working man or woman who continues to believe in the United States. And it's about power. Had Bill Clinton invaded Iraq and deposed Saddam, the Left would have cheered their throats raw, praising him as one of history's greatest liberators. The rhetoric about Iraq isn't about justice, or the Iraqi people, or even about the horrors of war.... The great, unforgivable insult to the Left is that conservatives took the idea of liberation seriously and acted, while the Liberal-Arts faculty merely chattered about it"

A good comment on Leftist egotism from the inimitable Dalrymple: "Youthful egotism becomes the beginning and end of political wisdom. This attitude may mark the fundamental difference between the modern conservative and the modern radical: the conservative thinks he is a drop in a stream; the radical thinks he is, or ought to be, the stream itself."

French court upholds democracy: "The first gay couple to be married in France vowed Tuesday to fight a court decision that annulled their union and said any redefinition of marriage should be taken up by lawmakers"

Kerry soft on Iran: "The administration has two Iran policies, and the result has been a mix of good and bad. Kerry, by contrast, boasts a single, coherent, and-- to judge by the description of Teheran's activities in yesterday's report-- utterly delusional Iran policy".

UN Fenced out: "Given the institution's palpable bad faith, it is no surprise that Israel did not consent to be judged by the International Court of Justice. This U.N.-sanctioned court condemned Israel in absentia, ruling its construction of a security fence in what the ICJ refers to as 'the Occupied Palestinian Territory' contrary to international law. If 'international law' as interpreted by the United Nations means that a nation may not forestall mass murder, then this law is worse than an ass -- it is a monstrous absurdity rightly ignored."

Victory for Kerry good? Interesting point: "Even though he's a big-government man all the way -- could paradoxically be the most likely hope for curbing excessive government growth in the next four years. Why? The party stereotypes don't always hold up, and a Democratic president and a Congress led by Republicans creates a kind of institutional impasse that actually slows the momentum of government." [registration required, or use login "newsdigests/newsdigests"]

One of the great pleasures of the blogosphere is its diversity (No. Unlike the U.S. Supreme Court I do not mean by that its blackness). I have just come across a blog that is primarily devoted to classical literature -- the literature of ancient Greek and Rome. He posts lots of stuff in both Latin and English so I enjoy seeing how far my limited knowledge of Latin gets me.

Interesting post about the possibility of Russian troops for Iraq at The Baby Seal Club

Randall Parker has lots of posts up about immigration. He is a careful reasoner and makes a pretty good case that the optimists have got it wrong about the present Hispanic influx into the USA.

Amusing: I note that a Green/Left blogger has just linked to my "Greenie Watch" blog. He seems pretty sensible for a Greenie but most of his blog is in Dutch so it is hard to be sure. His name is Roel Groeneveld so maybe he is only a Greenie because of his name. His surname translates as "Greenfield".

Dick McDonald has an amusing letter up from a senior citizen who is supporting John Kerry.

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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FROM THE VATICAN

Some hope for Islam? "One country in sub-Saharan Africa is a living contradiction of the skeptics. Islam has been present there for almost a thousand years; 82 percent of its inhabitants are Muslim. They belong to the Sunni tradition, with a contingent that follows Wahhabi rigorism. They are extremely poor, with an average annual per capita income of 230 dollars, and poverty and freedom almost never go together. They belong to various tribes, which in many African countries is the root of incurable conflicts. And yet, democracy flourishes there. The country is Mali, between the Niger river and the Sahara desert"

Vatican backs GM crops to feed the poor: "a substantially pro-GMO position has already been taken up inside the Vatican. Such a position has been understood from coverage of the Nov. 2003 conference, particularly as seen in the March 20 2004 issue of "La Civilta Cattolica". "La Civilta Cattolica" coverage of the conference gave much space to explicating pro-GMO arguments rather than those opposed to them. We read in the magazine that The Holy See firmly hopes that "GMOs can be an opportunity to produce good things and foster social development for the poorest nations on earth which, based on Jesus Christ's example, the Church holds especially dear."

A dotty Catholic bishop in Sudan does at least know Muslims well so may have a good insight here: "The greatest punishment Arabs can inflict is oppression, a sense of falsity. If they can fool you, they do it with will all their might. They are proud of their ability to trick you, to behave like liars and compliment you. Al Turabi will take Bush for a ride, wherever and whenever he wants. And he could do much worse things. I, rather than being tricked and playing the fool, prefer being slapped in the face. Muslims fill you with fear, they keep you in a permanent state of uncertainty. It's a continuous psychological affliction, worse than torture."

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ELSEWHERE

Another triumph of socialized medicine: British "National Health" hospitals are full of superbug bacteria (MRSA) that drugs cannot kill -- making such hospitals very dangerous places to go to if you are ill. But: "one is vastly safer in a private hospital. The danger of getting MRSA is, above all, a risk affecting patients of the NHS".

Blair talks the talk but doesn't walk the walk: "Tony Blair has often spoken of the need to overthrow, or at least recast, the "liberal consensus" which has dominated the politics and institutions of Great Britain since the 1960s. He was at it again last Monday, criticising the "1960s revolution" for not putting enough emphasis on the responsibilities which ought to be inseparable from rights".

A woman to be proud of: "Bleeding and bruised after being bashed and robbed, a security guard struggled to her feet and, in a lethal response, shot her attacker dead".

A typically arrogant Leftist mourns the fact that the pesky working people of Kansas are not voting for "their" party. George Will points out the elitist assumptions involved. See also here. That lots of pesky working class people insist on voting conservative has irked the Left for a long time. I did some academic research on the phenomenon over over 30 years ago -- in which I showed that working class conservatives had more normal attitudes than working-class Leftists.

Jeff Jacoby on Leftist haters: "A popular conceit of the left is that political hatred is a sickness of the right, one to which liberals are largely immune. "Just who are these Clinton haters," asked Time magazine in April 1994, "and why do they loathe Bill and Hillary with such passion?" It answered, in effect: That's just the way conservatives are. The article quoted historian Alan Brinkley: "Liberals tend to value tolerance highly, so there's a greater reluctance to destroy enemies than among the right." That was a whopper even in 1994, a year when Republican leader Newt Gingrich was routinely vilified as a McCarthyite and a racist. Ten years later, with a storm of Bush hatred raging among liberal Democrats, the notion that the left is too high-minded to savage its opponents is about as plausible as the claim that the moon landings were staged in Hollywood."

Enron caused the California blackouts! Yes. The Left are still trying to pass the buck for the bungling of their Democrat establishment. The real story of what happened is here

There is a stunning list here of Israel's scientific and technological achievements -- despite the unremitting attacks on them by one of the world's most parasitic people.

Bureaucrats are not your friend: "Eldred had barely driven his white-and-red camper into the parking lot of the Walden Pond Reservation and tacked up a handwritten sign reading 'Free Walden' when a state park ranger asked him to leave. Eldred said he was told he needed a permit to hand out copies of the book, free or not, and would be arrested if he continued."

Leftists are still either ignoring or apologizing for the horrors of Communist North Korea. Just as they did for Stalin's Russia. If anything could outrage anybody, North Korea would do it. The fact that the Left show zero outrage about North Korea shows that what outrage they do claim to feel is fake.

Comment from a reader on Orwell's article about different types of nationalism: "The American Left I see are nationalistic in their own ways. For instance they continously call the Right "fascists" and refer them to the "Christian Taliban". They call anyone who opposes their view as "inferior" and hate anyone who criticizes people like the Clintons or the Kennedys. So in some ways the American Left as well as the International Left are nationalists. Nationalism would also explain the anti-Americanism on the International Left as well as the American Left. If you would to ask a member of the International Left on what they view America, they would say they hate America, but always say their nation is better than America"

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

********************************

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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EU WOES

Despair from a French patriot: "I am convinced that the fate of France is sealed, because "My house is their house" (Mitterand), inside "Europe whose roots are as much Muslim as Christian" (Chirac), because the situation is moving irreversibly towards the final swing in 2050 which will see French stock amounting to only half the population of the country, the remainder comprising Africans, Moors and Asians of all sorts from the inexhaustible reserve of the Third World, predominantly Islamic, understood to be fundamentalist Jihadists, this dance is only the beginning."

The new EU constitution: "Taken to its logical conclusion, the EU's 'anti-discrimination' policy as reflected in the Charter means that a Christian school could be forced to employ atheist teachers, or a Muslim organisation to appoint Christian managers. The perverse effect of this will be to emphasise differences between sections of society and give power to self-appointed activists... The European Union favours divisive 'group' rights over individual freedom. In this connection, we note that most countries in the EU are in practice much less tolerant of racial or religious minorities than Britain"

EU voting unfair "The European Constitution is unscientific, will not achieve the objective of "one person one vote", and will give Germany undue influence, according to a new analysis".

EU regulations hurt women: "He said maternity laws that gave women six months of paid leave and the option of another six months unpaid leave, had resulted in women losing jobs and employment. Many businesses only employed women over 40 .... If you're a small business, you'd be a lunatic to hire a woman of child bearing age"

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ELSEWHERE

There is a HUGE and heavily featured attack on Michael Moore in Brisbane's "Sunday Mail" of July 25th. The article is subheaded: "Take the lies, distortions and propaganda from Michael Moore's film and what do you have? Absolutely nothing". I wonder if there will ever be anything comparable in any American mainstream newspaper -- which is where such an attack is needed. You can read the text of the article concerned here or here. The graphic given to the right of the article covered a full page in the "Sunday Mail". Both the "Sunday Mail" and the Melbourne paper in which the article originally appeared are Murdoch publications, of course. No wonder the Democrats are frantic to prevent Murdoch from owning any significant American newspapers. Imagine what it would be like if there were newspaper versions of Fox News in most major American cities.

And how's this for fun: "The Democratic Party apparently doesn't want Michael Moore. The famed filmmaker who delivered a major assault on the Bush administration in his blockbuster film "Fahrenheit 9/11" was declined credentials to the Democratic National Convention in Boston next week"

Fred Barnes chronicles the steady drift of the Democrats towards the loony Left. And William Bennett has a similar message.

I see that Jim Miller has done a post on the nutty politics of Linda Ronstadt. He expects brains from a rock singer? Nice voice but ....

American legal theorist Lawrence Lessig attacks regulation: "Lessig has become a champion of the public domain, the collective term for those creative works - including books, films, music, and TV programmes - whose use is unregulated, leaving the public free to do whatever it likes with them, whenever it likes. Lessig believes that the public domain is currently under siege from excessive and wrongheaded regulation. 'As a matter of the history of ideas, the public domain was a very central concept that we have forgotten. The presumption today is control, but the presumption before was freedom.'"

Conservatives happier: "One of the things that always differentiated right-wing student groups I was acquainted with from other university political activists was a sense of humor. These ragtag bands of young Tories, evangelical Christians and supply-side business students not only rejoiced in ruthlessly skewering PC niceties, but they also joyfully poked fun at stereotypes of themselves. If this sounds insignificant, try to imagine campus feminist, environmentalist or gay-rights groups doing the same."

I rarely disagree with Iain Murray but his latest article about mad cow disease -- he implies that humans do NOT catch it -- seems to be leaning on a weak reed to me. He bases his views on an article from some French researchers that is in turn based on a "model" (i.e. a series of guesses) of mad cow infection in France. I actually agree that the connection between mad cow disease and similar diseases in humans is far from proven and on balance unlikely but I don't see that the French guesswork adds anything substantial to the debate. As Iain himself points out, models can very easily be totally wrong -- and often are. I think we need evidence, not models.

Real capitalism needed: "For all the talk about the triumph of capitalism, it seems that the free market- the real thing and not someone's imagined conception of it- has very few friends in politics or the world of ideas. Thus do the writings Murray Rothbard, the leading defender of the market economy of his generation, still have the power to shock and clarify the essential ideological and political battles of our time."

"Perpetual War Portfolio": This anti-war site has imaginatively tried to link the performance of key US defence stocks and rate them by the extent of (a) the firm's political connections to the administration and (b) it's lobbying and political contributions. You have to give them credit for exposing their ideas to empirical test. In principle this share portfolio should be a solid gold winner if the more insidious accounts of the military industrial complex, as seen in Michael Moore movies, were actually true. Unfortunately for anyone silly enough to invest the PWP way, their portfolio would have only earned 2% since 12 Feb 2002 compared to 12% for the Dow and 25% for the Nasdaq in the same period. Losers! My portfolio is up 25% over that period.

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

********************************

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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NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY

I see that Keith Burgess-Jackson has a post on the notion of national sovereignty and says most of what needs to be said about it. The people who have been raising the issue in recent years have been Leftists -- using the doctrine that national sovereignty must be respected regardless of "internal" matters in a pathetic attempt to defend Saddam Hussein and criticize GWB. There is a doctrine of that sort in international law but its origin is amusing:

It originated in 1648 after Europe became exhausted by Catholic vs. Protestant wars as the "Peace of Westphalia" and was a (partially successful) way of preventing more wars by accepting the status quo as final -- i.e. accepting as final those boundaries between kingdoms that existed at that time regardless of the religion of the ruler (which it was accepted his subjects were obliged to follow). Napoleon however eventually came along and thoroughly upset the status quo so the whole thing had to be done all over again by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. And the Congress of Vienna was chaired and run by the representative of the Austrian Kaiser, the highly-reactionary Prince Metternich (who was himself a Westphalian, curiously enough). So the Congress of Vienna must be one of history's best examples of a concerted and successful attempt to defend and preserve a major and long-lasting status quo. And the doctrine underlying THOSE arrangements is what Leftists now proclaim as sacred! It shows how easily their "principles" can go into reverse-gear (as they also did over eugenics).

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FROM BROOKES NEWS

Theresa Heinz Kerry: You pay taxes, I don't Theresa Heinz Kerry likes taxes so much she thinks the little people should pay more
Joe Wilson tried to set up President Bush Joe Wilson used his Niger-uranium assignment to try and damage the President Bush
Taiwan - why China will not invade Some American commentators have been warning of a Chinese attack on Taiwan. Why they are wrong
The ALP, intelligence and hypocrisy The ALP cannot be trusted with the defence of Australia and the management of our relationships with our allies

Details here

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ELSEWHERE

Freeh of the FBI sums it up: "while changes and improvements are always in order, the blame for the 9/11 attack rests solely on the terrorists who did it. This central truth has often been ignored by the endless talking heads and sound-bite analysis with which we have been saturated in the last two years."

Another comment on Michael Moore: "But what to make of this latest two-hour tantrum, which doesn't merely ooze innuendo and misrepresentation, but is long, boring and puerile too?.. F9/11, alas, is a recrudescence of the lamest '60s paranoia. You thought, perhaps, that the war on terror had something to do with Islamism? Neo-conservatism? Israel? The UN? The Kurds? Think again: it's the military-industrial complex, I tells ya. Most of the film's more febrile assertions disintegrate on any contact with evidence".

There is to be a big Muslim rally in London today in which Islamists declare that theirs is the one true religion and seek converts. See here. A few quotes from their announcement: "The speakers will also set out to present Islam as the only real future for Britain and indeed the World... As for the Sikhs, acknowledge, that as a man-made system your belief is really just a hotpot of different religions and opinions "jumbled together".... The Hindu tradition of worshipping idols was (and still is) seen as a major act of ignorance". Not much tolerance or compromise there. There is another version of the announcement here in which the Islamists attack homosexuality. Apparently British homosexuals have at last decided that they really should oppose people who want to stone them to death. Not before time.

There is another good collection of quotes here from Democrats who proclaimed the danger from Iraq before the US intervention there -- quotes ranging from Bill Clinton to John Kerry and including Sandy Berger. Snopes has verified that the quotes are accurate but says they are "out of context". Snopes does normally grasp at any straw to find fault with anything favourable to conservatives. They will end up discrediting themselves that way.

Citizenship rationality: "A proposed anti-illegal immigration measure not only leads overwhelmingly in a new statewide poll, but Arizonans across party lines and demographic groups favor it. Seventy-four percent of the 387 registered voters interviewed last week, said they would support the measure, Protect Arizona Now. Only 16 percent opposed it and 10 percent were undecided. The initiative, likely to make the Nov. 2 ballot, would affect many Arizona citizens in addition to undocumented immigrants. It would require proof of citizenship for anyone registering to vote and identification for those who vote in person. When registering to vote, Arizonans currently fill out forms affirming that they are U.S. citizens and Arizona residents."

Frank Devine has an interesting insider's story of the rise and fall of "Readers Digest"

My post on the Libertarian party got a fair bit of response. Here is a cartoon I was directed to that that sums up a lot.

Australia's national daily newspaper has just published a big selection of its past political cartoons. I reproduce the two that I like best here or here.

The Policeman's blog is a very amusing site. At least one British cop has a sense of humour. His North Korean tiepin had me laughing. But it is British humour so I am not sure how much of it Americans would get.

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

********************************

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 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

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