WHO WAS THE FASCIST B****** WHO SAID THIS?

A selective account of American history used to justify actions elsewhere:

"Just a word about "universal fraternal union of peoples" and the drawing of "boundaries established by the sovereign will of the peoples themselves on the basis of their national characteristics". The United States and Mexico are two republics, in both of which the people is sovereign.

How did it happen that over Texas a war broke out between these two republics, which, according to the moral theory, ought to have been "fraternally united" and "federated", and that, owing to "geographical, commercial and strategical necessities", the "sovereign will" of the American people, supported by the bravery of the American volunteers, shifted the boundaries drawn by nature some hundreds of miles further south? And will B. accuse the Americans of a "war of conquest", which, although it deals with a severe blow to his theory based on "justice and humanity", was nevertheless waged wholly and solely in the interest of civilization? Or is it perhaps unfortunate that splendid California has been taken away from the lazy Mexicans, who could not do anything with it? That the energetic Yankees by rapid exploitation of the California gold mines will increase the means of circulation, in a few years will concentrate a dense population and extensive trade at the most suitable places on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, create large cities, open up communications by steamship, construct a railway from New York to San Francisco, for the first time really open the Pacific Ocean to civilization, and for the third time in history give the world trade a new direction? The "independence" of a few Spanish Californians and Texans may suffer because of it, in someplaces "justice" and other moral principles may be violated; but what does that matter to such facts of world-historic significance?"

So who was it who rejected morality and believed that the superiority of one people over another gave the stronger one the right to seize the territory of the weaker one? Was it Hitler justifying his invasion of Poland? No. It was clearly written before that and it was written by Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx's co-author. See here.

So what does that show? It shows that Mussolini's Fascism, Hitler's Nazism and Lenin's Communism were all Marxist. We are always told how "Rightist" ideas such as the above are but in the days of Hitler and Mussolini such ideas were LEFTIST. Practically everybody in the 19th century believed that some races and nations were superior to others but it was the Leftists who wanted to use such ideas to justify merciless oppression of one race or nation by another. The British, by contrast, saw their suzerainty over India as the white man's BURDEN (in Kipling's famous phrase). They did not see it as a licence to kill. When one erring General (Dyer) committed the Amritsar massacre in India, there was great public outrage in Britain and he was cashiered over it. By contrast, read a little further in the article by Engels just quoted and see what he wanted to do to the Czechs:

"And for this cowardly, base betrayal of the revolution we shall at some time take a bloody revenge against the Slavs".

So what had the Czech Slavs done to have such bloodlust aimed at them? They were not revolutionary enough! The Czech Leftists had made peace with their government. THAT was their terrible crime! So we see where both Lenin and Hitler were coming from.

The same thing applied to eugenics. The idea was invented by the conservative Galton but it was the Leftists who wanted to use it as an excuse for the merciless and forcible control of people's lives. As it says here:

"Galton's proposals were benign compared with those of famous contemporaries who rallied to his cause. H. G. Wells, for instance, declared, "It is in the sterilisation of failures, and not in the selection of successes for breeding, that the possibility of an improvement of the human stock lies." Although Galton was a conservative, his creed caught on with progressive figures like Harold Laski, John Maynard Keynes, George Bernard Shaw, and Sidney and Beatrice Webb. In the United States, New York disciples founded the Galton Society, which met regularly at the American Museum of Natural History, and popularizers helped the rest of the country become eugenics-minded. "How long are we Americans to be so careful for the pedigree of our pigs and chickens and cattle-and then leave the ancestry of our children to chance or to `blind' sentiment?" asked a placard at an exposition in Philadelphia. Four years before Galton's death, the Indiana legislature passed the first state sterilization law, "to prevent the procreation of confirmed criminals, idiots, imbeciles, and rapists." Most of the other states soon followed. In all, there were some sixty thousand court-ordered sterilizations of Americans who were judged to be eugenically unfit".

So Hitler's eugenics simply made him a good Leftist of his time. It did NOT make him a Rightist. More on what Marx and Engels actually preached at MarxWords. So although Germany is rightly blamed for much evil, it is in a sense the wrong German who gets blamed. It should be Engels, not Hitler. Hitler just implemented what Engels preached. But in all the big commemorations of the war they will be having in Germany soon, how often do you think that will be mentioned?

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ELSEWHERE

A good comment from an Australian reader on my leading post yesterday: ""Spiked" recently had an interesting article on the politically correct use of 'homophobia'. Your link on gay domestic violence may even indicate that homophilic violence (not always 'domestic') is a bigger threat to gays than homophobic violence. Of course it is political correctness types, not necessarily gays themselves, who push this homophobia barrow. Basically as part of their bigger agenda to curtail personal liberty for all people gay or not, presumably to socially engineer their utopian fantasy. I think most people, including most minority members, would rather have strong broad-based legal protections for all and a non-intrusive state and put up with the ratbag and bigoted views of some of their neighbours, than risk our personal freedoms in a futile crusade for universal tolerance".

The "protests" at GWB's inauguration have inspired one blogger to say that America has become "Berkelified". He then goes on the explain the "reasoning" behind the protests. "Look at me" about sums up the real motivation of the protestors. In case you DO want to see all the weird shapes and sizes that egotism comes in, One Hundred Percenter has some photos.

And here is a sample of the vast intellect behind the protests: "In cold, snowy Washington, about a hundred protesters gathered outside the "Black Tie and Boots" inaugural ball on Wednesday night, comparing President George W. Bush to Adolph Hitler because Bush is "exterminating the Muslim race." "It is no different in that Hitler killed so many Jews, and George Bush, you know, is exterminating the Muslim race and others," said a man who identified himself only as Don from Florida. Don held up a sign with the words "Vote Republican" written over a Nazi swastika. "It's just a form of fascism -- the Patriot Act and everything -- they stole the vote".

Taranto: "UC Berkeley recently completed what a press release describes as "the first attempt to compare measures of mental health and general well-being among California's general population on a county-level basis." The study (link in PDF) finds that the two counties with the lowest "mental health scores" are Alameda, which includes Berkeley, and San Francisco, which is coterminous with the city. (See page 30 of the PDF document, which is page 21 of the printed report.). What else do these counties have in common? They are the California counties where John Kerry did best: 83% of the vote in San Francisco and 75% in Alameda. You don't have to be crazy to oppose President Bush, but it doesn't hurt".

Loony British welfare: "A think-tank claims that married couples are being rewarded for splitting up. The tax and benefits system subsidises marriage break-up and rewards lone parents with handouts at the expense of married couples, a report says. The average couple-family, where one partner has a job, is 1 pound a week better off than the average workless one-parent family because lone parents get so much extra support from the state"

My latest posting on MarxWords notes that Marx despised peaceful political movements. My latest posting on "A scripture blog" looks at John 1:1 as a concession to popular Christolatry.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions.

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

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"HOMOPHOBIA"

I no more believe in persecuting homosexuals than I believe in kicking sick dogs but I am quite fed up with the way the Left keep banging on about "homophobia". Now that Leftists mostly admit that they hate Jews and don't send their kids to schools in black neighbourhoods, the poor old queers seem to be about all that the Left have still got to patronize. And calling homosexuals "gay" is the biggest laugh of all. They are not too gay in the final stages of AIDS and the incidence of domestic violence among homosexual couples seems to be enormous. For instance: "One study found 79% of gay victims had suffered some physical injury".

And the whole "homophobia" chant is about a myth anyway. "Phobia" comes from the Greek word "phobos", meaning "fear" and I have yet to meet ANYONE who fears homosexuals. In my observation, the thought of homosexual behaviour disgusts normal people (as we would expect it to on evolutionary grounds) but disgust is a long way from fear and even further from hate.

Homosexual behaviour is using sexual organs in an abnormal way so it seems to me simply accurate to call it perverted or deviant or queer but if people don't have a right to do what they want with their own bodies then the state of liberty is very bad indeed. So I see no reason whatever why their private behaviour should earn homosexuals any kind of punishment or hurt or bad treatment. And as far as I can see, that is overwhelmingly both the normal view and the normal practice throughout the Western world today. I do however have the perfectly mainstream belief that homosexual advocacy should be kept away from children. As far as I can see, some homosexual behaviour is innate and some is learned. So some kids could go either way. And all parents want the happiest life possible for their children so do not want them lured into a lifestyle associated with much unhappiness and loss -- including early death. The average life expectancy of homosexuals is around 40 years. And "gay men were six times more likely to suffer adult sexual abuse or rape"

And in their never-ending efforts to draw attention to themselves it is precisely that solitary taboo -- on exposing children to homosexuality -- that Leftists devote much effort to breaking. Who they think they are benefiting by it I do not know. But benefiting anybody has never been the real Leftist aim. They are such haters that upsetting normal people leading everyday happy lives is their real kick.

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ELSEWHERE

Desperate Leftist attempt to find "war crimes": "The Culinary Institute of America yesterday denounced participation of military nutritionists in torture of Guantanamo detainees. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, nutritionists on the Cuban naval base assisted in the preparation of Halal meals for detainees, which were sometimes served after stressful interrogation sessions. "A deep-fried falafel burger, when a detainee's blood pressure is elevated, may be the difference between a mere violation of the Geneva Conventions and a war crime"". [But when Saddam put people through a shredding machine that was no problem of course]

The full text of Condi Rice's excellent confirmation speech is here. A good excerpt: "In the Middle East, President Bush has broken with six decades of excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the hope of purchasing stability at the price of liberty. The stakes could not be higher". President Bush's inaugural speech is here. Note how in his closing words he violated the "separation of church and State" that only Leftists can find in the constitution: "May God bless you, and may He watch over the United States of America"

The Soviets were really teddy-bears? "The revisionist depiction of the Cold War, offered throughout the academy, is founded on fantasy. The scholarship of left-wing historians is focused on what might have been rather than what actually was. Clearly sympathetic to the ultimate aim of communism-a classless society-leftist historians like Leslie Adler and Thomas Patterson write that Soviet communism "was a system proclaiming a humanistic ideology" that had only "fail[ed] to live up to its ideal." But in truth the Bolsheviks failed to deliver in every way. They promised bread but produced chronic food storages and rationing.... Communists were mass murderers on a scale never before seen in history. In the Soviet Union, the mass killing included the wholesale murder of several hundred thousand Don Cossacks in 1919, the starving to death of as many as seven million Ukrainian peasants in 1932-1933, the execution of nearly one million party members in the purges of 1937-1938, and the burial of millions of Trotskyites and other political prisoners in the Gulag starting in the 1930s and continuing into the 1950s".

Garbologists get it right: "A German museum is offering art appreciation lessons to Frankfurt's sanitation workers, after garbage collectors lugged away a public art sculpture recently and sent it to the incinerator. Peter Postleb, head of the city's Clean Frankfurt initiative, claimed responsibility Monday for the case of mistaken identity, after garbage collectors picked up and disposed of what they thought to be construction rubbish. Though indeed made from yellow plastic sheeting used to encase cement, the item was actually a sculpture by Berlin artist Michael Beutler. It was part of a series of 10 sculptures commissioned by the municipal art society and exhibited around the city".

South African boondoggle: "One of government's flagship poverty-relief measures is in crisis, sounding warning bells ahead of local government elections later this year. Government's policy of providing free basic electricity for the poor has been lauded as one of the successes of the fight against poverty, but it has now been shown to be poorly run and failing dismally to reach those it is intended for... Ompi Aphane, chief director in the minerals and energy department, said yesterday that only 12% of the poor had received the free electricity benefit in the 18 months since its launch, while expenditure on the initiative had ballooned to about R750m 2,4 times more than budgeted.... This meant, said Aphane, that 1,7-million consumers or 88% of all municipal customers, most of whom who did not qualify for it were getting free basic electricity."

Rafe Champion has put up on the Quiggin site a brief version of some arguments why labor union activity does not benefit workers as a whole.

John Hawkins from Right Wing News has just posted the results of his poll of right-of-center bloggers on whom they consider "The Most & Least Desired 2008 Republican Nominee".

My latest posting on MarxWords notes that Marx wanted democracy to "rot away". My latest posting on "A scripture blog" looks at John 2: 19-22, where some say Jesus promised to resurrect himself!

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions.

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

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IS CONSERVATISM NO MORE THAN BELIEF IN A FIXED HUMAN NATURE?

Mark Richardson is an Australian conservative who has a definition of conservatism that excludes most people who would normally be called conservatives. He has a blog here and one of his recent articles is here. There has always been a tendency on the extreme Right to see almost the whole world as against them and even I seem to be an extreme Leftist to such people! Mark is however not part of the fruitcake brigade. He has a well-articulated position which amounts to saying that all advocacy of freedom is Leftist (or "liberal" as he calls it) and what makes a conservative is belief in certain hereditary givens -- such as belief in the selfishness of human nature, the tribalism of man and the instinctive and ineluctible rightness of the traditional family. As a rough summary, we might say that Mark believes conservatism to consist of a belief in strong genetic limits on what we can do and become.

Most conservatives would of course agree with Mark about his three conservative themes that I have just mentioned. I myself agree fully only with the first point -- about human nature. I have set out reasons here why I believe that, although it does exist, the tribalism of man is surprisingly weak. And I also see many perfectly healthy, decent and well-functioning people emerging from a variety of family arrangements. I think that there is now overwhelming evidence from the geneticists that what we become is almost entirely a function of our genes rather than of our family environment. Even our political ideology is substantially inherited through our genes. (See e.g. here and here and here). So actual genetic research in fact undermines Mark's belief in the central importance of a given type of family environment.

What I think has happened is that Mark has gone overboard. He is the opposite swing of the pendulum to the Left. The Left believe in NO inborn limits on what human arrangements will work whereas Mark sees limits on every hand. The truth, I think, is to be found in treating what inborn limits we have as an emprical question. Their constant policy failures from the French revolution onwards show that the Leftists are wrong but what is right can only be discovered by trial and error. And that is why conservatives believe that tradition and history are important and useful. They are the laboratory in which we see what works and what doesn't.

And one thing we find in that laboratory is that we do have liberties as well as limitations and the liberties are in fact highly transformative. Giving people liberties of certain sorts -- such as economic liberty -- can be enormously beneficial. And the high value conservatives have always placed on liberty also springs from their belief in the selfishness and untrustworthiness of their fellow man: If you cannot trust your fellow-man to do you good, it is important to be as free of his control over you as possible. So Mark has thrown the baby out with the bathwater. He is right that we do work under some genetic constraints and are hence not totally free but we still can have and do have SOME liberties, and those are enormously beneficial. So it is no wonder that conservatives have long made efforts to conserve and extend liberties -- such as political liberty -- of various sorts, while also rejecting other liberties -- particularly in the moral sphere. Real-life conservatives believe in striking a balance -- which neither Leftists nor Mark do.

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ELSEWHERE

We have just seen what I think is a good end to a very nasty case of anti-white racism. A group of four California policemen were trying to subdue an aggressive and unco-operative black teenager and not having an easy time of it. At one stage one of the white officers punched the teenager. It was later agreed by all concerned that the punch was justified. Black activists made a big fuss over it however and the white policeman was then fired from his job by his black boss, charged with misconduct and put through a series of trials. The trials failed to convict him of anything. He then sued the police department for discrimination -- saying that he had been fired and put on trial only because he was white. He has just won his case and been awarded $1.6 million. A great victory for justice and against racism, it seems to me.

Iran buying bioweapons? "Iran's ambassador to Cuba said his country will increase ties to the Communist dictatorship 90 miles from Florida by extending some 20 million in euro credit. United by anti-Americanism, the two countries have grown closer in recent years - a concern to some in Washington because of Iran's sponsorship of terrorism and desire to develop weapons of mass destruction. Cuba has an extensive biological and chemical weapons development program. Plans for more scientific collaboration were announced by Ahmad Edrian, Iran's ambassador to Cuba. They include plans by Cuba to help build a plant in Iran to produce vaccines and medicines".

EU socialism crushes entrepreneurship: "The EU continues to lag behind the US when it comes to entrepreneurship, a poll published on Monday (17 January) by the European Commission shows. The survey - conducted on both sides of the Atlantic - shows that nearly twice as many Americans are thinking of setting up their own business (28 percent) than their European counterparts (15 percent). Moreover, the gap appears to be widening. The number of people thinking about starting their own firm increased by eight percent since 2003 in the US, but only by two percent in the EU." [With all the bureaucratic barriers they would have to face, Europeans are REALISTIC to write off the idea of starting a business]

Talk about special pleading! "Eliminating global poverty, disease and hunger are "utterly affordable" but need concerted action from rich nations, including a massive increase in funding for scientific research addressing the needs of the world's poor. These are among the findings of a comprehensive report by the UN Millennium Project that was presented to UN secretary-general Kofi Annan yesterday (17 January). The report calls on international donors specifically to support scientific research on health, agriculture, natural resource, energy and climate change". [It is capitalism that ends poverty, not science]

There is an article here arguing that homosexuals should be charged more for their health insurance. Why? Because of the very high medical costs associated with AIDS.

Carnival of the Vanities is up again -- with a very large offering this time

My latest posting on MarxWords notes that Marx blackmailed his own mother! Nice type. My latest posting on "A scripture blog" looks at an Old Testament scripture for a change (Isaiah 43:11). Did Isaiah support the Trinity?

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions.

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

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BOOK REVIEW: A PATRIOT'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

By L. Schweikart and M. Allen; Publisher: Penguin, N.Y., 2004

It is refreshing to see a book like this published by a mainstream publisher. It seems that at least one mainstream publisher sees the advantage of having some balance in their list. Penguin is normally a reliable fountain of Left-wing books. Perhaps they even bored themselves in the end. The book is however on a special "Sentinel" list for specifically conservative books. Quarantining conservative books like a dangerous disease is a sort of a compliment to such books, though. It shows how much they threaten the Leftist orthodoxy.

From what I can gather, American history as it is taught in most American schools these days consists mainly of a series of crimes committed against minorities and others by "dead white males". The situation is similar in Australia, where we are routinely told that our white ancestors committed "genocide" against the Tasmanian aborigines -- although the aborigines concerned in fact died out from the effects of white men's diseases rather than white men's bullets.

This book is certainly meant to be an alternative to the Leftist propaganda by Howard Zinn and others that passes for school textbooks these days but it does not insult our intelligence by substituting Rightist propaganda for Leftist propaganda. If it had been conservative propaganda, for instance, we might expect it to stress the central importance of the Pilgrim fathers and their Christian faith in the American founding. And double that if you are aware that Schweikart is a committed Christian. In fact, however, the book glides over this small group of blown-off-course religious renegades as the relatively minor event in the British settlement of North America that it was. The Mayflower Pilgrims get in fact less than two pages out of 928. Even Africans arrived in North America before the Pilgrims! If any of that jars you, you need to read the book.

I will not say any more about the book other than to say that it is a meticulous and balanced coverage of the WHOLE of American history right up to the present day. And it only needs the facts to explode heaps of Leftist myths along the way. Don't even get me started on the New Deal and the Great Depression!

I have previously mentioned the excellent A politically incorrect Guide to American history by Tom Woods, which focuses specifically on debunking Leftist myths. This book by contrast is a "just the facts" approach to the whole of American history. Both for students and as a comprehensive one-volume home reference I know of nothing better. And, given recent scandals, I guess I should mention that neither Penguin nor anyone else are paying me to say that. Being both well-off and too old for any shenanigans, I would not be tempted by bribes anyway.

There is a much more extensive summary of the book and a cut-price offer for buyers here. Nearly 1,000 pages of history for less than 30 bucks seems pretty good to me.

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ELSEWHERE

This article is by a Leftist journalist who went and talked to many Bush voters in the "red" states. Despite its biases, it is a very vivid and touching portrait of the many good down-to-earth people who voted Bush in and Kerry out. I liked this comment that one of them made about Bush: "I think he's a good man with a good heart". I think that too. And the people who call him a "Nazi" show what THEY are.

Wow! The source most quoted in support of the global warming theory is the annual IPCC reports. One of the expert scientific authors of past reports has just pulled out of doing any future reports because he says his colleagues are making claims that run contrary to the scientific data. I suspect that global warming theory is on the brink of doing a Soviet-style collapse -- maybe even in the next 12 months. The latest evidence that cutting carbon emissions will actually INCREASE global warming is a second stake through the heart for the theory. See GREENIE WATCH for both documents.

A no-baloney man: "The president of Harvard University, Lawrence H. Summers, sparked an uproar at an academic conference Friday when he said that innate differences between men and women might be one reason fewer women succeed in science and math careers. Summers also questioned how much of a role discrimination plays in the dearth of female professors in science and engineering at elite universities." [It's been known for nearly 100 years that men and women have different patterns of achievement on ability tests. For instance, women do best on verbal abilities and men do best on visual/spatial abilities. Is it any wonder that men and women have job preferences to go with that?]

Arlene Peck: "Truly, I hate to sound negative, but it frightens me. The view from here is pre-1938, and the Muslims have such an edge now that no matter what they say, the United Nations is going to gleefully meet and vote to condemn the state of Israel. It is as though the Muslims have been given a 'pass' as a 'special' religious group, allowed to commit regular atrocities, such as beheading and cutting off hands and bombing anyone within range. And, folks, they can do it all in the name of Allah, but they truly believe Satan makes them do it - oh, and those nasty old Israelis.... It doesn't usually matter that no other religious group perpetrates their monstrous atrocities. Nobody ever questions how Muslims are the only ones out there who are doing their evil deeds"

Blacks waking up to the Dems? "Polls find young blacks less likely to call racism America's No. 1 issue. A Time/CNN poll found 89 percent of black teens consider racism in their own lives to be "a small problem" or "not a problem at all." Twice as many black teens as white believe that "failure to take advantage of available opportunities" is a bigger problem for blacks than discrimination. Polls and focus groups show younger blacks less likely to identify themselves as Democrats, and more likely to support partial privatization of Social Security, school vouchers and the abolition of race-based preferences. This spells trouble for the Democratic Party and its monolithic black vote".

Power is the only Leftist principle: "Democratic lawmakers are pushing legislation that would take a multimillion-dollar bite out of one of their party's biggest political enemies - the Building Industry Association of Washington. The move sets up a bitter showdown between the BIAW, a powerful conservative force, and the liberal Washington State Labor Council, which has been trying for years to clip the association's wings.... Rep. Cary Condotta of Wenatchee, the ranking Republican on the Commerce and Labor Committee, called the bill, which would reduce the BIAW's income from workers'-compensation refunds, a "blatant political attack" on one of the GOP's biggest supporters. And he called the timing of the legislation "very suspect.""

My latest posting on MarxWords notes that Engels advocated police state methods for dissenters. My latest posting on "A scripture blog" looks at what a Greek says about the Greek of John 1:1. (Actually, I hate calling Greeks Greeks. They have always called themselves Hellenes and Greece is Hellas. It was the early Romans who started calling them Greeks, for reasons that are still speculative).

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions.

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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TUESDAY ROUNDUP

Once again I pick out what I think are my best posts for the week:

Dissecting Leftism points out that kids once got in Grade-school a better literary education than they now get in many colleges.

Political Correctness Watch notes that arsonists are now being officially permitted to drive gasoline tankers!

Greenie Watch debunks the myth that oil-supplies have "peaked"

Leftists as Elitists notes that Supreme Court judge Scalia follows the law rather than elite opinion.

Gun Watch notes a case where a gun-maker is being sued because a criminal used a gun that the gun-maker had originally sold to the police!

Socialized Medicine notes that British public hospitals cannot even afford enough cleaners any more.

Education Watch notes the new fad for "Bubble-kids"

Marx & Friends notes that Engels thought that the Yugoslavs deserved to be wiped out.

A scripture blog asks how seriously we can take the words of Doubting Thomas.

Majority Rights notes the difficult job Australian officials often have to do in deporting illegal immigrants

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ELSEWHERE

The friendly Syrians: "A woman pulled a pistol on Iraq's defense minister in his office but then broke down in tears in a failed assassination plot hatched by an Iraqi group in Syria, the minister said in comments published on Saturday. Hazim al-Shaalan told the pan-Arab al-Hayat newspaper the 40-year-old woman had drawn the gun, loaded with poisoned bullets, during a meeting with him and other officials more than one week ago.... Shaalan said the plan had been hatched by a Syria-based Iraqi group led by Mohamed Younes al-Ahmed, an Iraqi Baath party official. Sabaawi Ibrahim, a half brother of Saddam Hussein, was also involved in the plot, he said. Shaalan said the woman had revealed a wider plot involving a group of 50 women chosen "to carry out terrorist operations and assassinations in Iraq." The women were the wives or relatives of people jailed for or killed in clashes with Iraqi security forces and U.S.-led forces. Shaalan said they had undergone training in Syria"

Why are only Muslims allowed to preach violence? "An extremist London cleric is using live broadcasts on the internet to urge young British Muslims to join al-Qaeda and has condoned suicide terrorist attacks. Omar Bakri Mohammed, who has lived in the UK for 18 years on social security benefits, pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden and told his followers that they were in a state of war with Britain".

Ideology in the SAT? "With just two months to go before the much-heralded new SAT is given, a team of English professors and psychometricians is poring over sample essays to determine what kind of writing should be rewarded and what penalized.... For the first time in the 67-year history of the SAT, the March 12 test will include a written essay along with revised reading and math exams. For the millions of high school juniors and seniors who will ultimately take the test, as well as the thousands of U.S. colleges that will use them in determining whether to admit those students, the stakes in deciding how to score the test could hardly be higher... An essay that compares humans to squirrels -- if a squirrel told other squirrels about its food store, it would die, therefore secrecy is necessary for survival -- merits a 5. Brian A. Bremen, an English professor at the University of Texas at Austin, notes that the writer provides only one real example. Nevertheless, he says, the writer displays "a clear chain of thought" and should be rewarded, "despite his Republican tendencies." "

Gerard Henderson has an article on the recent controversy over Britain's Prince Harry wearing fancy dress with a swastika on it. He points out that the Left are incessant in calling practically all conservatives Fascists and Nazis so thinks it is reasonable for Prince Harry to have concluded that Nazis must be the good guys! A good excerpt on the scintillating Leftist logic involved: "In Australia in recent years it has become almost a fashion to make reference to fascism/Nazism and/or communism in order to score political points. In his book The Right Road?, the historian Andrew Moore wrote that "it is not so very far from the truth" to "suggest that in 1951 Australian fascism's headquarters were in The Lodge, Canberra". In other words, Moore maintains that the long-serving prime minister of Australia, Robert Menzies, was really a fascist. This despite the fact that he declared war on Nazi Germany in 1939 at a time when the Communist Party was in alliance with Hitler, in accordance with the terms of the Nazi-Soviet Pact".

The green-eyed Leftists will hate this: "China's relentless appetite for the colonel's chicken has KFC on a building boom in the world's most populous country, with 1,200 locations, soaring profits and a menu that mixes in bamboo shoots and lotus roots. At a time when its sales in the United States are struggling, KFC is dominating even rival McDonald's in China and turning the goateed visage of Kentucky Fried Chicken founder Colonel Harland Sanders into a ubiquitous symbol of America. "We are really positioned as a part of the fabric of life in China," said David Novak, chairman and chief executive of Louisville-based Yum Brands Inc., parent company of KFC."

There is some rather odd humour here but the "Joke reasoning test" at the bottom of the page is interesting. I failed it.

My latest posting on MarxWords notes that Engels particularly despised the Polish Jews. My latest posting on "A scripture blog" looks at an attack made by an "enemy" blogger.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions.

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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"PROGRESSIVES", OLD AND NEW

Because their behaviour has so polluted the name with an air of dishonesty, hypocrisy and failure, there is a considerable tendency these days for American "liberals" to return to an older and more-self-congratulatory label for themselves -- "Progressives". The label also has the advantage that it facilitates a "united front" (to use an old Communist term) -- it enables both moderates and far-Leftists to march under a common banner.

Probably the major thing that holds the American Left from wider adoption of their alternative name however is the legacy of the last major American political movement to use that name -- the "Progressives" of around the beginning of the 20th century. Let me note what an embarrassment THEY are:

Like all Leftists, they were a fractious lot so there is no fixed list of what a Progressive believed but here are some of the notable features in Progressive doctrine: They were (of course) anti-business, pro-welfare and believers in central government management of the economy but as well as that they believed in eugenics, racial superiority, war as a purifying force, nationalism, imperialism, conformity, discipline, book-burning, loyalty oaths and straight-armed salutes. And they despised the Jews, of course.

Does all that somehow ring a bell? Where else have you heard of such a set of ideas? You've got it! All of those ideas were also Hitler's ideas. And THAT'S WHERE HITLER GOT A LOT OF IT FROM. The American Progressives were the first Fascists of the 20th century. In America they were mostly unable to put those ideas into full practice but Hitler showed what happens when you do.

For full documentation of all that I have just said see my article on the "Progressives" here. I have just added a fair bit to it so I reproduce below the new conclusion:

So although the American Progressives developed most of the thought that we would recognize as Fascist today, their immediate predecessors were undisputably German. So while Mussolini got his basic ideas from Marx, the work of developing those ideas and adapting them to the early 20th century had mostly already been done for him by the Americans.

So however you look at it, the connection of Fascism to Leftism is quite seamless. Its origins were in the intellectuals of the 19th century German Left, it was developed and made politically influential by the American Left around the beginning of the 20th century and it reached its full implementation in the hands of one section of the European Left in the 1920s and 1930's -- i.e. Hitler & Mussolini. And both Hitler and Mussolini campaigned as socialists and never ceased advocating socialism. See here and here for more on the latter point.

Because they are so embarrassing to the Left of today, there are always attempts to deny that the American Progressives of a century ago were Leftists. Attempts are made to treat them as somehow outside the normal flow of history -- as a strange aberration that somehow exists all by itself. This is absurd on two grounds: 1). Far from being a marginal group the Progressives were in the mainstream of American intellectual life at the time -- with only the courts and the conservative wings of the political parties standing against them. 2). Although the militarism, imperialism, racism and stress on discipline may seem abhorrent to the American Left of today, such ideas were perfectly at home even within the thought of Marx and Engels. And if Marx and Engels are not Leftists, who would be?

For deep background on the American Progressives see this essay on Croly, one of the leading lights of Progressivism. Note the agony caused to Croly by the need to keep within democracy.

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ELSEWHERE

The blatant lies of the BBC about the aid effort in the wake of the tsunami disaster are just breathtaking. There is not the faintest shred of truth in what they say. I give up! Even the NYT says the Australians were first in with aid -- followed closely by the U.S. Who do you think the BBC says got there first? The U.N.! I doubt that there are any U.N. personnel on the ground there to this day! The BBC was once a respected organization but that is well and truly in the past now that the Leftists have got hold of it.

The multicultis win: "Until the 1980s, the arrival of the First Fleet was re-enacted every Australia Day by white Australians. A square-rigged tall ship would anchor in Farm Cove. Spectators lined the shore cheering as actors in 18th-century style uniforms and three-pointed tricorn hats rowed ashore. The annual event was organised by historical societies and enthusiasts (including this writer), but there was moral support and financial backing from the Festival of Sydney and the Australia Day Council. The aim was to remind people that European settlement was founded on January 26, 1788. But this Australia Day there will be no official mention of this First Fleet - let alone first European settlement - by the Festival of Sydney or the Australia Day Council".

Michael Moore spiked: "Oscar on the shelf or not, Michael Moore is not getting much respect at his old high school. Despite his fame and many honors, the filmmaker has been rejected all four times that he has been nominated for Davison High School's Hall of Fame."

Pro-terrorist Presbyterians: "The church is hosting a program and brunch entitled "A Report Back from Palestine" at which the Boston support group for the International Solidarity Movement, or ISM, will speak to the congregation. "The time has come for Christians to stand with Israel against the terrorists who for 50 years have been trying to destroy the Jewish state, and who have brought suffering and death to thousands of Israelis and Arabs, said Dennis Hale of the Christian Jewish Anti-Terror Alliance.... The ISM says in its mission statement that the Palestinians have a right to "armed struggle" and its leaders have endorsed suicide bombing as a "noble" form of jihad. The group's media coordinator, Flo Rosovski wrote, "'Israel' is an illegal entity that should not exist."

In the wake of the Armstrong Williams fiasco, Peg Kaplan has up an amusing list of what it takes to corrupt her.

My latest posting on MarxWords notes that Engels said that Germans should use terror against the Slavs. Hitler had a very dim view of the Slavs too, funnily enough! My latest posting on "A scripture blog" looks at Philippians 2:6 ("He was in the form of God") and 1 Corinthians 8:6 ("through whom are all things").

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions.

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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A POST-TSUNAMI THOUGHT

I have waited for what I hope is a "decent interval" before mentioning this but anybody wanting a tsunami-proof vacation in the tropics might like to consider Australia's Far North Queensland resort area -- centred on the city where I went to High School -- Cairns. The North Queensland coast is sheltered behind the Great Barrier reef so you don't even get significant surf there, let alone tidal waves. And the Pacific is actually more tusnami-prone that the Indian Ocean so it is good to have one part of the South Pacific that is safe. Being part of a modern developed country, it is safe from lots of other things too -- like contaminated drinking water. And, unlike Asia, its beaches are mostly deserted -- mainly because we have so many of them.

And hopefully I can by now be forgiven for admitting that I DID laugh at one of Slatt's tsunami jokes -- the first one. It was such a ridiculous image. Slatts has joined the nuke Mecca campaign too. And I must admit that until Slatts mentioned it, I had not realized that West Bank is a Spoonerism. As a lover of Spoonerisms I feel humbled. I think it is a tossup between Slatts and Prof. Bunyip as to which is the funniest Australian blog.

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ELSEWHERE

Dear me! It seems that I am not alone in finding Jason Soon's thinking to be very dubious. Another Australian blogger notes Soon's sympathy for the Bolshevik revolution (which ousted post-Tsarist DEMOCRATS) with great contempt.

Michelle Malkin has a pretty well-substantiated story of another attempted aircraft hijacking like the 9/11 effort.

There are none so blind... Leftie bigshot Kuttner speaks: "There's a standard story about partisan gridlock: The American electorate is mostly middle of the road. The voters want the parties to work together and solve national problems. ... The voters have to be sick of partisan wrangling and worried about unsolved national ills. But everything else about this fable is wrong. For starters, one party has indeed been captured by extremists, but the other one has moved steadily toward the center. Republicans are in the hands of theocrats and fiscal radicals so keen on dismantling government that they don't care how high the deficit goes.... ". [The fruitcake must live in alternate reality. If he thinks Bush's record spending is "dismantling" government, he should be in a loony bin]

Dangerously decayed Left: "One of the few certainties of the 20th century was that the apostles of Marxist materialism and the adherents of Muslim theocracy were mortal enemies. In Afghanistan, they went to war. But that was the 20th century. In the new era, Communist red and Islamist green, joined by more than a dash of Nazi brown, have increasingly forged an anti-liberal alliance that sees Israel and the United States as its common enemies. They all believe, in different ways, that if only the United States and Israel could be destroyed, the world could return to the idyllic harmony that prevailed before Jewish capitalism polluted it. On both sides of the English Channel, left-wing intellectuals are creating new alliances to promote anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism in the guise of radical politics. This revived and virulent outbreak of an old disease, anti-Semitism, should alarm anyone concerned with the two regions of greatest importance to the United States today, Europe and the Middle East"

Technology lifesaver: "A Houston engineer was searching for a method to keep track of his 16-year-old daughter when she started driving. The technology he found while searching the Web not only helped him do that, it also may have saved her life... Teen Arrive Alive, a Florida-based company, offers packages that include bumper decals and phones equipped with global positioning systems to allow parents to monitor their teens' locations and driving habits.... One night when Wayne's daughter was late arriving home, he said, he found her location by tracking her phone. When he drove to the site, he said, he found his daughter in a confrontation with an older man she had previously dated without her parents' knowledge. "He had pulled her over and wouldn't let her go," Wayne said. "As soon as he saw me, he took off. If I hadn't driven up, I don't know what would have happened."

Good IQ needed even for football: "First round quarterback draft pick Eli Manning (Peyton Manning's brother) from Mississippi scored a 39 on the Wonderlic Personnel Test (WPT) during the 2004 annual NFL combine. He scored nearly ten points higher than most players on the 50-question timed test, but many people may wonder why it matters. Who cares what a football player scores on an intelligence test? Football team owners do, because they understand that good players need brains as well as brawn to be winners. "Selecting a new quarterback is like hiring a president for a company," says Michael Callans, President of Wonderlic Consulting. They need to lead, think on their feet, evaluate all of their options and understand the impact their actions will have on the outcome of the game. Wonderlic helps team owners make the best selections by identifying which players have the mental strength to lead their team to victory."

The undemocratic party: "Many of the American left's chief policy aims over the last 40 years -- including legalized abortion on demand, race-based admissions for state-run colleges, and driving God and prayer out of American public life -- were advanced not at the ballot box or in legislatures, but by unelected federal judges who enacted the liberal agenda by fiat from the bench. There was a simple reason for this: The American people had too much good sense to give the liberal agenda majority nationwide support. To win, liberals had to cheat the democratic system. To do that, they had to make sure the referees were on their side. It did not matter if a large majority of voters in a state backed a conservative initiative, or if a supermajority of the U.S. Congress enacted a conservative law. All the liberals needed to prevail was for one federal judge to take their side, and at least five members of the U.S. Supreme Court to rule for them if a conservative appeal made it that far."

No free speech about lawyers: "Two pensioners were arrested outside a New York court for telling jokes about lawyers. The men were telling jokes while queuing to get into the First District Court in Hempstead, reports Newsday. 'How do you tell when a lawyer is lying?' Harvey Kash, 69, said to Carl Lanzisera, 65. 'His lips are moving,' they said in unison. But a lawyer standing in front of them in the queue was not amused and had them arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. ... Dan Bagnuola, a spokesman for the Nassau courts, said the men were causing a stir and that their exercise of their First Amendment rights to free speech was impeding the rights of others at the court."

My latest posting on MarxWords shows that Engels did not believe that all races were equal. Guess who topped the pops! My latest posting on "A scripture blog" is a big one -- looking at John 20:28 "My Lord and my God"

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions.

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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GREAT ECONOMIC NEWS

Friday's job report shows that White House economist Greg Mankiw was very nearly right when he projected almost a year ago that jobs could rise by 2.6 million in 2004. Of course, he was widely ridiculed inside Washington after making this statement, and at one point even the White House turned its back on the Harvard professor's estimate. But the Labor Department's latest employment release shows the yearly gain for nonfarm payrolls coming in at 2.3 million. That's close enough for government work. It's also the best jobs performance in five years.

Why so good? The labor market responded powerfully to lower personal tax rates. As workers were able to keep more of what they earned, the unemployment rate declined from 6.3 percent to 5.4 percent. A full 2.5 million jobs were added since August 2003. Mainstream economists continue to scoff at the economic power of lower marginal tax rates. But once again a supply-side experiment worked. For all of 2004, nonfarm job additions averaged just under 200,000 per month. At this rate, 2005 will be another banner year for employment and economic growth.

... it is possible that this year's unemployment rate could dip below 5 percent. Outside of the bubble economy of the late 1990s, this would mark the lowest unemployment rate since 1973. Declining unemployment also signifies lower federal spending on unemployment benefits and other small-scale entitlement payouts.

Additionally, at 5 percent or lower unemployment, the 4 percent growth rate of the economy will spur a flood of new individual tax collections at lower tax rates. Hence, another economic surprise of 2005 will be a pronounced decline in the federal budget deficit.... America's cowboy capitalism, to borrow Europe's derisive term, is hatching yet another economic boom.

More here

I guess this shows the effects of all that "outsourcing": "U.S. industrial output grew strongly last month while producer prices fell at the sharpest rate in 1-1/2 years amid tumbling energy prices, according to reports suggesting healthy, noninflationary growth".

Australia is doing well, too:

"Australia's remarkable run of economic growth is set to continue, with new hirings in December cutting unemployment to 5.1per cent, its lowest point in 28 years... Noting that interest rates are just above 5per cent, while inflation is just over 2per cent, Commsec chief economist Craig James said: "Without question, Australians are enjoying the best economic conditions since the late 1960s." Mr James said that with the 29,000 new jobs added last month, a record 60.1per cent of the population aged over 15 has a job. The fall in unemployment last month was felt around the country".

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ELSEWHERE

Muslim pride trumps aid to Muslim victims: "Indonesia announced Wednesday that all foreign troops assisting in the relief operation must leave by late March.... A number of countries have sent or are sending troops to help. The United States military has taken a major role, flying daily helicopter runs to ferry food to isolated villages devastated by the wave and bringing wounded people to hospitals here in the provincial capital. The Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and two other Navy vessels have been cruising off the coast here to provide support. American soldiers delivering the aid return to their ships at night. Some of the large contingents of foreign troops, particularly from neighboring Singapore, have brought heavy equipment - bulldozers and backhoes - to clear smashed buildings and the debris here and in Meulaboh, a city on Sumatra's west coast that was severely damaged. Australian troops, which were the first to arrive, are to be complemented by a naval ship due on Thursday".

Just by the way, I wonder where the French and German contingents were in Indonesia? I guess I'm not the first one to wonder that. It must be their moral superiority that kept them at home.

French corruption again: "French state-owned television is using what some call intimidation and threatened libel lawsuits to quiet calls for an investigation of TV images that showed the alleged shooting of a Palestinian boy by Israeli soldiers in 2000. The video from the TV channel France 2 has become famous around the world as a symbol for the current Palestinian intifada (uprising) and shows a boy trying to take shelter behind a man during a gun battle in September 2000 between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers at the Netzarim junction in the Gaza Strip. Independent media analysts in France and Israel have provided what they call conclusive evidence that the video of the incident was staged"

Even a Frenchman says that the French got on well with the Nazis. In their typically gutless way, they did: "M Le Pen, 76, leader of the National Front party, had attracted a chorus of indignation from the political world and media on Wednesday with a magazine interview in which he said that the 1940-44 occupation was "not especially inhumane", and that the Gestapo largely worked to protect the French population. The massacres of the French population during the war consisted of a few "blunders" by the occupiers, he told Rivarol, an extreme right-wing magazine.... M Le Pen said that he stood by his words. "I note that if one compares the German occupation of France with the occupation in certain other European countries, then proportionately it is in France where it was the least painful."

Two fingers to feminism: "President Bush's policy on women in ground combat takes just four words to articulate: 'No women in combat.'

Real electoral fraud. You need more votes? We'll find 'em! "Christine Gregoire yesterday pushed back tears and dark clouds over a still-contested election, raised her right hand and took the oath of office as Washington's governor. ..."

Blithering Bunny has a huge fisking of an article published in the MSM about how the Communists of the Western world were just idealists and that is why it is OK to be an ex-Commo.

My latest posting on MarxWords shows that Marx regarded non-Germans as "rabble". Yes. That was old Karl, not Adolf. My latest posting on "A scripture blog" looks at John 10:30 ("I and the Father are one").

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions.

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.

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

EDUCATION: WHAT IS POSSIBLE

I mentioned yesterday the excellent article by Jonathan Rose which showed how inspiring to ordinary working class people the "dead white males" (so hated by the Left) can be. Rose showed how working class people would once seek them out and read them simply for pleasure and personal enlightenment. We also know how thoroughly the Left have succeeded in removing such authors from present-day high school and college curricula and how the politically correct replacement texts are simply boring to the students. Rose suggests, and I agree, that a restoration of "the greats" to modern curricula would do much to improve educational standards, if only because of the greater enthusiasm they would generate among the students.

In that connection, let me list just some of the authors who were included in my own 6TH GRADE reading book of 50 years ago: Longfellow, Masefield, Dickens, Cervantes, Henry Lawson (a revered Australian poet), Wordsworth, Goldsmith, Whittier, Cowper, Reade, Tolstoy, Scott, Byron and Turgenev. Sadly, that list will probably be meaningless to most of my younger readers unless they are real "culture vultures" but the authors included are some of the greatest prose and poetry authors of all time. If an introduction to "The Greats" on that scale can be accomplished in just one year of primary school, it is perfectly evident that across an entire primary and secondary school curriculum we could offer a fairly complete coverage of the great minds of the past. It is not "too difficult".

Given the proven capacity to inspire of the great authors, a return to them would not only be worthwhile in it own right but should also enthuse the students far more than the boring propaganda they have now and thus lead them on to generally higher levels of educational and intellectual attainment. As some students graduate from modern-day American High Schools barely able to read and write, the scope for improvement in levels of educational and intellectual attainment would seem almost limitless.

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ELSEWHERE

Wow! If there ever was any doubt that Americans are the kindest and most generous people the world has ever seen, read about Herbert Hoover. Just about totally forgotten but he seems to have been the biggest saviour of European lives ever -- and by far. He ought to be the No. 1 hero of the 20th century. It's really infuriating the way important basics about history are not taught these days. The Leftist a**holes who staff the teaching profession only want to tell you whatever bad things they can dredge up about America.

Another Wow! Who said this? Ronald Reagan? "The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric. They are construing our constitution from a co-ordination of a general and special government to a general and supreme one alone." It could have been said yesterday but it was in fact said by Thomas Jefferson. Looks like American judges have always been people who think they know better than the law they are paid to administer.

A third Wow! Taranto really skewers the NYT today. The NYT says that America has a higher infant mortality rate than Cuba and draws the usual anti-American inferences from that. Taranto notes what underlies the statistics: America makes huge efforts to save premature bablies but, inevitably, many of them die anyway. So they are infant deaths. No comparable effort is made in Cuba so the same baby there would be counted as stillborn and thus not be counted in the infant mortality statistics. So the higher infant mortality in the USA is a sign of a much BETTER medical system. Surprise, surprise!

I normally agree with Jeff Jacoby but he is off with the fairies today. He says America hasn't got enough politicians because Congress is small relative to America's population size. Hasn't he heard of all those State government politicians? Count them in and America has got HEAPS of politicians per head. It must have been a slow week for Jeff this time.

A good quote from Diplomad: "Sitting VERY late for two consecutive nights in interminable meetings with UN reps, hearing them go on about "taking the lead coordination role," pledges, and the impending arrival of this or that UN big shot or assessment/coordination team, for the millionth time I realized that if not for Australia and America almost nobody in the tsunami-affected areas would have survived more than a few days. If we had waited for the UNocrats to get their act coordinated, the already massive death toll would have become astronomical. But, fortunately, thanks to "retrograde racist war-mongers " such as John Howard and George W. Bush, as we sat in air conditioned meeting rooms with these UNocrats, young Australians and Americans were at that moment "coordinating" without the UN and saving the lives of tens-of-thousands of people". (Via Indepundit)

It was "unilateralism" that saved lives in Asia: "The world is in a 'race against time' to prevent a sharp rise in the number of deaths resulting from the devastating Dec. 26 tsunami in the Indian Ocean, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said at a Jan. 6 summit of world leaders in Jakarta, Indonesia. Yes, Jan. 6 -- 11 days after the tsunami first hit and after an estimated 150,000 people had died... It also was more than a week after the U.S. and other countries had people on the ground helping the victims."

There is an encouraging article here showing that family values are reasserting themselves among younger Americans -- despite all the attacks from feminists and the Left generally.

There is a thorough debunking here of the pre-election Leftist claim that GWB had a "deal" with the Saudis to keep gasoline prices low in the run-up to the election. The graphs show that prices were in fact unusually HIGH just before the election. Some deal! Another dreamed-up Leftist lie.

I have just put up here an impassioned article by Nathan Tabor about abortion. I don't wholly agree with it but it makes some interesting points.

I have just put up here a list of Left/Right differences as seen by a bipartisan observer.

My latest posting on MarxWords shows that Engels hated small farmers so much that he was prepared to go to war against them. My latest posting on "A scripture blog" looks at John 14:6-13 ("I am in the Father, and the Father in me").

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions.

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.

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

THE EDUCATION CRIME

Jonathan Rose has an amazingly extensive and detailed article which shows beyond much doubt that British working class people were much better educated 100 years ago than they are now. He also shows what an enlightening and transformative experience it was for the working people of yesteryear to read some of the famous "dead white males" for the first time. Just a tiny excerpt:

"Oral-history interviews reveal that, among British working people born between 1870 and 1908, two-thirds had unambiguously positive memories of school. And that fact inevitably raises a disturbing question: whether children today in America's inner cities would give their schools such high marks-and if not, why not? Even more impressive is a 1940 survey of reading among pupils at nonacademic high schools, where education terminated at age 14. This sample represented something less than the working-class norm: the best students had already been skimmed off and sent to academic secondary schools on scholarship. Those who remained behind were asked which books they had read over the past month, excluding required texts. Even in this below-average group, 62 percent of boys and 84 percent of girls had read some poetry: their favorites included Kipling, Longfellow, Masefield, Blake, Browning, Tennyson, and Wordsworth".

And I KNOW from personal experience how exactly right is what Rose describes. I myself was born in a small Australian country town to working class parents who read only popular novels. But there was a "School of Arts" (non-government co-operative) library in town and a secondhand bookshop. And courtesy of those I read just about all the famous literature of ancient Greece before I was 18. And I experienced exactly the excitement from my discoveries there -- I still vividly remember the enormous impression that Homer and Plato's Socratic dialogues made on me -- that Rose repeatedly documents among his British working class readers of yesteryear. For me as for them it was an immense intellectual liberation. Most of that literature was once taught in the schools. Now virtually none of it is. My son has just finished High School and until I mentioned them he had never even heard of Wordsworth or Coleridge! What a crime against ordinary people the Leftist purveyors of educational mush who infest the schools today have committed! They have replaced the glorious "dead white males" with mediocrities who inspire no-one and induce boredom instead of excitement. They have stolen from our young people their incomparable heritage.

Needless to say, the Rose article is one of the few for which I say: "Read the whole thing". (Link to Rose via Blithering Bunny)

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ELSEWHERE

The dishonesty of Leftists is truly bottomless. Taranto notes that far-Left CBS producer Mary Mapes, who has just been sacked for her use of forged documents, says that the only thing wrong with the documents was that they were photocopies. The fact that zillions of people have pointed out that the documents were clearly computer-produced when they were alleged to be typewriter-produced is just totally ignored by her in traditional Leftist fashion. Walter Duranty lives! No doubt some American university will now give her a job teaching journalistic ethics. They do that sort of thing.

Glad to hear THAT!: "The Supreme Court refused to hear a case challenging a Florida state ban on gay couples adopting children. The Court let stand a lower court ruling that upheld Florida's right to have a blanket policy prohibiting gays from adopting children....".

LOL. What a loon: "David Livingstone says the idea behind the economic boycott he's organizing is simple: If people don't show up at work or buy things, companies lose money. As he sees it, that's money the Bush administration can't tax, and can't use to run the war in Iraq, protect polluters or chip away at the Constitution. So the Detroit Democrat and a handful of other anti-Bush groups across the country are urging others of like mind to withhold their cash and labor on Inauguration Day -- from all businesses. They don't think they'll inflict a huge economic pain, but they do want to make a point."

LOL: British cuisine!: "The poll found the British were awfully patriotic: Britain was ranked among the top five nations on all 12 criteria. It was even ranked as having the world's fourth-best cuisine, behind China, India and Italy, but ahead of France. In British eyes, their country is the most democratic in the world, the best place to live and the country most deserving of international respect". [I would have said that British cuisine is the world's worst -- except for the desserts, of course. Great desserts!]

An article here points out that the principle preached by affirmative action advocates -- that people should not be represented in favoured niches of society above their proportion in the overall population -- is exactly the same rationale Hitler used to discriminate against the Jews. As they are in America today, Jews WERE over-represented in many favoured niches of German society in Hitler's day. So Hitler's desire to cut the Jews down to size was essentially the same desire as that which is seen in today's Leftists who want to cut white middle-class males down to size. Excerpt: "Thus, the victims may be different, the perpetrators may be different, but the spirit that energized Nazi race laws is clearly evident in today's America. That spirit is summarized in the view that justice requires all groups achieve and received a proportional share of wealth and power. Those groups who overachieve are seen in this theory as oppressors who must be curbed, if not eliminated. This view of justice is what links proponents of Affirmative Action to the Nazis. Thus, one may properly conclude that American liberals have created and enforced the Nazi-like race edicts that pervade America."

Interesting: "Children who are exposed to two or more cats or dogs in the first year of life have lower responses to a whole host of allergic substances when the kids are aged six or seven. This comes from an allergy study that followed hundreds of children, right from the time when their mothers were pregnant with them.

Friendly Grizzly has a good post (scroll down a bit) on why housing costs so much in California. The Greenies and the socialists between them have really shafted the little guy.

Carnival of the Vanities is up again for the best variety of reading on the net.

My latest posting on MarxWords shows that Marx hated the Jews for being conservative! Looks like many of them have been dodging that risk ever since. My latest posting on "A scripture blog" looks at some more trinitarian defences based on John 1:1.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions.

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 LEFTIST IDEAL IN ACTION

Sweden:

The extent of the failure of the Swedish model are both shocking and little known. For example, no new net jobs have been produced in the Swedish private sector since 1950. (By contrast, the U.S. created more than 60 million new private-sector jobs during the same period, from 52 million in 1950 to about 115 million in 2002.) "None of top 50 companies on the Stockholm stock exchange has been started since 1970."

Again, contrast this with the U.S. where many of our biggest companies had not been born or known of in 1970, such as Microsoft, Intel, Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Cisco, etc., Mr. Karlson's litany of failures of the Swedish model include: "Sweden has dropped from fourth to 14th place in 2002 among the OECD countries (i.e., affluent industrialized countries) in terms of GDP per capita since 1970."

In addition, "well over 1 million people out of a work force of around four million did not work in 2003 but lived on various kinds of public welfare programs

More (much more) here

Eurozone:

Signs of shaky economies in France and Germany have sharpened worries about Europe's less-than-robust recovery - and underscored the struggle to shake up regulation-clogged economies in countries that use the euro.....

Private economists, however, point to shadows cast by Germany's rise in unemployment in December to 10.8 percent, and French government statistics showing zero economic growth in the third quarter. Unemployment there remains at 9.9 percent.

Economists expect fourth-quarter growth of 3.5 percent to over 4 percent in the United States, where unemployment was only 5.4 percent in December. Per-person U.S. gross domestic product of around $44,610 (34,100 euros) remains ahead of $30,746 (23,500 euros) for people in the 12 countries using the euro

More here

But there is no room for U.S. complacency:

US policies are falling behind global competitors: "America is losing its status as one of the freest economies in the world. The punitive U.S. tax code, out-of-control spending levels, and onerous regulations are making America less competitive in the international economy. According to the Index of Economic Freedom, the U.S. is no longer one of the top ten freest economies for the first time since the index was started in 1994. The Index, published by The Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation, found that economic freedom is spreading world wide, with 86 nations receiving better scores. Unfortunately, America's score remained the same while Chile, Australia, and Iceland further opened their economies and surpassed the United States. Currently, the U.S. is tied with Switzerland for 12th place."

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