WHAT IS CONSERVATISM?

There has always been a fair amount of debate about what conservatism is. Lots of people define it in terms of a particular set of ideas (belief in individual liberty, Christianity etc.) But I don't think you can do that. As Feiling, a great historian of the British Conservative party, points out, the ideas vary too much from era to era. So I, like many past and present observers of conservatism, think that you can only define conservatism psychologically. I do think that a conservative psychology tends to lead to preference for individual liberty rather regularly and it is certainly compatible with at least some forms of Christianity but I don't think that such ideas DEFINE what a conservative is. There are many overlapping and interlocking accounts of conservative psychology but the extract from Joseph Sobran that I put up a few days ago should give you an idea of the sort of thing that I (with many others) am talking about. Below is another example -- from Jonah Goldberg. Jonah sees "comfort with contradiction" as basic to conservatism

"I mean this in the broadest metaphysical sense and the narrowest practical way. Think of any leftish ideology and at its core you will find a faith that circles can be closed, conflicts resolved. Marxism held that in a truly socialist society, contradictions would be destroyed. Freudianism led the Left to the idea that the conflicts between the inner and outer self were the cause of unnecessary repressions. Dewey believed that society could be made whole if we jettisoned dogma and embraced a natural, organic understanding of the society where everyone worked together.... Liberals and leftists are constantly denouncing "false choices" of one kind or another. In our debate, Jonathan Chait kept hinting, hoping, and haranguing that - one day - we could have a socialized healthcare system without any tradeoffs of any kind. Environmentalists loathe the introduction of free-market principles into the policy-making debate because, as Steven Landsburg puts it, economics is the science of competing preferences. Pursuing some good things might cost us other good things. But environmentalists reject the very idea. They believe that all good things can go together and that anything suggesting otherwise is a false choice....

Now look at the arguments of conservatives. They are almost invariably arguments about trade-offs, costs, "the downside" of a measure. As I've written before, the first obligation of the conservative is to explain why nine out of ten new ideas are probably bad ones. When feminists pound the table with the heels of their sensible shoes that it is unfair that there are any conflicts between motherhood and career, the inevitable response from conservatives boils down to "You're right, but life isn't fair."

Any ideology or outlook that tries to explain what government should do at all times and in all circumstances is un-conservative. Any ideology that sees itself as the answer to any question is un-conservative.... Contrary to all the bloviating jackassery about how conservatives are more dogmatic than liberals we hear these days, the simple fact is that conservatives don't have a settled dogma.... we all understand and accept the permanence of contradiction and conflict in life. Christians and Jews understand it because that's how God set things up. Libertarians understand it because the market is, by definition, a mechanism for amicably reconciling competing preferences. Agnostic, rain-sodden British pessimists understand it because they've learned that's always the way to bet. Conservatism isn't inherently pessimistic, it is merely pessimistic about the possibility of changing the permanent things and downright melancholy about those who try".

So Goldberg is very much in accord with those many prior English and American conservative thinkers (e.g. Norton & Aughey, 1981; Gilmour, 1978; Feiling, 1953; Kirk, 1993, Scruton, 2002, Standish, 1990) who see conservatism as an adaptive, pragmatic, "trimming" approach to the problems of the world -- i.e. conservatism as rational balance or the true "middle way".

References:
Feiling, K. (1953) Principles of conservatism. Political Quarterly, 24, 129-133.
Gilmour, I.H.J.L. (1978) Inside right. London: Quartet.
Kirk, R. (1993) Ten conservative principles. Russell Kirk Center.
Norton, P. & Aughey, A. (1981) Conservatives and conservatism. London: Temple Smith
Scruton, R. (2002) A question of temperament. Opinion Journal, Dec. 10th.
Standish, J.F. (1990) Whither conservatism? Contemporary Review 256, 299-301.

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ELSEWHERE

The wisdom of Dr. Howard Dean, Democrat chairman: "But the thing that really bothered me the most, which the 9-11 Commission said also wasn't true, is the insinuation that the president continues to make to this day that Osama bin Laden had something to do with supporting terrorists that attacked the United States. That is false". [Odd that Osama himself thinks he ran the 9/11 attack!]

Amazing news from Germany: Prime Minister Schroeder's socialists have just lost an election in Germany's biggest STATE and Schroeder has announced that he wants to bring the FEDERAL election forward by a year as a result. Instead of clinging to power for as long as he is legally entitled to do, he wants to return his fate to the people. I thought that sort of thing -- where moral concerns override legal powers -- only happened in the Anglo-Saxon world. It puts me in mind of the time when an Australian conservative Prime Minister (John Gorton) voted himself out of office. But Germany and the Anglo-Saxons are closely related nations and it is little more than a carryover of wartime propaganda that portrays Germans as not democratic. Even Hitler gained power by democratric means. See here for more on German democracy and here for more on Hitler's rise to power.

Justice coming in Washington State? "Prosecutors, attorneys and state officials agree that the judge who will decide whether to nullify the 2004 Washington governor's election is hardworking and fair.... On Monday, Bridges will begin presiding over a trial to decide Washington's contested governor's election, which focuses on problems involving human error in vote counting that are similar to allegations raised in the presidential vote in Ohio last year and in Florida in 2000. Republican Dino Rossi has challenged Gov. Christine Gregoire's 129-vote victory, alleging problems including illegal votes cast by felons and dead people".

There is some excellent satire here about recent anti-American demonstrations in Afghanistan.

Some wise comments from 1955: "Fidel Castro and his group want only one thing: power, and total power at that. And they want to achieve it by means of violence, so that total power may allow them to thoroughly destroy every vestige of the Constitution and the law in Cuba, to install the most cruel, most barbaric tyranny; a tyranny that would teach the people the true meaning of tyranny, a totalitarian, unscrupulous, thieving and murderous regime that would be very difficult to overthrow for at least 20 years. Fidel Castro is nothing but a fascist psychopath who, in power, would make pacts only with the forces of international communism, because fascism already was defeated in World War II, and only communism would give Fidel the pseudo-ideological garb to murder, rob, violate all rights with impunity and destroy outright the entire spiritual, historic, moral and judicial heritage of our republic".

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

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

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

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). 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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CHURCH ROUNDUP

Christian Left can't convince its own students: "Professor David Hoekema couldn't believe his ears when news spread in April that President George W. Bush would deliver the commencement address at Calvin College. He's thankful for the national attention focused on the 4,300-student Christian liberal-arts college in Grand Rapids, Michigan. But that doesn't mean he's happy with the visit.... Hoekema and about 100 other Calvin professors plan to publicize their protest of Bush administration policies with a letter to The Grand Rapids Press on the date of his visit, Saturday, May 21. Roughly one-third of the college's full-time faculty endorsed the letter. In addition to the Iraq war, the signatories fault Bush for burdening the poor, fostering intolerance, and harming creation..... In straw polls during the 2004 election, more than two-thirds of Calvin students supported President Bush .... significant historical and theological factors at Calvin cut against the grain of popular evangelicalism. In particular, the high-church tradition of the Christian Reformed Church looks skeptically on revivalism and independent congregationalism."

Dishonest Christian Left slimes conservative Christians as anti-environment: "On Feb. 14, the National Council of Churches issued a statement "in an effort to refute" what NCC theologians "call a 'false gospel' . . . and to reject teachings that suggest humans are 'called' to exploit the Earth without care for how our behavior impacts the rest of God's creation. . . . This false gospel still finds its proud preachers and continues to capture its adherents among emboldened political leaders and policymakers." If such a body of belief exists, I would totally reject it, as would all of my friends. When asked who believed such error, where adherents to this "false gospel" might be found, the NCC turned to its theological sources, Moyers and a magazine called Grist, which had also apologized to me. I then contacted the chairman of the NCC task force and asked him about the "some people" who believe this false gospel and the "proud preachers" advancing this false gospel. He could not name such persons."

For those who take an interest in pretend-Christians, there is a good article here on American Anglicanism's senior atheist bishop -- John Shelby Spong. Spong's "ideas" (if you can call them that) are very old stuff now. They are essentially the same ideas as those of England's Bishop John A. T. Robinson, author of Honest to God, who proclaimed in the 1960s (like Nietzsche in the 19th century) that "God is dead". Robinson thought there was a sort of God called "the ground of our being" -- whatever that might mean -- and Spong is similarly vague. "Spong" is a good name though: Spong, spong, spong, spong!

Australian Anglicans try again: "A Victorian touted as someone who could heal problems created by sexual abuse in the church has been elected as Adelaide's new Anglican Archbishop. Bishop of Gippsland, the Right Reverend Jeffrey Driver, was elected "overwhelmingly" yesterday by the 280-member Synod of the Anglican Diocese of Adelaide. After the election Bishop Driver, 54, said he "hoped to be a builder of community and bring healing" to the church... "In regard to the sexual abuse issues ... there clearly are some things that have to be dealt with. "We are well on the way to dealing with them appropriately," he said as he was driving to Orange in country New South Wales for the church's 150th anniversary celebrations. Bishop Driver was elected almost 12 months after former Archbishop Ian George was forced to resign over his handling of child sex abuse allegations."

There is a very good article by David Gelernter on the historical centrality of the Bible to Anglo-Saxon culture generally and to American culture in particular.

No mention of torture by Muslims: "In a May 10 letter to its one-million members, the president and chief executive of the United Methodist Women's Division urge constituents to take a stand against United States-sanctioned torture."

More for the Methodists to ignore: "More than 300 mass graves have been excavated in Iraq so far. The most recent discovery was made by American investigators in early May when they found a grave with 1,500 Kurdish people. Recovery and identification of Saddam's victims, however, is an arduous process. The pictures are the same no matter where you go in Iraq, whether it's the northern town of Kirkuk, Al-Mahawil near Baghdad or the Kurdish town of Erbil. People digging in the dirt with crude tools, kitchen knives or even their bare hands. The more they dig, the worse the stench of rotting flesh gets. Sobbing and silent prayers accompany the gruesome process. Skulls are usually unearthed first, followed by shreds of fabric or plastic sandals as Iraqis look for the remains of their dead relatives. Earlier this month, for example, investigators discovered a grave filled with the bodies of 1,500 Kurds in southern Iraq."

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ELSEWHERE

Democrat beliefs: "According to the Pew Center, the less you like to fly the American flag, the more likely it is you are Democrat. The more you think hard work and personal initiative aren't the ticket to the good life, the more likely you are to be a Democrat. The more you believe the United Nations is a better steward of international relations, while America is a negative actor on the world stage, the more likely you are to be a Democrat. The more you believe that the government is there to help, the more likely it is you are Democrat. The less seriously you take religion, the more likely you are to be a Democrat."

Leftist misery: "Here, then, is the root cause of the Left's chronic depression and the irresolvable problem at the core of the Democratic Party: America's success is their failure. And here is the corresponding cause of the good humor and vitality of conservatives: So long as America succeeds, they cannot fail".

An illustration of what is possible: "Border agents using gamma-imaging technology on an incoming freight train apprehended two Brazilian nationals trying to illegally enter the United States from Canada, authorities said Monday. Nilson Giusti, 41, and Agiles Bezerra, 23, were found in two separate cars on the Black Rock Rail Bridge on Saturday, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Both had entered Canada as temporary visitors earlier this month."

There is a recent article in Slate by Jacob Weisberg headed "Interest-Group Conservatism" that has much truth in it -- as any libertarian will tell you. It points out the lack of interest in cutting back government that is at present being displayed by the GOP. Some of Weisberg's examples are tendentious but he is broadly right. Sadly, I think the reality is that cutting back government is very difficult to do so Republicans have decided to make the system work for them rather than banging their heads on a brick wall by trying to cut it back. The belief in government as the solution to all ills that the Democrats have fostered for so many years will be hard to wean people away from.

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

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

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

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). 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

US economy, monetary policy and recession: Supply-siders are getting it dangerously wrong about the US economy and the money supply
Australian economy: budget surplus myths meet the "China Syndrome": Once the credit crunch finally bites in China what does Peter Costello think will happen to the demand for Australia's minerals, not to mention all that lovely tax revenue?
Recession signals for the Australian economy: The Australian Reserve is not only facing a slowdown but growing net foreign debt and a deteriorating current account deficit that already stands at about 7 per cent of GDP. What does this say about Costello's budget?
Chinese economy heading for a recession?: It looks like the Chinese economy and the political system might have to go through the wringer again
Pro-Choice radical feminists give their money: Many of those who loudly talk the pro-life talk, don't very faithfully walk the pro-life walk. At least, not where their charitable dollars are concerned
US social security: funding the ownership society: The Democrats and their media allies are lying to the American public about the state of social security

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ELSEWHERE

Jeff Jacoby has a good perspective on the infantile nature of Islam: "The *real* desecration of Islam is not what some interrogator in Guantanamo might have done to the Koran. It is what totalitarian Muslim zealots have been doing to innocent human beings in the name of Islam. It is 9/11 and Beslan and Bali and Daniel Pearl and the USS Cole. It is trains in Madrid and schoolbuses in Israel and an ''insurgency" in Iraq that slaughters Muslims as they pray and vote and line up for work. It is Hamas and Al Qaeda and sermons filled with infidel-hatred and exhortations to ''martyrdom.""

Amid economic decline, antisemitism and anti-capitalism is again rampant in Germany: "Franz Muentefering, the chairman of Mr Schr”der's Social Democratic Party (SPD), has managed to combine the three big As in a single campaign for the forthcoming state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's largest state. He compared foreign financial investors to 'locusts' - the kind of language that the Nazis used to describe Jews. This was no slip of the tongue. He repeated it. Even worse, he drew up a list, the 'locust list', of financiers of mostly Jewish-American origin, whom he accused of making exorbitant profits by asset-stripping German companies. Publishing lists of Jewish names was a hallmark of Nazism.... After his first 'locusts' remark, an opinion poll suggested that two thirds of Germans agree with him in principle. The latest polls put his support at 80 per cent". Shades of the 1930s!

An amusing survey of what others think of the French: "Language, history, cooking and support for rival football teams still divide Europe. But when everything else fails, one glue binds the continent together: hatred of the French".

Freakonomics have a very strong defence of their claim that legalized abortion reduces crime. Since American crime is so heavily black and black females are very heavy users of abortion it makes a lot of sense. If abortion is ever re-restricted, allowing an exception for single mothers would make considerable sense.

Uzbekistan: "If the Bush administration has failed to denounce the massacre in Uzbekistan, it is not because Bush and his advisors are hypocrites, but because the Uzbek uprising has offered a profound challenge to the administration's policy of bringing democracy to Muslim societies, such as Uzbekistan. The Uzbek uprising was, from all appearances, a spontaneous and popular one, a genuine manifestation of the people's will. Yet the Uzbek uprising was sparked off by a people whose sympathies lie not with the United States, but with Islamic extremists and militants. The uprising itself, according to reports, began with an attack on a prison where 23 Muslim businessmen were being held for trial as terrorists -- an attack that ended not only in freeing the 23 Muslim businessmen, but everyone else who was being held in the same prison".

A good comment from Sowell: "It was perhaps appropriate that Dan Rather received the prestigious Peabody award in journalism at the same time when Newsweek magazine was finally backing away from its false story about Americans flushing the Koran down the toilet at the Guantanamo prison.... Abraham Lincoln said that you can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. The steady erosion of the audience that watches CBS, ABC, and NBC television news, and the declining circulation of the leading newspapers, all indicate that more and more people are unwilling to be fooled. The swift rise of talk radio, Fox News and the bloggers all reinforce the conclusion of a growing disillusionment with the mainstream media that once had a monopoly and abused it. A reader recently suggested this formula: Monopoly plus discretion minus accountability equals corruption. That kind of corruption can be found not only in the mainstream media but also in two of our most important institutions, the public schools and the federal courts. Both the schools and the courts flatter themselves that their job is to change society. So does much of the media. But what qualifies these people to be world-changers? They are usually poorly informed about science, uninformed about history and misinformed about economics."

I have just received rather a good email about the French "No" vote in the forthcoming EU constitutuional referendum. I have posted it here. Excerpt: "The constitutional text, which occupies no less than 474 pages of the Official Newspaper of the Union, contains numerous contradictions and ambiguities, and therefore it is no surprise that vast sectors of the French center and the right give weighty reasons to vote for the "No.".... In administrative and economic matters, the Constitution establishes a gigantic supranational bureaucracy with headquarters in Brussels, a species of neo-totalitarianism with powers to intervene in all economic life, with regulations without end, of which not even the famous French Camembert and "foie gras" will be saved. An omnipotent Leviathan, capable of suffocating with its regulations all free initiative, but at the same time useless for promoting authentic economic progress". Media comment here.

The enviers lose in Maryland: "Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. vetoed a bill yesterday that would have forced Wal-Mart to pay a mandatory amount of employee health insurance or potentially cancel plans for a distribution center with 1,000 jobs."

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

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

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

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). 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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JOSEPH SOBRAN ON CONSERVATISM:

"More and more I find myself thinking that a conservative is someone who regards this world with a basic affection, and wants to appreciate it as it is before he goes on to the always necessary work of making some rearrangements. Richard Weaver says we have no right to reform the world unless we cherish some aspects of it; and that is the attitude of many of the best conservative thinkers. Burke says that a constitution ought to be the subject of enjoyment rather than altercation. (I wish the American Civil Liberties Union would take his words to heart.)

I find a certain music in conservative writing that I never find in that of liberals. Michael Oakeshott speaks of "affection," "attachment," "familiarity," "happiness"; and my point is not the iname one that these are very nice things, but that Oakeshott thinks of them as considerations pertinent to political thinking. He knows what normal life is, what normal activities are, and his first thought is that politics should not disturb them....

"He who is unaware of his ignorance," writes Richard Whately, "will only be misled by his knowledge." And that is the trouble with the liberal, the socialist, the Communist, and a dozen other species of political cranks who have achieved respectability in our time: they disregard so much of what is constant and latent in life. They fail to notice; they fail to appreciate.

For some reason, we have allowed the malcontent to assume moral prestige. We praise as "ideals" what are nothing more than fantasies--a world of perpetual peace, brotherhood, justice, or any other will-o'-the-wisp that has lured men toward the Gulag. The malcontent can be spotted in his little habits of speech: He calls language and nationality "barriers" when the conservative, more appreciatively, recognizes them as cohesives that make social life possible. He damns as "apathy" an ordinary indifference to politics that may really be a healthy contentment. He praises as "compassion" what the conservative earthily sees as a program of collectivization. He may even assert as "rights" what tradition has regarded as wrongs".

More (much more) here. It might be noted that it is a common finding from survey research that conservatives are happier. See e.g. here. One might perhaps ask how conservatives could be both wary and happier but I think that to ask that question is almost to answer it. Wary people are more likely to avoid the heartbreaks and disappointments that overconfident people experience. And who is more overconfident than a Leftist with his insouciant prescriptions about how the whole world should be re-organized? Because they tend to be better at dealing with the world realistically, conservatives are happier with the same world that deeply dissatisfies the Leftist -- who blames the world for his own failures at comprehending and dealing with it.

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ELSEWHERE

Claims of low social mobility debunked: "Major newspapers are in the throes of Mobility Mania: who "makes it" in America, and why; who doesn't, and why not. The Wall Street Journal began a series last week titled "Challenges to the American Dream." The New York Times followed suit with a multiparter on "Class in America," which aims to disparage the notion that the U.S. is a land of opportunity by claiming that "new research on mobility, the movement of families up and down the economic ladder, shows there is far less of it than economists once thought and less than most people believe." Yet the scholarship commonly cited in support of such assertions--new research by Gary Solon of the University of Michigan, David I. Levine of Berkeley, and Bhashkar Mazumder of the Chicago Fed, among others--says no such thing. A paper last fall by Mr. Solon observed that several of the newest estimates, including two from Messrs. Levine and Mazumder, suggest that it has become substantially easier to move from one economic class to another"

America will stay on top: "developments in the U.S. and world economies are such that America's preeminence is assured for decades to come. Start with Europe. The continent's leading economies are bedeviled by double-digit unemployment that is a result of rigid labor markets and excessive regulation. Their leaders' solution? More rigidity, more regulation, and an attack on what Franz M_ntefering, head of Germany's Social Democratic party, calls the "growing power of capital" in the hands of foreign investors, or "locusts." As if to show that there is no regulation too ludicrous for adoption, Spain's stock market regulators now require all company directors to disclose related-party transactions with anyone with whom they have "affectionate relationships," interpreted to mean lovers. Spain's gossip columnists are set to become avid readers of corporate annual reports. Then there is Great Britain. Not to be outdone by Spanish regulators, the town council of Blackpool last week granted a 48-hour week to the 228 donkeys that carry children for rides along the town's beaches."

Fat cats targeted: "A number of governors around the nation are taking aim at the benefits paid to public employees -- which, in many cases, are far richer than those offered to workers in private industry. Warning that his state is heading for a pension crisis, Rhode Island Governor Donald L. Carcieri wants to boost the age at which teachers and state workers can draw pensions and trim the cost-of-living adjustment retirees get annually. ... In Alaska, Illinois and California, governors are coming to the same conclusion. ... Like the current debate on Social Security, the fight over pensions revolves around a basic question: How much does society want to spend to support retirees? But some governors insist there is a fairness issue involved, too. At a time when fewer employees in the private sector have traditional pensions and retiree health insurance, most workers in the public sector have both."

Irish bloggers "Freedom Institute" have some coverage and commentary about the visit of British far-Leftist George Galloway to the U.S. Senate. See here and here

There are two big articles here and here pointing out that the German Left is once again heavily antisemitic. "The more things change.... "

John Stossel has an hilarious article here about bottled water. I guess you know what he is going to tell you. Some people in Australia call it "Wanker's Water" -- but the supermarkets are full of it. Amazing.

There is a report here which says that kids with "black" names are expected by their teachers to be dumber while kids with Asian names are expected to be brighter. Which just shows that teachers recognize reality too, Leftist and politically correct although they generally are.

Carnival of the Vanities is up again with a big range of good reading

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

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

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

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). 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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BELINDA BOARD, JOHN BOLTON, THE NYT AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE

I have not so far said anything about the piece of pretend-science by a Belinda Board run in the New York Times (repeated here and here) of just over a week ago which claimed that ambassador-elect Bolton was psychologically disturbed. For good measure, the article also claimed that businessmen are psychopaths. There were plenty of scornful reactions from others (e.g. here and here) so I did not feel any need to waste time on such nonsense. There are some points that I think need more emphasis, however, so I thought I might summarize them briefly.

As far as Bolton is concerned, the article shows a pre-adolescent level of logic. Things that are said about Bolton by his enemies are compared with findings about various clinical populations as if the two sorts of data were comparable. I will offer a 100% guarantee that if I compared things said about Ms Board by her enemies with findings about various clinical populations that I would be able to show (using her logic) that she is a raving nut too.

The fact that the "research" was done in 2001 but has not been published in an academic journal suggests that it must be very low quality indeed. Academic journals will publish almost any rubbish if it is favourable to the Left (see here and here). Possible scientific reasons why it is not publishable centre on sampling and lack of control. There appears to have been no representative sampling of any known population of businessmen so therefore no conclusions about any population of businessmen can be drawn from the findings. And was the scoring of the businessmen done "blind" and compared with a general population sample of similar socio-economic and intellectual level that was also scored "blind"? If it was not (and I don't think we need to guess that it was not) we have a second reason why no conclusions about businessmen, as such, can be drawn. I could say more but that particular horse is not only dead but smelling. I wonder how low the NYT can go? The Belinda Board article would not have been out of place in a supermarket tabloid.

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WINSTON CHURCHILL: THE ORIGINAL "COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATIVE"

Perhaps I have missed it but I have not seen any comparisons between GWB and Winston Churchill. Yet their policies and views are strikingly similar. Note the following speech by Churchill to the Conservative Party Conference, on 5 October 1946 (From The Sinews of Peace, ed. Randolph S. Churchill, London, 1948, p. 213-215). I have highlighted a few points in red:

"It certainly would be an error of the first order for us to plunge out into a programme of promises and bribes in the hopes of winning the public favour. But if you say to me: `What account are we to give of the policy of the Conservative Party? What are we to say of our theme and our cause and of the faith that is in us?' That is a question to which immediate answer can always be given.

Our main objectives are: To uphold the Christian Religion and resist all attacks upon it. To defend our Monarchical and Parliamentary Constitution. To provide adequate security against external aggression and safety for our seaborne trade. To uphold law and order, and impartial justice administered by courts free from interference or pressure on the part of the executive. To regain a sound finance and strict supervision of national income and expenditure. To defend and develop our empire trade, without which Great Britain would perish. To promote all measures to improve the health and social conditions of the people. To support as a general rule free enterprise and initiative against State trading and nationalisation of industries.

To this I will add some further conceptions. We oppose the establishment of a Socialist State, controlling the means of production, distribution and exchange. We are asked, 'What is your alternative?' Our Conservative aim is to build a property-owning democracy, both independent and interdependent. In this I include profit-sharing schemes in suitable industries and intimate consultation between employers and wage-earners. In fact we seek so far as possible to make the status of the wage-earner that of a partner rather than of an irresponsible employee. It is in the interest of the wage-earner to have many other alternatives open to him than service under one all-powerful employer called the State. He will be in a better position to bargain collectively and production will be more abundant; there will be more for all and more freedom for all when the wage-earner is able, in the large majority of cases, to choose and change his work, and to deal with a private employer who, like himself, is dependent upon his personal thrift, ingenuity and good-housekeeping. In this way alone can the traditional virtues of the British character be preserved. We do not wish the people of this ancient island reduced to a mass of State-directed proletariats, thrown hither and thither, housed here and there, by an aristocracy of privileged officials or privileged party, sectarian or Trade Union bosses. We are opposed to the tyranny and victimisation of the closed shop. Our ideal is the consenting union of million, of free, independent families and homes to gain their livelihood and to serve true British glory and world peace.

Freedom of enterprise and freedom of service are not possible without elaborate systems of safeguards against failure, accident or misfortune. We do not seek to pull down improvidently all structures of society, but to erect balustrades upon the stairway of life, which will prevent helpless or foolish people from falling into the abyss. Both the Conservative and Liberal Parties have made notable contributions to secure minimum standards of life and labour. I too have borne my part in this. It is 38 years ago since I introduced the first Unemployment Insurance scheme, and 22 years ago since, as Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, I shaped and carried the Widows' Pensions and reduction of the Old Age Pensions from 70 to 65 - We are now moving forward into another vast scheme of national insurance which arose, even in the stress of war, from a Parliament with a great Conservative majority. It is an essential principle of Conservative, Unionist, and Tory policy - call it what you will - to defend the general public against abuses by monopolies and against restraints on trade and enterprise, whether these evils come from private corporations, from the mischievous plans of doctrinaire Governments, or from the incompetence and arbitrariness of departments of State. Finally, we declare ourselves the unsleeping opponents of all class, all official or all party privilege, which denies the genius of our island race, whose sparks fly upwards unceasingly from the whole people, its rightful career reward and pre-eminence alike in peace and war."

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ELSEWHERE

Attack Machine (post of 18th.) has a good comment on the absurd Newsweek story about American troops flushing a Koran down the toilet. Apparently they fell for the Hitler Diaries hoax too!

NYT hates religious reality: "It appears that there are limits to the liberalization of biblical religion. The more the Bible is treated as a historical document, the more its message is interpreted in universalist terms, the more the churches sanctify the political and cultural order, the less hold liberal religion will eventually have on the hearts and minds of believers. This dynamic is particularly pronounced in Protestantism, which heightens the theological tension brought on by being in the world but not of it. Liberal religion imagines a pacified order in which good citizenship, good morals and rational belief coexist harmoniously. It is therefore unprepared when the messianic and eschatological forces of biblical faith begin to stir..... No one can know how long this dumbing-down of American religion will persist."

Catholic universities lose the plot: "The poet Robert Frost once described a liberal as someone who refuses to take his own side in an argument. He could have been speaking about all too many Catholic universities today, where you'd have about as much chance of hearing a commencement address delivered by a prominent Catholic who loves the traditional faith as you would Ted Nugent doing a public service announcement for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. For decades, Catholics have wondered why, on truth-in-advertising grounds alone, such institutions continue to be permitted to identify themselves as Catholic."

Media blackout on Social Security: "Last week, the Cato Institute issued a new advertisement listing 450 economists, including 5 Nobel laureates, from across the country who have publicly endorsed personal accounts for Social Security. This may be the first time you've heard about this because the Washington Post and the New York Times haven't reported it. Neither has USA Today or the LA Times. According to a spokesman at Cato, it hasn't been reported on any of the major TV networks, either. No one is reporting this story. All of this, of course, is completely unconscionable. Would it be newsworthy if 450 climatologists signed a joint petition saying that the ozone layer was being depleted? Or, to stay on point, would it be newsworthy if 450 economists jointly agreed that President Bush was WRONG to endorse personal accounts? Would the liberal media report it then? Of course they would. They would report the story even if 450 Hollywood actors agreed that personal accounts were wrong, and they aren't even experts".

There is a very good-humoured new online magazine out (sourced from Finland!) called Ovi. Have a look at it here

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

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

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

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

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). 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 HIGH INTELLECTUAL STANDARDS AT UCLA PSYCHOLOGY

The official blurb: "The department of Psychology, one of the largest and most productive departments in the nation, is housed in Franz Hall. Its state-of-the-art facilities, numerous resources and renowned faculty provide ample opportunity for innovative research. Many departmental faculty and researchers are recipients of over $14 million in annual extramural funding, and are acknowledged leaders in their fields. Their scientific contributions, combined with the campus' remarkable growth and Los Angeles' cultural vibrancy, have hastened the University's emergence as a world-class research institution - the anchor of Southern California's intellectual and scientific achievement."

One of the people whom UCLA employs to teach "non-experimental methods" (meaning mainly questionnaire research) is Kevin Binning (kbinning@ucla.edu). Binning is the author of the piece of "research" that I alluded to on 16th. I made some perfectly proper scientific criticisms of it and forwarded the link to Binning. The result was a stream of emails from him that showed virtually no interest in discussing any academic or scholarly issues but which were heavily laden with ad hominem abuse and aspersions. In one such gem he called me a "dirty old man". What a high-powered intellectual! But readers don't have to take my word for Binning's intellectual level. The link to his work that I originally put up now leads to new content. It now says: "To Dr. Ray: I can just imagine you sitting there pathetically trying to ruin my research to help compensate for your own failures in the field. What a joke you are" -- which is pure abuse: No argument, no attempt to answer my criticisms and nothing else of an intellectual character. How Leftist!

There is another comment on standards at UCLA psychology here

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ELSEWHERE

Straight talk about the Left from Australia's Foreign Minister: "Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has accused Labor leaders from John Curtin and Gough Whitlam to Mark Latham of appeasement of Nazi Germany, communist Russia and Saddam Hussein, and provided a philosophical justification for invading Iraq and helping to free East Timor. Curtin had refused to join a wartime government with Robert Menzies and repeatedly said Australia did not have a role when the Italians invaded Abyssinia or when Hitler threatened to annexe Czechoslovak territory, Mr Downer said. "In a time when bipartisanship was imperative in the national interest, Curtin had chosen from 1935 on to placate the international socialists, pacificists and anti-conscripts within his own party," Mr Downer said in a major speech last night. "Even as late as the Munich crisis of September 1938, Curtin persisted with a policy of isolationism and failed to acknowledge the threat posed by Nazism." The Foreign Minister accused current Labor leader Kim Beazley of adopting "a little Australia" policy consistent with a "pattern of weak Labor leadership nationally, particularly on the issues of appeasement, isolationism and shirking international treaty obligations". In a scathing critique of Curtin - Labor's wartime prime minister - and a damning judgment on Mr Whitlam over the Baltic states and Mr Latham over Iraq, Mr Downer said: "Only the Coalition is unequivocally committed to supporting the global struggle for freedom." He charges Mr Whitlam with a "shameless sellout" of the captive Baltic nations of the Soviet Union: Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Labor was a party that was happy to seek donations from the Baathist regime of Iraq during the 1970s, he said".

Leftists are so prone to calling everyone from President Bush down a "Nazi" that it has mostly lost meaning now but one usage which is still very offensive is their constant comparison of Israel to the Nazi State. This article shows that it is nothing to do with anything the State of Israel has ever done as it dates back to before the foundation of the modern-day State of Israel.

Illegal aliens: Democrats stumped: "Hillary gets it. Hillary Clinton says she's against illegal immigration. And she would fine employers who hire illegal aliens. Pundits say the Democratic senator from New York is using this hot-button issue to position herself for the 2008 presidential election. It's a way to hit Republicans from the right. Polls show huge majorities of both Republicans and Democrats oppose illegal immigration -- and are frustrated that President Bush won't do a thing to stop it. But this issue does not belong to the right. Or it shouldn't. Illegal immigration hurts most liberal causes. It depresses wages, crushes unions, and kills all hope for universal health coverage. Progressives have to understand that there can be little social justice in an unregulated labor market." Reliapundit thinks that border control can be made to work too.

Cheat Seeking Missiles has a rather appalling example of how kids are being brainwashed into supporting Greenie causes.

Dutch tolerance: "When the editor of one of America's leading gay magazines visited the world's gay capital a fortnight ago, he assumed that he would be safe. But as Chris Crain, editor of the Washington Blade, was walking hand in hand with his boyfriend near one of the gay districts in Amsterdam, two men standing on a street corner spat at his face. He stopped to ask why, was called a "fag" and suddenly the two youths turned into seven. Surrounded, Mr Crain was kicked to the ground by the gang and ended up in hospital with a broken nose and badly bruised face. His attackers were Moroccan youths, blamed by Dutch gay rights groups for a disturbing rise of gay-bashing, as conservative Islamic culture clashes with Dutch liberalism."

Where's the Leftist media outrage? "Grandsons are condemned to life-long terms as slave laborers alongside their grandfathers, both equally helpless in the brutal surroundings. Prisoners are arbitrarily murdered by security guards. Women suffer from forced abortions at the hands of unlicensed doctors. Newborn babies are beaten to death. And sons and daughters are publicly executed in front of their mothers. This is not the story of an age of slavery from centuries past or of a survivor of Nazi Germany's Holocaust. It is what is happening at this moment inside the gulags of North Korea"

Europe as a model of what NOT to do: "Is the European "social model" doomed? It's a question that comes up with increasing frequency as unemployment across Western Europe has climbed into the double digits and economic growth has ground to a virtual halt across much of the Continent... A fundamental change occurred in Europe between the salad days of the 1950s and '60s and today, and Europe never recovered. In a word, the 1970s happened. In 1965, government spending as a percentage of GDP averaged 28% in Western Europe, just slightly above the U.S. level of 25%. In 2002, U.S. taxes ate 26% of the economy, but in Europe spending had climbed to 42%, a 50% increase. Over the same period, unemployment in Western Europe has risen from less than 3% to 8% today, and to nearly 9% for the 12 countries in the euro zone."

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

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

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

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

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). 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 list what I think were the best posts on my various blogs in the preceding week.

On Dissecting Leftism I support President Bush's "revisionist" view of the Yalta meeting between FDR and Stalin

On Political Correctness Watch I discuss human protandry (girls who turn into boys at puberty) and point out that it disproves academic feminism

On Greenie Watch I note the deceptions of the Greenie priesthood

On Education Watch I have an article by a dedicated teacher who finds quality teaching impossible in Los Angeles public schools

On Socialized Medicine I note that people are increasingly going to India for private medical treatment

On Gun Watch I have some excerpts from an article by a pro-gun Leftist

On Leftists as Elitists I note a Leftist who proves what an elitist he is while denying that he is an elitist!

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ELSEWHERE

Trust the government to care for kids: "The parents of a baby handed back to a sadistic foster mother want answers after shocking new evidence of abuse and bungling. The Herald Sun has obtained three pieces of key evidence in the case of five-month-old "Ben", who was left in foster care despite suffering broken bones, cuts, burns and bruises. First, photos taken by the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne show the boy's horrific injuries. Despite the extent of the wounds shown in the images, the boy was given back to the foster mother. Second, the Herald Sun has learned that a pediatrician's report recommended he not be returned to the foster mother after examining his injuries during that same hospital visit in November 2003. Third, the boy's older sister "Rachel" gave a graphic account stating that she watched the foster mother gouge out her brother's teeth with a knife a month after being returned to her care.... The foster mother, in her 40s, has been interviewed by police but no charges have been laid."

Great stuff! "Executives at National Public Radio are increasingly at odds with the Bush appointees who lead the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. In one of several points of conflict in recent months, the chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which allocates federal funds for public radio and television, is considering a plan to monitor Middle East coverage on NPR news programs for evidence of bias, a corporation spokesman said on Friday. The corporation's board has told its staff that it should consider redirecting money away from national newscasts and toward music programs produced by NPR stations. Top officials at NPR and member stations are upset as well about the corporation's decision to appoint two ombudsmen to judge the content of programs for balance."

David Brooks: "George Bush won the white working class by 23 percentage points in this past election. Many people have wondered why so many lower-middle-class waitresses in Kansas and Hispanic warehouse workers in Texas now call themselves Republicans. The Pew data provide an answer: they agree with Horatio Alger. These working-class folk like the G.O.P.'s social and foreign policies, but the big difference between poor Republicans and poor Democrats is that the former believe that individuals can make it on their own with hard work and good character. According to the Pew study, 76 percent of poor Republicans believe most people can get ahead with hard work. Only 14 percent of poor Democrats believe that. Poor Republicans haven't made it yet, but they embrace what they take to be the Republican economic vision - that it is in their power to do so. Poor Democrats are more likely to believe they are in the grip of forces beyond their control. The G.O.P. succeeds because it is seen as the party of optimistic individualism"

Bill Frist states his case in USA Today: "All 100 members of the U.S. Senate will soon decide a basic question of fairness. Will we permit a fair, up-or-down vote on every judicial nominee? Or, will we create an unprecedented 60-vote requirement for the confirmation of President Bush's judges? I sincerely hope that it is the former."

GOP outreach to blacks continues: "Hutchison isn't alone when it comes to powerful Republicans who aren't waiting until election time to reach out to blacks. The GOP's effort began last year when President Bush addressed the National Urban League. Ken Mehlman, the national party chairman, has been especially aggressive in urging African-Americans to consider a return to the "party of Lincoln.""

Black Republican worries Dems: "City Councilman Otto Banks, the biggest vote-getter in Harrisburg, Pa., held a campaign fundraiser in the Pennsylvania state capital Friday with the help of Republican National Chairman Ken Mehlman that sent new fears rippling through Democratic ranks. Mr. Banks, 33, a political newcomer, stunned Harrisburg's black community when he left the Democratic Party in March to become a Republican, starting what Mr. Mehlman and other Republican officials say they hope will become a realignment trend that will consign the Democrats to permanent minority status."

John O'Sullivan sees some hope for the future for the British Tories. I personally think that the volcanic internal wrangling in the Labour party is their only hope. Remember the old saw that governments lose elections, oppositions don't win them.

Polipundit notes that there are 11 million more jobs in America now than there were in 1997. He is right that you will not see that mentioned in the MSM.

I rarely do any fisking of Leftist articles but a New York Times article on social class motivated me to do some. See today's LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS.

A reader has sent me in an interesting quote from Engels -- which I have just posted on Marxwords. It shows how much Engels hated working.

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

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

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

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

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). 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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FILIBUSTERS AND THE COURTS

Buchanan on why filibusters of judicial nominations must be stopped: "For decades, radical secularists like William Douglas, Earl Warren, William Brennan, Thurgood Marshall and Harry Blackmun have abused their power as Supreme Court justices to impose their values and views on a society that opposed or even detested those values and views. We have seen voluntary prayer, Bible-reading and the Ten Commandments purged from public schools; the pornography industry, once a sordid criminal enterprise, given First Amendment protection; and children forcibly bused across town on judicial orders because of the color of their skin. We have seen abortion, once a crime in 50 states, declared a constitutional right, followed by the discovery that the Constitution protects homosexual sodomy, though Jefferson equated it with rape. We are no longer a democratic republic. The Supreme Court picks what cases it will hear, what laws it will permit to stand, what rights it shall invent. We overthrew a rule of kings. Now we are oppressed by a rule of judges".

Why the circuit courts are important: "Democrats have made much of the fact that the Senate confirmed 204 federal judges during President Bush's first term, while 'only' 10 judicial nominations were filibustered. However, it is not coincidental that 100 percent of the filibustered nominations were for the powerful circuit courts of appeal. ...[W]hat can only be described as a concerted judicial-filibuster campaign during the 108th Congress was truly unprecedented. Indeed, throughout the entire history of the U.S. Senate, neither the minority-party members in that chamber nor senators of the party that did not occupy the White House had ever before engaged in such a coordinated, protracted filibustering campaign to frequently deny up-or-down votes for one judicial nominee after another... Democrats have cleverly -- and shrewdly -- perpetrated their unprecedented judicial obstructionism exclusively against nominees to circuit courts of appeal. Relatively speaking, these courts have become vastly more powerful in recent decades. With the Supreme Court issuing fewer and fewer decisions, the circuit courts have become the final arbiters more often than in the past. Unless reversed by the Supreme Court, a decision by an appellate court remains the final determination on both legal and constitutional grounds throughout its jurisdiction."

Black conservative Craig DeLuz is outraged at the hatred of judicial nominee Janice Rogers Brown being displayed by Democrats. A small excerpt: "Janice Rogers Brown has become a lightning rod for liberals because she is Black. But as a conservative, she does not subscribe to typical liberal racist ways of thinking. Liberals think that Blacks cannot be successful without the government's help. They don't believe that Blacks can go out and get jobs, so the government must take care of them. They don't believe that Blacks can be successful in school, so they wish to lower the standards for graduation so that Black students will feel better about themselves. They believe that Blacks are victims of a racist system, so they should not be held responsible for their actions; as if we are incapable of controlling ourselves. This is what liberal racists think of us. And sadly, they have been successful in getting most Blacks to buy into this view of themselves. It's nothing more than psychological slavery. But Janice Rogers Brown challenges that image. A successful Black woman with Brown's humble beginnings and yet also possesses conservative world view, is contrary to the dependent characterization liberals wish to paint of us"

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ELSEWHERE

There is an amusing piece of psychological research emanating from UCLA at the moment. It is such bad research that I encourage readers to answer the questionnaire and spook it. For a start, by administering the questions over the internet, they show the usual sublime indifference to proper sampling that is characteristic of psychologists but, perhaps more importantly, the survey is very transparent and its Leftist intentions stand out. Take this excerpt from their preamble: "many would argue that at their core, Americans are self-interested and care foremost about their own well being. Of course, the opposing view is that Americans are generally quite caring and concerned for the well being of others". Which of those views would you say is the one the authors hold? I think it is pretty clear that the former is the answer they want to hear. And researchers do tend to get the answers they want. In the trade it is called "The Rosenthal effect". The survey also asks for political affiliation so one bet that the really nasty guys will turn out to be Republicans! For a brief look at the utter lack of scholarly standards in political psychology, see here

V.D. Hanson on academic "tenure": "Renewable five-year agreements - outlining in detail teaching and scholarly expectations - would still protect free speech, without creating lifelong sinecures for those who fail their contractual obligations. The cost of university tuition continues to creep higher than the rate of inflation. The percentage of cheaper classes taught by adjunct instructors is increasing as well. Yet the competence of recently graduated students is ever more in question. What is not scrutinized in this disturbing calculus is a mandarin class that says it is radically egalitarian, but in fact insists on an unusual privilege that most other Americans do not enjoy. In recompense, the university has not delivered a better-educated student, or a more intellectually diverse and independent-thinking faculty. Instead it has accomplished precisely the opposite".

The role of blogs in supporting Prof. Klocek is getting noticed. Note this AP story: "A longtime DePaul University instructor who argued with pro-Palestinian students at a campus activities fair last fall no longer works for the school. That much is not in dispute. But why Thomas Klocek lost his job while other professors under fire for their statements, including the University of Colorado's Ward Churchill, kept theirs has created a buzz among conservative-leaning Internet blogs about free speech rights at campuses across the country".

Allende: A typical Leftist of his day: "Salvador Allende, the socialist president of Chile who was killed during a CIA-backed coup in 1973, was an anti-Semite who held fascist ideas in his youth, says a new book which has split Chile. The book, Salvador Allende: Antisemitism and Euthanasia, will shock those around the world who revere the late president as a socialist martyr..... The disclosures come from Allende's 1933 doctoral dissertation which had been kept secret. In it he asserts that Jews have a disposition to crime, and calls for compulsory sterilisation of the mentally ill and alcoholics. Victor Farias, the book's Chilean-born author, said Allende quotes approvingly a "cure" for homosexuality, which was then a crime: "It could be corrected with surgery - small holes would be made in the stomach, into which small pieces of testicle would be inserted. This would make the person heterosexual.""

Last Saturday, The Australian (Australia's national newspaper) editorialized about the attack on Chrenkoff and "Opinion Journal" by "Media Watch", a programme of Australia's Left-leaning public Broadcaster (The ABC). I have reposted the editorial here as it may not stay up long. I must say that the inability of the ABC to find "Opinion Journal" via wsj.com (something I myself used to do often before I bookmarked "Opinion Journal") shows what dopes the ABC journalists are. "Media Watch" will be on air again tonight so I hope somebody tells me if they reply to the editorial. I never watch the supercilious garbage myself.

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

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

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

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

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). 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.

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

YALTA

One passage in President Bush's speech in Latvia a week ago has stirred up vigorous debate on both Right and Left. This is the passage:

"For much of Eastern and Central Europe, victory brought the iron rule of another empire. V-E Day marked the end of fascism, but it did not end oppression. The agreement at Yalta followed in the unjust tradition of Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Once again, when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable. Yet this attempt to sacrifice freedom for the sake of stability left a continent divided and unstable. The captivity of millions in Central and Eastern Europe will be remembered as one of the greatest wrongs of history.

I have hesitated to say anything about it so far -- though I have linked to various related statements by others -- because I myself have always had many reservations about Allied actions in BOTH world wars. But it is a huge debate that has been going on for many years now so I will outline my conclusions here without endeavouring to support them other than by suggesting readings that those interested in the subject might look at if they want to follow anything up:

That FDR was either a fool or a rogue in his dealings with Stalin is I think undoubted and I am glad that GWB has come out saying that by implication -- but whether anything FDR could have done would have saved the Baltic States from Stalin is highly dubious. He could however have saved the whole of Germany by unleashing Patton and that could well have saved Poland too.

There has also long been a hangover from wartime propaganda that claims that the war was fought for various worthy objectives -- the defence of democracy etc. I don't think, however, anyone has been much deceived by that. The war was a war of national survival for those threatened by Hitler and for FDR it was a war he was desperate to enter so that he could -- in good Leftist fashion -- exercise power and dominate world politics. He wanted to be at the head of the table at the end of the war. As in World War I however, the American people did not want a bar of intervention in Europe so he had to engineer an attack by the Japanese to get the people onside.

OK. I have probably said too much already. Just to get you thinking, here is an excerpt from a much reproduced comment by Buchanan on the issue:

"If Yalta was a betrayal of small nations as immoral as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, why do we venerate Churchill and FDR? At Yalta, this pair secretly ceded those small nations to Stalin, co-signing a cynical "Declaration on Liberated Europe" that was a monstrous lie. As FDR and Churchill consigned these peoples to a Stalinist hell run by a monster they alternately and affectionately called "Uncle Joe" and "Old Bear," why are they not in the history books alongside Neville Chamberlain, who sold out the Czechs at Munich by handing the Sudetenland over to Germany? At least the Sudeten Germans wanted to be with Germany. No Christian peoples of Europe ever embraced their Soviet captors or Stalinist quislings. Other questions arise. If Britain endured six years of war and hundreds of thousands of dead in a war she declared to defend Polish freedom, and Polish freedom was lost to communism, how can we say Britain won the war? If the West went to war to stop Hitler from dominating Eastern and Central Europe, and Eastern and Central Europe ended up under a tyranny even more odious, as Bush implies, did Western Civilization win the war?"

There are other good comments by Jeff Jacoby and Geoffrey Wheatcroft and V.D. Hanson. There is a good history of the evolving thinking about the war here and in my view the best balanced account of what did happen and what could have happened is here. And I cannot resist putting up the following excerpt from the Wheatcroft article:

"The French suffered a catastrophic defeat in 1940, and the compromises many Frenchmen made with their conquerors thereafter ranged from the pitiful to the wicked. More Frenchmen collaborated than resisted, and during the course of the war more Frenchmen bore arms on the Axis than on the Allied side".

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ELSEWHERE

Hollywood logic: A UPI Hollywood reporter says: "There is a widely held assumption among many people in the United States -- particularly among conservatives -- that public broadcasting is dominated by liberal politics. But the Washington-based Center for Digital Democracy recently reported that Tomlinson has been sitting on polling data showing that a substantial majority of Americans are happy with the programming on PBS and NPR". [How does the report in the second sentence disprove the claim reported in the first sentence? Whether people are happy with it depends on what they expect of it and expectations of balance are probably long gone]

Liberal Avenger is still providing me with entertainment. In response to my admission yesterday that maybe I have an overdeveloped sense of humour, he emailed me as follows: "Maybe you're just a cheap date?". I don't really follow the relevance (if any) of that comment but the abusive intent is clear enough. After I dubbed him "Mr. Hatespeech", his emails to me became polite for a while but he has now obviously reverted to form. He also on one occasion admitted that he is no intellectual. He certainly seems determined to prove it!

Arabs vote with their feet: "Last year as part of discussions about territorial compromise with the Palestinian Authority, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon proposed transferring an area of Arab villages in northern Israel to a new Palestinian state. The proposal would have placed about 200,000 Arab citizens of Israel under Palestinian sovereignty by simply redrawing the internationally recognized, pre-1967 border. Israel would have received in exchange an equivalent geographic area on the West Bank. No one would have moved. The plan simply was a 1-for-1, territorial exchange that put Arabs in Palestine and Jews in Israel. Who could object to such a sensible compromise? The Arab citizens of Israel. "I want to live under the democratic law of Israel, not the law of Arafat," a resident of the village of Muakala told the Jerusalem Post."

I think we have another very holy Pope. Note these of his words: "We have considered the fall of man in general, and the falling of many Christians away from Christ and into a godless secularism. Should we not also think of how much Christ suffers in His own Church? How often is the holy sacrament of His Presence abused, how often must He enter empty and evil hearts! How often do we celebrate only ourselves, without even realizing that He is there! How often is His Word twisted and misused! What little faith is present behind so many theories, so many empty words! How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to Him! How much pride, how much self-complacency! What little respect we pay to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, where he waits for us, ready to raise us up whenever we fall! "

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

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

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

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NOAH'S ARK RUNS AGROUND

Maybe I have an overdeveloped sense of humour but one of the funniest columns I have read recently is this one by Timothy Noah. Our Tim just cannot figure out why so many working class Americans vote GOP. With typical Leftist condescension, he is amazed that they are not just animated cash-registers. He goes through the explanations for conservatism put forward by Leftist psychologists -- summarized in the absurd "Berkeley study" -- but in the end concedes that the explanations concerned are indeed absurd. His ark just ends up high and dry with nowhere to go.

He really should read Disraeli -- that great Conservative friend of the workers of over a century ago and one of Britain's greatest Prime Ministers. Dizzy could have told him that the workers are perfectly capable of seeing that what is bad for their country is bad for them too and it takes no great insight to see that the shifty characters who infest the Democratic party are bad for America. Most of them don't even LIKE America! Taranto had a laugh at poor Tim too.

Update

I suppose I should have mentioned that have done a fair bit of academic research into working-class conservatism. Some of the articles concerned are here and here and here and here

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