LIMITS ON MULTICULTURALISM COMING

Excerpts from an article by Australian conservative columnist Janet Albrechtsen

The 1960s, the decade that became a state of mind, is finally over. With each new terrorist horror in London, as we learn more and more about British homeboy terrorists, it seems safe to declare that age of innocence is dead. It was an age where wide-eyed all-you-need-is-love romanticism inevitably spawned moral and cultural relativism. But when boys, born in British hospitals, develop allegiances that demand death to their countrymen, you know that the utopian vision of multiculturalism, urged on us with the best of intentions, has not gone as planned.

Three years ago, to suggest that multiculturalism was slowly killing us, or at least killing some of us, brought down a heavy rain of criticism. Back in September 2002, to mark the approaching first anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US, I wrote on this page that the West's multiculturalism created conditions that encouraged the West's fanatical enemies. We were so busy being inclusive, denigrating our own culture, that we were not noticing what was happening. I suggested that Multicultural Man and his lazy cultural relativist thinking needed to be dismantled. A few others were saying the same thing. But not many.....

How times have changed. When four young British Muslims set off from Luton, detonating four bomb blasts in London, most people were shaken out of their reverie. Eventually, it seems, reality bites. Sometimes slowly. Sometimes cruelly. Now, more than a few people are saying that tolerance is not as safe as it seems. That too much of the stuff can be a problem because it suggests to those who detest our values and our societies that we will not make judgments about what is right and what is wrong....

Now, even long-time supporters of multiculturalism, such as The Age's Pamela Bone, wonder aloud whether it is time for us to lay down some ground rules for those from different cultures who wish to live side by side with our culture. "Couscous yes, child marriage no?" she asked....

Advocating multiculturalism for people from cultures with similar values was never going to be problematic. But when cultures differ sharply, multicultural policies that promote all cultures as equal lead us in all sorts of wrong directions. A young Aboriginal woman points to tribal law to excuse her for killing her philandering husband. An educated man, the father of a group of Pakistani gang rapists, claims they did not understand our culture.

Finally, more of us are saying "Hang on, some values are non-negotiable." Perhaps we can draw a shade on the '60s view that all cultures are equal.

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ELSEWHERE

There is an article in Harpers that is getting a lot of links. It claims to show that Americans call themselves Christians but don't behave in Christian ways. They imply the rather ludicrous claim that Harpers has a better understanding of what Christianity is than America's Christian pastors do. In some cases that would not be hard of course. Almost anybody would have a better idea of what Christianity implies than Bishop John Shelby Spong does, for instance. I could go on to pick apart all the erroneous ideas about Christianity that Harpers promulgates but they are mostly just old Leftist standbys that I have already demolished on my Scripture Blog so I think I will leave it to Christian bloggers to put up a more systematic reply.

Phew! That was close. CAFTA just squeaked past the House. There is now "free trade" between the USA and Central America. It is in fact still far from free but it is freer than it was, which will be good for all the countries concerned.

Arlene Peck has some very interesting figures on the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and parts of the West Bank. (See bottom of post).

I have just put up a book review from a centre-Left source on Leftists as Elitists which savages the Stalinist Hollywood elite and defends Joe McCarthy! The concluding paragraph: "So what has all this to do with the fate of the American left or American liberalism? Any movement that does not own up to its past hobbles its future. These flanks are still enchanted with the suicidal heroism of the self-deluded Hollywood communists. This twisted syndrome did not stop with apologetics and excuses for Stalinism. It continues with the tortured explanations and barely disguised extenuations for the Muslim terror war against democratic and civil society. The Radoshes have written a wise, honest, and perceptive book."

Newsweek: Truth is the First Civilian Casualty in Iraq: "But civilian killings by U.S. troops are not nearly as common as the critics of the war in Iraq would like us to believe. It has become an article of faith among them that American troops have been slaughtering Iraqi civilians indiscriminately, and that one of the consequences of the war has been an unconscionable loss of life among the civilian population. It just isn't true. The most recent entry in this campaign is a report released on July 19 by Iraq Body Count. This Web-based group (www.iraqbodycount.org) compiles news accounts of casualties in Iraq and tabulates them... The text of the report is decorated with pull quotes from news accounts of checkpoint killings and aerial bombardments. Even if U.S. troops didn't kill all these people, they're telling us, these civilians would not have died were it not for the U.S. presence. Is it the policeman's fault when the hostage taker kills his hostage? In fact, a fair reading of the report's own data could support a completely contrary conclusion. Were it not for the insurgents, there would scarcely be much of a civilian death toll in Iraq now. A few isolated cases, yes, but nothing like the 8,000 civilians the Iraqi government says have died so far in 2005 from insurgent attacks.

Military recruitment going fine: "Buried in all the mainstream media coverage this week over new terrorist bombings in London, space shuttles that didn't launch, the trashing of Karl Rove and the nomination of a new Supreme Court justice was a little-noted item about re-enlistments in the U.S. armed forces exceeding expectations. USA Today offered some prominence to the story, but it was widely ignored by most of the Fourth Estate. Perhaps that's because it's a 'good news story.'"

I am pleased to say that a few readers commented on my "woolly hat" post. One reader sent me a pic of a guy in Costa Rica (in the tropics) wearing a beanie in the middle of summer so the only thing I am reasonably sure of after that is that they are all a bit missing somewhere. And there is a picture of a well-known Australian Leftist blogger here which does not change my mind. I have even got him on my blogroll, I am rather mortified to say. I think I will delete all Lefty links soon.

Chris Brand is in fine form with another lot of posts up about British and Australian news.

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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The anti-business policies and practically all economic policies advocated by the Left are impoverishing. They waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so make the country poorer. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

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

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 SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE OF WOOLLY HATS

Just to take our minds off more serious concerns for once, I thought I might point out something I have noticed that other people might or might not be able to confirm from their own experience. I have noticed that people whom Australians would call "drongoes" (foolish and stupid people) are very prone to wearing woollen hats -- beanies etc. Australians very rarely wear hats of any sort even when they should (given our high incidence of skin cancer) so people wearing warm head-coverings do tend to stand out. And from listening to such people and observing them for many years I am much struck by the low-grade intelligence that seems to prevail among such wearers. No doubt that would not apply in really cold countries such as Russia where furry hats significantly enhance survival but Australia is a generally warm country where few people feel the need for top-deck insulation. So when I see a beanie-clad head in the streets, I immediately identify the person concerned as one best kept away from: as someone with a probably significant tendency to crime and violence. Having been for some years a boarding-house proprietor in a down-market suburb, I am well aware of the fact that crime and violence is a common way for drongoes to cope with life.

So why the association between social pathology and a desire to keep the head warm? I think it is no mystery at all. The brain uses up about 20% of the body's energy. It is a huge consumer of calories in relation to its mass. So the head is normally the last part of the body that feels cold. Having the brain inside the head working is like having a radiator inside it. And as far as I am aware, active brains use up more calories than less active ones. So the people with the relatively inert brains put out less heat from the head and thus feel the cold in their heads more than others do. So an unusual need for warm head-coverings suggests an unusually inactive brain. That's my theory anyway.

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ELSEWHERE

An amazing spasm of sanity from the Democratic Leadership Council: "Here's a novel idea: The war on terror should be, above all, a liberal's war. Think about it: The jihadist campaign is not some generic explosion of terrorism, but rather a calculated attack on all that liberals hold dear: tolerance, diversity, women's rights, the fundamental freedoms and protections of democracy, even trade unionism. In short, liberal values. That's why the liberal left makes a profound mistake if it concedes this war to George W. Bush and the right"

White House may sidestep Democrats on Bolton: "Frustrated by Senate Democrats, the White House hinted Monday that President Bush may act soon to sidestep Congress and install embattled nominee John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations on a temporary basis. White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Bush has used his power for temporary appointments when 'he has to get people in place that have waited far too long to get about doing their business.' He said that 'sometimes there's come a point' when Bush has decided he needs to act."

Archaeologists are now beginning to see evidence of human social inequalities stretching back to the Stone Age. I am only amazed that they ever thought cavemen were equalitarian. There are dominance hierarchies in ALL social animals, including all the primates, so why should man be different? Only a raving Leftist would suggest otherwise.

Genes cause autism too: "While debate still rages over the 'cause' of autism, mounting evidence suggests that genetic factors play a major role in the disease. Two recent studies led by James Sutcliffe, Ph.D., and Randy Blakely, Ph.D., investigators with the Vanderbilt Center for Molecular Neuroscience and the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development, suggest that multiple rare mutations within a single gene may increase risk for autism.... "Autism has such a high genetic risk, but these new findings suggest that there may be many variants of individual genes at work," Blakely said. With such genetic testing, said Sutcliffe, "you might be able to predict which kids would respond positively to particular SSRI medications." "We now have concrete evidence in our families that the SERT gene is a risk factor in autism," Blakely said."

Racist judge: "A judge's comments in recent months that she would refuse to seat an all-white jury have raised eyebrows at Cook County Criminal Court and questions about whether the judge acted inappropriately. "Folks, you all know I have a rule; I don't seat all white jurors," Circuit Judge Evelyn Clay said as a jury was being picked to hear a murder trial last month, according to court transcripts.... Clay, who is African-American, made the remarks in chambers before three separate trials, according to transcripts reviewed by the Tribune.... Ronald Allen, a law professor at Northwestern University, called the judge's comments extraordinary. "I've never heard of a judge making such a statement, and I think it was ill-advised to do so publicly," he said. "It injects an unfortunate racial element into the matter, and quite frankly it raises very serious questions about whether [the judge] is discriminating against whites."... In a 1986 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Batson vs. Kentucky that it was a violation of the constitution to keep blacks off juries solely because of their race. The court found that the public's confidence in the fairness of the system would be damaged.

Leftist Kristof says Christians shame the Left: " But these days liberals should be embarrassed that it's the Christian Right that is taking the lead in spotlighting repression in North Korea. Perhaps no country in human history has ever been as successful at totalitarianism as North Korea. Koreans sent back from China have been herded like beasts, with wires forced through their palms or under their collarbones. People who steal food have been burned at the stake, with their relatives recruited to light the match. Then there was the woman who was a true believer and suggested that the Dear Leader should stop womanizing: after she was ordered executed, her own husband volunteered to pull the trigger. "The biggest scandal in progressive politics," Tony Blair told The New Yorker this year, "is that you do not have people with placards out in the street on North Korea. I mean, that is a disgusting regime. The people are kept in a form of slavery, 23 million of them, and no one protests!" Actually, some people do protest. Conservative Christians have aggressively taken up the cause of North Korean human rights in the last few years, and the movement is gathering steam. A U.S.-government-financed conference on North Korean human rights convened in Washington last week, and President Bush is expected shortly to appoint Jay Lefkowitz to the new position of special envoy for North Korean human rights.

Top ten reasons to privatize public broadcasting : "Republicans in Congress are debating whether to make small cuts in the funding for public broadcasting. They're not thinking big enough. Here are the top ten reasons to cut off the taxpayer dollars flowing to National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System: 10.) We live in a 500-channel world. Back in 1967, when the Public Broadcasting Act was passed, most Americans only had three television channels -- ABC, NBC and CBS. But today we have six over-the-air networks and hundreds of cable channels offering everything from news to soap operas to classic movies to history and opera. 9.) Sesame Street isn't so special any more. ..."

Carnival of the Vanities is up again with a huge range of 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

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

The anti-business policies and practically all economic policies advocated by the Left are impoverishing. They waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so make the country poorer. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

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

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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KIN PREFERENCE, FRANK SALTER AND EMMANUEL TODD

Frank Salter is a very popular guy in white nationalist circles. He has written a book (On Genetic Interests: Family, Ethny, and Humanity in an Age of Mass Migration) that has been widely acclaimed in those circles as giving a rational argument in favour of preferring your own race and stopping immigration. As it happens, I know Frank personally but that is not what I want to talk about here. I want to outline his ideas very briefly and then point to an alternative view. Frank rightly notes that we tend to prefer being with and helping people who are genetically similar to ourselves and that members of our own racial group are more similar to us genetically than are members of other racial groups. From my reading of the scientific literature in psychology and genetics, both those statements are clearly true and racial preference therefore probably is indeed an extension of kin preference.

Frank however extends his reasoning to say that we SHOULD prefer people who are genetically closer to us -- but I am agnostic about that. I cannot say SHOULD NOT because that would be telling most of the human population not to behave in the way that they do and I cannot say SHOULD because I see it as a basic civil liberty that people should be allowed to make their own choices about whom they should or should not associate with and prefer. I don't remotely understand bondage freaks but if their interactions with one-another help them get their rocks off, good luck to them. Similarly I think that most white women who take black lovers will regret it (ask Nicole Brown Simpson about that -- Whoops! You can't) but if it turns them on that is their business. We all take our risks in one way or another and if our bedrooms are not private where is privacy to be found?

So I will confine myself to the DO rather than the SHOULD. I want to look more closely at exactly how kin preference works. And the first thing to note is of course that kin is only one of the critieria we use in deciding whom we wish to be with and help. There are many instances where opposites attract and there are many sorts of similarity that we like other than genetic similarity. I think that is too obvious for me to bother with examples -- though I cannot help noting that most Westerners who spend time in India do come away saying that they "loved India" -- despite India's deprivations and dissimilarities.

And I owe what I think is the key fact in this matter to a French Leftist intellectual -- Emmanuel Todd. Now I know that that statement will immediately have brought on acid reflux in some readers here so let me assure you that I am in general as contemptuous of what passes for philosophy in France as I am admiring of Wittgenstein (Yes: I know that Wittgenstein was so far Left that he emigrated to Russia but it is also true that he lasted only three weeks in Russia. Nobody is wise about everything! It is not his politics but his cautious and anti-theoretical arguments about the nature of knowledge that I like -- arguments that fall squarely within the tradition of Anglo-Saxon conservatism as far as I can see).

But if even a stopped clock is right twice a day, a French intellectual can occasionally be right too. And Todd is half English anyway. And in his 1985 book The explanation of ideology Todd's approach is thoroughly empirical -- combining history and anthropology. And what he points out is that the English family has always been weird by world standards. Nobody values kin as little as the English do and they have been that way for as far back as we can follow it. I myself noted that in my Australian survey research. In one of my doorknock surveys, one of the questions I asked was: "How often do you visit relatives?" If the household was a Mediterranean one (usually Greek or Italian) the normal and immediate answer was "every weekend". In Anglo-Australian households however most people had to think hard about that and a common answer was "Never". Anglo-Saxons tend to choose their company with little or no regard to relatedness whereas family is all to most of the rest of the world.

But as it happens, those weird Anglo-Saxons seem to have got it right. It is their culture that dominates the world and it is they (together with their close relatives in North-Western Europe) who have largely created the modern world. So I think that all Anglo-Saxon ways come with some presumption in their favour. And it could be the reduced kin preference among Anglo-Saxons that is the key to their success. On Salter's reasoning, their minimal kin orientation would be part and parcel of their greater devotion to individualism, their greater racial tolerance, their greater devotion to abstract justice and their lesser tendency to corruption. That sounds like a pretty good brew to me!

And since practically every personality trait the geneticists look at turns out to have a large genetic component, it seems likely that degree of kin preference is genetically encoded too. So others may not be able to emulate the Anglo-Saxons just by trying. Though they may have advantages in other ways, of course. So it is surely some irony that the people to whom Frank primarily addresses his arguments (his fellow Anglo-Saxons) are the ones least likely to be moved by them. But it does explain why Frank needed to write his book: The desirability of people to whom one is related is instinctively obvious to most of the world. Only the Anglo-Saxons need a book to tell them that!

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ELSEWHERE

In a convincing demonstration of the Leftist disconnect from reality, that Prince of exaggeration and made-up "facts" -- John Pilger -- still seems to be respected on the Left. He has the current cover-story on the New Statesman -- alleging of course that the fault for the London bombing lies at Tony Blair's door. It is just standard Leftist "blame the West" stuff, of course, but I suppose someone has to debunk it occasionally and Spartac.us is one of those who have waded in to clean up the mess. I think Pilger's stock in trade is that he really seems to believe the crap. Leftists in general are such phonies that they badly need someone like that.

Under the heading "Evil must be fought" Rabbi Steinsaltz has an excellent brief response to the terror attack in London on July 7. Excerpt: "What happened in London recently should bring about a fundamental change in our way of seeing the world. There really is evil in the world. It has its own ideology and own organizations, and it exists not only somewhere far away, but here".

There are some amusing comments on Powerline about the rumoured takeover of Danone -- a French yoghurt-maker -- by Pepsi. Apparently the French government has been going ballistic over it. I liked this comment: "You know a country is in the throes of a deep identity crisis when its elites unanimously decide that dairy products are of the highest strategic importance, calling for nationalist wagons to circle around a firm selling such high-technology products as chocolate cookies, mineral water and fruit yogurt..."

Concerned Women for America has some good mockery of all the various Leftist objections to GWB's SCOTUS pick.

CATS: There are some absolutely amazing thoughts about domestic cats here. All cat-lovers should read it. It certainly opened my eyes and I am more a dog person. I was once a registered dog breeder, in fact -- of English Bull-terriers.

Bluto has fired back at The Guardian for treating his satire about headchopping as serious.

Chris Brand has a new lot of posts up on British and Australian issues.

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

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

The anti-business policies and practically all economic policies advocated by the Left are impoverishing. They waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so make the country poorer. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

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

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 question whether Australia's immigration policy is selective enough

On Political Correctness Watch I note that homosexuality seems to trump Islam in political correctness

On Greenie Watch I note that the evidence is now in that Michael Mann committed scientific fraud in his famous "hockeystick" claims about global warming

On Education Watch I note that some Leftist teachers are so reluctant to administer any discipline that they are now calling the police to deal with 5-year-olds

On Socialized Medicine I note that lives are being put at risk as British public hospitals ignore medical alerts

On Gun Watch I note that a gun club is being sued for committing lead pollution!

On Leftists as Elitists I note that a left-leaning Australian High Court judge admitted that he was consumed by anger when he considered some cases

On Majority Rights I note opposition to black immigration in Australia

On Blogger News I note that Sweden has useful lessons for conservatives. (Post also below)

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ELSEWHERE

As the Plame/Wilson/Rove beatup continues: "As the seemingly endless spiderweb of lies spun by former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV unravels, the media has gone out of its way to question the credibility of.Karl Rove. Despite Rove's demonstrable non-leak of Valerie Plame's non-secret identity, the dogs continue to gather, hungry for a second term scandal, while the Wilsons' blatant self-promotion erodes whatever basis they had for a story in the first place. Perhaps Joe Wilson's two biggest whoppers were his claim to have spoken out because of his deep, non-partisan commitment to "truth," and his inconsolable remorse that his wife's closely guarded anonymity had become "collateral damage" in the Bush administration's war against him. What is at risk of being lost in the media hype of Karl Rove's "leak" is that Plame and Wilson had deep-seated ideological opposition to the Niger trip they set up, Plame apparently spiked that trip in advance, and she had long ago blown her status as a "secret" CIA agent."

PETA are just haters: They care neither for people nor animals: Here's what PETA didn't want you to see: two PETA employees attending a court hearing Tuesday in North Carolina on charges they killed and dumped 31 cats and dogs in a shopping center's trash bins. While the court case is pending, the controversy swirling around PETA and associated animal rights extremists, is again Page One news. Veterinarian clinics and animal shelters turned the pets over to PETA in hopes they could be adopted. Instead, they were killed by an organization dedicated to "ethical" treatment of animals. It's just another example of the misguided agenda, and hypocrisy, of the animal rights movement. It's a campaign that affects not only PETA and its supporters, but hurts each and every one of us.... These folks believe there can never be any justification for animal testing. If achieving their goal means humans must suffer, then inflicting needless pain, trauma, grief and death on people is merely a necessary means to a worthwhile end. And, a report by the Anti-Defamation League -- hardly a bastion of extreme conservatism -- says radical environmental and animal-rights groups have wreaked more than $100 million in damage over the past two decades... After bombing the offices of a California company in 2003, animal rights extremists sent an e-mail claiming responsibility. Among other things, it said, "You never know when your house, your car even, might go boom ... or maybe it will be a shot in the dark." Terroristic threats don't come any clearer".

Leftist twisting about "activist" judges: "Those who want to see judges who will apply the law instead of imposing their own policies face not only political obstruction to the appointment of such judges but also calculated confusion about the very words used in discussing what is at issue. Judges who impose their own preferences, instead of following the law as it is written, have long been known as "judicial activists" while those who carry out the law, instead of rewriting it to suit themselves, have been said to be following the "original intent" of the law. But now a massive effort to muddy the waters has been launched by those who want judges who will continue to impose the liberal agenda from the bench. Words like "activists" and "intent" are being twisted beyond recognition. Senator Patrick Leahy has redefined "activist" judges to make the least activist Justices on the Supreme Court -- Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas -- suddenly activists by his new definition. Senator Leahy has said: "The two most activist judges we have right now are Justice Thomas and Justice Scalia, who have struck down and thus written laws of their own in place of congressional laws more than anybody else on the current Supreme Court." One of the major functions of the Supreme Court for more than two centuries has been to strike down acts of Congress, the President, or the lower courts when any of these exceed the authority granted to them by the Constitution. Calling this "judicial activism" is playing games with words and befogging the real issues. When Justices Scalia and Thomas enforce the limits set by the Constitution, that is not writing "their own new laws," no matter what Senator Leahy claims"

A good bit of satire about the British Muslim journalist who supports jihad, posted by 'dreadpundit', a right-wing New Yorker using the name 'Bluto'. He wrote: "Okay, Dilpazier, I've decided to bow to your 'logic' - sauce for the goose and all that. That's why I'm issuing a secular fatwah and asking for some loyal Briton to saw off your head and ship it to me (use Fed-Ex, please, so I can get a morning delivery, and do remember the dry ice, also, a videotape of the 'execution')."

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

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

The anti-business policies and practically all economic policies advocated by the Left are impoverishing. They waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so make the country poorer. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

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

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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SWEDEN: AN EXAMPLE FOR CONSERVATIVES

American conservatives should be shouting the Swedish experience from the rooftops

What would American conservatives say of a country that NOT ONLY has an extensive system of government-paid vouchers for private schooling but also has an extensive system of government-paid vouchers for private hospitalization? And what if the same country had ALREADY made big cutbacks in the size of government? A dream for the distant future? Not quite. That country does already exist. It is Sweden. Probably because the mainstream media turn a blind eye to it, most people seem totally unaware that Sweden is moving steadily AWAY FROM the "Swedish model". In the early 90s, the Swedish government was spending nearly three quarters of the national income. That is now down to about half.

Sweden still has a long way to go of course. After their big economic meltdown in the early 90's (huge unemployment and welfare benefits that could no longer be paid for) they undertook an exemplary program of privatizations and made big cuts to both taxes and welfare benefits but there are still huge disincentives to work in Sweden. Incomes are kept pretty uniform regardless of what you do -- meaning that there is little incentive either to improve one's skills or to work hard -- and the sickness benefit side of the welfare system is still a huge racket. People on sickness benefits no longer get a higher income than they would by working but the benefits are still close to wages and access to the system is very easy. So huge numbers of Swedes have declared themselves too ill to work.

As a consequence, average Swedish incomes have fallen well behind American standards -- as indexed by the most objective criterion we have: GDP per capita. When purchasing power is taken into account, the picture is even worse. A cup of coffee, for instance, is likely to cost you three times as much in Sweden as in the USA. Individual Swedes do however manage their money well so there is little visible sign in Sweden of their lower incomes. Visible poverty in any modern society mainly reflects bad decisions rather than lack of income. Money now buys options rather than survival.

So Leftists who advocate high taxes and pervasive welfare need to be told that the country that went furthest in that direction hit a rock years ago and has been paddling in reverse ever since.

More here (PDF)

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ELSEWHERE

Britain's proposed new terrorism laws sound like a form of terrorism themselves. The UK: Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) has called for new terrorism measures which include: "create a new offence of "inappropriate internet usage" and "have powers to "attack identified websites""

London bombing a product of British self-hate: "No, the real answer to why Britain spawned people fuelled with maniacal hate for their country is that Britain hates itself. In hating Britain, these British suicide bombers were as British as a police warning for flying the union flag. Britain's self-loathing is deep, pervasive and lethally dangerous. We get bombed, and we say it's all our own fault. Schools refuse to teach history that risks making pupils proud, and use it instead as a means of instilling liberal guilt. The government and the BBC gush over `the other', but recoil at the merest hint of British culture. The only thing we are licensed to be proud of is London's internationalism - in other words, that there is little British left about it... But self-loathing in a nation, like self-loathing in an individual, is alienating. Someone who despises himself inspires greater contempt than affection, and a country that hates itself cannot expect its newcomers to want to belong".

Terrorism about values: "Recent terrorist attacks were part of a war against western values rather than a response to the military operation in Iraq, Defence Minister Robert Hill said today. After a second wave of bombings in London overnight, Senator Hill said there had been terrorist attacks by Islamic fundamentalists before the operations in Iraq began. Senator Hill was speaking a day after Australian bomb casualty Louise Barry asked Prime Minister John Howard, who visited her in a London hospital, if the terror attacks were linked to the Iraq war. "I can understand why someone would ask that question, but this is a war against the values we hold rather than any specific operations we're involved in," the minister told ABC radio".

Islamic ignorance prevents polio eradication: "A worldwide campaign begun in 1988 to eradicate the polio infection was on the verge of success when, early in 2003, a conspiracy theory took hold of the Muslim population in northern Nigeria. That conspiracy theory has single-handedly returned polio to epidemic proportions. The theory's source seems to be a physician and the president of Nigeria's Supreme Council for Shari'a Law, Ibrahim Datti Ahmed, 68. Dr. Ahmed, an Islamist, accuses Americans of lacing the vaccine with an anti-fertility agent that sterilizes children (or, in an alternate theory, it infects them with AIDS) and considers them, according to John Murphy of the Baltimore Sun, "the worst criminals on Earth . Even Hitler was not as evil as that." This fear of polio vaccines caught on because of the war in Iraq, explained a doctor with the World Health Organization. "If America is fighting people in the Middle East," goes the Islamist logic, "the conclusion is that they are fighting Muslims." Local imams repeated and spread the sterilization theory, which won wide acceptance despite vocal assurances to the contrary from the WHO, the Nigerian government, and many Nigerian doctors and scientists.... The common element, the New York Times notes, is that incidents of polio are now located "almost exclusively in Muslim countries or regions."

There is a marvellously Anglophilic speech here from Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India. Excerpt: "Our Constitution remains a testimony to the enduring interplay between what is essentially Indian and what is very British in our intellectual heritage. The idea of India as an inclusive and plural society, draws on both these traditions. The success of our experiment of building a democracy within the framework of a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-religious society will encourage all societies to walk the path we have trodden. In this journey, both Britain and India have learnt from each other and have much to teach the world. This is perhaps the most enduring aspect of the Indo-British encounter.... But, if there is one phenomenon on which the sun cannot set, it is the world of the English speaking people, in which the people of Indian origin are the single largest component. Of all the legacies of the Raj, none is more important than the English language and the modern school system. That is, if you leave out cricket!

The Jamestown Foundation website is a good source of info on terrorism that endeavours to avoid bias, filter, or agenda. The Foundation has a new book out Unmasking Terror (2004) that is qualitatively ahead of all the pop and academic books on the subject as it depends on primary and indigenous sources in each country around the world. The Jamestown Foundation is leading source of info on totalitarian societies.

I have just put up here an interesting email from a reader which says that Leftists romanticise collectives because they are so bad at them: Their big egos are a serious barrier to real-life collective effort.

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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The anti-business policies and practically all economic policies advocated by the Left are impoverishing. They waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so make the country poorer. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

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

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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TAX MATTERS

Taxachusetts to cut tax?: "With state tax revenues soaring, lawmakers on Beacon Hill are advancing a proposal to lower the Massachusetts income tax rate, if state spending is restored to levels last seen before the fiscal crisis began three years ago. The Senate unanimously approved a Republican measure Thursday that would trigger a series of income tax rate reductions to lower the rate to 5 percent from 5.3 percent, but only if state spending on education and municipal services reaches 2002 levels. The fiscal crisis prompted lawmakers to slash funding that year. Passage of the bill by the Senate, where the Democrats have a large majority, is the first sign that Democrats may be warming to the idea of an income tax cut."

Globotaxes: "Most Americans have come -- correctly, if reluctantly -- to the conclusion the United Nations has been a failure. Sixty years ago, the U.N.'s founders envisioned it as an engine of freedom, an international mechanism in which sovereign nations would come together to protect liberty and to facilitate its spread throughout the world. Instead, for most of its life, the 'world body' has been dominated by the unfree. Under their influence, the U.N. has morphed into a protection racket for the world's despots and, effectively, an abettor of those who would supplant liberty with corrupt authoritarianism, or worse. In recent months, evidence of how far the United Nations has strayed from its original purpose has steadily leached into plain sight."

The Ohio lesson: "In 1970, Ohio had one of the lowest tax burdens in the Union--it now has one of the highest. As of 2005, the state's tax burden, as estimated by the Tax Foundation, is 35.8% higher than it was in 1970, the largest increase in the nation over this period. The next largest, 26.5% in Arkansas, was far smaller, and the average increase in the U.S. tax burden was just 3.1%. Over the past decade alone, Ohio's state and local government direct spending per $1,000 of personal income has risen 19.6%, by far the highest such spending growth in the region and light years beyond the 6.8% figure for all states. To finance this expansion, higher taxes have come along hand-in-hand. The consequences have been harsh. Since 1970, Ohio's share of the nation's personal income has declined from roughly 5.3% to under 3.8% today. In the first quarter of 2005, Ohio had the fifth highest unemployment rate in the U.S. at 6.2% versus the overall unemployment rate of 5.3%. Meager Ohio employment growth of 0.3% through the first quarter placed the state third-to-last nationally, far behind the U.S. overall rate of 1.7%. With falling relative incomes, high unemployment and poor job growth, it is no wonder that people are voting against Ohio with their feet. State-to-state migration shows Ohio losing residents, while total population growth of 0.2% ranks it a dismal 47th in the nation".

Panel suggests repealing alternative minimum tax : "A federal tax-reform panel advising President Bush called Wednesday for repeal of the alternative minimum tax, which has mushroomed from a law targeted on the rich to one that threatens more than 20 million taxpayers with higher taxes next year. The panel's chairman, former senator Connie Mack of Florida, cited the AMT's 'extremely negative effect' on middle-income taxpayers as the nine-member panel reached its first conclusion."

"Death tax" in final throes? "Final repeal of the estate tax is high on the agenda of the White House and congressional Republicans. It has already passed the House, but vote counters are not sure they have 60 votes needed in the Senate to avoid a filibuster. This has emboldened estate tax supporters, who want to keep it alive any way possible. There is a lot of pressure to resolve the issue one way or another this year. Under current law, the estate tax is repealed for one year, 2010, but comes back again in 2011. This nonsensical law is the result of Senate budget rules that prohibited enactment of permanent repeal in 2001. But the result makes estate planning almost impossible, since no one has any idea what the tax regime will be after 2010."

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ELSEWHERE

We all know how Communist Parties always enforced ideological uniformity on their members. It should therefore be no surprise that the Left side of the blogosphere has similar conformist impulses. The top Lefty bloggers have got together to form something called Blogpac which will ensure that they all march in lockstep with one-another -- thus defeating the chief attraction of blogs -- which is their individuality. I wish them success. It will just make people turn to conservative blogs for genuine originality, creativity and independent thought. Wizbang has more.

The stupid wing of the Presbyterian church is digging its own grave: "The Presbyterian Church (USA), the nation's leading Presbyterian congregation, is helping to advance the absurd agenda of the slave reparations movement which demands that whites compensate African Americans for the suffering of their slave ancestors.... the Presbyterian Church (USA) is rapidly losing members. Church leaders are committed to pursuing reparations, as well as other left-wing fads, while everyday church-goers just want to worship the orthodox faith. In 2003, the Presbyterian Church (USA) reported that membership totaled 2.4 million, a sharp decline from 4.2 million in 1983. Church leaders argue that they aren't losing members to other churches but to "the secular society." Not true. Presbyterian Churches that remain true to Christian orthodoxy, such as the Presbyterian Church in America and the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, are growing, due in part to disillusioned exiles from the Presbyterian Church (USA). This is what happens when a "mainline" Protestant denomination abandons the traditional faith and embraces liberal causes such as the ordination of homosexuals and same-sex marriage."

Still some restraint on police powers in Britain: "A key part of the Government's policy for cracking down on antisocial behaviour was ruled unlawful in a judgment that stops police officers using indiscriminate power to detain children. Two judges, sitting at the High Court in London yesterday, upheld the right of a 15-year-old boy to be out on the streets at night unless the police suspected him of criminal or anti-social behaviour. The boy, who comes from Richmond, south-west London, and can only be identified as W, was challenging the new police powers to detain and forcibly return home any child who ventures into a designated curfew zone after 9pm. Lawyers for W, who has never been in trouble with the police, told the court that in a democracy, only those suspected of wrongdoing should be subject to curfews and police arrest."

Property decision galvanizes the right: "Property rights have become -- quietly and suddenly -- the battle cry for conservatives in the brewing fight over replacing retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Conservatives say last month's Supreme Court ruling that expanded the government's power of eminent domain is now Exhibit A for their case that the high court has abandoned the original meaning of the Constitution and is in desperate need of more conservative jurists. 'It's so bad, it's good,' said Sean Rushton, executive director of the conservative Committee for Justice, which is dedicated to getting President Bush's judicial nominees confirmed. 'Property rights is now the number one issue.' In Kelo v. New London, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the government can seize private property from its lawful owner and give it to a private developer who promises to generate more tax revenue with it."

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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THE WAR WITH ISLAM

Leftists as battered wives: "The aftermath of the London terrorist bombings has demonstrated that the antiwar Left is severely afflicted by the political equivalent of battered-wife syndrome. With each new beating, the scarred and bruised victims of spousal abuse tend to excuse and rationalize the actions of their tormentors. A stubborn unwillingness to accept the proposition that their partners are violent louts plunges these woeful women into a morass of self-deception that spawns only further violence. The far Left has similarly proved unable to liberate itself from the web of rose-tinted delusions that it has spun about the nature of Islamic extremism. After each al Qaeda outrage, leftist ideologues are quick to castigate their own countrymen for a catalogue of sins, both real and imagined.. The streets of Britain's capital city were still damp with innocent blood when the same obscene dance of political self-flagellation began... In the world according to radical Islam it's the jihadist way or the highway, and these 7th-century dogmas represent the only acceptable outcome to al Qaeda... Fixated by a knee-jerk hostility towards all things American, the likes of Ali, Fisk, and Galloway refuse to recognize the existence of this conflict, much less the stakes that are involved. Their primal instinct is to appease bin Laden and his cohorts rather than oppose them. But Winston Churchill defined an appeaser as "someone who feeds the crocodile in the hopes of being eaten last." The sooner we accept the fact that this is a war; then the sooner we can get about the task of winning it".

The Marx-Muslim pact: "In 1939, the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact cleared the way for Hitler to start World War II. The Pact caught the world by surprise, because it was an alliance between two bitter enemies, Nazi Germany and Communist Russia. Similarly, what made possible the recent bombings in London, and the many more that will follow in Europe and the U.S., is the Marx-Mohammed Pact. Once again, two sworn enemies, Marxism -- specifically the cultural Marxism commonly known as Political Correctness -- and Islam, have made a Devil's bargain whereby each assists the other against a common enemy, the remnants of the Christian West. From a Fourth Generation war perspective, the most important fact about the London bombings is that they were carried out by legal residents of the British Isles.... This fact in turn points to what may be the West's biggest strategic blunder, namely its immigration policies. European and American immigration policies have imported, and continue to import, millions of immigrants who are deeply hostile to the traditional cultures of their new homelands... Obviously, these immigrant Moslem communities pose a clear and present danger to the Western countries they now inhabit. Equally obviously, given its history and what its adherents are doing around the world, Islam itself is a threat. Europe, and the United States, need to stop more Islamics (and, in the U.S., Hispanics) from coming, and at least some of the Islamics now in residence must go".

Seems reasonable: "The home secretary, Charles Clarke, yesterday widened the worldwide net that will allow him to exclude or deport from Britain Islamist militants whose inflammatory language or behaviour is judged to foment or provoke terrorism. He told MPs that intelligence, foreign and home office staff would compile a database of individuals which may lead to them being refused entry to the UK, or even being removed. Civil liberties groups last night said that they were alarmed by the list's catch-all nature. Under the plan, a systematic index will be drawn up of what the home secretary called 'unacceptable behaviours.' Included on it will be anyone preaching, running a website or writing articles which are 'intended to foment or provoke terrorism.'"

There is a rather idiotic article here (PDF) by some State Department hack, arguing that peace in Europe depends on Europe making (unspecified) accomodations to its Muslim population. Since Europe has already bent over backwards to accomodate the Muslims and got only aggression in response, I cannot even imagine what more the dolt thinks Europe could and should do. I think it is time for the Muslims to be making some changes, not the other way around. If they don't like European ways, they should be given a one-way ticket back to their ancestral homelands.

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I normally read Brian Leiter only for laughs but I found this post oddly reassuring. There have been quite a few doubts expressed about whether John Roberts really will be conservative if he is elevated to SCOTUS. His whole career could be interpreted as aimed at sliding himself into a seat on SCOTUS by not revealing anything much about what he really thinks. But Leiter actually mounts some reasonable arguments for believing that Roberts IS conservative -- though almost anybody would be to the Right of Leiter, of course. I also liked this flash of honesty from Leiter: "on a range of issues the U.S. Supreme Court is unavoidably a super-legislature". I have a feeling that I will be quoting that again sometime. Kudlow and Manuel Miranda of the WSJ are also reassuring about Roberts.

A disturbing record: "Seven of the nine current Justices were appointed by Republican Presidents. ... Earl Warren, the father of modern judicial activism, was an Eisenhower appointee. So was William Brennan, who inherited Warren's mantle as the Court's liberal giant. Harry Blackmun, the author of Roe v. Wade, was a Nixon appointee. The most liberal member of the current court, John Paul Stevens, was a Gerald Ford selection. David Souter, a George H. W. Bush and Warren Rudman choice, told the Senate he saw himself in the tradition of the great Justice John Harlan, who revered precedent. But on the court he's arguably been more of a liberal activist than either of Bill Clinton's two justices (Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer). Anthony Kennedy, selected by Reagan after Robert Bork was defeated, was said at the time to share 80% of Mr. Bork's philosophy. But Mr. Kennedy's jurisprudence has proven to be nearly as malleable as Justice Souter's, especially on the cultural and church-state issues where the Court has become the de facto national legislature. ... Our objection to Roe and to Lawrence, the Texas sodomy case, isn't on the underlying policy. It is that the Court has hijacked those social disputes from democratic debate, preventing the kind of legislative compromises that would allow a social and political consensus to form. ... But there are many other issues on which the post-Warren justices have arrogated to themselves an almost legislative authority: overturning voter-passed Congressional term limits by 5-4, dictating racial and gender preferences in law, extending the Commerce Clause to encompass virtually any federal authority as in last term's Raich medical-marijuana decision, or expanding eminent domain in Kelo. ... But the larger goal should be to...restore the High Court to its more restrained historical role. In a phrase, this means putting an end at last to the judicial legislating that was unleashed in the Warren era and that has slowed only on occasion ever since."

GIs criticize Dems: "Soldiers from Massachusetts and Hawaii who work at the U.S. military detention facility at U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, gave visiting home-state senators a piece of their mind last week. Sens. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, and Daniel K. Akaka, Hawaii Democrat, met with several soldiers during a visit led by Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. John W. Warner, Virginia Republican. Pentagon officials said soldiers criticized the harsh comments made recently by Senate Democrats... "They got stiff reactions from those home-state soldiers," one official told us. "The troops down there expressed their disdain for that kind of commentary, especially comparisons to the gulag".

Logical Meme has a horror-story about an out-of-control welfare system in Hartford, Ct.

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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PATRIOTISM, IMMIGRATION AND THE SUDANESE

After having lived for various periods of time in the USA, the UK and India, I am firmly convinced that Australia is the best place in the world in which to live. I imagine that 99% of Australians would agree with that. But I have never been patriotic. I have always seen faults as well as advantages. I am pleased to be an Australian but not proud to be Australian. If I identify with any group at all, it is with the Anglo-Saxon population worldwide. The Anglos versus the non-Anglos seems to me the differentiation that is most useful in identifying locations of civility and moderation.

But I don't see even the Anglos as a whole as being the pinnacle of anything. Most things in this life could be improved (with the exception of J.S. Bach) and I think that applies to populations as well. But how? I see some role for eugenics as long as it is voluntary and the success of the NYC Ashkenazim in almost eliminating Tay-Sachs disease from their community is a shining example of that. And human genetic engineering will undoubtedly in the future be a great boon too.

One thing I would particularly like to see is the minimization of the "Yobbo" or "Chav" component of Anglo-Saxon communities. And I think that SELECTIVE immigration is the only way of doing that which is currently feasible on a large scale. Just because the percentage of "good" genes (however defined) in one population is slightly higher than the average does not mean that there are no similarly "good" genes elsewhere. So a rational immigration program would aim to bring in the bearers of those good genes from wherever they are found and thus dilute the percentage of "bad" genes in the immigration-receiving country. And that I think is broadly what Australia's past immigration policy has done. We have very civilized Asian minorities which greatly enhance the amenity of our country.

The "refugee" component of our immigration program is however a worry. There appears to be some degree of selectivity even in that component of our program but only time will tell if it is sufficient. The disastrous situation in Sudan has led the Australian government into allowing into Australia a considerable number of Sudanese and I see them even in the streets of suburban Brisbane. Given the social pathologies that are uncontrovertibly associated with populations of African origin worldwide, I think it is most likely that the quality of life in Australia will be diminished by the Sudanese presence. I make no apology for predicting that Australian kind-heartedness will have been to our detriment in this instance.

So I am glad Prof. Fraser has raised the issue for debate here in Australia.

In case anybody thinks that I get it wrong above by attributing to genes what should be attributed to culture, I can only say that studies come out almost daily which show that more and more human attributes are genetically determined. Read here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here just for starters.

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The latest example of genetic differences at work: "The belief that chronic fatigue syndrome is "all in the mind" may finally have been laid to rest with the discovery that sufferers have biological abnormalities, researchers claim today. There are between 120,000 and 250,000 sufferers in Britain. The syndrome has been designated a neurological condition by the World Health Organisation. Also known as ME, it has confused scientists for years, with some clinicians dismissing it as a figment of the patients' imagination. Dr Kerr and his team now intend to examine a larger sample of sufferers. He said: "The involvement of such genes does seem to fit with the fact that these patients lack energy and suffer fatigue. This research will open the door to development of pharmacological interventions.".... Dr John Gow, a senior lecturer in clinical neuroscience at the University of Glasgow, is carrying out similar work, using DNA micro-analysis to examine differences in active and inactive genes in sufferers. His preliminary findings support those of Dr Kerr's group."

Five myths about Gitmo: "If the only news you had read about the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, (Gitmo) came to you the past month, you might believe detainees were being brutalized at best, killed at worst. The chorus of critics peaked with the ridiculous: Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., noted a "historic parallel" between American treatment of detainees with the way Soviets in their gulags treated prisoners..... A Pentagon investigation presented to the Senate last week found no link between alleged misconduct and Defense Department policy. Although investigators identified the tactics as "creative" and "aggressive," they concluded that they did not constitute "torture." Cooperating with his U.S. captors, one detainee drew diagrams of bombs he designed and built. He provided critiques of the design of "improvised explosive devices" used by insurgents in Iraq. Based on his critique, U.S. forces have a tool to combat these increasingly sophisticated devices, according to the Gitmo task force. The bottom line: A small amount of physical abuse emerges from individual behavior more than official policy, and the intelligence from interrogations is valuable in the war against terrorism.

Thomas Friedman gets it pretty right: "On the question of whether China's Cnooc oil company should be permitted by the U.S. government to purchase the U.S. oil and gas company Unocal, my view is very simple: let the market rule. Oil is fungible. It is all one global market. And if China wants to overpay for a second-tier U.S. energy company, that's China's business.... You know that cheap mortgage you just got? Well, who do you think subsidized it? In many ways it was China. Americans don't save anymore, and import more than they export. Normally, a nation that did that as long and lavishly as the U.S. has would have to raise interest rates to get other countries to hold its currency. But America has not had to do that, in part because China has been willing to hold most of the dollars it has been accumulating - gained from all the goods it is selling America - despite the low interest paid on those dollars and the fact that they have been depreciating against other major currencies."

Pius XII, a truly holy Pope: On Monday, July 25th, Rabbi David Dalin's book entitled The Myth of Hitler's Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews From the Nazis will be released and will surely start some controversy. The book examines the myth that has been generated by a handful of "liberal" journalists who have taken the liberty to rewrite the history of WWII, smearing the name of one of the most influential leaders of the early half of the 20th century, while using this controversy to attack the Catholic Church as a whole. David Dalin sets the record straight on who Pope Pius XII really was - a man who risked everything to help shelter and save thousands of Jews from Hitler's Final Solution.

Raise your right hand and swear to tell the truth ... on the Koran?: "As Muslim-Christian relations are under the spotlight around the world,US judges sometimes face a vexing question: Can witnesses raise their right hand and swear to tell the truth ... on the Koran? The recent refusal by a Guilford County, N.C., judge to allow a Muslim woman to swear upon Islam's holy text before testifying is, in part, a new First Amendment challenge. And here in the Tar Heel state, the idea of swearing on books other than the Bible has reinvigorated a debate on the relationship between faith and truth that goes back to the founding documents of both the Carolinas and the country."

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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Brookes News Update

US economy, production and jobs : Explains why America's unemployment rate remained very low in late 2000 even as manufacturing employment continued to fall
Liberal Party labour market reform founders on ineptitude: Liberal Party advisers have clearly failed to grasp the fact that significant and lasting labour market reform is unlikely to be implemented unless the union myth of raising real wages for everyone is demolished in the public mind
Liberal Party won't defend labour market reform against ignorant priests: Economic growth is the only real safety net the poor have, not unions, clerics or political hacks. So why can't the Liberal Party get this fundamental fact out among the public?
The Anniversary of Fidel Castro's Massacre of the Innocent: On 13 July 1994 the sadistic Castro ordered the massacre of a group of children. And to think this monster is the hero of Western intellectuals
The London bombings and the reaction to jihad: At least there are some in the media who are not afraid to speak out against those who excuse Islamofascist barbarism
Human slavery and pornography, at home and abroad: As pornography moves into the mainstream trafficking in women and children for purposes of sex is increasing

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ELSEWHERE

It looks like GWB's nomination of John Roberts to SCOTUS is sound. There seems a good chance that he will be more conservative than previous GOP nominess such as O'Connor and Souter. I thought it would be good for the GOP if a black or Hispanic were nominated but that could have been seen by white voters as unacceptably politically correct. So GWB has looked after his base. There is an interesting analysis of why past GOP nominees have drifted Left here. Michelle Malkin has links galore on the Roberts nomination. Robert Koons has an excellent suggestion about what GWB could do if this appointment is filibustered.

A teethgrinder for Leftists: "Despite early predictions that the religious book market was just a flash-in-the-pan literary phenomenon, the growth of Christian books outpaced the adult trade category in 2004, with sales expected to soar in coming years. "People kept asking themselves, 'Is this a bubble? A temporary trend?"' said Albert Greco, a consultant with the Book Industry Study Group who has tracked the book business for 20 years. "No, it is a significant trend in the marketplace.""

Private airport screeners outperform government counterparts: "Privately employed airport screeners do a better job than government airport screeners, according to a recent U.S. government report, prompting a key lawmaker to call for a return to private airport screeners and other changes to the nation's aviation security system. 'Over the last three-and-a-half years we have spent billions of dollars creating a Soviet-style, centralized bureaucracy that has resulted in great inefficiencies and inflexibility with little improvement in screener effectiveness,' said Rep. John Mica (R-FL), chairman of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Aviation. Mica was a lead author of the aviation security legislation approved by Congress after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks."

Wanted: More choices for consumers: "It is sad but not surprising that cable companies across the country are marshaling all their political resources and lobbying might to halt the advance of cutting-edge technology that would offer consumers an alternative way to receive video and Internet service in their homes. IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) is the next generation of technology that can provide video and Internet service to consumers through upgraded fiber optic telephone lines. Verizon, SBC and other telephone companies -- big and small -- are now preparing to spend billions to make these necessary upgrades and improvements to their lines to bring their IPTV services to local residents in the coming months. ... If this technology is allowed to progress, tens of millions of residents in communities across the country could benefit from the first phase rollout of these new high-speed, ultra high-tech video services."

Moral illiteracy on the Left: "The bombings in London on July 7, which killed 53 people and injured many more, were a powerful reminder that terrorism remains a clear and present threat in our cities. But they were also, to me, a reminder of something else... the response to terrorism even on the moderate left remains an egregious moral muddle. Perhaps the starkest illustration of this mindset is the fact that, only a couple of days after the bombings, the British Broadcasting Corporation reverted to its policy of avoiding the use of the word ''terrorist." According to BBC guidelines, the T-word ''can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding," and ''careless use of words which carry emotional or value judgments" ought to be avoided.... Juan Cole, professor of history at the University of Michigan and a leading left-of-center commentator on the Middle East, argues on his website and in an article at Salon.com that the London bombings are ''blowback" from the US and its allies' misguided policies. Cole pooh-poohs the idea that Islamic fundamentalist terrorism is a product of hatred for the West's democratic values. In his view, it is a response to specific Western policies that are perceived as a war against Muslims, from Israeli oppression of the Palestinians to the military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. Pardon me for pointing out the obvious, but the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, took place before the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan..."

What we mean by individualism: "Brad Stone recently delivered a lecture at the Mises Institute concerning the relevance of the work of Robert Nisbet to the libertarian movement (audio | video). He argued that it is important for libertarians to also be "communitarians," defending traditional social institutions from the state. He cautioned against the valorization of the individual and any position that acknowledges only individual rights as ideas that lend themselves to a growth in state power."

UK: New terror laws by December: "Charles Clarke said today that the Government has cross-party support for its anti-terrorism legislation and expects to have a range of new powers signed into law in December. The Home Secretary made the announcement after a meeting with David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, and Mark Oaten, the Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesman, this afternoon.Mr Clarke said there were 'no main outstanding issues of difference' on the Government's proposed Counter-Terrorism Bill which would criminalise the acts of planning or training for terrorist attacks, as well as 'indirectly inciting' terrorist acts."

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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SOME MORE ECONOMICS

Laffer must be laughing: "So the deficit-the federal budget deficit-is declining sharply, more sharply than just about anyone in mainstream media anticipated. According to figures from the Office of Management and Budget, the deficit is projected to decline from $412 billion in 2004 to $333 billion in 2005, a 19 percent decline. OMB further projects, obviously with less certitude, that it will decline to $162 billion in 2008. If so, that will mean that George W. Bush will have more than kept his promise to cut the deficit in half in his second term. Back in February, OMB projected a 2005 deficit of $427 billion".

The primitive roots of Leftism: "Two years ago, economist Paul Rubin published a paper called Folk Economics. As this description points out, Rubin suggests that in a hunter-gatherer tribe, goods are exchanged mostly through sharing and reciprocal altruism. There were no visible gains from impersonal trade or economic growth. In this zero-sum environment, people evolved an instinct to resent and punish those who took too much. Rubin's thesis is that the instincts that evolved in prehistoric tribes account for the misguided "folk economics" that many people believe today. Anti-globalization and opposition to free trade reflect the fear of strangers that was inherent in tribal society. Resentment of the rich and a belief in redistribution reflect the hunter-gatherer's zero-sum thinking."

The tax-eaters are powerful: "Steven Malanga shows how coalitions of public employee unions, workers at government-funded social service organizations, and recipients of government benefits have seized control of the politics of the big cities that make up the heart of Blue America. In New York City, this coalition has helped roll back some of the reforms of the Giuliani years. In California cities and towns, it is thwarting the expansion of private businesses. In nearly 100 municipalities, it has imposed higher costs on tens of thousands of firms by passing "living-wage" laws. Whereas the New Left of the 1960s believed-idealistically, if somewhat naively-that government could solve the biggest problems of our times, this New New Left is much more narrowly and cynically focused on expanding government programs to increase its own power, pay, and perks. And, as Malanga shows, the New New Left is emerging as the most powerful element of the national Democratic Party coalition."

Egypt gives the GOP a lesson in tax cuts: "Egypt is introducing sharply lower rates of corporate and personal taxation from 1st July. Under the new code, which has been working its way through the debate and drafting process since September, most companies will pay 20% tax on their profits. Under the previous tax system, industrial and export firms paid 22%, while most other companies paid 40%. The new tax code preserves tax exemptions for profits from stock exchange investments, on dividends paid to shareholders and on interest payments from banks and bonds. Current exemptions given to companies in free trade zones and industrial zones will be abolished, however, at least for new entrants. For individuals, the maximum tax rate is now 20% instead of 40% and the thresholds for each tax bracket have been raised. Individuals will pay 10% tax on income between 5,000 and 20,000 Egyptian pounds ($862 and $3,448) a year, 15% on income between 20,000 and 40,000 pounds a year and 20% on any income above 40,000 pounds. Under the previous system, the maximum rate of 40% kicked in at a threshold of 16,000 pounds."

Realism about child labour creeping in: "When he started working on child labor issues six years ago, Professor Edmonds said in an interview, "the conventional view was that child labor really wasn't about poverty." Children's work, many policy makers believed, "reflected perhaps parental callousness or a lack of education for parents about the benefits of educating your child." So policies to curb child labor focused on educating parents about why their children should not work and banning children's employment to remove the temptation. Recent research, however, casts doubt on the cultural explanation. "In every context that I've looked at things, child labor seems to be almost entirely about poverty. I wouldn't say it's only about poverty, but it's got a lot to do with poverty," Professor Edmonds said. As families' incomes increase, children tend to stop working and, where schools are available, they go to school. If family incomes drop, children are more likely to return to work... "Child labor does not appear to vary with per capita expenditure until households can meet their food needs, and it then declines dramatically," Professor Edmonds wrote"

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