THE “DEEP SOUTH” IN AUSTRALIA

Today's academic paper from my past is here. It looks at Australia’s “Deep North” -- the warmer part of Australia and so analogous to the American “Deep South”. Australia’s “Deep North” (the State of Queensland) was once often compared to the U.S. “Deep South” not only because of its climate but also because of its perceived greater racism, conservatism and lower levels of education. When Australians hear that I am a Queenslander born and bred they tend to nod wisely! My research showed that this stereotype once had some truth but is now no longer true. Stereotypes of the American “Deep South” could therefore be equally outdated.

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

ELSEWHERE

Hooray! Useless university liberal Arts courses degraded by decades of Leftism are getting the recognition they deserve in Britain at least: A degree in an arts subject reduces average earnings to below those of someone who leaves school with just A-levels, a study shows. Via Cronaca

I note that there is a new Australian Leftist site here -- for those who are interested in such things. He sounds like it might be possible to argue with him.

Michael Darby has a very authoritative article which looks at whether the Queen or the Governor General is Australia’s head of State. Anti-monarchists argue that Australia should have an Australian as head of State. In fact, we already have one.

Chris Brand looks at the work of Swiss child psychologist Jean Piaget. Piaget is known for identifying the stages children go through as they mature. Although some think otherwise, Chris points out that there is nothing in Piaget’s work which disturbs the notion that intelligence is primarily inherited.

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

Comments? Email me here or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my home page here or here for a new blog address.

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

STALIN NOT DEAD

I thought I knew all about Stalin but I still think that Jonathan Hari has written a remarkable article on him. He points out: Not only are there Stalinists in power today; there are apologists for them here in Britain. And read why Stalin's wife committed suicide. And Castro (surprise, surprise) recently said that Stalin "showed great wisdom". And read what the punishment for switching your radio off is in North Korea. And who said: The disappearance of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life"? Yes. It was one of the group of "anti-war" Labour party M.P.s in Britain that Tony Blair has to put up with.

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

THE REDS WHO WERE UNDER THE BED

Leftists are still covering up for Robert Oppenheimer and saying that he did not pass U.S. atom bomb secrets to the Soviets despite his being a member of a clandestine Communist organization! KGB documents released after the fall of the Soviet Union showing that he WAS a spy from the early 1940s onward are ignored.

A reader comments:

There certainly were plenty of real Soviet agents within the U.S. nuclear weapons projects in the early days as has been made clear by the release of the Venona decrypts a few years back. See here and here

Although the Soviets certainly built their own indigenous nuclear weapons program and had plenty of scientific and engineering talent, their first bomb was very much based on material supplied by their agents. At least according to the author of the "Brotherhood of the Bomb" when interviewed on radio -- who said that the first Soviet A-bomb was a copy of the US bomb.

All this would seem to me to indicate that maybe Oppenheimer got a rather mild rap over the knuckles: He had his security clearance withdrawn... and went on to head up the elite Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton (where he got to be the boss of notables like Einstein, Freeman Dyson and Godel). It's hardly Siberia.

The usual story of this period of American history is one of unbridled McCarthyist paranoia, yet there really were reds under some pretty important beds. This doesn't let "Tailgunner Joe" McCarthy off the hook of course, but the anti-anti-communist myth that it was all unwarranted paranoid delusion, still promoted today... is itself a delusion.

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

REPUBLICANS RACIST?

In response to my post of 7th on Democrat racism, a feisty U.S. reader writes:

If it is we conservatives who are racist why is it that the Leftist news media here in the United States asked the question, "Is the United States prepared to have a Korean First Lady in the White House?" when Senator Phil Gramm ran for president in 1992? Fact is Mrs. Phil Gramm is a Hawaiian born NATIVE AMERICAN of Korean ANCESTRY.

Several years ago when a NEGRO liberal at my work accussed me of being racist, I had him called into the company President's office and in front of the his and my supervisor dressed him down with this rebuttal. "I'm of Italian, Scottish, Welsh, Norwegian AND American Indian ancestry and one hundred percent native American Redneck. My wife is Oriental of Spanish and Chineese ancestry AND a "naturalized" American AND her son has been treated as if he were my own blood. You have two choices, three days suspension without pay or a law suit for slander." He took the suspension

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

GREENPEACE AS DRAMA QUEENS

"Spiked" has Greenpeace pretty well summed up. Why is disrupting business at Esso gas stations such a big priority for them? Why not focus on -- say -- pollution?? That their real agenda is self-display and good old Leftist business-bashing is obvious.

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

BRITISH PUBLIC OPINION ON WAR

Iain Murray has a very good article looking at the public opinion polls in more depth than the media generally do. He notes that a majority of the British publio would support war on Iraq as long as it had MAJORITY U.N. support -- regartdless of vetoes by a few malcontent nations such as France.

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

ELSEWHERE

Paddy McGuinness has a long article pointing out what liars Leftist historians are.

The Wicked one has a pretty scathing post on the Pope and his inaction over paedophilic priests.

Michael Darby reproduces a defence of free trade from a Catholic perspective.

Chris Brand looks at how important IQ is.

My latest academic paper from my past is posted here. It looks at some pretty basic issues about Leftist attitudes to authority. Most of it should be pretty comprehensible to non-specialist readers. That Leftists deny their real motives is found to be needed if we are to explain the facts.

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

Comments? Email me here or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit here instead or check my HomePage for a new blog address.

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

BRITISH ANTI-AMERICANISM

There appears to be widespead disapproval in Britain for GWB’s plans to neutralize Iraq. And this would appear to be motivated in part by anti-Americanism.

I think that people worldwide (including 95% in Turkey) do not understand that the US action over Iraq is precautionary -- designed to prevent further terrorist attacks of the 9/11 kind (or worse). A war on someone not obviously connected to terrorism (Saddam) seems an incomprehensible action to most people -- including many in the US. Only conservatives are much into precautions and most of the population is not clearly Left OR Right. Only the US public generally understand GWB's priorities -- which reflects the fact that it is they who were attacked. So British public opinion on Iraq simply shows that they were not the ones attacked.

And of course the English are anti-American! They are anti-French, anti-German, anti-Scots, anti-Irish, anti-Australian etc etc too. And there is no shadow of doubt about whom the Scots and the Irish hate most -- the English! And have you ever heard a Yorkshireman talk about a Lancastrian (both of whom are English)? Contempt is the only word for it!

EVERYBODY likes their own group best. In practical terms, however, most Brits would give hardly a negative thought to marrying an Australian but would have BIG reservations about marrying a Frog. That's why millions of Australians and Brits DO intermarry whereas French/English unions are comparatively rare. So being "anti" anybody is a matter of degree and it needs more sophisticated polling than we usually get to draw that out.

So average Brits may be a bit sniffy about Americans but they despise the Frogs.

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

CHILDISH LEFTISTS

John Hudock has a fascinating summary of the ways in which “liberals” remind him of his 5 year old daughter. Excerpts:

She thinks everything in the world exists already and the only problem is distribution. I.E. How more of the stuff can get distributed to her.

She wants the government (me and my lovely wife) to solve all her problems and protect her from all harm but fails to see that this requires that we put severe restrictions on her activities.

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

LEFTISTS WANT MORE BUREAUCRACY??

A prize for bureaucratic stupidity goes to the South Gloucestershire council in the UK which had to, with red faces, inform their residents that they cannot open the new $2.5 million library as planned because the council forgot to order any books for the library which actually works out considering they forgot to order the bookshelves too.

UK Telegraph 5-Mar-03

Another bureaucracy prize goes to the Bermuda Department of Tourism which has admitted that their tourism ads show pictures of people having fun in Hawaii, the Seychelles and Florida and not people having fun in Bermuda.

Reuters via Yahoo News 28-Feb-03

Via Jerry Lerman

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

WAR “TOO COSTLY”?

Eleanor Spreitzer is in fine form. She wrote to a certain well-known “journalist”:

Dear Helen Thomas:

If you and the other Liberal Elitist Lap Dogs are really interested in failed expensive programs (i.e. potential war with Iraq and the cost thereof) as you and other reporters howled at the news conference today, why have we NEVER heard you rail about the colossal-failed-unbelievably-expense welfare system started by one of your very own -- Lyndon Johnson.

I know why not: Too many of your Liberal Friends get huge salaries and benefits by keeping the welfare system and the people stuck in it -- right where it and they are.
Talk about trickle-down economics from the corporations: The poor and intentionally undereducated in our country are lucky if they even get a trickle-of-a-smell of the trillions of dollars spent on welfare after the Liberal Elitists take their cut.

I thought you retired? What are you doing at the News Conference anyway? You are such a closed-mined Liberal there of course, that there is no way to reach you. So rail on Helen, with your completely wrong points of view. People are actually starting to listen to you and see you for what you are and unfortunately, always have been -- a propaganda machine for the very far left.

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

ELSEWHERE

Useful Fools is worried that North Korea might use the attack on Iraq to invade the South

Michael Darby has a poem addressed to the Prime Minister of Malaysia!

Chris Brand reports that he has had a hard disk crash and has lost his address lists. If you want to receive emails from him, maybe you should email him your address.

The Wicked one reports two welcome examples of sanity from the courts.

My latest posting of my past academic papers here deals with one of the favourite ideas of Leftist political psychologists: “authoritarianism”. The article points out that the idea is totally discredited among those who have researched it but still the Leftist psychologists cling on to it. Surprise!

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

Comments? Email me here or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit here instead or check my HomePage for a new blog address.

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

TOURIST TERRORS IN OZ

Somebody has had a lot of fun with Invisible Hand. He visited Australia recently and obviously fell victim to the Aussie sense of humour. He was told that Koalas are savage, that Australia has only one casino and that our large bats are dangerous. The truth is that Australia has lots of casinos, that it is routine for tourists to be given a Koala to cuddle (or at least it is only 15 minutes drive from where I live in Australia's third-largest city) and that, although our bats (we call them "flying foxes") are larger than other bats, they are still only about the size of a small cat, eat fruit and are completely harmless. And although there are some stinging flies, they are quite rare.

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

RECENT CORRESPONDENCE: HITLER and IQ

I have put up here two emails recently received. One is from a socialist who tries desperately to deny that Hitler was a Leftist. He is so keen to do so that he even says Stalin was not a Leftist but a Fascist! Wow!

The second email is from someone who puts very briefly but very clearly the issues involved in saying that IQ is largely hereditary. All his points are spot-on but he balks at the final hurdle when he points out that lower average negro intelligence COULD be due to black Americans growing up in much less favoured circumstances than American whites. He is right. It could be that. But how come that almost any other group in the US (Chinese, Japanese, Jews) who start out behind soon end up ahead? Odd that blacks are the only exception! Asians in America who cannot even speak English well still do better than blacks who speak it perfectly. If environmental (non-hereditary) factors were the key issue, blacks should do better than Asians but they do not.

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

RECENT CORRESPONDENCE: LEFTIST ACADEME and DEMOCRAT RACISM

I have also posted here two other emails recently received. The first is from a student who reports on the pervasive Leftism in what he is being taught at college. He is also courageous (foolish?) enough to be answering back in class against the Leftist nonsense. I do not predict good grades for him but I feel that he deserves our congratulations nonetheless.

The second email is in response to my recent post here about how Leftists constantly use the “big lie” technique in their propaganda. He points out what a big lie it is to say that it is the Republicans who are the racists. I guess Abraham Lincoln must have been a Democrat? And the Jim Crow laws of the old South must have been put in place by Republicans? No need to guess, is there? How do the Leftist liars get away with it? I guess hardly anybody knows their history so that gives the liars free rein.

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

OTHER READING

French unilateralism: The French REALLY know how to be unilateral. The whole world (more or less) was against their nuclear tests in the Pacific but they still went ahead. They are the last ones who should be talking about unilateralism. But French arrogance disregards anything that does not suit the French, of course.

Jeff Jacoby says that past US support for Saddam in his war with Iran should not stop us now from correcting that mistake.

Leftists are on the side of the poor, right? We how come so many of those they favour are so rich?

Thjere’s a good lesson here in how to be a “liberal”

As a libertarian and a former economics teacher, I am a strong advocate of free trade so it did not bother me to see that a German firm had won the competition to redesign the World Trade Center. But I was still a bit pleased to see this note:

The head of the architectural firm is an American who works in Berlin right now. He'll move to Manhattan for this project and there'll be plenty of work for everyone. From Bill Quick's site.




Chris Brand looks at the various explanations for how differences in IQ arise.

The Wicked one reproduces a fairly learned email from someone who argues that Abraham Lincoln was concerned only with keeping Americans all under one rule -- with slavery an afterthought.

Michael Darby continues his campaign to keep us informed about what is happening to the unfortunate people of Zimbabwe.

Today's academic paper is here. It looks at the female mid-life crisis and what actually goes on then. This is the longer version of a paper that will be coming out later this year in one of the academic journals in an abridged and revised form.

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

Comments? Email me here or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit here instead or check my HomePage for a new blog address.

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

LEFTIST INTELLECTUALS: WHY?

Robert Nozick's explanation of why most intellectuals oppose capitalism in general and the USA in particular is well worth a read. Basically, Nozick's point is that intellectuals think that our society does not reward them to the vast degree that they think they deserve. So in childish petulance they do all they can to denigrate that "unappreciative" society.

My intellectual credentials are as good as anyone's so how did I escape that feeling of grievance? I know that I have always had a strong tendency to be happy with whatever I have got so that would probably explain why I have never felt any urge to denigrate the society in which I live. I am profoundly grateful to it in fact. I could have been born an Iraqui.

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

"POSTMODERNIST" CULTURAL STUDIES IN THE UNIVERSITIES

"There is no such thing as truth" and "Reality is merely a political construction" seem to be the two most widely promoted views among modern Leftist intellectuals. For people who find facts and reality so embarrassing they WOULD say that, of course. The emptiness of all their high-flown rhetoric on the subject was shown by the "Sokal hoax". See here and here Give me Warren Buffett's view of the matter any day:

"You're neither right nor wrong because people agree with you. You're right because your facts and your reasoning are right. In the end that's all that counts"

Not profound but look at his results!

There is a new site called ObjectiveReality with some good essays up that should be just about the dead opposite of what “postmodernists” believe in. Have a look!

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

LEFTIST ACADEMICS SURE DO HATE HISTORY

I've heard it all now: the history department at Harvard University no longer offers a course on the American Revolution. In its place, it now offers a course on the history of midwives and quilting. It sounds like a deliberate plan to devalue university degrees to me. It will succeed. The only talent Leftists have is for destruction.

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

AND GENETICS IS JUST SO EMBARRASSING!

There is a BIG essay on Gene Expression that looks at the writings of prominent psychologist Jerome Kagan. It shows in great detail how Kagan's Leftist and anti-heredity ideology makes him ignore and contradict his OWN published research findings -- which show big hereditary influences.

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

GREAT MOMENTS IN SOCIALIZED MEDICINE

One of Britain's biggest hospitals, University Hospital of Wales, had to postpone a heart operation because the surgeon couldn't find a parking space thanks to the "improvements" they made in parking arrangements meant to increase the number of spaces available for patients and visitors.

"By the time I arrived I felt so stressed I was in no state to perform the surgery," says heart surgeon Ulrich Von Oppell who spent an hour finding a parking spot. "I am sorry for the patient but I felt this was the right decision to make."

(Via Jerry Lerman -- from the UK Telegraph of March 4th. under “News in Brief” -- Free registration required)

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

OTHER READING

Today's academic paper from my past is here. It demolishes a claim by another group of authors that they have called into question my finding that aggressive dominance is the major psychological precursor to coronary heart disease. Pushing other people around can give you a heart attack!

Useful Fools has a good collection of jokes about the French.

Clubbeaux has a big essay on why NATO has now outlived its usefulness.

Hooray! When the Turkish parliament decided not to co-operate with the USA, the Turkish stock market plunged 11 percent and the national currency, the lira, fell four percent.

Michael Darby reports on Leftist disruption of a local council and the drug legalization policy of the Greens

Chris Brand reports on genes for anxiety, AIDS in South Africa, book-pulping etc

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

Comments? Email me here or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit here instead or check my HomePage for a new blog address.

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

THIS IS NOW MY MAIN SITE



I have abandoned my old site because I was getting constant error messages when loading to it...

PILGER: AN INTERESTING CASE-STUDY

TIM BLAIR in the THE BULLETIN (4 March 2003, p. 18) recently published these two quotes side by side:-

"No one can doubt its cruelty and atrocities, but comparisons with the Third Reich are ridiculous." - John Pilger on the regime of Slobodan Milosevic, Nov 15, 1999

"The current American elite is the Third Reich of our times." - John Pilger on the government of George W. Bush, Jan 29, 2003.

I feel rather sorry for Pilger. He has flashes of sanity and realism at times (as in his film about Pol Pot) but his desperate need for attention causes him to say ever more outrageous and unreasonable things -- to the point where he is basically just laughable. He is a good study in how the Leftist mind works. That juvenile need for attention overrides almost everything else.

There is a very good brief demolition of Pilger's film about Iraq here.

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

IRAQ

Daily Rant points out that Clinton was at least as "unilateral" about Iraq as is Bush. In saying that I am recognizing that Leftists now use "unilateral" to mean "without universal approval" -- which is an example of the way Leftists have always loved to play with words rather than face reality. Of course any national leader who waited for universal approval before he did anything would never do anything at all. And having the approval of the corrupt French is certainly no honour either.

“Now please stop this preposterous charade of pretending to need the imprimatur of that exclusive club for mass murderers, thieves, thugs and tyrants (The United Nations) to justify anything whatsoever”. From Samizdata.

What a laugh: Some of the peace activists who went to Iraq to serve as human shields in the event of war returned home, fearing for their safety, a spokesman said Sunday. Via Hoosier Review

The Swedish Nazis are supporting Saddam! That must be comforting to the Lefties! There’s an old saying: “You know a man by the company he keeps”. Via Dean’s World.

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

SOME INTERESTING QUOTES

Two good quotes from Peggy Noonan’s letter to the Democrats:

There is another problem. You have become the party of snobs. You have become the party of Americans who think they're better than other Americans.

and

This is the Democratic paradox: You want so much to run America and yet you seem not so fond of Americans.



There is a good analysis of Australia’s anti-Americans here. Excerpt:

Anti-Americanism should be studied as a serious psychological affliction, a pathological condition which paralyses the mind's analytical capacity.



OTHER READING

Gloom! There is an election campaign on in Australia’s most populous State and even the conservatives are promising an indefinite “moratorium” on genetically-modified crops if elected. And the Leftists have weighed in too, of course. Just when Australia has almost entirely got rid of the impoverishing stupidity of socialism from its politics we now have the impoverishing stupidity of the Greenies to contend with. Superstitious fear is all that is behind the GM ban. I guess we are still not far away from our caveman ancestors.

Here is an Arab-American who LIKES airline security checks.

A big international survey has found that: Christian religions are more positively associated with attitudes conducive to economic growth. Orrin Judd will like that one.

Black community leaders don't want their kids going to all-black schools. I can't say I blame them.

Chris Brand turns a cynical eye on claims that relationships between younger teenage girls and older men must always be a bad thing.

Today's academic paper from my past is here. It deals with some technical questions about how best to measure differences in people’s personalities.

Michael Darby documents more bungling in the government-run railway system of Australia’s largest State.

The Wicked one has a laugh at the “black” college degrees produced by Affirmative Action and gives three reasons why talk radio is Rightist.

Carnival of the Vanities is up again with its usual big range of reading.

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

Comments? Email me here or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit here instead or check my HomePage for a new blog address.

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

LEFTIST “BIG LIES” AND THE “STOLEN GENERATION”

The CounterRevolutionary has recently argued (with obvious truth) that what influence Leftists have stems from their being better at propaganda rather than from their capacity to deliver desirable results. He argues therefore that conservatives should do more to press their arguments rather than just respond to Leftist claims. He is undoubtedly right but I think that conservatives will never be as good at propaganda because we do not have the Leftist’s carelessness about the truth.

The greatest triumph of the Leftist “big lie” technique in recent times would have to be the way they have persuaded almost everyone that Hitler was a Rightist when he was in fact one of them -- an extreme socialist. He was to the Right of Stalin but that is about all.

But there are many smaller examples of successful Leftist deception and the “stolen generation” story in Australia is one of them. The story is that wicked white racists early in the 20th century tore black children out of their mothers’ arms and farmed them out to cruel white foster parents to be brought up in white ways rather than in black ways.

The truth is that it was white do-gooders and social workers just like the Leftists of today who ran the programme concerned. The children concerned were all half-castes (of partly white ancestry) and the wiseheads of the day felt that “for their own good” such children would have “a better chance” if they were brought up in white families. Like the Leftists of today, the “welfare” workers of that time felt that they knew what was best for other people -- regardless of what the people concerned might want. Disgusting!

But to this day most Australians believe it was all just racism -- with no awareness of the do-gooder motivation for it all.

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

ANTISEMITISM AMONG THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT

There is an interesting account here of the prevalence of antisemitic beliefs among members of the US Christian Right. I think it is wise to keep this phenomenon in proportion, however. As the article also points out, the same people are often among the strongest supporters of Israel. In this they differ greatly from the antisemites of the Left who want to destroy Israel.

The Judaic religions (Judaism+Christianity+Islam) all tend to the view that their particular sect is the one and only possessor of the truth. So anybody of the "wrong" sect will tend to be condemned. So while Protestant fundamentalists may condemn Jews for their "wrong" beliefs, they would also condemn (say) Catholics with at least as much fervour -- because Catholic beliefs are "wrong" too.

At least Christian fundamentalists have usually evolved beyond the stage where they physically attack people with the "wrong" beliefs -- unlike Muslim fundamentalists.

And as for the anti-Israel attitudes of the current Pope -- well he IS a Pole. The Poles were generally delighted to help the Nazis round up the Polish Jews during World War II.

(Crossposted on Israpundit)

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

MORE GRIEF FOR THE GREENIES

I noted some days ago that young Australians are less Green than their elders and also noted that, from what my 15-year-old son tells me, the kids get so much pro-Green and pro-black propaganda these days that it bores them silly and they react against it. I also see now that Tech Central Station has a name for the the young people concerned: "South Park Republicans"

The Swedish Greens have at last woken up to the fact that most recycling is in fact wasteful of energy and other resources and so are now OPPOSING recycling. (If the article fails to load, Instapundit has a big extract here)

Details here of just how ridiculous and wrong-headed recycling is. Here's just one little excerpt:

We are not running out of trees or forests. America has three-and-one-half times more forest land today than it had in 1920. America is growing 22 million new acres of forest annually while harvesting but 15 million acres, for a net gain of 7 million acres each year.

A classic article by SLATE magazine's economics columnist Steven Landsburg on "Why I am not an environmentalist". And the subtitle is: The Science of Economics Versus the Religion of Ecology. Excerpt:

The naive environmentalism of my daughter's preschool is a force-fed potpourri of myth, superstition, and ritual that has much in common with the least reputable varieties of religious Fundamentalism. The antidote to bad religion is good science. The antidote to astrology is the scientific method, the antidote to naive creationism is evolutionary biology, and the antidote to naive environmentalism is economics.

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

OTHER READING

Chris Brand discusses the present state of the nature/nurture debate.

The Wicked one tells is what a vague and wimpish character Abraham Lincoln was and how little respect he had from those who knew him.

Michael Darby has a rather horrifying story about how a white tourist was treated by black Zimbabwean “police”.

Today's academic paper from my past is here. It deals with the rather hilarious claim made by Leftist psychologists to the effect that conservatives are too pro-authority. The paper shows that there is in fact no such thing as a general attitude to authority -- i.e. approving of one type of authority does not mean that you will therefore approve of other types of authority.

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

Comments? Email me here or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit here instead or check my HomePage for a new blog address.

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

DEMOCRACY NATURAL?

A recent book by Rubin is summarized by a reviewer as arguing that:

Autocratic society violates human nature for most of those who belong to it and therefore is inherently unstable. Rubin also argues, however, that libertarianism is unstable because it entails extremes of individuality that equally violate evolved human tendencies and thus cause social breakdown.

And the conclusion from that is that the compromise represented by modern democracy best suits human nature.

That may be a comforting conclusion but I think one of the assumptions is wrong. The plain historical fact is that human beings have almost always lived under a tyranny of some sort. Ancient Athens emerged from tyranny for about 100 years and then self-destructed and the Roman republic was never more than an oligarchy until it too became an empire. And the supremacy of Parliament in England dates only from 1649. So if autocracy is against human nature we have had an amazing amount of it. Some governments of the past were more consultative than others but there was almost always a king, Pharaoh, emperor or the like running the show.

I think it is much more obvious to argue that autocracy is what in general comes naturally and the love of big government exhibited by Leftists is the modern-day evidence of that inclination.

So modern democracy is in fact a painfully learned lesson in overcoming human nature that only a minority of humankind seem to have learned to this day. Human nature is powerful and I would be the last to underestimate it but it is not a straitjacket. Wearing clothes is not natural but we all do it. Let’s hope that we will all also practice democracy one day.

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

A CONFUSED GREENIE

There is an interview with a rather confused "feminist critic" of environmentalism here. She rightly sees people-hating impulses at work among the Greens and says that is Right-wing. Then she endorses the optimistic perspectives of free market anti-Green economist Julian Simon. So Left is Right and Right is Left to her. Maybe she has been converted to conservatism but has not realized it yet.

It was whilst trying to debunk Simon's work that Green heretic Lomborg realised Simon may after all be correct. For more on Simon see here. The story of Simon's influence on Lomborg is here

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

MORE GREENIE NEWS

Hooray! Exposing Greenie dishonesty works! After a lot of publicity of their lies, the Greenies in Brazil have given up opposing nuclear power (the safest, cleanest and cheapest form of energy generation there is) and new nuclear power stations are now being built there. Via Aaron Oakley.

Hooray again! It looks like Russia too will refuse to ratify the nutty Kyoto “Greenhouse” treaty. Death knell! Via Country Store

There are two quality articles here and here from the CIS detailing the growing threat of old fashioned trade protectionism disguised as new fashioned environmentalism.

Dioxin has long been one of the great Greenie swear-words. All sorts of health disasters have been blamed on it and anything that produces dioxin is supposed to bring us all a slow and painful death -- and deform our babies too, of course. But it has just been discovered that the peat fires that the Scots and Irish have used for millennia to keep themselves warm in winter also give off lots of dioxin! How awful for those poor Scots and Irish! They must not realize how ill and deformed they are.

And it does look like the poor old Greenies are gradually having global warming chipped away from them too. Note this:

Data compiled from the journals of early Arctic explorers casts doubt on the assumption that recent thinning of Arctic ice is the result of human-induced climate change. Via Cronaca.

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

OTHER READING

When the US attacks Iraq, could it spare a few bombs for Riyadh? The way the Saudis torture Westerners to extract false confessions puts them in much the same league as Saddam. A lovely lot, those Arabs.

Revealed Truth thinks that the current Leftist hatred of the Jews may be motivated by a feeling of betrayal. Minorities are supposed to be uniformly Leftist.

Chris Brand notes some encouraging signs of realism among Muslims.

The Wicked one has had a couple of good jokes lately.

Michael Darby has a link to the persecution of Christians by Moslems and another report on the incompetence of a government-run railway

Today's academic paper from my past is here. I show that middle-America tends to be “authoritarian” in the sense used by psychologists but also point out that this essentially means no more than that middle-Americans have old-fashioned values.

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

Comments? Email me here or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit here instead or check my HomePage for a new blog address.

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

THE NAZIS ARE BACK -- AND STILL ON THE LEFT

This article by David Brooks -- already noted on Israpundit -- must be one of the saddest articles I have read for a long time. An old and cruel folly has roared back into life. Although I am an atheist with not a shred of Jewish ancestry, I have been writing on antisemitism for over 30 years (e.g. Ray, 1972). When I started out, antisemitism was vestigial and no Leftist in the Western world would have a bar of it but now it really is a major phenomenon on the Left worldwide -- including the “liberals” of the USA. The battle with irrationality is unceasing, I am afraid.

Just listen to this bit of poison from Yale university:

But does the prevalence of Jews in American media, business and politics help explain America's steadfast support for Israel, whose 35-year occupation of Palestinian lands is an affront to human decency? Of course.

It’s Hitler’s “National Socialism” all over again. That a decent person of any religion might support a people trying to defend itself against persecution, outside military attacks and internal terrorism is obviously beyond the ken of the hate-filled writer (Sahm Adrangi).

Reference:
Ray, J.J. (1972) Is antisemitism a cognitive simplification? Some observations on Australian Neo-Nazis. Jewish Journal of Sociology 15, 207-213.

(Crossposted on Israpundit)

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

LEFTIST CHILD-HATERS

An appalling quote from a Feminazi professor who objected to her female colleagues taking leave to have babies:

"Having babies is a choice -- already, people who have babies are getting tax breaks, getting hugely discounted insurance (forcing those more reproductively responsible to subsidise them), and often getting to slack off work for some 15 years using children as an excuse to reschedule meetings and avoid heavy committee work. This is NOT a women's issue -- it is a matter concerning a specific group of people taking advantage of the rest of their department."

More here

Who does she think will support here in her old age through their taxes? Those selfsame people who are now babies. If everybody was "reproductively responsible" in her sense, she would die of hunger and disease in her old age -- and justly so.

Speaking of feminism, I am no feminist but I do like and respect women so I would have a strong urge to put a .50 calibre slug through the guy in this picture.

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

HUMAN SHIELD MOTIVATION

A good summary of "human shield" motivation below:

Hi, I'm Special Ed and I'm a human shield. I come from a country with many freedoms and opportunities, all of which I take for granted. I suffer from a God complex, low self-esteem, a desperate need to feel better about myself at the expense of others and I crave attention like a three year old. I feel the need to take time out from my job and leave my family so that I may deny you - the Iraqi people - the same freedoms and opportunities I do not appreciate in my own country. I am committed to preserving Saddam Hussein's brutal and oppressive regime. Why? Because I'm a socialist and I know what is best for the Iraqi people.

From The Ville (Post of 26th)

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

THE "PEACE" MARCHERS

Spiked argues that the British "peace" marchers are not interested in peace or anything else much. They are simply alienated -- they do not trust government or politicians. The anti-government factor does help explain why there are some antiwar conservatives and libertarians.

But The Tocquevillian thinks that the American peaceniks are just the old Communist-sympathizers revived.

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

OTHER READING

There is an article here on the Left's 'unholy alliance' with Islamic extremism

Anti-business bureaucrats have twisted Bill Clinton's medical leave law so that you can now take sick-leave for all sorts of minor ailments and still have your job protected.

Who says there is free speech in America? Not at Michigan State University, there’s not. How can someone in the US get a criminal record for doing something that is protected by the US Constitution? I would really like to know. And particularly since blacks can do exactly the same thing with impunity. America sure is a classically racist society. There is one law for whites and another for blacks. It’s a mockery of justice.

Chris Brand thinks that “paedophile” Roman Polanski has done no harm and that better nutrition can prevent a lot of crime.

Michael Darby has a reflection on socialism being inimical to families.

Today's academic paper from my past is here. In it I again review Altemeyer’s claims about Right-wing authoritarianism -- this time in the context of the overall lack of a scientific orientation among modern academic psychologists.

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

Comments? Email me here or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit here instead or check my HomePage for a new blog address.

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