ELSEWHERE

Professional Skeptic James Randi debunks Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine by showing some of the techniques Moore uses. I myself think that Moore has devised a lucrative schtick and just plays it up for fun and profit. A lot of what he says is so extreme that he has got to be laughing at the sad souls who lap it up.

Tom Barrett: "Bill Clinton’s book of “memoirs” is being advertised under the name “My Life.” Someone obviously made a mistake when they titled it. Anyone who had actually read the book would have titled it “My Lies.” It is a shameless attempt to distort history and whitewash Clinton’s disgraceful legacy of sexual misconduct, lying under oath, and using the office of the presidency for his own personal gain."

The perils of conservative government: "Australia's economy has been voted the most resilient in the world for the third consecutive year by one of the world's most respected business schools. The International Management Development school in Switzerland also ranked Australia the fourth most competitive economy in the world - up from seventh in 2003. Australia was positioned number one for resilience to economic cycles, and the speed with which a new business could be started. It was second for consistency of government policy and transparency of financial institutions".

"Some of the erosion in Bush's numbers comes from a rather surprising cohort. While Iraq has undoubtedly hurt Bush, he is also facing trouble among his base. Bruce Bartlett recently speculated that Bush has lost the support of fiscal conservatives with his betrayal on a number of issues: tariffs, higher spending on education and agriculture, support for the National Endowment of the Arts, and, of course, the prescription drug bill. A look at the historical numbers from the Washington Post/ABCNews poll suggests this is true."

The death of Right and wrong by Tammy Bruce seems to be a very good book. The author is a former member of the homosexual elite. I say more about it on Leftists as Elitists. She says Leftists suffer from "malignant narcissism" (self-love).

Dick McDonald has some optimistic posts up today -- about immigrants etc.

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

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Leftism is more popular with young people than with older people largely because Leftism is itself juvenile: They criticize what they don't understand. Which makes it ironic that "We know best" and "It's for your own good" are the basic Leftist messages. Leftists have never got past the simplistic thinking or the arrogance that are the characteristic limitations of youth

"Created" equal in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence is a religious way of saying that people are NOT equal but start out with the same rights

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

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SOME CATHOLIC THOUGHT ON THE EU

Ratzinger Fan Club: "Papal passions were again on display June 20 when he delivered his Sunday Angelus address, his first public comment since the European Union adopted its new constitution. It acknowledges the "cultural, religious and humanist inheritance" of Europe, but omits the specific reference to the continent's Christian heritage that had long been requested by John Paul. It also makes no mention of God. The result embittered the Pope, and it showed. "I want to thank Poland for faithfully defending in European institutions the Christian roots of our continent, from which have grown our culture and the civil progress of our time," he said in his native Polish. Poland was among the handful of European nations -- Italy, Portugal, Malta, and the Czech Republic -- that persevered until the end in requesting a reference to Christianity, but in the end they were blocked by more powerful nations, especially France. (Former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing headed the drafting commission). Thus the papal barb: "One does not cut off the roots from which one is born."

Vatican repercussions: "Finally, I suspect the outcome will to some extent embolden the pro-American faction within the Vatican and the College of Cardinals. Broadly speaking, church leaders have long been divided between those who want Europe to emerge as a third pole in global affairs with a more Catholic vision of society, and those who think the church ought to cast its lot with the Americans because they're the only game in town. This second group would include figures such as Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the pope's vicar for the diocese of Rome, and Bishop Rino Fisichella, rector of the Lateran University. The failure of European leaders to even use the word "Christian," let alone articulate a Christian social vision, in their new constitution makes the pro-American argument that much more convincing. "

On EU "Christopohobia": "To deny that Christianity had anything to do with the evolution of free, law-governed, and prosperous European societies is more than a question of falsifying the past; it is also a matter of creating a future in which moral truth has no role in governance, in the determination of public policy, in understandings of justice, and in the definition of that freedom which democracy is intended to embody. Were these ideas to triumph in Europe, that would be bad for Europe; but it would also be bad for the United States, for that triumph would inevitably reinforce similar tendencies in our own high culture, and ultimately in our law".

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ELSEWHERE

Good point by a letter-writer: "I see in the news that an American soldier is going to be court-martialed for killing a wounded terrorist in Iraq. Well pardon me but isn't that exactly what John Kerry did in Vietnam and he got a Silver Star for it! While in Vietnam, John Kerry finished off a wounded Viet Cong after beaching his boat and putting his crew in great jeopardy. He wrote himself up for a Silver Star and got it. I question why this soldier should be tried for murder while John Kerry, hero of the liberal left, was decorated for doing exactly the same thing. In accordance with International Law, terrorists are subject to immediate summary execution. Perhaps that is the policy that we should adopt. Instead, we are incarcerating these clowns and are criticized for abuse, while they behead American prisoners. And the international press says nothing. We really need to grow up and stop fighting this war like a bunch of liberal social workers. If we do not get things in a proper perspective and start supporting our President and troops we are going to lose this war!"

Jeff Jacoby points out some of the troubling changes that same-sex marriage will inevitably lead to. It seems likely, for instance, that any mention of heterosexual parenting as preferable will soon become incorrect and penalized.

Dick McDonald has put up a moving account of how much it matters to Christians around the world that GWB has stood up to Muslim oppression. Muslims are beginning to think twice about persecuting their Christian minorities. Dick did not give a link to his source but you can find it here.

A Swedish comment on the new EU constitution: "Our democratic, peaceful Europe is a minor miracle, well worth celebrating - as long as we, and not only the eastern Europeans, remember that it was Nato forces, US generosity and Anglo-Saxon values that for decades ensured the European prosperity, democracy and peace which now, supposedly, Giscard d'Estaing's brainchild will guard. (It is an intriguing paradox that we will live under a legal umbrella constructed by a man who would, in any country governed by Anglo-Saxon law, now be in jail.)"

Dennis Prager points out what high value Mexican immigrants are to the USA -- compared to the Muslim immigrants that infest Europe. He rightly notes that the major problem with the Hispanics is the unwillingness of the U.S. political establishment to encourage them to assimilate.

Arlene Peck says that it is hard to understand how much evil there is in Islam but that it has to be faced.

Clayton Cramer on the Boston archdiocese of the Catholic church: "The leadership covered up criminal acts that damaged thousands (at least) of Catholic kids, destroying the morals of many, destroying the faith of others. In some cases, this depraved covering up of evil destroyed lives, by driving young men to suicide, because they did not know how to handle the conflict between what these perverts did, and their claim to be the earthly representatives of Jesus Christ... That anyone could claim to be closer than the laity to Jesus Christ while covering up these sort of crimes just overwhelms me with disgust "

Terry Teachout says that the decline of Musical Comedy is an indicator of America's cultural disintegration.

Saddam is still writing novels!: "for Saddam, writing seems more a consolation for his political failings. He knew that his career as an overlord was on the wane after the 1991 Gulf war, and it is no coincidence that this is when his literary endeavours began"

I have just transferred here Chris Brand's postings for June. I was surprised to hear that Prince Charles had comprehensively criticized Britain's very politically correct school system. Chris has also recently been having fun with a theory that there are three types of European.

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

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Leftism is more popular with young people than with older people largely because Leftism is itself juvenile: They criticize what they don't understand. Which makes it ironic that "We know best" and "It's for your own good" are the basic Leftist messages. Leftists have never got past the simplistic thinking or the arrogance that are the characteristic limitations of youth

"Created" equal in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence is a religious way of saying that people are NOT equal but start out with the same rights

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

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DUBIOUS INTELLECTUALS

A further note on Straussianism: Strauss focuses on the major thinkers of the ancient world to find precedents for his view that the REAL knowledge must be kept secret from "the masses". In fact, however, it was the mediaeval Catholic church that really put such ideas into practice. The "mysteries" of the Mass were celebrated behind a "rude screen" in mediaeval cathedrals -- so that the people could not see what was going on. And the church's opposition to the Bible in the language of the people (because of the "danger" of it being "misunderstood") is well-known. So if anybody thinks that this real-life Straussian entity was an ideal arrangement, they have all all the Protestant thinkers from Wycliffe and Luther onwards to contend with -- not to mention the many earlier Catholic reformers as diverse as Abelard and St. Bernard of Clairvaux. I should add, however, that there are large divides among Straussians and I would agree with some (e.g. Mansfield) much more than others. See here. Understood as an attack on moral relativism, Straussianism can be valuable.

The Straussians seem generally to be seen as part of neoconservatism -- probably because of a shared elitism. The older neoconservatives are of course ex-Trotskyists so lack the traditional conservative suspicion of the State. They just want to use the State in a more realistic and hence more benign way than their former brethren on the Left. But lovers of the State they are. I personally am very glad that no type of neoconservatism seems to have any mass following. Their influence seems to be solely of a think-tank kind. Note this report of the current thinking of Irving Kristol, probably the leading light among the founders of neoconservatism. He has what I can only call a horrifying vision for America. He wants America to become the world's new dictator, no less. He won't sell that idea anywhere in mainstream America. I think Rockwell voices the libertarian reply to the neoconservatives pretty well here.

One person who does agree with Kristol is, of all things, a Scottish historian: Niall Ferguson. There is a good article on Ferguson here which both sets out his arguments and mentions some of the problems with them. A lot of intellectuals are obviously way out of touch with ordinary people. The idea that you could persuade the average American to take on the burdens of empire for some dreamy reason is absurd. The great majority of Americans just want to be left alone to get on with their own lives in peace and safety.

The statist mind: "The Greeks had a name for this monstrous ego: hubris, which, as far as I'm concerned, is the defining characteristic of the State. They considered it a madness, one that the afflicted never knew was affecting them. They defined a sequence--koros (stability) to hubris (monstrous, conscienceless arrogance) to ate (a madness where evil appears as good) to nemesis (destruction)..... A more modern term for hubris, for Kirk's monstrous ego, is narcissism. Perceiving people as things, ones not fully human, is the essence of narcissism. Peck wrote this about narcissism, "Since [narcissists] deep down, feel themselves to be faultless, it is inevitable that when they are in conflict with the world they will invariably perceive the conflict as the world's fault. Since they must deny their own badness, they must perceive others as bad. They project their own evil onto the world."

Orrin Judd has an account of intellectuals which implies an inbuilt bias to the Left in them: "an "intellectual" is someone who deals in pure ideas, that is ideas untested by reality. The term "Intellectual" in turn has come to denote anyone who believes that these untested ideas should be tried out upon society. Once we accept these fairly simple definitions, it becomes pretty obvious why America has an anti-intellectual tradition ... it is the nature of "intellect" to oppose the existing order". I think Orrin is a bit sweeping there but there is something to what he says.

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ELSEWHERE

New Icelandic blogger Great Auk has a pretty inspiring report of what Friedmanite economics have done for Iceland in recent years. They REALLY cut back government in Iceland and what was the result? I don't think I need to tell you.

What a blow! French supermarkets are beginning to stock Australian wines. No doubt the French elites will think as much of that as they do of McDonalds.

A major Australian newspaper has a well-informed review of the latest Michael Moore film, stressing how anti-American and one-sided Moore is.

Good to see that the Iraqi Shiites are getting ready to deal with Falluja as soon as they get the chance. Falluja seems to be the major remnant of the Saddam regime.

Medicare: The rich pay more for it but get more out of it too, surprisingly.

Non-Government Organizations undermining democracy: It's Sunday morning and there's a knock on the door. The kids answer it and soon enough are demanding money to give to the whales, the poor, the starving... Your money is not just being spent to save dolphins, your name is being used to support the political agenda of everything on that donor organisation's list of priorities.... Your views don't count.... "The NGO phenomenon, if taken too far, constitutes a challenge to representative systems and traditional political accountability," Johns and Roskam argue. "The collection of all possible NGOs does not constitute public opinion." Yet they argue that "while the role of NGOs as a voice of the public is developing apace, the ability of the representative system to manage and decipher these voices is under considerable pressure".... the Johns and Roskam analysis of NGO infiltration of government is essentially correct".

Randall Parker has an interesting post on the odd attitude of The Wall St Journal to immigration. The WSJ seems to want open borders and is pretty vicious with immigration restrictionists. It's all pretty amazing to an Australian conservative: Australia's conservative government is notoriously tough on immigration control -- to much applause from the voters. American libertarians seem to lean towards open borders, however, so I suppose the WSJ could be seen as taking a libertarian line. The accusation that the WSJ is backing open borders because cheap Mexican labour is good for its business cronies is unfortunately plausible, however. See also Michelle Malkin on the matter.

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

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Leftism is more popular with young people than with older people largely because Leftism is itself juvenile: They criticize what they don't understand. Which makes it ironic that "We know best" and "It's for your own good" are the basic Leftist messages. Leftists have never got past the simplistic thinking or the arrogance that are the characteristic limitations of youth

"Created" equal in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence is a religious way of saying that people are NOT equal but start out with the same rights

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

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EDUCATION

Jeff Jacoby: "If teachers unions in Massachusetts spent as much time trying to improve the large number of public schools they control as they do trying to hurt the minuscule number of charter schools they don't control, public education in the Bay State would be the pride of the Western world. Alas, quality of education has never been the highest priority of the unions and the many school-district bureaucrats who do their bidding. Like other monopolists, they are less interested in improving their product than in trying to stomp out competition -- especially when it comes from a tiny but popular upstart. In terms of numbers, charter schools are barely a blip on the Massachusetts radar screen. Of the nearly 1,900 public schools in the state, only 50 are charters. Of the 980,000 children enrolled in public education, only 19,000 -- fewer than 2 percent -- attend charter schools."

Dave Huber has some acerbic comments about the lack of "diversity" at the University of Delaware.

A fruitcake mother: "Kyle Samejima's decision -- to send her three children to the local public school here -- was an unusual one among her neighbors. But she liked the open-education philosophy of Windom magnet school [of Minneapolis, MN], liked that it was just a couple of blocks away, liked the diversity. Now she's helping to spearhead an effort to make Windom even more distinctive, turning it into a dual immersion Spanish school that her youngest child -- a kindergartner already bilingual in Japanese -- will begin next year. 'You can put a label on a school, and if you look at Windom's test scores, they don't look so great,' says Ms. Samejima. 'But test scores don't always tell the whole story.' Many other Minneapolis parents, though, are looking at the test scores. And with an exceptionally high degree of school choice, they're increasingly choosing options outside the district."

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ELSEWHERE

The latest Harvard flap over the fact that its small number of black students are mostly not American blacks is amusing. Blacks who come from REALLY poor environments in Africa and the Caribbean are twice as good at getting into Harvard as American blacks are. So the Leftist explanation that "poverty" keeps blacks out is sheer bunk. Surely, there is only one explanation for the difference: motivation. As black conservative sites like Crispus and Booker Rising often point out, instead of American blacks being challenged and being taught to strive and become independent, what affirmative action -- and "liberal" policies generally -- teach American blacks is passivity: the feeling of victimhood and dependency. The advantage that blacks from Africa and the Caribbean have is that they have NOT been reared in the poisonous politically correct environment of modern-day America.

I have always found Roger Scruton's view of conservatism rather idiosyncratic. To me he is a reactionary, not a conservative. He has a recent summary of his views here. There is much that he says about conservatism which is insightful but he claims to say what conservatism is without once mentioning individual liberty. Is there ANY American -- conservative or not -- who would agree that "the future is the past"? That is Scruton's summary of a core conservative outlook. By that criterion there are no (or very few) conservatives in America, I would think. I prefer an infinitely more influential conservative's view of what conservatism is, Ronald Reagan's: "If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.... The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom"

John Lewis: "Professor Henry Reynolds contends that our white forebears murdered over 20,000 of our black forebears. Keith Windschuttle argues that this figure is grossly exaggerated, prompting a call from academics and others for all men and women of good will to rise against Windschuttle and bring him down. Curiously, those who oppose Windschuttle appear to be more interested in maintaining previously-held beliefs than in determining what really happened, and do not seem to realise that figures of the magnitude claimed by Reynolds arguably contain more insult to our black than our white forebears".

Cuba could teach the U.S. a lot about democracy. You don't believe it? The Minneapolis Star-Tribune says so. Maybe they should rename it the Minneapolis Pravda. The old Soviet propaganda mill is still running smoothly in the USA.

Al Gore thinks that answering back to criticism makes you a Nazi! He said recently: "The Administration works closely with a network of "rapid response" digital Brown Shirts" It's Gore's attitude that sounds like the Nazi one to me. Gore clearly believes in neither freedom of speech nor natural justice. But what Leftist ever really did? Opinion Journal has some more comments on the strangeness of Gore.

Fun! Charles Giacometti, the rage-filled Leftist that I reported a correspondence with on 24th., is apparently a serial abuser. And, like Gore, he wants to prevent people from answering him back. Leftists just can't take dissent. New England Republican gives you the lowdown on him.

Mark Shea has a fun picture of Al Gore which he calls: "Former Veep coughs up hairball"

Evil Conservatives Inc. is a good spoof site, parodying or mocking a lot of Green/Left arguments.

Amy Welborn has a good story about how middle America is not rushing out to buy Clinton's book: "by noon, Lewis had not sold one of his shop's 20 copies, and he intended to cancel the 30 additional copies on order".

In response to my post yesterday about Straussianism , a reader notes similarities between Straussians and Fabian socialists:

Wicked Thoughts has a serious post up for once -- with a good document about "Islamophobia"

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

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

Leftism is more popular with young people than with older people largely because Leftism is itself juvenile: They criticize what they don't understand. Which makes it ironic that "We know best" and "It's for your own good" are the basic Leftist messages. Leftists have never got past the simplistic thinking or the arrogance that are the characteristic limitations of youth

"Created" equal in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence is a religious way of saying that people are NOT equal but start out with the same rights

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

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STRAUSS AND THE STRAUSSIANS

Urged on by one of my correspondents, I spent a while last night reading about conservative philosopher Leo Strauss and his followers. I read accounts by various sorts of Straussians and anti-Straussians as a way of deciding if it seemed worthwhile to sit down and read the great man himself. He is said to be a difficult and ambiguous study so preliminary enquiry seemed needed. Two of the many accounts I read are here and here. Strauss disciples do seem to be rather prominent in the Bush administration and that does of course get the Left frothing at the mouth and trotting out their usual conspiracy theories. And for once there is a small germ of truth in what they say. Strauss was what would usually be called a "Gnostic" -- a purveyor of "hidden" knowledge or knowledge known only to initiates. Gnostics were very influential and widely followed in the ancient world both before and after the time of Christ. The best known Gnostic sects of the modern world are probably the Rosicrucians, the Scientologists and whatever is left of the old Freemasons.

I myself think that all Gnosticism is rubbish so will not be reading Strauss. The idea of any real and widely useful knowledge remaining secret for thousands of years is ludicrous. But I can see the appeal of Straussianism. Like all Gnostic sects it is both elitist and fraternal -- which is a pretty powerful combination. It both tells you that you are superior and that you have a band of similarly wise brothers on your side. No wonder it has attracted followers! I find its elitism particularly obnoxious. Elites as such are no problem for me. They exist. They become obnoxious when they see themselves as a natural ruling class who are licensed to lie, conceal, collude and deceive in order to bend "the masses" to their will -- "for their own good", of course. Yuk! Straussianism has too much in common with the Left for me. I will stick with libertarian conservatism. Many conservatives are pretty appalled at the big-government agenda of GWB and I have argued that GWB is in fact in some ways to the Left of Clinton. Maybe he really has been influenced by his Straussian advisors.

What primarily motivated Strauss was his concern that the "nihilism" or moral relativism preached by Leftist ideologues (and now accepted by many educated people) would eventually make civilization impossible. There are however many alternatives in philosophy to moral relativism and I think my version of ethical naturalism is only one of many accounts of morality which take into account the arguments for moral relativism but still show or purport to show that values and standards are important, non-arbitrary and persuasive.

The practical upshot of Straussian thought does seem to be reasonably conservative in that Strauss opposed both Communism and Nazism and supported Christianity and traditional values but his reasons for those conclusions seem to be peculiarily his own.

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ELSEWHERE

I think this is right: Clinton was good for America because he did so little. And he did so little because he spent most of his time defending his own repeated amoral behaviour. And I see that Monica Lewinsky has entered the fray again -- with some understandably hurt comments about his recent "60 minutes" interview. I think there is little doubt that Clinton is a psychopath -- even his much-noted charm is characteristic of psychopaths. The stupid lie about how Hillary got her name is typically psychopathic.

A crime against the poor: "John Kerry says he wants to raise the minimum wage to $7 an hour from $5.15". He wants to force the lowest rung of the workforce out of work, in other words.

Jeff Jacoby on U.N. antisemitism: "The lengths to which the UN will to go to avoid any condemnation of Jew-hatred would be comical if they weren't so contemptible. When it adopted an international convention against racial discrimination, it refused to include a reference to antisemitism. "The Soviet Union, its satellites, and its Arab allies," noted Bayefsky, "insisted that antisemitism was a question not of race but of religion." Yet when the UN later adopted a resolution on religious intolerance, the lead sponsor insisted that antisemitism should be omitted because that was a matter not of religion but of race."

Affirmative Action a noble goal? "Advocates of U-M's policies speak in collective terms about race disadvantage and gender inequities. What they don't deal with is individuals. AA admission (and other) policies do not look at the individual merits of your son or daughter at the grade average they've struggled to maintain, the volunteer organizations they've joined, the dreaming human beings they are. Instead, AA advocates see skin color and genitalia. There is nothing noble about that vision."

Attempts by UK Tories in the House of Lords to extend Blair's 'civil partnerships' act to cover non-homosexual households (eg spinsters, family carers etc) have been attacked as 'homophobic'(!)

There is an amusing attack on "Islamophobia" here -- followed by an extremely frank reply from one of my readers. One excerpt: "In other places in the Koran and in Mohammed's life and in constant Islamic practice, is revealed a "value" of persecuting, intimidating and indeed killing people for their expressing disagreement with the half-baked failed system of ideas that is Islam. In total contrast to this, Christ said "Father forgive them for what they do""

Pretend-Catholics: "Only 1 in 5 senators who claim to be Catholic actually support a bill that would enshrine marriage as the union of one man and one woman"

Ecumenical Insanity has an amusing report about a new "translation" of the Bible. The Church of England thinks you can just change what the Bible says willy-nilly. They pretend that the Bible tells you to have a "regular partner" rather than a husband or wife. The apostates have clearly taken over that church.

Carnival of the Vanities is up again, including some quiz questions about the old South.

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

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

Leftism is more popular with young people than with older people largely because Leftism is itself juvenile: They criticize what they don't understand. Which makes it ironic that "We know best" and "It's for your own good" are the basic Leftist messages. Leftists have never got past the simplistic thinking or the arrogance that are the characteristic limitations of youth

"Created" equal in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence is a religious way of saying that people are NOT equal but start out with the same rights

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

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PURITANISM, SOCIAL CLASS ETC.

Someone commented to me recently that I do not put enough personal stuff on this blog. I mostly just reproduce thoughts from others that I find interesting. So I will remedy that to a very small degree today -- by commenting on two recent posts by Keith Burgess-Jackson. Keith noted that I use only a dialup connection and commented that it must be my Puritan heritage, considering that I could easily afford any connection I want. There is considerable truth in that. My Presbyterian upbringing did indeed teach me frugality, or, as the Scots say: "A careful way wi' money". The sites that I visit are rarely graphics-intensive so dialup is not, however, the frustration it might seem. My frugality is still moderate by Scottish standards, though. When I was in Scotland, I occasionally made jokes about "using things up", "getting your money's worth" etc but nobody ever saw that I was joking. They all thought I was being perfectly sensible!

In another post Keith spoke with some asperity about "dolts" who don't think much about the world around them and know little of politics. Another philosopher -- Socrates -- once said something similar: "The unexamined life is not worth living". Keith got a blast from one of his readers for speaking so ill of ordinary folk -- a blast that Keith posted up without comment -- by way of a mea culpa, I assume. I can actually see Keith's point of view as well as that of his reader. I am aware of a large gulf between academic types such as myself and the man in the street and I normally have little to do with those with whom I cannot share at least some intellectual or aesthetic interests. I do not however think ill of ordinary people in any way. I admire them for getting by and leading generally decent lives without the intellectual resources that I have. They quite simply need almost all their attention for their day-to-day lives and so cannot afford the luxury of constant reflection that I can. And I am strongly inclined to believe that, in general, a simpler, more basic life leads to greater wisdom and balance than the far flights of fancy one often encounters among intellectuals. I have certainly found that so in my personal life. I find that intelligent working-class girls are far easier to get on with as wives and girlfriends than bourgeois women are. The bourgeois ladies are always getting bothered about little things that don't really matter whereas the working-class women just look at the basics and are delighted to get those right. There is no doubt which group is happier.

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THE RELIGION OF PEACE

A good summary here of the Saudi responsibility for Islamic terrorism and some slight sign that they may be repenting it: "Hopefully, Al-Muqrin's killing is proof that the Saudi regime is at last taking the threat from al-Qaeda seriously. And that the royal House of Saud will stop feeding the monster of Islamic terrorism it has so foolishly created".

America welcomes terrorists: "Do you know how the alleged "shopping-mall" bomber entered our country? He didn't cross the border illegally. He didn't sneak in on a ship. He came through the front door at America's invitation. Nuradin M. Abdi, who was indicted last week for plotting with al Qaeda to blow up an Ohio shopping mall, flew here from Somalia and received bogus "refugee" status... thousands of refugees and asylum seekers who have made flimsy claims of persecution are let loose."

Poverty and South Asian immigrants to the US: Interesting that although the overall rate of poverty among South Asians was high, the rate for Indians was similar to the rate for native-born white Americans. Muslims from Pakistan and Bangladesh would be the other major South Asian category so they are obviously a disaster as immigrants. That wonderful religion of peace sure is great for all concerned!

This Muslim author at least has the common sense to point out that prejudice against Muslims is not always unreasonable. "the suspicion of Muslims is not always reasonable, it is absolutely understandable. After all, several vile massacres have been committed in our name, however much we reject them. It may not be fair, but a degree of guilt by association is human nature. We must come to terms with this and reclaim our collective reputation from those who would sully it." 50 years after WWII, there is still plenty of everyday prejudice expressed in Australia about Germans and Japanese, indeed it is common to hear anti-Japanese and anti-German statements even from well-educated people. It seems inevitable that until Muslim leaders openly reject their vile brethren and do so without qualifications, or other elastic escape clauses, the dislike of Muslims will continue.

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ELSEWHERE

Dick McDonald has a good post on the lies and deceptions in the Clinton book.

Now this really is obscene: The German media are drawing parallels between the Abu Ghraib abuses and the Nazi concentration camps.

Homosexuals CAN change: "Given the will, and skilled therapy, there can be an end to the nightmare of same-sex attraction.... Doom for the tall tale that being gay is like being black, an immutable inborn identity. Doom therefore, in the debate on gay marriage, to false analogies with apartheid and Aborigines, since blacks cannot stop being blacks, but gays can stop being gay.... As to the exact causes of homosexuality, the medical jury is still out. But the baseless claim, promoted by Justice Michael Kirby and others, that gays are just born that way, is given no support by the American Psychiatric Association. Their Fact Sheet on Sexual Orientation (2000) sums it up: "There are no replicated scientific studies supporting any specific biological etiology for homosexuality"... late last year a remarkable research paper was published in the Archives of Sexual Behaviour by one of America's senior psychiatrists, Dr Robert Spitzer.... "Although initially sceptical, in the course of the study, the author became convinced of the possibility of change in some gay men and lesbians". Spitzer says: "Mental health professionals should stop moving in the direction of banning therapy that has as its goal a change in sexual orientation"."

Fred Reed on Israel "what exactly do we expect the Israelis to do? I mean, I know they're terrible and all, but they're there. Maybe a better question is what would you do if you were where they are. It's easy to solve problems you don't have from Cleveland.... Thing is, Israel does exist. Should and ought to have don't matter. It's like saying Aunt Penelope shouldn't have married a drunk and had seven feeble-minded kids. But she did. You gotta deal with it.... Build that fool wall. I guess that's what I would do. It's a bad idea and probably won't work, which distinguishes it slightly from bad ideas that certainly won't work".

Boneheaded Leftist "rights" "The government, wanting to empower the tenants on public housing estates, provided tenant workers as their advocates. The tenant workers proclaimed that there was a right to housing and that tenants could not be evicted for non-payment of rent. Rent collections fell catastrophically and the Housing Commission was unable to sustain, let alone expand, its operations. In schools students were proclaimed to have a right to education and it became much more difficult to suspend or expel disruptive students who threatened the quality of education being offered to the rest. In these cases rights spectacularly trumped utility".

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

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Leftism is more popular with young people than with older people largely because Leftism is itself juvenile: They criticize what they don't understand. Which makes it ironic that "We know best" and "It's for your own good" are the basic Leftist messages. Leftists have never got past the simplistic thinking or the arrogance that are the characteristic limitations of youth

"Created" equal in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence is a religious way of saying that people are NOT equal but start out with the same rights

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

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THOSE WICKED GUNS

Simple logic too much for Leftists: "The framers of the constitution understood the necessity of American citizens to keep and bear arms. Unfortunately, our society has been infected by so many of those on the left, that many of us now believe that we should give up that right ... Thus leaving ourselves, our homes, and even our loved-ones at the mercy of the criminals. You see, gun laws only affect the law-abiding. We constantly hear about the importance of background checks being implemented by gun store owners. Criminals do not now, nor have they ever purchased their weapons in legitimate gun shops. It is cost prohibitive (Why would they pay several hundreds of dollars for a gun, when they can buy one on the street for a fraction of the price?), and it leaves a paper trail. However, those on the left choose to ignore this fact. Background checks and waiting periods do nothing, except put barriers between American citizens and their ability to defend themselves."

The "crazies" excuse for gun control: "In the words of an old billboard I once saw, 10 out of 10 criminals prefer their victims disarmed. Disarming crazy people does not make them less crazy or less criminal. It just leaves law-abiding people defenseless. Evil abhors a vacuum. When you disarm innocent people, bad things happen."

What gun controllers don't want you to know: "I used to support gun control, meaning civilian disarmament. There was no reason, the rationale went, for a private citizen to own a gun. The only ones who wanted guns had small genitalia, were paranoid crazies, and criminals. All this was assumed, without any empirical or statistical research to base it upon. Due to the influence of one of my clients who is a person of great honor, I began to research the issue of gun control on my own. Having been a college boy who loved library research, I knew how to ferret out fact from fiction. It was interesting to find that the claims of the NRA, John Lott, et al., were easy to verify from neutral or even slightly pro-gun control sources. More ominously, I found that the gun control groups consistently lied or twisted minor factoids taken out of context in their articles. This begged the question: if they are lying to advance their agenda, can we really trust the utopian outcome they promote as true?"

An ex-cop on preventing rape: "While the prevalence of rape is greatly exaggerated by radical feminists, it happens. What can a woman do to avoid it? ... A fair number of women of my acquaintance in Virginia have quietly come to the same conclusion: The most workable approach is to get a concealed-carry permit and a small revolver. The idea is shocking to the highly liberal. It is, however, remarkably effective. Being shot a half-dozen times usually causes the assailant to reconsider his priorities. Except through a miracle, a woman isn't going to fight off a determined attacker, but a woman can pull a trigger as well as a man can.... When I took the carry course, some of the instructors were women."

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THE INTELLECTUAL POVERTY OF LEFTISM

I mentioned recently the low quality of the emails that I and other conservative bloggers receive from Leftists. There is normally no attempt at rational argument -- just rage and abuse. I thought I might publish the most recent correspondence I have had with a Leftist to show readers what I mean. Reproduced below are emails from one Mr Charles Giacometti of cosmo39@hotmail.com. They are mercifully brief and my replies are even briefer. I have not kept the initial email but it expressed incredulity at the heading on my blog which points out the origin of the word "Nazi" and said that surely I did not mean that Nazism was Leftist. Read on:

CG: Wow, sorry. I continued reading your blog. You are seriously fucking crazy. Please don't write me back.
JR: Your ignoring the facts is seriously fucking crazy
CG: I forwarded your Web site to some friends. They thought it was hilarious too.
JR: Thank you. It might stir doubt about their certainties one day
CG: No, it merely confirmed that you are crazy... Don't bother to write back. You are on my ignore list now. I don't have time for people with mental illness. Seek some professional help. Quickly.
JR: I will publish this correspondence

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ELSEWHERE

Mr Giacometti is not the only one to engage in low-quality debate. I see that Stuart Buck is having the same problems with Leftist law professor Brian Leiter that I had. Leiter makes sweeping and imprecise generalizations that turn out to be arrant nonsense however you interpret them. I think Stuart is wasting time on the ladder-man, though ("Leiter" is German for ladder). Leiter writes to make Leftists feel good, not to engage in the careful argument that one would expect of a lawyer. He is to law what the Jug Man (Krugman -- "Krug" is German for Jug) is to economics: He tries, however irrationally, to find bits that comfort Leftists.

Laws against Hate crime "are not aimed at hate, but at particular kinds of hate found disagreeable by particular political groups, chiefly on the left. (Note that the groups granted special privilege invariably vote Democratic.) That is, we all understand that a woman who kills a man because she hates men will not be guilty of a hate crime, as neither will a black or Hispanic who kills a white from hostility to whites, or a homosexual who, furious at heterosexuals for their lack of respect, kills a heterosexual."

Tom Barrett has some good Father's Day reflections -- e.g. "You dads who are at home, pay attention to your kids. Talk to them, get involved in their lives. Tell them that you love them every day – several times a day. If you’re too busy for this, you are too busy. If you have to take a different job with less hours, move into a smaller house, drive an older car, do it! As a minister I have been with many men as they died. I never heard one say, “I wish I had spent more time at the office.” I have heard many say, “I wish I had spent more time with my kids.”"

What feminist complainers forget: ""Being male is now the single largest demographic risk factor for early mortality in developed countries," said Daniel Kruger, a social psychologist at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research. "The magnitude of the sex difference is most starkly summarized by the numbers of deaths before age 50," Kruger said. "For every 10 premature female deaths, 16 men died prematurely.""

Hezbollah connections in Australia: Leftist politicians, of course. Hardly mentioned in the press for some obscure reason.

I have just put up a brief posting on Leftists as Elitists

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

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Leftism is more popular with young people than with older people largely because Leftism is itself juvenile: They criticize what they don't understand. Which makes it ironic that "We know best" and "It's for your own good" are the basic Leftist messages. Leftists have never got past the simplistic thinking or the arrogance that are the characteristic limitations of youth

"Created" equal in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence is a religious way of saying that people are NOT equal but start out with the same rights

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

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FROM BROOKES NEWS

Vladimir Putin backs Bush on Saddam's terrorist links but media continues to lie The mainstream media's accusation that President Bush lied about terrorist links between al Qaeda and Saddam were blown out of the water by President Vladimir Putin
Beijing's militarists push for more spending The Pentagon's 2004 report on Chinese military power confirmed that China's military was impressed with the American military's performance
Anonymous Bush-hating 'CIA analyst' maligns President Bush Bush-hating ' Guardian', a British newspaper, has claimed that a "senior US intelligence official is about to publish a bitter condemnation of President Bush
The media lied about President Bush and the 9/11 Commission findings The 9/11 Commission has found no "credible evidence" linking Saddam to the 9/11 atrocity. Why this statement does not add up
Government plans massive house price rise Australians had better look out, our politicians are planning to attack one of our most precious institutions - the family home
The ABC collective's little commissar Last May David Marr used Media Watch to provide a bully pulpit for the socialist Ramona Koval, a staff-elected director of the ABC

Details here

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ELSEWHERE

Hilarious! This is John Kerry's "religious outreach director": "Mara Vanderslice was raised without any faith and didn't become an evangelical Christian until she attended Earlham College, a Quaker school known for its adherence to pacifism. When in college, Mara was active in the Earlham Socialist Alliance, a group that supports the convicted cop killer Mumia Abu- Jamal and openly embraces Marxism-Leninism. After graduating, Mara spoke at rallies held by ACT-UP, the anti-Catholic group that disrupted Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral in 1989 by spitting the Eucharist on the floor. In 2000, she practiced civil disobedience when she took to the streets of Seattle in a protest against the World Trade Organization.. etc." She sounds more like a slice of Satan to me.

Weep for John Kerry's "poor": "In 1999 a quarter of US households were poor (with less than $25,000 pa)... In this context of US poor households, 45.9 percent own their own home, 72.8 percent have a car, and 77 percent have air conditioning. Their average living space is 1,200 sq ft per household. The European average including both rich and poor is 1,000 sq ft".

Psychologists are mostly Leftists and we know what miserable sods Leftists are so their finding fault with happiness should come as no surprise: "As the British psychologist Richard P. Bentall has observed, ''There is consistent evidence that happy people overestimate their control over environmental events ... Bentall has proposed that happiness be classified as a psychiatric disorder". See also here and here. Some think Bentall meant it as a joke and maybe he did but it also seems to be seen as insightful.

Dennis Prager lists the moral monstrosities who hate America and says it is a badge of honour to be hated by such people.

I don't get this at all: "President Bush plans on Wednesday to designate Vietnam as a new focus for his $15 billion plan to combat AIDS globally, expanding the initiative from Africa to Asia for the first time, congressional sources said. By designating Vietnam a "focus country," eligible to share in the $15 billion, the United States can sharply increase funding to nongovernmental organizations that provide AIDS services there. "It will make Vietnam eligible for a huge increase in funding," one congressional aide said."

The media still love old Communists: "But the tributes to this un-American symbol of Hollywood subversion just don't stop... Let me tell you about the real John Randolph. He was a member of the Communist Party USA during its heyday. This was during the time that Josef Stalin was murdering millions in the name of communism in the Soviet Union. And the Communist Party USA took its orders and received its funding from Moscow".

Further to my post about modern drugs being worth the cost, one of my medical correspondents commented: "Most young people just don't remember - almost no one went to public swimming pools in the early 50s because of the polio epidemic; Procedures to burn facial nerves to eliminate pain are no longer needed; drugs are effective; Procedures to block or cut nerves to the chest wall for shingles are no longer done; drugs are effective; Modern drugs to treat blood pressure and psychiatric disease have very few side effects; in contrast, side effects of older drugs often led to discontinuation of drugs; Years ago, patients with severe ulcers had their stomachs removed - bleeding ulcers could be fatal - now, we hardly ever see stomach surgery for ulcers; drugs are effective; Of course, many cancers are "cured" by modern drugs". And fancy those evil drug companies CHARGING for all that! Drugs should be devised for free by workers' collectives, of course. Odd that none are, though.

France vs. USA: "the core of all French-American differences can be traced to the contrast between Bonaparte and Washington, the former seeking to become "emperor," the other willing to "give up his power." He's aware that French leaders, more than American ones, typically exhibit imperial temperament... "

Gnu Hunter has an interesting extract from "Alliance Voices" (PDF) -- the Socialist Alliance Discussion Bulletin Vol. 4 no. 6, April, 2004 -- the bulletin of an Australian far Left activist organization. It shows graphically how the far Left carefully organize most demonstrations and "protests" in Australia. Demonstrations are what they do.

Another amusing extract from the same document: "This pre-conference discussion takes place in revolutionary times. Revolutionary times because the United States wages nuclear war in Iraq and Afghanistan. We witness not the doomsday stuff of a mushroom cloud, not the Cold War, mutually assured destruction (MAD) bogey but the extermination -- genocide -- of selected humans, untermenschen -- the Nazi term for those they considered sub humans -- through the use of depleted uranium (DU) warheads." How you can wage nuclear war using uranium from which the radioactivity has been REMOVED, they do not explain. I guess "depleted" is a hard word for them.

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

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Leftism is more popular with young people than with older people largely because Leftism is itself juvenile: They criticize what they don't understand. Which makes it ironic that "We know best" and "It's for your own good" are the basic Leftist messages. Leftists have never got past the simplistic thinking or the arrogance that are the characteristic limitations of youth

"Created" equal in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence is a religious way of saying that people are NOT equal but start out with the same rights

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

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ARE LEFTISTS ALL THE SAME?

I do from time to time get emails from Leftists -- mostly consisting of screams of rage and abuse. I am sure that most conservative bloggers will know what I mean. Amid the abuse and insults, however, there is the odd glimmer of intelligent comment and the chief such comment seems to be that Leftists are not all the same. American "liberals" in particular sometimes claim not to be Leftists at all! ("If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then ..."). It is certainly my view that the motivations for Leftism vary widely and I have a large article on the net which goes through those various possible motivations. And the article emphasizes that the motivations and thinking of those who vote for Left-leaning political parties at election time can be very different from the motivations and thinking of Leftist intellectuals. And it is overwhelmingly the thinking of Leftist intellectuals and preachers of Leftism that interests me. They are the ones who get their hands on the levers of power if they win an election. Even among leftist intellectuals, however, there seems to be a variety of motivations -- from the naively idealistic at one extreme to the elitist haters who want all power, success and fame for themselves at the other extreme.

To understand Leftism, however, it seems essential to me that one NOT accept the Leftist's own account of what his/her motivation is. In the case of the naive idealist, the account may be fair and accurate but in the case of the ruthless lovers of power (Stalin and the Communists anyone?) it would clearly be foolish to do so. Lies and dishonesty are a necessary subterfuge for the power-seeking haters so we have to judge them by deeds, not words. The problem, is, of course, that one can not usually know what sort of Leftist one is dealing with. To judge from what one can see of history and current events, hiding the most dismal motivations behind a mask of "compassion" seems to be only too commonly Leftist. So claims of humane motivations must in my view always be treated skeptically. And I do just that, of course. I assume that the Leftist I am dealing with is one of the dismally motivated kind. Sometimes I will be wrong of course. Some Leftists do move rightwards as they get older (Ronald Reagan for example) and it is my view that all of the idealistically motivated Leftists will eventually make that journey given sufficient information about the world.

So I don't think that Leftists are all the same but they have done so much evil and destruction in the world that I think we have to assume the worst of them until proved otherwise. We CERTAINLY cannot believe their own account of their thinking. And coming to realize that is an important thing for conservatives to do -- which is why I spell it out repeatedly. If you assume that the Leftist is motivated primarily by a desire to make himself look good rather than by a desire to do anybody else any good, all the shallow thinking that they come out with will become a lot more understandable. I have an extended discussion here of what Leftism is and what Leftists have in common with one-another.

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SECULARISM AND CONSERVATISM

The "church of secularism": "In the controversies surrounding the Pledge of Allegiance and the L.A. County seal, what we're seeing is an unacknowledged interreligious civil war. Centuries ago in Europe and the Middle East, intolerant faiths sought to suppress one another, erasing symbols of their rivals wherever possible. Churches were converted to mosques, their crosses removed. Synagogues were converted into churches, their Jewish symbols effaced. Today the church of secularism agitates against its rival, the Judeo-Christian tradition. In the interest of honest debate, at the very least it would be of benefit to recognize secularism for what it is: an aggressive religion competing for converts, a faith lacking the candor to speak openly of its aims."

I think the above article makes a lot of sense in that it accurately identifies the non-religious (secular) world as what Christians feel most threatened by. And in the USA the allegedly non-religious world is in fact often quite religious -- worshipping the addled creeds of Leftism. I myself am however REALLY secular in that I am a complete atheist and worship neither Jesus Christ nor Karl Marx (and many of my former academic colleagues in sociology clearly DID assign almost godlike status to old Karl). So I think it needs to be added that while some secularists (the more insecure ones in my view) do actively menace Christianity, not all secularists do and some -- such as myself -- think highly of Christianity. And secular people can CERTAINLY be conservative. For more on that see here

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