Investigating Links Between Personality and Politics

The NYT has just put out an article on the above topic that is surprisingly balanced. All the ridicule heaped on the usual Leftist nonsense by conservative bloggers and columnists must finally have hit home. Indeed the article admits that previous views on the subject have been subjected to a lot of criticism for Leftist bias. I thought, however, that I might do a quick fisking of the article:

For a start: The idea that psychology underlies political orientation is not only strongly supported by genetics research but it is also a traditional conservative claim. Conservative thinkers (such as Burke (1790), Hayek (1944) and Oakeshott (1975)) have been claiming for centuries that conservatives have a cautious disposition rather than an ideology. The amusing thing is that Left-leaning psychologists in their writings seem to be totally oblivious of the fact that conservative thinkers were talking about the psychology of politics long before psychologists were.

John Jost, George Lakoff and Arie Kruglanski get an honourable mention in the NYT article. All three are essentially charlatans. See here and here and here. And any new comment on the egregious Frank Sulloway would be superfluous. Sulloway is a proven ENEMY of science. And the finding by Dana R. Carney, to the effect that Leftists live in untidier rooms, I have not even dared to look at in case I find something wrong with it. How can I object to a finding that shows Leftists to be more juvenile?

A generally rather sensible psychologist quoted was Jonathan Haidt. He does however gild the lily enormously when he says that most liberals think about morality in terms of two categories: how someone's welfare is affected, and whether it is fair. What utter rubbish! Leftist/"liberal" thinkers habitually reject ALL morality (except when it suits them). Who has not heard the great Leftist mantra: "There is no such thing as Right and Wrong"? It's part of their beloved "postmodernism".

Another claim that the NYT makes much of is that Leftists are more "open". Putting aside for the moment the thought that "vacant" is a near synonym for "open", this is a very strained interpretation of the data -- as my critiques of the research by Kruglanski and Van Hiel show in some detail. I note with some amusement, however, that, in the unusually careful research of Van Hiel, Kossowska & Mervielde (2000), people with a definite conservative orientation were shown to be just as likely as Leftists to be open to experience. Even more awkwardly, however, the subscale measuring openness to ideas in particular showed a positive correlation with conservatism among the politically aware respondents. Among politically-aware people it was LEFTISTS who were closed-minded!

I did however rather like the closing comment in the NYT article:

What is important, said Larry Bartels, a political scientist at Princeton University, is how psychological tendencies are translated into views about specific political issues: "In 2000, George W. Bush ridiculed nation-building; now he seems pretty committed," he wrote in an e-mail message. "Which of those positions (if either) represents rigidity, resistance to change, or discipline? On the other hand, how many flexible, curious, open-to-experience liberals do you know who want to experiment with restructuring the Social Security system?"

MUSLIM REALITY IN BRITAIN

The dragon that has scared everybody else into terrified passivity is Muslim extremism. But Ms Khan, an ordinary Birmingham-born mother of two, has dared to speak out about the radicalism that has permeated her community. She refuses to be passive; she has summoned up the moral courage, at great risk to herself, to face down the jihadists who are giving Muslims a bad name.

With great frankness and fearlessness, she laments the capture of her area of Birmingham by jihadist radicals. She describes how mosques and madrassas have sprung up like mushrooms on almost every street corner, dedicated not to helping the community but to spreading the message of jihad; how preachers are indoctrinating the young to hate Christians and Jews; how her community is in denial about the radicals in its ranks; and how the mullahs collude in sanctioning forced marriages and polygamy. "Open your eyes" is her message to non-Muslim Britain. "It's all happening on your doorstep and Britain is still blind to the real threat that is embedded here now."

The Government, she complains, has listened too much to the Muslim Council of Britain, which does not represent ordinary Muslims' views, let alone the views of Muslim women. And even David Cameron, who came up to Birmingham this week to talk about empowering Muslim women, focuses too much on their education, when he should instead - she thinks - be promising to ban the arranged/forced marriages of teenage girls that take them away from school and often condemn them to a life of misery and submission.

Ms Khan's views are so refreshing. She was born here, of Pakistani parents, and says that she loves this country and is proud to be British. She has embraced this nation's values, is grateful for the protection and opportunities it has offered her and has no problem reconciling her race or religion with her nationality. She would be happy if her son joined the police or the British Army.

It seems odd that such views should even be contentious. Generations of immigrants before her have felt the same, and have often been more patriotic and appreciative of British values than native-born citizens who take their country for granted. Yet what the radicals teach - and what many Muslim youths now believe - is that their host country is to be distrusted and that religion must come before, or even instead of, their national allegiance. So Ms Khan is right to argue that more should be done to teach Britishness in schools, in order to combat the messages that young Muslims are often imbued with in their mosques.

But the most striking point she makes is that Britain is a particularly good place for Muslim women to live in, offering far more equality and opportunity than any Muslim country. Not only are girls encouraged to stay on at school, go to university and have careers. They are treated equally under the law and are not blamed for or expected to put up with domestic violence or rape.

More here

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Sego lurches back to the Left: "[French] Socialist candidate Segolene Royal will try to reverse her dramatic slide in the polls by presenting herself as the natural heir to Francois Mitterrand at a much-hyped presidential policy launch today. After a series of foreign and domestic policy gaffes by Ms Royal, 8000 party faithful and celebrity supporters, including veteran French actor Jeanne Moreau, are expected to fill a convention centre outside Paris to hear Ms Royal answer critics who say she is all style and little substance. Under pressure to counter her more experienced centre-right rival, frontrunner Nicolas Sarkozy, France's first mainstream female presidential candidate will finally unveil a traditional leftist platform for this year's elections.... Le Monde said the policies would include a 5 per cent increase in pensions - despite France's spiralling public debt due largely to generous retirement entitlements - the creation of neighbourhood police and a promise for selective regularisation of illegal immigrants".

Australian Prime Minister attacks Obama: "John Howard has risked a rift with a future US government after attacking frontrunning presidential candidate Barack Obama's policy to pull US troops out of Iraq by March next year. Labelling a victory for the high-profile Democratic Party senator in next year's US presidential election a triumph for terrorists, the Prime Minister said the strategy to pull troops from Iraq would embolden Southeast Asian terrorist groups such as Jemaah Islamiah. "If I were running al-Qa'ida in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008 and be praying as many times as possible for a victory not only for Obama but also for the Democrats," Mr Howard said."

British Labour government defies the people over road tax: "The Government is to press ahead with preparations for nationwide congestion charging despite the millionth signature on a petition opposing the idea. An experiment in internet democracy, in which people were invited to place petitions on the No 10 website and vote for them by e-mail, has embarrassed ministers. The petition calling on the Government "to scrap the vehicle tracking and road-pricing policy" was due to gain its millionth signature last night, less than three months after it was posted on the website. It received 92,000 signatures on Wednesday alone, thought to be a record for a single day. Douglas Alexander, the Transport Secretary, said last night that the signatures showed the strength of feeling among motorists but would not deter him from commissioning large-scale road-pricing trials. In an interview with The Times, he said that many of the claims made by those promoting the petition were "falsehoods"."

The gold of the Americas: "Mexicans living abroad sent home a record $23 billion last year, raising new questions about whether the government of President Felipe Calderon can afford to slow migration. In just one year, the amount of money migrants wired their families jumped 15 percent, according to Mexico's central bank, overtaking tourism to become the nation's second-biggest source of foreign income after oil. "This is a river of gold that flows into Latin America and Mexico. Daily. Weekly. Monthly. It never stops," said Sergio Bendixen, president of Bendixen & Associates, a public opinion research firm in Coral Gables, Fla., that surveyed Mexicans on both sides of the border for the Inter-American Development Bank."

Putting security back on track: A lesson from history: "The railroads, like the airlines [of today], might have turned to government for protection. Instead, they assumed the responsibility for safety themselves. That left them free to protect their passengers and their equipment in ways prohibited to the airlines. First, rather than relying on bureaucrats and hacks for security, the railroads hired the best companies available."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

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

R.I.P. Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet deposed a law-defying Marxist President at the express and desperate invitation of the Chilean parliament. He pioneered the free-market reforms which Reagan and Thatcher later unleashed to world-changing effect. That he used far-Leftist methods to suppress far-Leftist violence is reasonable if not ideal. The Leftist view that they should have a monopoly of violence and that others should follow the law is a total absurdity which shows only that their hate overcomes their reason -- Details here and here

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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SOME CLOSE-UP OBSERVATIONS OF THE MILITARY AS IT REALLY IS

I am a former Australian Army Sergeant and the excerpt below from Michael Ledeen about the current American military coincides with my observations of military men

I think the most impressive thing about this generation of fighters is their humanity, a point made to me by a senior official who has fought in many wars, and will soon retire. He points to the nature of the military community, which in many ways is the closest thing we've got to a classless society. If there is any group of Americans who truly believe in "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs," it's our soldiers. The officer corps brings some of our most talented and most fortunate sons and daughters into intimate contact with their less fortunate cohorts. Officers from wealthy families and elite universities live alongside kids from farms, bayous, and backwoods, and the sons and daughters of the rich and famous sleep, work, fight, and die with the children of the ghettos, slums and unemployed. It isn't always that way, to be sure; the underclass kids fight their way to high rank, and some of the rich and famous leave the Ivy League and enlist, but the basic point remains: There's little room for snobbery based on who's your daddy, or where'd you go to school.

It works quite well, from all accounts. Our officers - this is holy writ for the Marines, but it is pretty much canonical in the other services as well - lead from the front. And the basic rule of the community of warriors is that you don't want to let down the guy next to you. Everyone knows that, and so everyone works as hard as he can, not only to make himself worthy, but to be damn sure the guy next to him is up to the challenge. You don't want the guy next to you to come back to base and expose your failures, and you sure as hell don't want him to fail when you need him to save you.

So a community is created, and it's a caring meritocracy far more than you'd imagine, certainly far more than I'd imagined before our kids headed off for Afghanistan and Iraq and we started to spend time with people in uniform, or with the parents of people in uniform. It's totally counterintuitive, but I think it's largely true. And it turns my stomach when the no-nothings start calling them "mercenaries," as if they were in it for the money, and as if they were dehumanized killing machines.

Somewhere on the net I read an exchange between Milton Friedman and some general. They were arguing about the value of a volunteer Army, rather than the draft, which existed at the time. The general said he didn't want an army of mercenaries, and Friedman hit the roof. He pointed out that, on that line of reasoning, we bought our meat from mercenary butchers, went for treatment to mercenary doctors, and so forth. There's a big difference between volunteers and mercenaries. Our fighters are where they are because, by and large, they believe in something bigger than themselves, they have learned that you can live in a community where virtue does not equal narcissism, and they know that they are far more than a nuisance. They're in it for all of us, and if they lose it's going to be bad for all of us.

Machiavelli, the smartest of all of us, knew that true virtue is military virtue, because it enables virtuous people to work for the common good instead of self-indulgence.

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GA: Atlanta drops land theft battle: "It didn't take long for outrage over Mark and Regina Meeks' story to take root all across Georgia. After officials in the suburban Atlanta city of Stockbridge tried to condemn the Meeks' tiny flower shop and supplant it with a town center, the couple spent two years and more than $200,000 fighting the move in court. Their battle became a symbol of Georgia's budding movement to rein in the government's power to seize property. And this week, the owners could finally claim victory: The city said it is dropping its battle to condemn Stockbridge Florist and Gifts."

MD: Court nixes expedited land theft: "In a decision likely to force Baltimore to rethink its economic development strategy, Maryland's highest court ruled Thursday that the city cannot continue using eminent domain to 'run roughshod over the owners of private property.' The state Court of Appeals, in a blunt opinion that harshly criticized the city's favored property seizure technique, found Baltimore had no good reason to take a Charles North bar called The Magnet last year with a sped-up version of eminent domain called 'quick take.' ... Quick take, the state court pointed out, requires an agency to prove that it needs property urgently and for the public good. In this case, wrote Judge Dale R. Cathell, the BDC demonstrated neither."

UK: MPs seek special exemption from freedom of information laws: "MPs are pressing for a special exemption from new powers that they brought in seven years ago in a popular attempt to open up government to public scrutiny. A private members' Bill introduced by a former Tory whip and considered by a Commons committee today will stop the public from using the Freedom of Information Act to find out how their MPs run their private offices. David Maclean's Bill, believed to have the support of prominent Labour ministers as well as the Leader of the Commons, Jack Straw, is the latest attempt to neuter Labour's much-trumpeted right-to-know legislation. It is the second attack on the new powers in four months. In October, ministers proposed new measures that would dramatically curb the access-to-information powers. They include proposals to restrict the number of requests made by the media and make it easier to refuse requests on grounds of cost."

How embarrassing for the Europeans (1): "The United States has extended its lead as the most attractive location in which to invest in renewable energy projects. The country's increasing desirability is directly linked to a conviction among investors that politicians are now firmly in support of renewable energy. The findings by Ernst & Young come just two weeks after President Bush used his annual State of the Union address to call on Americans to cut fuel consumption by 20 per cent over the next decade, giving warning that the country had been dependent on foreign oil for too long. Jonathan Johns, author of the E&Y report, said that the country's commitment to renewable energy was reinforced by the recent renewal of tax credits for large-scale projects until at least next year. "

How embarrassing for the Europeans (2): "The White House said on Wednesday the United States had done better at reducing carbon emissions than Europe, where U.S. President George W. Bush's stance on global warming has been sharply criticized. The Bush administration has taken steps that "demonstrate real seriousness, not simply giving the speeches, but walking the walk," White House spokesman Tony Snow said, adding that "We are doing a better job of reducing emissions" than Europe. "So the idea that ... we don't understand the arguments, or we're not contemplating or taking seriously the arguments about carbon caps, of course we are," he said. While many environmentalists have urged mandatory caps on carbon dioxide emissions, as imposed in Europe, Bush opposes the idea and advocates the development of new technologies to reduce dependence on oil. "I would point out that ... there is a carbon cap system in place in Europe, we are doing a better job of reducing emissions here," Snow said. The White House said Snow was referring to figures from the International Energy Agency that from 2000 to 2004, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion grew by 1.7 percent, while in the European Union such emissions grew by 5 percent."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

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

R.I.P. Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet deposed a law-defying Marxist President at the express and desperate invitation of the Chilean parliament. He pioneered the free-market reforms which Reagan and Thatcher later unleashed to world-changing effect. That he used far-Leftist methods to suppress far-Leftist violence is reasonable if not ideal. The Leftist view that they should have a monopoly of violence and that others should follow the law is a total absurdity which shows only that their hate overcomes their reason -- Details here and here

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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America's Pravda: The New York Times Smears Hannity

The New York Times is trying to destroy the reputation of Sean Hannity. Last week, the country's leading liberal newspaper attacked the popular conservative radio and TV host. A Times reporter, Alessandra Stanley, criticized Mr. Hannity's new Sunday program on FOX News, "Hannity's America." According to The Times, Mr. Hannity erred while he exposed the dangerous and degrading nature of the world's oldest profession. In a recent show, he visited the Bunny Ranch brothel in Nevada, in which he interviewed several prostitutes. He even had the temerity to suggest that they find a safer and more respectable line of work. For feminist libertines like Ms. Stanley, this is heretical.

"While Mr. Hannity, who attended Roman Catholic parochial school, interviews scantily clad prostitutes, ostensibly urging them to quit and go to law school, the camera slowly moves from prostitute to prostitute, lasciviously lingering over the one with the largest, most exposed breasts," Ms. Stanley writes. Mr. Hannity is therefore being faulted for showing semi-nude women during his investigation of a Nevada brothel. What was his crew supposed to film--nuns praying the rosary? The story was about the sex trade in America, which means it must inevitably contain sexually explicit images. Ms. Stanley's criticism was puerile, baseless and detached from reality.

Ms. Stanley's article is a perfect example of the seminal problem plaguing The New York Times. The Times has long ceased to be a credible, objective news organization; rather, it is the ideological print vehicle for America's transnational liberal elites. For decades, The Times has not engaged in serious investigative reporting but in political propaganda.

In the 1960's, The Times led the charge for U.S. troops to withdraw from Vietnam; its writers promised there would be no real strategic and moral consequences. Instead, the declension of American power from Southeast Asia led to a regional holocaust. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Chinese and Hmong tribal people were murdered and ethnically cleansed by Vietnam's victorious communists; over one million boat people fled Vietnam in make-shift rafts, risking their lives to escape the new totalitarian regime. In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge exterminated over 2 million people. As this was happening, The New York Times' columnist, Anthony Lewis, for example, denied that atrocities were even taking place in Vietnam or Cambodia. He couldn't admit it, for to do so would eviscerate the liberal myth constructed by The Times' editors....

Since the fall of communism, The Times has consistently done the bidding of the New York liberal intelligentsia--it propped up Bill and Hillary Clinton, despite the fact that they presided over the most corrupt and scandal-ridden administration in U.S. history; it has turned a blind eye to the growing threat of Islamic fascism; it has sought to undermine the Bush administration's war on terrorism; it has led the chorus demanding the U.S. withdraw from Iraq (again promising that there will be no long-term strategic and moral consequences); it has promoted the radical social agenda of gay marriage, euthanasia, and abortion on demand; and it has served as the mouthpiece for environmental extremists who decry the evils of man-made "global warming."

The Times likes to present itself as America's "paper of record." Sadly, it is only the "paper of record" for our liberal elite. Just as Pravda was the official organ for Russia's communist elite, The New York Times is now America's Pravda--full of lies, inaccuracies and ideologically driven news coverage, but essential reading to find out what the next marching orders are for leftist internationalists. Pravda, however, was never considered to be a serious, honest newspaper; and neither should The Times be viewed as credible.....

More here

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Iranian bomb must be stopped: "Israeli leaders rarely invoke the Holocaust in the face of enemies. The Jewish homeland founded after Adolf Hitler's genocide has, for the last generation, felt secure enough to fight its many battles with little or no help. But the specter of a nuclear-armed Iran has rattled Israel's self-confidence. Its politicians and generals warn of a "second Holocaust" if, as in the 1930s, the world stands by while a heavily armed nation declares war against the Jews. Spelling out that scenario, Israeli officials have begun an unusually open campaign to muster international political and economic pressures against Iran. They warn that time is growing short and hint that they will resort to force if those pressures fail to prevent Iran's development of an atomic weapon. Israeli leaders fear that an Iranian bomb would undermine their nation's security even if Tehran never detonated it. That Israel has its own nuclear arsenal would not counteract the psychological and strategic blow, they believe. Israel began secretly preparing in the early 1990s for a possible air raid on Iran's then-nascent nuclear facilities and has been making oblique public statements about such planning for three years."

Insulated By Criticism, Iran Is Killing Americans ...And Everybody Knows It: "Some in the US Intelligence Community seem to operate in another realm and in a world with significantly different realities, dangers and potential outcomes. How else can it be explained that United States political leadership has been persuaded to withhold releasing intelligence regarding Iranian actions in Iraq, including arming, funding and training both Sunni and Shi'a groups killing US soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, let alone the mind-boggling toll upon Iraq's civilian population? In question is the same Iran that even Hassan Nasrallah openly ceded feeds the Hizballah terrorist organization responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans, Israelis and Lebanese through its terrorist attacks, "And the help is funneled through Syria, and everybody knows it." "Everybody knows" a lot of things. One of them is an American fear of international and internal criticism that prevents her from doing what is necessary - or anything much beyond rhetoric, for that matter - to openly confront the Iranian regime that has been at war with the United States since its 1979 Islamic revolution."

Muslims converting to Christianity by the thousands in France: "Muslims are converting to Christianity in their thousands in France but face exclusion from their families and even death threats. Most Muslims hide their conversion and Protestant ministers do their utmost to protect new converts. It is estimated that every year in the world some six million Muslims convert to Christianity. The Muezzin call to prayer. But here in France it is no longer reaching all Muslim ears. Around 15,000 Muslims each year are converting to Christianity - around 10,000 to Catholicism and 5,000 to Protestantism....

BNP becoming the conservative alternative in Britain? "In a council by-election in Nuneaton & Bedworth yesterday, the "extreme right wing" BNP came in second with 31.15 percent of the vote, only narrowly beaten by the incumbent Labour, which took the seat with 37.54 percent. One should never draw conclusions from one set of results - especially from local by-elections. But this was a hard-fought contest, where the turnout was 36.08 percent despite the heavy snow, compared with the 20 percent that might have been expected. The Conservatives managed a mere 17.17 percent, the Lib-Dems 6.79 percent and UKIP a pathetic 0.45 percent, accounting for exactly eight votes. They were even beaten by the English Democrats, who pulled 75 votes. BNP's vote compares favourably with its share of the vote in Bradford during last May's local authority elections, when it achieved 27.5 percent of the vote in the wards which they contested." More here

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

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

R.I.P. Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet deposed a law-defying Marxist President at the express and desperate invitation of the Chilean parliament. He pioneered the free-market reforms which Reagan and Thatcher later unleashed to world-changing effect. That he used far-Leftist methods to suppress far-Leftist violence is reasonable if not ideal. The Leftist view that they should have a monopoly of violence and that others should follow the law is a total absurdity which shows only that their hate overcomes their reason -- Details here and here

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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Leftist Group tries to use ‘God Talk’ To Lure Christians To Democrat Party

Don't touch even a slice of Vanderslice

A two-year-old public relations firm called “Common Good Strategies” is working behind the scenes to help Democrats convince Christians that they should vote for Democrats of “faith.” The PR firm is headed by Mara Vanderslice, a 1997 graduate of Earlham College. Vanderslice formerly worked as an intern for Jim Wallis’ Sojourners organization, a far-leftist "Christian" group that is attempting to convince moderate or conservative Christians that Democrat policies are best for achieving “social justice.”

Jim Wallis has been consulting with Democrat strategists for years to lure Christians away from the Republican Party. TVC’s special report on Wallis reveals the consistent far left policies of the group – which have been more in line with the old Soviet Union than with America.

While at Earlham, Vanderslice was a member of the Earlham Socialist Alliance, a group that supports the release of convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal and embraces Marxist-Leninist political views.

In a feature on Vanderslice in the Earlham College Alumni Bulletin, Vanderslice notes she grew up in a spiritual but not religious and politically progressive home in Boulder, Colorado. She arrived at Earlham distrustful of Christianity but after taking Peace and Global Studies class and spending time in Bogota, Columbia, she became more committed to “strands” of Christianity that she found appealing....

“Mara Vanderslice’s attempt to convince Christians to vote for pro-abortion, pro-homosexual Democrats (who hide their real goals behind claims of ‘faith’) is working – and the Republican Party should take note,” said TVC Executive Director Andrea Lafferty. “Tragically, Vanderslice’s brand of ‘progressive’ Christianity has more in common with Marxist-Leninist ideals than with orthodox Christianity.

More here

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THE DANGERS OF THE LEFTIST U.S. BUREAUCRACY

An excerpt from Powerline below

During the halcyon early years of the Bush administration, it still seemed possible that the President and his appointees could prevail over the inertia and, often, outright hostility of the almost-entirely-Democratic federal bureaucracy. One instance of the administration's effort to get beyond the bureaucracy's stale thinking was the Defense Department's Office of Special Plans, which was overseen by Douglas Feith, who was then Undersecretary of Defense for Policy.

Feith's group became known for challenging the CIA's dogmatic belief that Iraq's "secular" dictatorship couldn't possibly collaborate with radical Islamic groups like al Qaeda. The Office of Special Plans argued that the CIA consistently played down its own raw evidence of relationships between Iraq and al Qaeda because such evidence didn't fit the agency's theoretical framework. That act of lese majesty must naturally be punished.

So tomorrow, the Pentagon's own Inspector General will present a report to the Senate Armed Services Committee on whether--I'm not kidding--it was illegal for the Defense Department to independently analyze the data gathered by the intelligence agencies. You can breathe a sigh of relief, though; the Inspector General concluded that disagreeing with the CIA is not a crime:

What will be lost in news accounts of the IG report and Levin's fulminations is that Feith's group was right. We know now that there were many connections between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda, and that Islamic groups of various stripes, including those labeled "secular" by the CIA, are entirely capable of collaborating against their common enemies.

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Material goods and "The Pursuit of Happyness": "Will Smith's latest movie, The Pursuit of Happyness, stands as an extended argument underscoring the truth of conservative values. This may sound like an improbable anomaly given the traditional political, ethical, and social allegiances of Hollywood, but the power of the story lies in its basis in fact, and this in turn prevents it from being appropriated as a tool for liberal political ideology. The narrative is inspired by the true life experiences of Christopher Gardner, a struggling and homeless single father turned successful stockbroker and CEO.... Absent from the movie are traditional hallmarks of liberal criticism of the market economy: Gardner's story is one that occurs within an America conceived as a meritocracy rather than one defined by racism or class struggle. All of the rich white characters in the film, with one possible exception, treat Gardner with respect, fairness, and dignity, even compassion. And Gardner does in fact fight against poverty, but he does so within a context that ultimately rewards his hard work and intelligence. While there are striking images that display the contrast between rich and poor, Gardner's financial success as a stockbroker is actually dependent upon the creation of wealth through entrepreneurship and enterprise in the stock market...."

Speaker Of The House Pelosi Has Expensive Traveling Tastes: "Nancy Pelosi has requested that the Defense Department supply her with an Air Force C-32 for traveling back and forth from San Francisco. The C-32 costs approximately $15,000 an hour to operate. Funds to pay for this travel will be from the Defense Department, which means the American taxpayer. The DC Examiner has reported that the C-32 would cost American taxpayers approximately $300,000 for her round trip to San Francisco. Commercial fares start at $233. The C-32 has 42 business class seats, a fully-enclosed state room, private bed room and a crew of 16. Stewards serve meals and tend an open bar, according to the Washington Times. A Defense Department source who wished to remain anonymous, said of Pelosi's request, "she wanted a plane that could carry an entourage just like President Bush, who flies on Air Force One, and Vice President Dick Cheney, who also always flies on military planes." Another source said the Defense Department will likely cave into Pelosi's request because of her and John Murtha's control over defense spending."

NYT protects Leftist mythology: "Abu Omar al-Baghdadi made his grand entrance onto the jihadist stage on October 12, 2006, and since then he's delivered two very important speeches - the more recent one came out last week - and has taken credit for much of the spectacular outbreaks of violence in Iraq of late, yet he still can't get his name in print on the pages of the New York Times. Why are the editors and reporters of that paper not telling their readers anything about Iraq's top terrorist? Abu Omar al-Baghdadi is Al Qaeda's guy in Iraq, and nowadays, the Sunni insurgency is being whittled down to Al Qaeda's activity in Iraq. It's that simple, and he's that important. So why isn't the Times writing that? I think the answer has something to do with what seems, to my eyes, to be a determined campaign to keep the American people from knowing the nature of the enemy in Iraq because identifying this enemy as Al Qaeda casts the debate about the war in a whole different light."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

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

R.I.P. Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet deposed a law-defying Marxist President at the express and desperate invitation of the Chilean parliament. He pioneered the free-market reforms which Reagan and Thatcher later unleashed to world-changing effect. That he used far-Leftist methods to suppress far-Leftist violence is reasonable if not ideal. The Leftist view that they should have a monopoly of violence and that others should follow the law is a total absurdity which shows only that their hate overcomes their reason -- Details here and here

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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Ten Myths About the Bush Tax Cuts

The Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives must decide whether to write a budget extending, expiring, or repealing the Bush tax cuts. These tax cuts have provided a convenient scapegoat for the nation's budget and economic challenges. Despite a 42 percent spending increase in 2001, critics charge that the tax cuts have starved popular pro-grams. Despite surging economic growth and 5 million new jobs since 2003, critics also charge that the tax cuts have not helped the economy. Finally, despite making the income tax code more progressive, critics charge that the tax cuts have widened inequality.

Nearly all of the conventional wisdom about the Bush tax cuts is wrong. In reality:

* The tax cuts have not substantially reduced cur-rent tax revenues, which were in fact not far from the 2000 pre-tax cut baseline and over the 2003 pre-tax cut baseline in 2006;
* The increased child tax credit, 10 percent tax bracket, and fix of the alternative minimum tax (AMT) reduced tax revenues much more than most of the "tax cuts for the rich";
* Economic growth rates have more than doubled since the 2003 tax cuts; and
* The tax cuts shifted even more of the income tax burden toward the rich.

Setting optimal tax policy requires governing with facts rather than popular mythology, which is why it is important to set the record straight by debunking 10 myths about the Bush tax cuts.

Much more here

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ARTICLES RECENTLY UP ON ICJS

The Left is onside with hate
Different sheiks shake the culture
ABC must put national values first
Fight for global Islamic state, conference told
Statement by Dr Salam Fayad
Islam and Western liberal democracy are incompatible
Combating Islamic Extremism
Nuclear program legitimises Iran's threat
Fairfax boss was troubled by left-leaning editorial culture
Islamic Prejudice, Islamic Denial
Islamic ticket sends all the wrong messages
Instinctive bias not among ABC's virtues
Concern about growing Muslim antisemitism
Muslim Womens rights
Ideology must not be allowed to trump reality in Iraq
Expert Search to combat antisemitism and racism
Hilali ridicules nation of convicts
Local push for Islamic state
Radical Islam & British universities
A sovereign Palestine? No chance
Free rein for media monitor

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ELSEWHERE

Interesting article by the British National Party here. The so-called "Fascists" have embraced libertarianism -- the diametric opposite of Fascism! Liberty is a great British tradition so there is no contradiction in them doing so.

So whom was this harming? "Inspectors will begin annual checks of anatomy laboratories after health authorities were forced to act over a body parts scandal involving claims that dead women were sexually fondled by a staff member. The University of NSW has apologised to the families of people who donated their bodies to its medical faculty, as it came under fire for claiming three months ago that the concerns were related only to body parts being mislabelled. In fact the university had by then already passed on to police details of "salacious" allegations by two staff members that a colleague, who has since left, had fondled breasts and vaginas."

U.S. economy booming under Bush: "Know what's really impressive about today's boffo 3.5 percent GDP growth number for the fourth quarter? It wasn't so long ago that Wall Street economists were wondering if the number would be a "one-handle"-meaning growth between 1.0 and 1.9 percent. And instead of a "hard or "soft" landing, investment pros are now talking about a "growth scare" where a surprisingly robust economy would push the Federal Reserve into raising interest rates. In any event, I am starting to lend more personal credence to the theory that a combination of strong growth, fat corporate profits, and already tight labor market might push the unemployment rate to lows we have not seen since the 1960s."

Australia doing well too: "The unemployment rate has fallen to a fresh thirty-year low as the resources booms and a strong services sector drive economic growth. The unemployment rate in January fell to a seasonally adjusted 4.5 per cent, the lowest since May 1976, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said today. January employment fell by overall a seasonally adjusted 3600, but full-time employment rose by a 3200, helping to push the unemployment rate down to a fresh low. The data reflects strong economic growth through 2006 and anaysts expect jobs growth will acelerate in 2007, which is likely to push the jobless rate down even further."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

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

R.I.P. Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet deposed a law-defying Marxist President at the express and desperate invitation of the Chilean parliament. He pioneered the free-market reforms which Reagan and Thatcher later unleashed to world-changing effect. That he used far-Leftist methods to suppress far-Leftist violence is reasonable if not ideal. The Leftist view that they should have a monopoly of violence and that others should follow the law is a total absurdity which shows only that their hate overcomes their reason -- Details here and here

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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LEFTISM AS ROMANTICISM

Romanticism has found a cozy home on the Left. Toss in a soupcon of “sympathetic vibration with the anger of the suicide/homicide bomber,” and disaster follows. It’s all part of a long tradition whose end is in sight.

[Romantics] believed in the necessity of fighting for your beliefs to the last breath in your body .they believed in the value of martyrdom as such, no matter what the martyrdom was for.. — Isaiah Berlin, The Roots of Romanticism

When we think of Romanticism, we rarely think of rage and nihilism. Perhaps that's because, for most people, the word "romantic" has come to stand for a particular subset of the genre known as "romantic love."

But that's not what the word "Romantic" indicates in the philosophical and/or historical sense—a movement we may have learned about long ago in the classroom, when the concept didn't mean much to us except as something to memorize, be tested on, and then promptly forgotten.

But Romanticism (here's a good summary of the concept) is far more significant than that. It informs our lives in many ways, including-surprisingly enough—our political lives: [The Romantics] sought regeneration — a regeneration we can liken to that of the medieval heretic or saint. They favored selfless enthusiasm, an enthusiasm which was an expression of faith and not as the product of utilitarian calculation. Emotion — unbridled emotion — was celebrated irrespective of its consequences.

If Romanticism glories powerful emotion "irrespective of its consequences," it becomes easy to see why rage and nihilism are no strangers to the movement. And Jean Jacques Rousseau, sometimes thought of as the father of political Romanticism, was no slouch himself in the department of anger and paranoia.

In the realm of human emotions, there are few that are more powerful-and more commonplace-than anger. I'm no Freudian, but the much-maligned Freud introduced many useful concepts, and his term "Id" is one if them. The word "Id" covers forces that include the impulse behind anger, and is defined as the "part of the psyche associated with instinctual, repressed, or antisocial desires, usually sexual or aggressive." Its counterpoint, Freud's "Ego," refers to "a set of psychic functions such as reality-testing, defense, synthesis of information, intellectual functioning, and memory." .......

A longer version of the Isaiah Berlin quote that began this article can be found in Armed Liberal Marc Danziger's discussion of some of these issues. The lengthier excerpt includes Berlin's assertion that the Romantics glorified those perceived as downtrodden: the failures and the minorities. Romantics didn't just express empathy or sympathy for them, but actually elevated them to a place more worthy and more noble than the successes and the majorities.

So, who are the Romantics of today? From the foregoing discussion, it should be clear: Romanticism has found a cozy home on the Left. Romanticism (and Leftism) dictates not just sympathy for the Third World, but near-veneration of those there who combine a sense of victimhood (real or imagined) with what the poet Yeats called passionate intensity, which is the essence of Romanticism.

Anger is part of that passionate intensity, and it's often a dominant part. Anger is not only a strong emotion, it's a protean one, a shape-shifter. It can originate for one reason and towards one object and then its energy can be displaced and/or projected towards something or someone else. In its most intense form, it can result in suicide when it's directed at the self, and homicide when directed at another.

These two-suicide and homicide-are not at all mutually exclusive, of course. Although most suicides do not murder and most murderers do not commit suicide, there's a subset that does exactly both. The murder-suicide, traditionally occurring in Western culture mostly in the romantic (and Romantic) form of the spurned lover, finds its political expression in certain Arab countries in the form of the suicide/homicide bomber, who acquires extra motivation for his/her acts through the glorification of such deeds by that culture.

Political anger is not often severe enough to lead to suicide or homicide, at least not in this country. But the lesser and the greater forms of political anger have a similar etiology: in many cases, an individual who has a pre-existing higher-than-average level of anger (overt or repressed) for personal reasons—whether because of life experiences, or because of a somatic tendency towards anger—latches onto a political philosophy that further justifies that anger, fans it, and channels it in a particular direction......

There's an interesting socioeconomic trend to Romanticism: it's a philosophy that seems to attract a surprising number of the more well-to-do and well-educated. In Arab countries terrorists are at least as likely to come from the ranks of the relatively affluent as they are to be poverty-stricken. And in the West it seems to be the relatively well-to-do these days who are influenced most strongly by Romanticism.

Perhaps `twas ever thus. Romanticism-here and elsewhere—is not only fueled by the guilt sometimes felt by people who have relative plenty when others are suffering, but it's also fostered by an educational system that teaches and glorifies Romanticism in ways both subtle and overt.

So guilt and education are part of it. But there are other ways in which affluence-at least, relative affluence-feeds into Romanticism, especially in this country. Romanticism is idealistic (I would say, naively so). Belief in Romanticism in its purest and most philosophical form requires a certain remove from the struggles of day-to-day existence only available to those not on a subsistence level (see here for a more in-depth discussion of how this might work).

The affluent may also be attracted to the intensity of feeling and experience of the terrorist and the suicide bomber for another reason. Many human beings are probably hard-wired to seek excitement. Those who are no longer engaged in an obvious struggle for existence-no lion hunts, for example—can sometimes feel a sense of ennui and a lack of thrills. Filling this need can take the form of seeking out extreme sports such as skydiving or auto racing, or by high-risk behavior such as gambling or taking drugs. But for some people the quest takes the form of an urge towards nihilism.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

I have just put up here a review of a Greenie book that aims to put use of the Great Lakes under Greenie control.

Another "Thank you" to the UAW: "DaimlerChrysler is planning to make as many as 10,000 workers redundant and close up to three North American factories in a round of job cuts dubbed the "Valentine's Day Massacre" by union bosses. The carmaker's latest round of cuts, part of a wider strategic review called Project X by management, is to be announced on February 14, when workers might expect a more loving gesture than a redundancy notice. Investors are unlikely to be sending DaimlerChrsyler any love letters, either, as the plans will accompany the company's fourth-quarter and full-year financial results for 2006, which are likely to disappoint. The German-American carmaker surprised Wall Street in the third quarter with a $1.5 billion loss at its Chrysler division. Analysts expect the arm to show a loss of about $1 billion for the full year, with DaimlerChrysler as a whole remaining profitable."

'Heroism' of marriage praised: "The Archbishop of Canterbury has attacked the "commentating classes" for damaging marriage and destroying the "moral geography" of society. Dr Rowan Williams, speaking at the House of Commons at the start of National Marriage Week, criticised opponents of marriage for failing to recognise the "prosaic heroism" of people in long, successful unions and said that they were blinkered by their own familiarity with fluid, transient relationships. He said: "What we're up against at the moment is a society that has painfully and disastrously low expectations of relationships." The latest statistics show that the message of the churches on the importance of marriage might be getting through. The number of marriages in England and Wales that ended in divorce fell by eight per cent in 2005 to 141,750, the lowest annual total for five years."

Maoism? Church of England to have its own disruptive "cultural revolution": "A century or more ago, the Church of England sent missionaries to Africa with instructions to convert the heathen. Now, with attendance figures in sharp decline and the Anglican Church in turmoil over homosexuality, bishops are to be told that they must start converting the heathen closer to home. New mission orders are being drawn up to rebuild British faith, and in an ironic reversal of history, some of the missionaries could be from Africa and Asia. The orders form part of a new church law that will create a more flexible parish and diocesan structure. Under the new rules, bishops would be able to fly in a new priest to turn around a flagging parish while the incumbent is still there. The measure would allow evangelical bishops to assert their beliefs over liberal clergy by sending in like-minded evangelicals. Similarly, liberal bishops could defy parishes that were hostile to gays in the Church. Missionaries would also be sent to thriving parishes to offer a fresh perspective. Each mission would be assigned a monitor who would report on its activities to the bishop".

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

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

R.I.P. Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet deposed a law-defying Marxist President at the express and desperate invitation of the Chilean parliament. He pioneered the free-market reforms which Reagan and Thatcher later unleashed to world-changing effect. That he used far-Leftist methods to suppress far-Leftist violence is reasonable if not ideal. The Leftist view that they should have a monopoly of violence and that others should follow the law is a total absurdity which shows only that their hate overcomes their reason -- Details here and here

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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LEFTIST IRRATIONALITY ABOUT ISLAM

An excerpt from Dr Sanity

An alternative strategy adopted by those desperate to deny reality is to insist that merely by responding to terror attacks, we are creating more terrorists. In other words, if we just close our eyes and pretend it doesn't exist, it will all magically go away and everything will be hunky-dory. Oh, and by the way, it isn't historically significant anyway.

Those who profess this irrational perspective never seem to contemplate the reality that since the first WTC bombing--and even before then-- the U.S. followed that course and did very little to comprehensively respond to the rising terrorist threat in the world. And yet, 9/11 still happened. The Balinese did nothing, and yet, the Bali bombings still happened. The Spanish were opposed to the war, and yet, the Madrid bombings still happened. The British, the French, and the Dutch welcomed immigrants from Islam, and yet.... you get the point.

Terrorism has been on the rise since the first time the West appeased its violence and gave into its unreasonable demands, all the while pretending that the blackmail was reasonable and that the violence was only a problem confined to a few backward areas of the world (remember the Iran hostage taking in '79? Remember the Somalia debacle?). But those "few backward areas of the world" keep on expanding into the civilized one. As do the demands of the blackmailers.

The West closed its eyes and resolutely kept them shut for a quarter century. And still the terrorist threat continued to rise and their demands grew ever shriller and more insistent. The madrassas they set up both in their own lands and in the West had been teaching hate for more than a decade before 9/11. The nations of the Middle East were trying to wipe Israel off the map long before 9/11; the Palestinians under the Nobel Peace Prize winner Arafat were still enthusiastically blowing up innocents; but still, both they and their enablers on the left would have you believe that America brought 9/11 on itself; that America (or Israel) is the cause behind all their violence and deathl; and that America acting against Islam's documented desire for peace is only making it worse.

We hear issuing forth from the peaceful adherents of Islam, "Death to America!"; "Death to Israel"; "Death to those who insult Islam"; death, death and more death; always death. But the clear thinkers of the MSM and the left keep telling us that we are the ones who want to kill them. They want peace and brotherhood. Yeah, right.

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ELSEWHERE

Those pesky genes again: "Scientists have found an answer to one of the most intractable squabbles in family life - argumentative and disruptive children are born, not made. A study by American scientists has found that antisocial traits such as being argumentative, bullying and lying, are often inherited. The new research challenges the scientific consensus that difficult children are the product of disruptive homes and are copying parents' behaviour. The implication of the research, conducted by the University of Virginia, is that children with "antisocial" genes would behave badly even if they had been adopted and brought up in a happy family. The effect appears to pass down the generations. It means that couples who fight a lot may be driven by their genes and pass them on to their children, who tend to behave in the same way. The finding emerged from a study of 2,000 children born of 1,000 twins. Half of the twins were identical, meaning they shared all their genes, while the rest were fraternal and so shared only half their genes. The study of behaviour in twins and their children is a standard means of finding out which traits are inherited. Research has also found links between genes and other aspects of bad behaviour."

PETA extremism just alienates: "A few years ago, I worked with a woman that spent a large portion of her time as an activist for PETA. She spent her days off standing in front of furriers protesting the sale of animal pelts and was once arrested for standing outside an upper class department store spray-painting anyone that entered or left the store wearing a fur. Anyone she caught eating a hamburger, wearing leather shoes, or using a product that had been tested on animals, received her standard 10-minute dissertation on the horrors animals endured so that we could enjoy that particular product. She was of course a radical vegetarian and assured me that if I learned to like tofu I would never miss meat. The only reason I can think of for being a vegetarian is if you enjoy having gas 24 hours a day. We are omnivores. Vegetables are meant to accompany that nice thick steak or fish. For me, living in a world without bacon is too horrible to contemplate... Perhaps the lesson to be learned here is that activism is best in moderation. Any movement, philosophy, or political group can suffer irreparable damage at the hands of extremists because they talk the loudest. Your ideals are suddenly associated with radicals that are more intent on drawing attention to themselves than working on a solution"

South Africa's descent into African normality: The murder of David Rattray - gunned down in front of his wife - has caught the attention of the world and traumatised South Africa... Just over a week ago six young Africans carrying guns, one with his face hidden by a balaclava, entered Rattray's famous lodge at Fugitives' Drift (several survivors of the battle of Isandlwana fled there, two of them receiving posthumous Victoria Crosses) and demanded money. When the receptionist refused they asked for Rattray by name. The man in the balaclava entered the house, where he came upon Rattray's wife Nicky. She screamed and when Rattray came running he pleaded briefly with the gunman not to harm his wife or children. Then the man shot him. Rattray's friends abroad are mystified and horrified that someone known as a great philanthropist for the Zulu people could be murdered by members of that community. But within South Africa the killing has brought to a head public opinion that is already in a state of near hysteria over a crime rate which is 6.5 times worse than America's and sees more than 50 murders a day. There is a sense that Rattray's death is a symptom of a far deeper malaise. It has inevitably been an enormous blow to South Africa's tourist industry"

"Our friends, the Saudis": "A Saudi Arabian court has convicted and sentenced 20 foreigners to receive lashes and spend several months in prison for attending a party where alcoholic drinks were served and men and women danced, a Saudi newspaper has reported. The kingdom's religious police arrested 433 foreigners, including more than 240 women, for attending the "impudent" party in Jeddah, the state-guided newspaper Okaz reported. It did not identify the foreigners, give their nationalities or say when the party took place. Judge Saud al-Boushi sentenced the 20 to three to four month in prison and ordered them to receive an unspecified number of lashes.

Australian department store sues Leftists: "In what is believed to be a world first, David Jones begins a legal case tomorrow in which it is suing the left-leaning think tank the Australia Institute and its executive director, Clive Hamilton, over claims the giant retailer's advertising eroticised and sexually exploited children. The case, in the Federal Court in Sydney, is thought to be the first time a court will consider the sexualisation of children in advertising. The retailer is suing under the Trade Practices Act, claiming the institute engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct. The avenue of suing for defamation was closed to big companies after the introduction of uniform defamation laws in January 2006. The case stems from a media release in October titled "Corporate paedophilia - sexualising children by advertising and marketing", which announced the launching of a discussion paper. The release named retail chains such as David Jones and Myer as having "jumped on the bandwagon" in eroticising children in the interests of the bottom line."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

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

R.I.P. Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet deposed a law-defying Marxist President at the express and desperate invitation of the Chilean parliament. He pioneered the free-market reforms which Reagan and Thatcher later unleashed to world-changing effect. That he used far-Leftist methods to suppress far-Leftist violence is reasonable if not ideal. The Leftist view that they should have a monopoly of violence and that others should follow the law is a total absurdity which shows only that their hate overcomes their reason -- Details here and here

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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A DAY TO REMEMBER

Today is the birthday of Ronald Reagan. There is nothing anyone can say about Ronald Reagan that goes anywhere near the words of Ronald Reagan himself so I simply reproduce below a quote that I think encapsulates the man:

“When I attended the commencement ceremonies at the Air Force Academy, I was surprised at how many of the graduating cadets came up to me, hand extended—930 in all—and told me they were praying for me. When I mentioned this to the commanding general, he told me that every morning you could find several hundred cadets in the chapel beginning their day with prayer. Hardly a day goes by that I’m not told—sometimes in letters and sometimes by people I meet—that they’re praying for me. It’s a warm but humbling feeling. Sometimes I answer when someone says that; I feel I have to say something. And I tell them that if they ever get a busy signal, it’s because I’m in there ahead of them. I grew up in a home where I was taught to believe in intercessory prayer. I know it’s those prayers, and millions like them, that are building high and strong this cathedral of freedom that we call America; those prayers, and millions like them, that will always keep our country secure and make her a force for good in these too troubled times. And that’s why as a nation we must embrace our faith, for as long as we endeavor to do good—and we must believe that will be always—we will find our strength, our hope, and our true happiness in prayer and in the Lord’s will.”

The Danger of Fantasy in International Affairs: Palestine

Excerpt from a post by Shrink Wrapped

On occasion I have written about the danger that arises when international affairs are governed more by fantasy than reality.  My first post on the subject looked at the way in which the National fantasies (myths) in the West and within the Islamic world dovetailed in such a way as to guarantee misunderstanding and make the feared Clash of Civilizations more likely.  In my second post on the subject, I discussed the UN, a paean to fantasy in international affairs, and suggested that the anxiety that would ensue for people once they recognized the reality of the disaster that the UN has become, was sufficient cause for them to cling to the fantasy that the UN offered a way to minimize the danger of a break down in the international order.

Related to both of these posts is the idea that the source of much of the Arab and Muslim discontent with the West relates to the Palestinian and Arab conflict with Israel.  The fantasy structure includes the idea that there is a pool of support among the Palestinians and among Arabs in general that would support a two state solution with Israel, if only the Israelis would remove the terrible weight of oppressive occupation from the backs of the poor, benighted, essentially innocent Palestinians.  In one form or another, this fantasy animates much of the international community's approach to the situation; it also animates much of the media coverage of the Middle East.

The front page of the New York Times today contains no stories about the Palestinians and a search of the Times site reveals no mention of Hamas or Fatah.  A search on Google news for "Hamas" and "Fatah" brings up a front page with a number of stories from several days ago, but no stories linked from major Western news organizations today.  The top story is from Ha'aretz two days ago: Despite violations, Hamas-Fatah cease-fire holds. 

We have become inured to stories proclaiming the maintenance of Palestinian truces punctuated by attacks against Israelis several times a day, attacks typically ignored by the Western press, but here we see the template applied to inter-Palestinian clashes.  In fact, last night and this morning, the fighting in Palestine has been particularly vicious....

At this moment the Palestinians are engaged in a civil war; the goal of the war is to control all of the largess that the world continues to heap upon the Palestinians and maintain the dream, fantasy, and desire to destroy Israel.  Nothing out of Gaza or the West Bank gives any reason to question the goals of Fatah or Hamas (or Hezbollah for that matter) yet the International Community behaves as if their fantasy reflects reality.  Many more Israelis will die, and the Palestinians will continue to live in squalor amid a sea of violence and corruption, in order to satisfy everyone's fantasies.  Ultimately, only the Palestinians can decide who represents them, a question that will be resolved via the gun, and then, and only then, can questions of war and peace be addressed. 

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ELSEWHERE



The clenched fist is of course the traditional symbol of Communism -- for good reason: Leftists are full of anger and hate. Marx himself hated just about everybody -- including the workers and including his own mother.

Amazing Israeli tolerance: "Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has given permission for Jordan to build a large minaret adjacent to a mosque on the Temple Mount to call Muslims to prayer at the holy site, WND has learned. The minaret will stand at a site on the Mount where Jewish groups here had petitioned to build a synagogue. A minaret is a tower usually attached to a mosque from which Muslims are called to the five Islamic daily prayers."

ACLU as traitors: "Discussing the arrest warrants a German court had issued that day for 13 CIA agents in connection with the kidnapping of German citizen Khaled El-Masri and his lawsuit against former CIA Director George Tenet and others, filed with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Bill O'Reilly asked CBS News terrorism analyst Michael Scheuer on the January 31 edition of Fox News' The O'Reillly Factor: "Do you think these people are traitors, the ACLU? Are they putting us all in danger?" Scheuer replied that "they have a right to their opinion" but asserted, "[T]hey're very lucky that most Americans are willing to fight to protect their ability to denigrate America." O'Reilly then stated that the ACLU "go[es] beyond that" and that, actually, "they put us in danger." Scheuer agreed, saying: "Oh, I think they do. I think that's certainly true, sir." Scheuer, a former CIA analyst, was head of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit during the Clinton administration."

Let's hope this is true: "A prize-winning Iranian nuclear scientist has died in mysterious circumstances, according to Radio Farda, which is funded by the US State Department and broadcasts to Iran. An intelligence source suggested that Ardeshire Hassanpour, 44, a nuclear physicist, had been assassinated by Mossad, the Israeli security service. Hassanpour worked at a plant in Isfahan where uranium hexafluoride gas is produced. The gas is needed to enrich uranium in another plant at Natanz which has become the focus of concerns that Iran may be developing nuclear weapons."



Obnoxious Soros says America needs to be "De-Nazified": "Senator Barack Obama might want to tell George Soros to shut up, now that the Hungarian-born billionaire has equated the George W. Bush administration with the Third Reich. Soros, who spent $26 million trying to beat Bush two years ago, is a key supporter of the media-darling Illinois Democrat's presidential campaign. But last week at Davos, Soros made folks like Gwyneth Paltrow and Sean Penn look downright patriotic. After asserting that the United States is recognizing the error it made in Iraq, Soros said, "To what extent it recognizes the mistake will determine its future." He went on to say that Turkey and Japan are still hurt by a reluctance to admit to dark parts of their history, and contrasted that reluctance to Germany's rejection of its Nazi-era past. "America needs to follow the policies it has introduced in Germany," Soros said. "We have to go through a certain de-Nazification process."

National Guard forced to run: "A recent standoff between National Guardsmen and heavily armed outlaws along the Mexican border has rattled some troops and raised questions about the rules of engagement for soldiers who were sent to the border in what was supposed to be a backup role. Six to eight gunmen -- possibly heading for Mexico with drug money -- approached a group of Tennessee National Guard troops at an overnight observation post Jan. 3 on the U.S. side of the Arizona-Mexico border. No one fired a shot, and the confrontation ended when American troops retreated to contact the Border Patrol."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

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

R.I.P. Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet deposed a law-defying Marxist President at the express and desperate invitation of the Chilean parliament. He pioneered the free-market reforms which Reagan and Thatcher later unleashed to world-changing effect. That he used far-Leftist methods to suppress far-Leftist violence is reasonable if not ideal. The Leftist view that they should have a monopoly of violence and that others should follow the law is a total absurdity which shows only that their hate overcomes their reason -- Details here and here

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