Research into that pesky Left/Right division in politics

Describing the entire domain of political attitudes in terms of a single Right/Left dimension does have its problems. Many people say they have a mix of views that does not makes them clearly either Leftist or Rightist. Libertarians in particular are always promoting a two dimensional description of political attitudes. The political compass and the "World's Smallest Political Quiz" are popular applications of such theories. Below is one example of such a description:



I regret to report, however, that we seem to be pretty stuck with the old Left/Right schema. Academics have been talking about this at least since the 1940s. Various authors (e.g. Eysenck, 1954; Rokeach, 1960; Kerlinger, 1967) have proposed that an adequate description of world politics really needs two dimensions, as we see above. They propose, for example, that the Left-Right dimension be supplemented by an Authoritarian/Permissive dimension. So that democratic Leftists and Rightists are Permissive Leftists and Rightists whereas Communists and Fascists are Authoritarian Leftists and Rightists. They have not however been able to produce strong evidence that the attitudes of the man in the street are organized that way -- as I point out here and here and here, for instance.

The dimensionality of political attitudes was a topic of great interest to me also throughout my research career and many of my published papers bear on it. I attempted an answer to the dimensionality question in the second paper I ever wrote, in fact -- written in 1968 and published in 1973.

What we usually find when we do surveys of people's attitudes on political questions is that MOST people lean one way or the other. A person who agrees with one "conservative" opinion is highly likely to agree with lots of other "conservative" opinions. Very few people are evenly balanced between Leftist and Rightist opinions. THAT is the basic fact of the matter.

By contrast, people are not at all likely to be predictably pro- or anti-authority. Typically they will agree with about equal numbers of pro-authority and anti-authority questions. Leftists will tend to agree with the enforcement of Leftist authority (e.g. over business activities) and conservatives will tend to agree with enforcement of conservative authority (e.g. over moral matters). The Left/Right division swamps everything else. See here.

The account of Left/Right attitudes given in my monograph on conservatism suggests why this is so. For a start, the assumption that Fascists or Nazis are Right-wing is false. Hitler himself energetically claimed to be a socialist and Mussolini (the founder of Fascism) was a lifelong Marxist. The evidence for this has been summarized at great length elsewhere so will not be elaborated here.

Historically, the core of conservatism has always been a suspicion of government power and intervention and conservatives therefore accept only the minimum amount of government that seems needed for a civil society to function. So it is no wonder that there is no authoritarian version of conservative ideology. If it were authoritarian it could not be conservative.

Leftism, on the other hand, IS intrinsically authoritarian and power-loving and will always therefore tend in the direction of government domination. It is only non-authoritarian to the extent that is thwarted by external influences (such as democracy) from achieving its aims. Leftists in democratic societies do of course commonly deny authoritarian motivations but that is just part of their "cover". Deeds speak louder than words.

A way in which a two-dimensional schema is NEARLY correct

As conservatives characteristically know and as Leftists characteristically deny, reality tends to be peskily complex -- and the present subject is no exception. I wish therefore to point out now one of the complexities not mentioned so far.

There IS a way to divide up normal political discourse into two distinct dimensions but those two dimensions tend to be correlated. They are not independent. Knowing a person's position on one dimension will give you a weak prediction of his/her position on the second dimension. Ferguson in fact published such a description of the attitude domain in the 1940s, though he failed to see that his two dimensions were correlated.

And the dimensions identified by Ferguson can always be found in comprehensive survey research and they are in fact rather familiar. They are the religious/moral dimension and the economic dimension. In other words, it is perfectly possible for people to be conservative on religious and moral matters but at the same time to be socialistically inclined on economic matters -- as indeed America's founding fathers initially were. For an extended discussion of just that combination, see here. There IS even now a religious Left who favour all sorts of government intervention in economic matters. As Waldman says: "Actually, in 2000, at least 10 million white "evangelical Christians" voted for Gore".

Some attitude combinations are more common than others, however, and it will be no news to anybody to hear that the PREPONDERANCE of religious conservatives also support conservative (non-interventionist) economic policies.

What is surprising, in fact, is how weakly the two attitude clusters are associated. In one of my 1973 papers, I found, for instance, a correlation of only .24 between economic conservatism and social conservatism. It was this weakness of association that misled Ferguson into thinking that his two dimensions were not correlated at all.

It would appear, however, that this weakness of association stems from areas of discourse that are less central to overall political orientation -- as, in some 1984 research, I found that moral issues lay at the centre of all conservatism/Leftism issues. See the second Appendix in the paper. It is no wonder, then, that religious conservatives figure so prominently in America's Grand Old Party at the beginning of the 21st century. It shows, perhaps unsurprisingly, that the most personal issues are also the most important in politics.

In summary, then, religious/moral conservatism and economic conservatism are distinct but related -- and the more important the issue is the more highly they become related. It is perhaps encouraging that psychological research from many years previously in Australia predicted so well what is happening in American politics in the early 21st century.

References:

Eysenck, H.J. (1954) The psychology of politics. London: Routledge

Ferguson, L. (1941) The stability of the primary social attitudes. J. Psychology, 12, 283-288.

Kerlinger, F. N. (1967). Social attitudes and their criterial referents: A structural theory. Psychological Review, 74, 110-122.

Rokeach, M. (1960) The open and closed mind. N.Y.: Basic Books.

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ELSEWHERE



The Democrats are at the moment trying to make a big case out of the firing of eight Federal prosecutors by the Bush administration -- something the administration was perfectly entitled to do as the appointments are politiical ones anyway. I have some comments by Attorney General Gonzales about the matter up on Immigration Watch and there is more from him here. What the Democrats are determinedly ignoring was that Bill Clinton fired ALL 93 Federal prosecutors when he came to power -- thus bringing to an end investigations of his dubious personal history. See here. See also here for another way in which the pot is calling the kettle Afro-American.

There is so much being written at the moment about General Peter Pace and his adverse view of homosexual acts that I hate to add to it. Keith Burgess-Jackson does however, summarize the matter succinctly.

Reuters ignores Muslim attacks on Arab Christians: "In an outrageous piece of Anti-semitic journalism, Reuters blames "Israeli occupation" for the Christian flight from the West Bank"

Hating Halliburton, episode 9341: "Halliburton apparently does now, as this report from the Houston Chronicle indicates. And to answer the important question, no, Dubai doesn't. Extradite everyone we ask for, that is. Perhaps Dubai will extradite Halliburton executives in the future, and Halliburton accountants and administrators and operators, too. We will surely need their testimony, and their bad selves, for all those future criminal charges here in the United States. Maybe Dubai will, maybe Dubai won't. If I were Halliburton's CEO Dave Lesar, with less than two years left in a Cheney administration, I'd move all the junk in my trunk to Dubai, and quick. Time is money. And there could be a lot of time served given the way Halliburton has 'earned' their government paycheck over the past six years." [If I had been subjected to as much abuse as Halliburton has, I would want to move somewhere else too]

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

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.

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".

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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El Pollo Puesto en Peligro

The post below is lifted from Taranto. I have never studied Spanish but I interpret Taranto's Spanish above as "The chicken position in danger"

It's been three years and a day since al Qaeda's pre-election attack on a Madrid train station, in which 191 people were murdered. The Los Angeles Times has a follow-up report, which includes this:

Spanish officials and experts say the country is potentially in more danger now than ever before as extremist groups reorganize just beyond Spain's southern coast.

As the trial began here last month, more arrests and prosecutions were announced, and senior officials say radicals in Morocco and other parts of northern Africa, many with ties to Spain, increasingly take their cues from Al Qaeda....

Maghreb-based networks remain the most serious threat to Spain in terms of Islamic extremism, law enforcement officials said this week. They said militants had begun to set up a centralized command and a string of training camps in southern Algeria and northern Mali, and have launched recruiting efforts targeting their brethren who live in Spain.

"We are seeing the Al Qaeda-ization of the Maghreb militants, and that is the evolution that most worries us," a senior counter-terrorism official in the Spanish Interior Ministry said in an interview.

But wait! Didn't Spain respond to the 3/11 attack by electing a Socialist government that quickly cut and ran from Iraq? Si, they did! Why in the world would al Qaeda still hate the Spanish then?

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Soul Murder: Nurtured on Hate

Excerpt from a post by Shrinkwrapped:

The New York Times has what is clearly meant to be a sympathetic article about the plight of the young in Palestine. The article is sad, deeply pessimistic, and incomplete in ways which reveal a surprising lack of curiosity:

Years of Strife and Lost Hope Scar Young Palestinians

NABLUS, West Bank - Their worried parents call them the lost generation of Palestine: its most radical, most accepting of violence and most despairing. They are the children of the second intifada that began in 2000, growing up in a territory riven by infighting, seared by violence, occupied by Israel, largely cut off from the world and segmented by barriers and checkpoints.

To hear these young people talk is to listen in on budding nihilism and a loss of hope. "Ever since we were little, we see guns and tanks, and little kids wanting little guns to fight against Israel," said Raed Debie, 24, a student at An Najah University here.

The article is filled with stories of unhappy, despairing youngsters in Palestine. The reporter assumes the typical point of view, that the cause of the Palestinians despair is the lack of a state of their own and the onerous Israeli occupation.

Israeli checkpoints, barriers and closures, installed to protect Israelis from Palestinian suicide bombers, have lowered these young people's horizons, shrunk their notion of Palestine and taken away virtually any informal interaction with outsiders, let alone with ordinary Israelis. The security measures have become even tighter since the election to power a year ago of the Islamist group Hamas, which preaches eternal "resistance" to Israeli occupation and rejects Israel's right to permanent existence on this land.

There is only one brief mention of how the Palestinians have been educating their young; Ayman is a 16 year old:

Ayman, however, like most members of his generation, cannot imagine living in peace next to an Israel that has ripped up his town, or becoming friends with an Israeli who has rolled over his schoolyard in a tank. "Israel should leave this land," he said angrily, then repeats what he has been taught, that all of historic Palestine belongs to Muslims. "The Jews should go back to where they came from, to Europe, Russia and America," he said. "They have no place here." Israel breaks all its agreements, Ayman says. "How can you make peace with them?" he asks. "Even the Koran says there will be war with them until the day of judgment."

Yet Mr. Fayyad [Ayman's father] has not given up all hope. He says he believes that this generation is still malleable, immature. "You can influence them through realistic solutions," he said. "If you delivered a real, two-state solution, believe me, they would go into the streets and dance. But if nothing changes, believe me also, they are lost - lost to all of us."

There is also only a cursory discussion of the conflict between Hamas and Fatah, a conflict that is dominating Palestinian life, especially in Gaza. However, nowhere in the article is there any sense that the Palestinians might have a great deal of responsibility for their own plight; they are forever victims of circumstances beyond their control.

When the Oslo accords were signed with such great fanfare, and the terrorist murderer received his Nobel Prize, part of the agreement was for the Palestinians to stop the teaching of hate which was a staple in their schools and in the state controlled media. This was never done and the hatred spewed forth at Jews, Israelis, Americans, et al, continues to poison the minds of Palestinian youngsters.

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ELSEWHERE

French Jews Fleeing Into Florida: "Over the past few years there have been reports of French Jews relocating or even being urged to relocate by some Jewish groups and now there's a new twist: French Jews are fleeing into Florida, the Miami Herald reports. And it's providing a booming business for Florida immigration lawyers. French Jews living in South Florida told The Miami Herald that hostility from Islamic militants in France after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States spurred them to leave. Departures surged after last year's abduction and death of Ilan Halimi in France."

Russia's patience wearing thin with Iran: "Iran's isolation over its nuclear ambitions has deepened as Russia, its closest big power ally, announced indefinite delays to a joint nuclear power project and accused Tehran of abusing its goodwill. Russia has defied Western concerns to supply arms to Iran, aided the Iranians in building the Bushehr nuclear power station and helped to water down sanctions against Tehran in the UN. But it is now signalling its patience with Iran's leadership is wearing thin. Atomstroiexport, the state-owned contractor helping build the Bushehr plant, said the first fuel deliveries would not go ahead as planned this month and the scheduled September launch date would not now be met either. The contractor said the delays were caused by a payment row, but observers in Moscow said the project was, in effect, being mothballed because of political sensitivities. The US, which suspects Iran of accumulating nuclear knowhow to build a bomb, has for years urged Moscow to halt the project, but the Kremlin refused."

CAIR OK'd to meet in Capitol: "A House Democrat has arranged for a conference room in the Capitol building to be used tomorrow by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim advocacy group criticized for its persistent refusal to disavow terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah. The District-based group also is singled out by other Democratic lawmakers and some law-enforcement officials because of financial ties to terrorists. Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., New Jersey Democrat, reserved the basement conference room for CAIR's panel discussion Tuesday titled "Global Attitudes on Islam-West Relations: U.S. Policy Implications."

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

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.

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".

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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Atheist conservatives

I am myself both an atheist and a libertarian conservative and some libertarian conservatives are hostile to the role of Christianity in American conservatism. They feel that Christian conservatives oppress them and make conservatism unduly narrow. I do not feel that way. I have the warmest feelings towards Christians -- and I know Christianity very well, both from upbringing and from a strongly evangelical phase in my teenage years.

There is a good summary of the controversy by Steven Warshawsky. I reproduce below one paragraph from his article that I particularly appreciate and agree with:

"I have long believed that part of being a "conservative" is being respectful of religion. Or rather, to be more precise, being respectful of Christianity. Unlike Orlet, I am not offended when someone says that this is a "Christian nation." It is. America certainly is not a Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist nation. As a Jew, I am deeply grateful for this nation's Christian heritage. No nation on earth treats Jews better. While there are many reasons for this, I believe that Christianity is part of what makes America the great country that she is. And as a fervently patriotic American, I will support and defend this country's Christian heritage to my dying days.

And I have had a privilege and a pleasure Warshawsky has not -- the privilege of once having been an evangelical Christian. And to this day when I listen to the great Protestant hymns -- such as "How great thou art" -- I am always profoundly grateful for the powerful and transformative religion we have inherited from the men of faith who shaped the world we live in.

Warsharsky probably does overgeneralize a bit in some of his other statements, however, and I reproduce below part of a reply to his unduly sweeping claims. I have myself written at some length on the complex historical relationship between Christianity and politics here.

I might just point out here that any such conflict hardly arises where I live -- in Australia. Australians are usually very skeptical religiously so most conservatives are respectful of religion but are not particularly religious themselves. And yet Australia is in some ways more conservative than the USA!

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The historical origins of Christian religious tolerance

Christ's command: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." (Matthew 19:19) should have been sufficient warrant for Christian tolerance but historically it did not work out that way. Excerpt below from The American Thinker

The fact that any and all religions can be openly practiced in America is an outcome of the phenomenon that was very different - and, in fact, exactly opposite - to Christian tolerance; it grew out of Christian intolerance to Christians, and of the oppressed Christians' desire to put an end to it.

This is not as confusing as it sounds. Before the reformation, there was only one Church and only one Christianity, Catholicism - all other ones being successfully suppressed. Reformation - the split of Christendom into the Catholics and the Evangelicals - broke not only the Pope's monopoly on creed but, far more importantly, on his ability to enforce it, because allegiances of those wielding secular power split too. Many powerful princes and communities - first in Germany, but later in Switzerland, Low countries, Sweden, England and France - also took the reformist's side. The split of Christendom into two roughly equal centers of power resulted in wars that were horrifying - far exceeding in bloodshed and misery the present-day's dust-off between Shiahs and Sunnis in Iraq - and taught the European and, later, American Christians that sticking one's Truth, no matter how obviously True, down the neighbor's throat is not going to do anybody any good.

Moreover, the logic of evangelicalism with its stress on coming to God through personal acceptance of Christ, and realization that only the few were really intended to be saved, meant that religious coercion not only didn't make any sense theologically, but was in fact an ultimate act of irreligion. Hence, John Milton could react to the attempt to institute licensing of clergy in the Cromwellian England by describing such clergymen as "hireling wolves whose Gospel is their maw" and appealing to Oliver Cromwell to thwart the efforts of those who "threaten to bind our souls with secular chains." Conscience that was free on any coercion - and hence, free speech and free exercise of religion - were to become the gateways to God.

American Christians got this notion from their English puritan fore-fathers, who came to this conclusion in the crucible of the English Civil war of mid-seventeenth-century. Around 1640 there was a clash between two opposing, intolerant, ayatollah-style forces: Anglican church under heavy-handed Archbishop Laud, and the equally narrow-minded Scottish Presbyterians, a clash which left the puritan non-conformists squeezed in the middle and harassed by both sides, developing in the process a notion of separation of church and state, and producing in Roger Williams a brilliant advocate of the idea that the matters of religion should better be left to each individual alone. The separation of church and state which ensures our freedom to believe just as we see fit was, thus, not an act of generosity on the part of Christians towards non-Christians as Mr. Warshawsky would have us believe, but a vital necessity, effected by the Evangelicals and for the Evangelicals.

And it is this separation of church and state - that in effect outlaws the very notion of "True Faith" which bedevils today's Moslems and causes them to resort to violence - is the main legacy of Christians in America and, being enshrined in the first amendment of the US constitution by the very religious, very Christian, very conservative yet very clear-minded founding fathers, is Christianity's chief contribution to American way of life, and an enduring symbol of the fact that the religious can overcome narrow-mindedness and not be the brainless, intolerant, monomaniacal, homicidal and suicidal idolatrous two-legged creatures like those populating present day's Moslem Middle East.

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ELSEWHERE

There is a post here reporting some rare media realism about the war on Islamofascism in Iraq and elsewhere.

The usual Leftist interest in the facts: "Democrats voted for the war in 2002 without ever having read the classified National Intelligence Estimate that they demanded. The Washington Post reported that only a handful of Congressmen and 6 Senators signed in to view the classified report. Then, after authorizing the war, they claimed that they had not seen the intelligence caveats that detailed the confidence in various intelligence claims about Saddam's regime.caveats that were in the classified version that they chose not to read. One would think that the next time Congressional Democrats demanded intelligence assessments, they'd actually read them. Nope. Since last August, Congressional Democrats have "demanded" that the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) provide a briefing to Congress on the war in Iraq. In January the DNI arranged for briefers from all of the different intelligence agencies to spend a full day briefing all of Congress. Your Congressman and mine, your Senators and mine all chose not to attend. No members of Congress attended the briefings they had demanded."

Is this the REAL Ted Kennedy Chappaquiddick story? It sounds plausible and it is certainly worth having on record.

Chris Brand has a roundup of the latest "racism" controversies in Britain.

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

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.

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".

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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STIGMATIZING ISRAEL AS AN "APARTHEID STATE"

Post excerpted from Democracy Project

We see ... the international propaganda effort to label Israel an "apartheid" state. It's a well-considered and coordinated campaign, to make Israel a pariah. Former president Jimmy Carter is a willing co-conspirator, and he didn't start recently. None other than John Kerry's hagiographer, Douglas Brinkley, revealed what Carter was advising Yasser Arafat on how to describe the 1987-1993 Palestinian intifada:

Carter advised him to tell the world of the Palestinians' situation in speeches designed ``to secure maximum sympathy." .Brinkley said Carter told him, referring to the civil rights injustices that occurred in the southern United States in the 1960s, that ``the intifada exposed the injustice Palestinians suffered, just like Bull Connor's mad dogs in Birmingham."

Carter ratcheted up his animosity to Israel in his latest description of Israel as an apartheid state, and seeks to mask his purpose by saying, as the Associated Press reports "I have spent a good part of my life seeking peace for Israel based on justice for the Arabs." One-sided "justice" is otherwise known as a kangaroo court and, in this instance, annihilation of Israel and Jews....

Benjamin Pogrund, former deputy editor of South Africa's Rand Daily Mail, explains:

Apartheid . comes easily to hand: it is a lazy label for the complexities of the Middle East conflict. It is also used because, if it can be made to stick, then Israel can be made to appear to be as vile as was apartheid SA and seeking its destruction can be presented to the world as an equally moral cause.

The influence of such intellectual laziness, or animosity, in using falsely inflammatory words is international.

Cardinal Karl Lehmann, chairman of the Conference of German Catholic Bishops, deplored Wednesday remarks by bishops who said walls around Palestinian communities reminded them of the Warsaw Jewish ghetto.. Two Catholic bishops in a party that visited Yad Vashem this week had been quoted saying they were shocked to see on the same day images of the ghetto where the Nazis confined Warsaw Jews and the confinement of Palestinians in the West Bank by walls. . Lehmann said, "The German bishops are aware of their historical responsibility. We know that we have to constantly show this anew by being sensitive in our choice of words."

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Disgusting Primitive Cultures that Leftists Drool Over

Post below excerpted from American Digest -- which see for links

I love gloating at little news squibs like this:

GUATEMALA CITY - Mayan priests will purify a sacred archaeological site to eliminate "bad spirits" after President Bush visits next week, an official with close ties to the group said Thursday. "That a person like (Bush), with the persecution of our migrant brothers in the United States, with the wars he has provoked, is going to walk in our sacred lands, is an offense for the Mayan people and their culture,"

That's a classic bit of blather served up by the guileful for the clueless. The takeaway is that it would be an 'affront' and somehow 'unclean' for the President of the United States to place his feet on the "sacred lands" of the Maya; that to do so would somehow imbue such sites with "bad spirits." Oh really? Before we all launch into another round of post-modern reverential drool over Native Mesoamerican cultures of yesteryear, let's review the "spiritual" record of the Mayan "culture," one that peaked about 1,100 years ago and has yet to recover from the muck of its "Golden Age." In this case, the site that Bush is scheduled to visit is Iximche. The spiritual activities there when it was a Mayan cultural center and disco parlor included:

"After extraction of the heart, which was offered to the idol, the heads were put on poles on a special altar dedicated to this purpose, where they remained for some time, after which they were buried. The bodies of the sacrificed were cooked and eaten as sanctified flesh (Guillemin, 1969:27; 1977:258). Aspects of this religious complex show up in the human remains excavated at Iximche, the Kaqchikel Maya capital." ....

Oh, didn't I mention that the Noble Ancient Mayan's especially valued children when it came to human sacrifice? They did. It seemed kids made it a better ritual when the innocent were being hacked up, and better still when their suffering before being slaughtered was audible. More stimulating, one would imagine. Hotter soundtrack. The menu was something like this:

"Human sacrifice was perpetrated on prisoners, slaves, and particularly children, with orphans and illegitimate children specially purchased for the occasion. Priests were assisted in human sacrifices by four older men who were known as chacs, in honour of the Rain God, Chac. These men would hold the arms and legs of a sacrificial victim while the chest was opened up by another individual called a nacom."

The Mayans, inheritors of a great and noble culture. I sort of hope they get into purifying the site of their oh-so-noble ancestors at Iximche on a daily basis.

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ELSEWHERE

The REAL documentary about global warming -- the British film, "The great global warming swindle" -- is now up for viewing online. Click here and see some real science for a change.

Iranian Imam Receives Christ Via Satellite TV, Escapes Country: "One of the top Islamic leaders in Iran accepted Christ and left the country after facing death threats and imprisonment, according to an Iranian pastor living in the U.S. "This man has been watching Christian TV programs for the past two years," said Pastor Elnathan Baghestani, founder of Iran for Christ Ministries. (www.iranforchrist.com) Pastor Baghestani and his wife provide Christian programming to the Mohabat Network satellite, which broadcasts 24/7 into Iran and other Middle Eastern countries... While it is illegal to own satellite dishes in Iran, many hide them on their roofs or other locations on their property. "They arrest people for having satellite dishes because they know the Christian programming is effective," Baghestani noted."

Bush's unsung battle against anti-Semitism: "Politico.com excerpts the new book A World Ignited: How Apostles of Ethnic, Religious, and Racial Hatred Torch the Globe, by Martin and Susan J. Tolchin, with evidence of the President's battle against gobal anti-Semitism, a battle for which he receives precious little support from Jewish voters. I am not holding my breath waiting for the New York Times to review this book.

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

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.

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".

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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Who are the "good guys" in the Middle East?

On Wednesday, Israeli troops arrested 18 fugitive terrorists. Were these operatives of the evil Hamas movement or the Iranian oriented Islamic Jihad? No, they were members of the Fatah movement of "moderate" Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. part of the Fatah Al-Aqsa brigades. Where they were arrested is even more interesting, since they were hiding in Palestinian Military intelligence headquarters, where they were supposedly going to be absorbed into the Palestinian Police Force!.

This raid points out one of the absurdities and double binds of an increasingly absurd situation. On the one hand, Mahmoud Abbas is supposed to be a "peace partner." In that capacity, the United States has been supplying his forces with arms. On the other hand, the Fatah remains committed to "resistance" (=terrorism) against Israel. When your "peace partner" attacks you, or harbors terrorists, what are you supposed to do? And after you do it, how do you meet your "peace partner" for further talks? True, these people were supposed to be absorbed into the Palestinian police force. This absorption was supposed to happen in 2005. It is not happening. If some Al Aqsa brigade members join the police force, others are quickly recruited for the role of terrorists. Security in the Palestinian authority turns out to be a comic opera farce in which the police and the terrorists are the same people in different uniforms, guarding themselves against themselves. Of course, there have also been too many instances in which Palestinian police in police uniforms have attacked Israelis.

After Abbas succumbed to Hamas demands and agreed to allow Hamas to take over the PLO as well as forming a government with them in the Mecca agreement, the question of "who is the good guy?" in the Palestinian Authority must be addressed with new urgency. Israel and the United States have to rethink have to rethink their attitude to Mahmoud Abbas. If he wants support as a moderate, he must show some signs that he has earned that support.

Source (See the original for links)

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The sources of Leftism in intellectuals

Excerpt from here. I have written on this at greater length here (or here)

Schooling, maintains Nozick, breeds in intellectuals a sense of superiority, and with it a sense of entitlement to the highest rewards society has to offer - not just top salaries but praise comparable to that lavished on them by their teachers. After completing their formal academic training in the centralized environment of the classroom, intellectuals go forth into a seemingly chaotic capitalist society, which purports to reward individual citizens by merit but in fact applies a different standard of merit from the one imparted in the classroom.

So an open, capitalist society falls just short of satisfying intellectuals' sense of entitlement. At least three points are worth teasing out of Nozick's essay. One, capitalist society allows wordsmiths to live comfortable lives-but those who excel outside the classroom often reap the highest material rewards. Entrepreneurship in business or other applied disciplines -- disciplines that may or may not depend on pure academic knowledge or verbal dexterity -- can bring a far more extravagant lifestyle than a career in journalism, government, or the academy.

This runs afoul of intellectuals' sense of their place in the natural pecking order. But it should have little bearing on intellectuals' attitudes toward the armed services, given the less-than-generous salaries and benefits paid to soldiers, sailors, and airmen. Servicemen rank well below wordsmith intellectuals from a purely material standpoint. This disparity should seem to reinforce intellectuals' sense of superiority.

But, American society reserves the highest respect and admiration not for professors or journalists but for those in practical disciplines such as the armed forces, law enforcement, firefighting, or emergency medicine. Americans typically rate the military at or near the top of the nation's institutions, with journalism and lawmakers near or at the bottom. This status deficit rankles intellectuals. While America certainly needs academic skill and enterprise, an open society maddeningly-prizes other things as much as if not more than the ability to turn a clever phrase.....

Nozick observes that academic training teaches intellectuals to prefer a centralized environment in which an authority figure, not the vagaries of the market, sets standards and dispenses rewards and punishments according to certain rational standards.

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Brookes News Update

Keynes' errors, fallacies and contradictions: No less a personage than John Stone, considered one of Australia's arch economic rationalists, described Keynes' 'General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money' as a monumental work . As I have tried to make clear, the only thing monumental about the General Theory is the sheer magnitude of its fallacies, inconsistencies and embarrassing contradictions
South America's resurgent left is a threat to liberty: South America's cultist left, led by political gangsters like Chavez, is aligned with Muslim terrorists and Colombian narcoguerrillas. Its goal: to utterly destroy any possibility of liberal societies emerging in South America
Australian media's support for Clinton and the Democrats explains their hatred of Bush: Australia has no equivalent of the 'Washington Times' or the 'American Spectator' to counter the country's leftist journalists. In fact there genuine media criticism is basically non-existent
The liberals compulsion to apologise: Nothing more epitomizes liberals' fear of envy than their compulsion to apologize. Apologize to the world for the existence of exploitative America. Apologize to the Earth for the existence of polluting humanity
Income inequality and leftist bigotry: Income inequality: exchange in a free market is based on voluntary transactions. If the so-called distribution of incomes is unjust then the exchanges that brought about the distribution must also be unjust
Why Hillary Clinton's plan to impose price controls on the drug industry will fail: There is a single historical example of prices controls succeeding. Nevertheless, Hillary Clinton, the genius that created the vaccine shortage, and her fellow band of economic illiterates insist on apply the same destructive policy to all drugs

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

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.

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".

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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LEFTISTS DON'T BOTHER WITH FACTS

Let's compare and contrast Liberals' view of two mathematical models: On the one hand, Liberals demand immediate drastic and costly policies to curtail man-made greenhouse gases based on complex mathematical climate models that predict global warming sometime in the distant future - models based on questionable data resulting in predictions that cannot be tested for at least 50 years. Meteorologists and Climatologists who dissent with this liberal view are equated with holocaust-deniers with demands made to withdraw their professional credentials.

On the other hand, Liberals ignore and discount the enormous historical evidence showing the accuracy and efficacy of "supply-side" economic models developed by Nobel-prize winner Milton Friedman, Arthur Laffer and others that were implemented as tax-cut policies by John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. This evidence includes sustained economic growth, sustained employment growth resulting in low-rates of unemployment, and enormous (albeit minimally reported) increases in Federal Tax revenues and reductions in the Federal budget deficit - all of them accurate predictions of the models!

Further confirming evidence can be found elsewhere in the world in countries such as Chile, Estonia and Britain under Margaret Thatcher. Despite this overwhelming evidence, Liberals still question the utility of tax-cuts as means for government to stimulate the economy and increase tax revenues. Indeed, despite his unrelieved record of erroneous forecasts of impending economic recession over many, many years now, no Liberal is questioning Paul Krugman's credentials as Princeton Professor of Economics or New York Times columnist. This dichotomy only underscores the conviction that modern Liberalism is a quasi-religious set of beliefs that cannot be perturbed by facts or evidence.

Source

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Al-Arabiyya TV Director-General: 'Why Do Islamist Extremists Who Incite Against the West Insist on Living There?'

A good question: In an article in the London daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Al-Arabiyya TV Director-General Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed criticized the hypocrisy of Islamist extremists who live and operate in the West. He said that while these extremists spread hatred for the West and incite against Western culture, at the same time they fight for the right to stay there. The following are excerpts:

"The common denominator shared by Abu Qatada, currently under arrest in Britain, Osama Nasser, who was kidnapped in Rome, and Omar Bakri, who fled from London, is that all of them want to [live] in the West, rather than in their native Islamic countries. Abu Qatada prefers to remain under arrest in Britain, and not to be deported to Jordan. The Italian imam Abu Omar Osama Al-Masri, who was kidnapped by the CIA [and taken] to Egypt, is likewise demanding to return to Milan, the fashion capital, and is even suing for financial compensation. As for the most famous of the three, [Omar] Bakri, he hurried to the airport and grabbed a flight to Lebanon when the [British] government prepared [to take] punitive measures against [individuals] who incite to violence. [But] now, after spending some time in his homeland, he is begging to return to London, despite all the [British] decisions, and despite all his statements against them.

"What makes fundamentalist extremists, who incite against the West and its culture, the first to run into its arms, and to fight [for the right] to stay there? Do they suffer from a split personality, with one [personality] endorsing an ideology of hate, and the other wanting to enjoy the principles [that form the basis] of life in the West? We have never heard of [these extremists] wanting to immigrate to Somalia or Pakistan, or [wanting to return] to their countries of origin. [This], despite all their sermons and writings about religious duty and love of the homeland, [and despite the fact that] they characterize others as 'infidels,' to the extent that some [extremists] even call to fight [these infidels]."

"What makes Omar Bakri, who enjoys liberty in Britain, spread hatred [against Britain], fight its culture, and say obscenely that [Britain] is a toilet in which he lives in order to defecate there? Does it make sense for someone like him to express a desire to return to Britain after everything he has said and done? "As for Abu Qatada, he prefers to remain in prison and not to return to his homeland Jordan, just like [Osama Nasser], the imam from Milan, who is protesting about being taken to Egypt and about being imprisoned there. Not only is he protesting his abduction; he has also decided to sue for 20 million Euro in damages.

"It is blatantly obvious that all three are enjoying all the benefits of the [government] they despise: They want the financial aid, the security, the [rule of] law, the justice and the freedom of expression afforded by this government. Is this not the epitome of hypocrisy? When they preach, aren't they greatly deceiving their followers - [considering this discrepancy] between what they say and what they do?

"It is some of the extremist hate-mongers living in the West who are inciting the Muslims in the East against Western countries... - those [same] countries that have hosted them, given them protection and shelter, and in many cases also financed the education of their children, including their Islamic and Arabic language studies. It is also revolting to see writers denouncing the actions of [Western] governments that wish to get rid of the extremists by sending them back to their Islamic countries.

"Instead of demanding that the Arab [countries] mend their legal and security deficiencies, they ask the [Western] countries that have thrown out these extremists to spare them and to tolerate the ideological damage that they inflict upon their societies."

Source

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ELSEWHERE

British justice: "A pensioner [State-supported senior] who lives beside the seaside has been warned by his council that he faces a heavy fine for fly-tipping if he returns windblown sand in his garden back to the beach. Arthur Bulmer, 79, has long complained of sand drifting on to his property on the fore-shore at Lytham St Anne’s, in Lancashire, but this year’s gales have exacerbated the problem. When he asked Fylde Borough Council if it was permissible to return the sand where it came from, he was told it would constitute fly-tipping. He should treat it as litter and take it to the municipal refuse tip. The council told him that they happily clear sand deposited on the public highway but once it lands on private property it becomes the responsibility of the owners. The pensioner says that he has no alternative but to pay a specialist waste disposal firm to collect his unwanted sand and take it away."

Wow! How wicked! Walgreen sends black employeees to work in black areas!: "The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claims that the Walgreen drug-store chain has been discriminating against African-American workers. The suit alleges that Walgreen commonly sends its African-American managers and pharmacists to low-performing stores and those in predominantly black neighborhoods."

I have just put up one of my occasional posts on my personal blog (backup here), for what small interest it may have.

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

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.

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".

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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Why do psychically and economically marginal Westerners convert to Islam?

Excerpt from Dhimmi Watch

There is no one reason. There are many reasons. Islam is wrongly perceived as a vehicle for "social justice." The fact that a rich Muslim can stand side by side with a poor one at a mosque is misinterpreted. The fact that Muslims are required to offer zakat to fellow Muslims is also misinterpreted as meaning that there is some kind of "sharing of the wealth."

But one has only to look at the history of Islam, and look at Muslim societies today, to see the extremes of wealth and power. In many Muslim countries the only way to get that wealth is for the rulers and their collaborators to help themselves to the national riches, whether those riches come from oil or smuggling (Syria) or Jizyah from Infidel lands (Egypt, the "Palestinians"). There are no Infidel lands that offer the same kind of gap between rich and poor, the ruler and the ruled, as do Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, and other Muslim countries...

A second, and related reason for some to convert to Islam is that Islam is depicted as the belief-system that most accords with, and furthers the interests of, les damnes de la terre, especially non-whites. It is amazing how carefully campaigns are targeted at certain groups -- say, black prisoners in America and England -- without any countervailing effort by the authorities, or even by Christian groups, or even by black Christian groups, who could and should be funded for such undertakings. They could present the evidence about the history of Arab slavers seizing and castrating black African boys, or about the duration of the Arab slave trade, which began long before, and ended long after (where it did end) than the European slave trade, and the continued, indeed permanent, defense of slavery in the texts of Islam, which can never be overcome, and the continued enslavement of blacks by Arabs, in the Sudan, in Mauritania, and elsewhere, far from any Western reporters. There is so much information about this, but so little attempt to sensibly disseminate it.

Still a third reason for Islam's appeal is that it is so simple to become a Muslim. You don't have to learn a thing. You can become a Muslim without knowing a thing about Islam. So eager are Muslims for what are seen as recruits to the army of Islam that it doesn't matter if those converting or "reverting" know a thing about it, for it is not the saving of their souls that matters. All that matters for most Muslims is to swell further the ranks of Islam. That is why, early on, Islam required only a recital of the Shehada -- a single sentence, a single declaration -- and then one became a Muslim, and found out later what it was all about. But by that point one had no way to gracefully, or safely, within lands dominated by Muslims, get out of that faith.

A fourth reason is that not only is Islam a faith simple to join (whereas if you wish to become, say, a Christian or a Jew, you have to study, you have to actually learn something about Christian doctrine or Jewish faith) but it is a simple-minded faith, that appeals to the simple-minded. It is not a faith bent on questioning itself. It is the perfect faith for someone who cannot think, and does not like to think, and prefers to have handed to him a Simple and Total Regulation of Life, and a Complete Explanation of the Universe. For all those who need certainty, who cannot stand individual responsibility or moral choice, who prefer to be slaves of Allah -- well, Islam is just the ticket, it's just the thing for you.

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ELSEWHERE

Iranian general 'seeking asylum in US': "A retired Iranian general who went missing in Turkey last month has defected and sought asylum in the US, according to a well-connected Arabic newspaper published in London. The newspaper, al-Shark al-Awsat, cited "high-profile" sources saying former Iranian deputy defence minister and Revolutionary Guard commander Ali Reza Asghari had gone over to the West. Reports from Istanbul that General Asghari's family had also disappeared in Turkey support the likelihood that he defected rather than was kidnapped by either the CIA or by Israel's Mossad, as has been speculated. The general went missing from his Istanbul hotel a month ago. Iranian authorities, who have been silent on the disappearance until this week, claim he has been abducted. "It is likely Asghari has been abducted by Western intelligence services," said Iran's top police officer, General Esmaeil Ahmadi Moghaddam. Defection of such a high-ranking figure would leave no external enemy to blame and would be seen as a rejection of the Islamic state by someone who well knows its inner workings. General Asghari's crossing of the line, whether voluntary or not, is a resounding blow for the Iranian Government since he is privy to its most intimate secrets, particularly those concerning its nuclear capabilities and plans."

"Swift-boating": "It has become an article of truth to many on the left that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were a pack of liars. They believe that this group of former Vietnam Swift Boat vets were enticed by Republican operatives to sell themselves out to sink the presidential aspirations of John Kerry. And they further believe that the only reason it worked was because Kerry was slow to respond. I hate to buck the left's conventional wisdom, but I don't buy that at all. A couple of points. John Kerry made both Vietnam and his service there the major backdrop of his campaign. Not the SBVT, but Kerry. And after shunning his "band of brothers" in the '70s and calling them killers, murderers, torturers and the like, Kerry suddenly rediscovered them when it was politically expedient to do so. This, as you might guess, rankled some of his peers from that era, especially when he started making claims about his service that just didn't add up. And I spent an enormous amount of time combing through their claims, reasearching them and writing about them. What becomes clear now, is that some on the left are busy trying to swift boat the Swift Boaters. And yes, "swift boat" is now a verb meaning to unfairly and untruthfully attack someone"

Europe lagging badly: "The EU is 22 years behind the US on economic growth according to a new study, with several other economic indicators showing further gaps despite Europe's ambitious reform agenda to be praised by leaders at this week's summit. A report by Eurochambers, the Brussels-based business lobby, published on Monday (5 March) argues that the US reached the current EU rate of GDP per capita in 1985 and its levels in employment and research investment almost 30 years ago. Economic growth, jobs and innovation feature as top priorities of the so-called Lisbon Agenda - agreed by EU leaders in 2000 - with the original aim for Europe to become the most competitive economy by 2010 and with the US seen as its key competitor. However, according to the Eurochambers study, the EU time lag behind the US has expanded further since 2003 when the group published its first report comparing the economic indicators on both sides of the Atlantic.

Incredible British bungling: "A new radio system for the Armed Forces, developed at a cost of 2.4 billion pounds, is too heavy for the average soldier to carry, a report by MPs has revealed. Soldiers using the Bowman digital radio have also found that they cannot talk to other communication systems deployed with allies on the battle-field in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bowman, which is beginning to replace the 30-year-old Clansman radio, should have been in service ten years ago, the MPs on the Public Accounts Committee said. However, delays had been caused by substantial technical problems, not helped by a Ministry of Defence decision to hand the contract to the Archer consortium, which was "unable to deliver the required product". Transferred to General Dynamics, the Bowman system began entering service in March 2004, but with 27 "provisos" and a number of capabilities removed from the specification. One of those was the ability to communicate secure data to the radio systems of allies to help to reduce the danger of "friendly-fire" attacks by coalition partners in a war."

There is a small update here on the antiwar doings in the frantically Leftist Pasadena, California.

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

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.

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".

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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MORAL RELATIVISM IS JUST ANOTHER STRATAGEM FOR THE LEFT

They really do however believe in nothing. The only thing that really motivates them is their visceral hatred for the world about them and their wish to tear it down. And any excuse that might pass at the time will do to accomplish that. Their destructive policies are no accident. Destruction is what they really aim at. Post below excerpted from Dr. Sanity

Victor Davis Hanson in The Corner:

Democratic Disconnect

We need an Orwell to offer some psychological explanation for why an Al Gore, who gobbles up carbon-based power in his mansion and private jet, continues to harangue the less well off about their energy profligacy and threats to the planet, or why a John Edwards, who just finished a towered 28,000 sq. foot palace, claims Jesus would find us unforgiving to the poor, and serially speaks in terms of two nations, rich and poor.

Is this disconnect explained by an easy means of alleviating guilt over their own largess through cosmic preaching about the inequality and selfishness of others?

Or is it a genuine notion that as a crusading Senator and trial-lawyer they have battled enough for the less well off to justify some small compensation for their ongoing labors?

Or is it a clinical schizophrenia in which one side of the Mother Teresa brain has no connection with the Donald Trump other?

It may be all or none of the above clinical syndromes, but I refer to it as the political left's "theory of relativity." Al Gore is just one of the more recent relativists who believe in the theory.

For Democrats and the left, there is no "disconnect" or even cognitive dissonance about such contradictions. As a group that wholeheartedly subscribes to moral relativity and subjective ethics, it makes perfect sense that they have no problem with any "moral authority" as long as that authority just happens to agree with and justify their beliefs.

After all, if morality is relative; if truth is subjective and there is no objective "good" or "bad"; then why bother to look any further?....

This article discusses the frequent leftist accusation of being a "chickenhawk" if you support the war but have not been a veteran; or have not lost a loved one or sent your own "children" off to fight in the war. John Murtha is one who makes this accusation. He has the proper moral authority, because he fought in Vietnam. So does John Kerry. The other 25% of the Congress who served in the military have no such authority (because they disagree with Murtha and Kerry perhaps?); and the opinions of the vast majority of the grown-ups who are actually doing the fighting for the American public are unimportant. You might as well call Al Gore and most of the environmentally righteous "chickengreens" as one blogger, noting the left's hypocrisy has.

In all three of these cases, the persons in question have become the left's vocal "moral authority" [only] because they happen to agree with the left's beliefs about the key political issues and are anti-Bush , anti-Republican, along with varying degrees of anti-Americanism and anti-capitalistism thrown in for good measure.

What these three examples (and there are many more) have in common is both a breathtaking subjectivism and relativism in one breath; and ideological absolutism in the next.

They all demonstrate the inherent philosophical and psychological contradictions that the postmodern left exploits in order to achieve political power. They are perfectly aware that their positions don't make any sense and can be refuted by anyone with basic knowledge of logic and logical fallacies; but their goal is to maintain the psychological denial necessary to believe in the left's ideology. Interpreting this defense and exposing it is essential to countering that ideology.

Stephen Hicks asks this important question (page 184):

The pattern therefore raises the question of which side of the contradiction is deepest for postmodernism. Is it that psotmodernists really are committed to relativism, but occasionally lapse into absolutism? Or are the absolutist commitments deepest and the relativism a rhetorical cover?

The possibility that the relativism is primary can be ruled out with some thought. If the modern leftist truly embraced relativism, then you would not see the uniformity of their politics. Hicks again:

If subjectivity and relativism were primary, then postmodernists would be adopting political positions across the spectrum, and that simply is not happeniing.

Indeed. Thus we must conclude that the moral relativism that characterizes the left's equation of terrorism with America; deliberate targeting of innocents with herculean efforts to spare innocent life; Bush with Hitler; Iraq with Vietnam; and the use of the global warming debate (and it is still a debate) to morally impugn their critics, while exhibiting the most obvious hypocrisy themselves--all this suggests that these issues are are simple rhetorical devices that are used to manipulate and forward their socialist / totalitarian agenda.

The truth is that the postmodern leftists don't need to believe anything that they say. In fact, they can easily ignore evidence that contradicts their arguments; never acknowledge that their arguments (or more precisely, their beliefs) have been debunked and; and ultimately they can simply redefine words or resort to word games (the various meanings of "is" for example); or move the goalposts (those aren't the WMD's we were looking for) when convenient.

The word games and much of the use of anger and rage that are characteristic of much of their style can be a matter--not of using words to state things that they think are true--but rather of using words as weapons against and enemy that they still hope to destroy.

The usefulness of the theory of relativity is that all issues can be brought up over and over again at the appropriate time to get your opponents or critics off your back and get some breathing space.

If your opponent accepts that the debate is a matter of opinion or semantics, then your losing the argument does not matter: nobody is right or wrong. But if your opponent does not accept that everything is a matter of opinion, then his attention is diverted away from the subject matter at hand--namely politics--and into epistemology. For now he has to show why everything is not merely semantics, and that will take him awhile.

We see this done cyclically. No issue is every resolved. When the left realizes it is in a losing position, it simply backs off until it is opportune to revive the argument. And then they start back at the same points which were countered and try again, this time with more passion and outrage. This "theory of relativity" works very well for them.

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ELSEWHERE

German hypocrisy: "SPIEGEL ONLINE has returned to its old modus operandi. It goes something like this: First, find an extreme and unusual act of grotesque violence or some other extreme form of social deviancy related to the United States. Second, extrapolate the incident onto the entire nation. The latest installment is an article entitled: 'Brutal "Trendsport" in the USA: Teenagers Hunt the Homeless'. That's right folks: According to SPIEGEL ONLINE, it's the latest hip trend sweeping the United States. Young people can't get enough of this new sport: Everywhere you look, homeless people are being mercilessly beaten by roving bands of drunk and high teenagers. The bodies are piling up left and right and the hospitals are overflowing. Right. Frankly put: The "Trendsport" article is both an ugly smear of the United States and an unabashed example of trashy German media hypocrisy of the worst sort. Here again, German media have demonstrated that it is far more convenient and comfortable to vilify World-Scapegoat-America than it is to look in the mirror at the many social, economic and political problems that plague Germans in their own backyard."

45 internet cafe bombings in Gaza since December 1: "Soon after a firebomb exploded at 3 a.m. and destroyed four computers in the Al-Shawa Online Internet Cafe in Gaza, owner Alaa al-Shawa clicked onto his e-mail at an undamaged machine. The first message surprised him: It was from the bombers themselves, explaining that establishments such as his were keeping Muslims away from prayer and providing pornography. That's why it was hit. "This just shows how confused these fanatics are," said Al-Shawa, 27. "Even they use the Internet to circulate their statements, but they think everyone else uses it for porno." About 45 Internet outlets have been bombed since Dec. 1, according to figures from Gaza's Central Police Office... A group called the Swords of Islamic Righteousness has claimed responsibility for the attacks."

China Hand has just put up a post on his other blog (also see here) which criticizes the arrogant Ross Gittins, an aging Australian economist/journalist who wants to tell other people what to do. He points out how the choices that the Chinese have made make Gittins look foolish.

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

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.

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".

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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SOCIALISM IN AMERICA

Excerpt from Democracy Project

According to today's New York Times: "The strongest job market New York City has had in decades has not helped the city's youngest workers find jobs, leaving them at risk of becoming permanently unemployable..."

New York is the city with the strongest unions, the highest taxes, the most government intervention and the most welfare. It is the city closest in the nation to a socialist model. Yet, New York has largely excluded minority youth from employment. The reason is in part lack of access to a failed educational system that relies on the failed theories of John Dewey, but also, that union entry restrictions limit minority employment in the construction crafts, and that political and business connections are necessary for jobs that rely on government support and political largess. Those without connections or an Ivy League education find themselves excluded from New York's socialist economy.

In this regard, there is a marked parallel between Paris and New York . Just as the French have relied on a heavy dose of socialism or dirigisme in their economy and have excluded low income minorities from participation in their economy, resulting in the riots in the banlieue, so New York has excluded low-income minorities. Both Paris in New York can be proud of their socialist policies.

The process by which socialist economies exclude minorities is administered wages. Administered wages are wages above the market clearing level. One key cause of administered wages is labor unions. Labor unions push for higher wages, but in order to pay higher wages employers must reduce the number of workers and substitute capital for labor in the form of machinery. The excluded workers can move to Colorado or London or start their own businesses, but if they lack basic skills they may end up unemployed. This crowding out effect is characteristic of socialist economies where workers are paid above-market clearing wages.

India is a more extreme example of socialist oppression of the poor through this crowding out effect. In recent years liberal economists have complained about income inequality and its supposed ill effects. There is no data or economic theory to support this argument. In fact, when income inequality was at its apex in the late 19th century and early 20th centuries, the United States first developed the telephone, kerosene (and subsequently gasoline), the light bulb, AC electricity, mass production of the automobile and a wide range of other innovations that subsequently improved life.

When income equality increased in the mid twentieth century due to punitive income taxes, innovation slowed. The mid twentieth century is best remembered for Elvis Presley rather than technological innovation. It wasn't until after the Reagan tax cuts in the early 1980s that the pace of innovation increased. Now our geniuses from the liberal economics establishment, the ones who brought us our piddling social security benefit and who apologized for Stalin in the 1930s, for Mao in the 1970s, and gave us stagflation in the 1970s, are arguing for a renewal of punitive taxation. True geniuses.

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ELSEWHERE

Excerpt from an NYT editorial. No political bias, of course: "The Bush administration's assault on some of the founding principles of American democracy marches onward despite the Democratic victory in the 2006 elections. The new Democratic majorities in Congress can block the sort of noxious measures that the Republican majority rubber-stamped. But preventing new assaults on civil liberties is not nearly enough. Five years of presidential overreaching and Congressional collaboration continue to exact a high toll in human lives, America's global reputation and the architecture of democracy. Brutality toward prisoners, and the denial of their human rights, have been institutionalized; unlawful spying on Americans continues; and the courts are being closed to legal challenges of these practices."

Fresh doubts about the dubious "Lancet" study of Iraqi deaths: "The implication of the Lancet study, which involved Iraqi doctors knocking on doors and asking residents about recent deaths in the household, was that Iraqis were being killed on an horrific scale. The controversy has deepened rather than evaporated. Several academics have tried to find out how the Lancet study was conducted; none regards their queries as having been addressed satisfactorily. Researchers contacted by The Times talk of unreturned e-mails or phone calls, or of being sent information that raises fresh doubts.... Professor Spagat says the Lancet paper contains misrepresentations of mortality figures suggested by other organisations, an inaccurate graph, the use of the word "casualties" to mean deaths rather than deaths plus injuries, and the perplexing finding that child deaths have fallen. Using the "three-to-one rule" - the idea that for every death, there are three injuries - there should be close to two million Iraqis seeking hospital treatment, which does not tally with hospital reports. "The authors ignore contrary evidence, cherry-pick and manipulate supporting evidence and evade inconvenient questions," contends Professor Spagat"

Blacks who want to be "Indians": "The Cherokee Nation vote this weekend to revoke the citizenship of the descendants of people the Cherokee once owned as slaves was a blow to people who have relied on tribal benefits. Charlene White, a descendant of freed Cherokee slaves who were adopted into the tribe in 1866 under a treaty with the U.S. government, wondered Sunday where she would now go for the glaucoma treatment she has received at a tribal hospital in Stilwell. "I've got to go back to the doctor, but I don't know if I can go back to the clinic or if they're going to oust me right now," said White, 56, a disabled Tahlequah resident who lives on a fixed income. In Saturday's special election, more than 76 percent of voters decided to amend the Cherokee Nation's constitution to remove the estimated 2,800 freedmen descendants from the tribal rolls, according to results posted Sunday on the tribe's Web site." [We also have in Australia whites who claim to be Aborigines]

Rare union realism: "In an about-face that bespeaks the stark reality of the financial situation facing the United Auto Workers union and the Big Three U.S. auto makers, members of the UAW local at Ford Motor Co. are taking various initiatives to help the financially beleaguered car company cut costs, concessions that would have been unthinkable years ago. "Ford is in a desperate situation. If this company goes down, I want to be able to look in the mirror and say I did everything I could,A" Jerry Sullivan, head of the largest United Auto Workers local at Ford Motor Co., was quoted as say by The Wall Street Journal. After years of fighting for higher pay and job protections, Sullivan, for example, has encouraged his members now to accept the outsourcing of company factory jobs to lower-paid workers and to work new shifts without being paid the overtime they would have earned under better times. Once rated the most efficient Detroit auto maker, Ford lost $12.8 billion last year"

Pakistani policeman murders Ahmadi "infidel": "The Ahmadi sect is one of the few Muslim groups that eschews jihad violence, and for this reason among others it is persecuted and vilified as heretical by other Muslim groups. Westerners sometimes point to the Ahmadiyya as evidence that Islam can reform and become peaceful, and attach a great deal of hope to the sect. But before they can become the vanguard of Islamic reform, other Muslims will have to stop killing them."

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

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.

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".

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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COMMENTS ENABLED

Most of my blogs now have comments enabled so I have decided to extend that to this blog. I did however have huge problems with the comments facility on the old Tongue-Tied site -- I was deleting over 500 spam comments per day plus a lot of troll comments -- so I regret that all comments will require a code-copying task to be accepted and will not appear until I approve them. That should keep the facility working as intended.