Why the Right Fears Transforming America -- and the Left Seeks It

A good basic statement from Dennis Prager below

The giveaway regarding presidential candidate Barack Obama's plans for America was his repeated use of the words "fundamentally transform." Some of us instinctively reacted negatively -- in fact, with horror -- at the thought of fundamentally transforming America. The "us" are conservatives.

One unbridgeable divide between left and right is how each views alternatives to present-day America. Those on the left imagine an ideal society that has never existed, and therefore seek to "fundamentally transform" America. When liberals imagine an America fundamentally transformed, they envision it becoming a nearly utopian society in which there is no greed, no racism, no sexism, no inequality, no poverty and ultimately no unhappiness.

Conservatives, on the other hand, look around at other societies and history and are certain that if America were fundamentally transformed, it would become just like those other societies. America would become a society of far less liberty, of ethically and morally inferior citizens and of much more unhappiness. And cruelty would increase exponentially around the world.

Conservatives believe that America is an aberration in human history; that, with all the problems that a society made up of flawed human beings will inevitably have, America has been and remains a uniquely decent society. Therefore, conservatives worry that fundamentally transforming America -- making America less exceptional -- will mean that America gets much worse.

Liberals worry over the opposite possibility -- that America will remain more or less as it is. Two famous statements encapsulate the operative liberal worldview.

The first was attributed to Robert F. Kennedy by his brother Sen. Edward M. Kennedy: "There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask, 'Why?' I dream of things that never were, and ask, 'Why not?'"

The other is one of the most popular songs of the last 50 years, John Lennon's "Imagine":

"Imagine there's no heaven. It's easy if you try. No hell below us, above us only sky. Imagine all the people, living for today.

"Imagine there's no countries. It isn't hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion, too, Imagine all the people, living life in peace.

"You may say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will be as one.

"Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can. No need for greed or hunger, a brotherhood of man. Imagine all the people, sharing all the world.

"You may say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will live as one."

Regarding the Kennedy quote, a conservative would respond something like this:

We conservatives look at America and ask, how did something so decent, so different from other societies, ever get created and last over 200 years? Of course, we always seek to improve it. But more than anything else, we seek to preserve it and its core values. We do not "dream of things that never were." We dream the same dream as our American forefathers did -- to maintain a society committed to the values of E Pluribus Unum, Liberty and In God We Trust. As for utopian dreams, we believe they are more likely to result in nightmares -- horrors that would engulf America and the world if America were to be transformed.

To Lennon's song, a conservative would respond:

Lennon's utopia is our dystopia. A world without God to give people some certitude that all their suffering is not meaningless is a nightmare. A world without religion means a world without any systematic way of ennobling people. A world without countries is a world without the United States of America, and it is a world governed by the morally imbecilic United Nations, where mass murderers sit on its "human rights" councils. A world without heaven or hell is a world without any ultimate justice, where torturers and their victims have identical fates -- oblivion. A world without possessions is a world in which some enormous state possesses everything, and the individual is reduced to the status of a serf.

Liberals frequently criticize conservatives for fearing change. That is not correct. We fear transforming that which is already good. The moral record of humanity does not fill us with optimism about "fundamentally transforming" something as rare as America. Evil is normal. America is not.

SOURCE

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Political Fables

Thomas Sowell

President Barack Obama boldly proclaims, "The buck stops here!" But, whenever his policies are criticized, he acts as if the buck stopped with George W. Bush.

The party line that we are likely to be hearing from now until the November elections is that Obama "inherited" the big federal budget deficits and that he has to "clean up the mess" left in the economy by the Republicans. This may convince those who want to be convinced, but it will not stand up under scrutiny.

No President of the United States can create either a budget deficit or a budget surplus. All spending bills originate in the House of Representatives and all taxes are voted into law by Congress.

Democrats controlled both houses of Congress before Barack Obama became president. The deficit he inherited was created by the Congressional Democrats, including Senator Barack Obama, who did absolutely nothing to oppose the runaway spending. He was one of the biggest of the big spenders.

The last time the federal government had a budget surplus, Bill Clinton was president, so it was called "the Clinton surplus." But Republicans controlled the House of Representatives, where all spending bills originate, for the first time in 40 years. It was also the first budget surplus in more than a quarter of a century.

The only direct power that any president has that can affect deficits and surpluses is the power to veto spending bills. President Bush did not veto enough spending bills but Senator Obama and his fellow Democrats in control of Congress were the ones who passed the spending bills.

Today, with Barack Obama in the White House, allied with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi in charge in Congress, the national debt is a bigger share of the national output than it has been in more than half a century. And its share is projected to continue going up for years to come, becoming larger than national output in 2012.

Having created this scary situation, President Obama now says, "Don't give in to fear. Let's reach for hope." The voters reached for hope when they elected Obama. The fear comes from what he has done since taking office.

Another political fable is that the current economic downturn is due to not enough government regulation of the housing and financial markets. But it was precisely the government regulators, under pressure from politicians, who forced banks and other lending institutions to lower their standards for making mortgage loans. These risky loans, and the defaults that followed, were what set off a chain reaction of massive financial losses that brought down the whole economy.

Was this due to George W. Bush and the Republicans? Only partly. Most of those who pushed the lowering of mortgage lending standards were Democrats-- notably Congressman Barney Frank and Senator Christopher Dodd, though too many Republicans went along.

When President Bush said in 2004 that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be reined in, 76 members of the House of Representatives issued a statement to the contrary. These included Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters and Charles Rangel.

More here

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Obama is pulling down the shades on union financial disclosure

Should a union officer be able to keep his full compensation from the union treasury secret from the members? Should a union officer be able to accept personal payments from businesses the union has dealings with and then keep such dealings confidential?

Most would think the answer to these questions is an obvious “no.” Union management does not agree and they are willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars from their members’ dues to prevent any such reporting and disclosure.

The reason I know this is that I spent eight years at the U.S. Department of Labor attempting to get unions to comply with such reporting requirements and they fought us every step on the way. With the arrival of President Obama, all such requirements are being rolled back or the Labor Department is refusing to enforce them until such a time as they can be rolled back.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

NY: Unarmed orthodox Jews patrol neighborhoods: "On Thursday night in Brooklyn, a suspect was chased and quickly surrounded by a group of patrolmen in blue uniform jackets who ordered him to halt. The man, David Flores, 33, who witnesses say was fondling himself in front of children in a Hasidic section of Brooklyn known as Borough Park, was about to be caught by the men in blue. He began shooting at the men, all unarmed, with a .22-caliber handgun, the authorities said, hitting and wounding four before being tackled. Although these streets are in the jurisdiction of the New York Police Department — the 66th Precinct — these patrolmen were not police officers. In fact, two were bakers, one was a dry cleaner and the fourth sells insurance.”

Troops don't believe Uncle Sam: "Uncle Sam wants to give free, no-strings-attached money to about 145,000 troops involuntarily kept on duty after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, but is having trouble persuading them that it’s not a gimmick. Last October, Congress approved retroactive bonus pay for military personnel who were forced to remain on duty beyond their original discharge date, a controversial policy known as ’stop-loss.’ Lawmakers approved back pay of $500 for each month of involuntary service; the average lump sum due is between $3,500 and $3,800. To get the cash, an application must be submitted by Oct. 21; only about a third of those eligible have handed in paperwork.”

Legal bid to halt snooping U.S. airport staff: "Civil rights lawyers are suing the US Government to stop authorities from snooping in the laptops, mobile phones and cameras of international travellers without probable cause. The lawsuit was filed in US District Court in Brooklyn against the Department of Homeland Security as well as US customs and immigration authorities. The government did not immediately return a message seeking comment. Lawyers filed the lawsuit on behalf of the National Press Photographers Association, criminal defense lawyers and the student: Pascal Abidor, a 26-year-old French-American citizen whose laptop computer was confiscated at the Canadian border." [The searches are a blatant breach of the 4th amendment]

'More than half think Barack Obama is doing a bad job on the economy': "More than half of Americans believe Barack Obama is doing a bad job on the economy, according to a new poll, marking the first time the majority has voiced their disapproval. Some 57 per cent of Americans disapprove of Mr Obama's overall handling of the economy, while his job approval rating is also at a low, with 52 per cent saying he is not doing well. However there is some hope for the Democrats as only 32 per cent think Republican economic plans would work, although voters would favour a Republican candidate over a Democrat by 53 per cent to 40 per cent, according to the poll by ABC and The Washington Post."

OH: Bary granted US residency: "A runaway who said her father threatened to kill her for converting to Christianity from Islam has been granted permanent residency in the United States, her lawyer told CNN on Tuesday. Rifqa Bary, 18, who was an undocumented immigrant until recently, left her family in Columbus, Ohio, in July 2009 and took refuge in the home of a minister in Orlando, Florida. The girl was later moved into foster care after she said in an affidavit that her Muslim father had threatened her after finding out about her conversion. Her father denies the allegation.”

“Stimulus” snake oil: "A year after the US economy stopped falling, we are still mired in ‘the worst labor-market crisis since the Great Depression,’ writes Laura Tyson in The New York Times. Voicing the consensus of the left-liberal economic establishment — she’s reportedly a leading candidate to head up President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers — Tyson argues that the US unemployment rate, still stuck at 9.6 percent, is reason to try ‘a second fiscal stimulus’ to raise ‘aggregate demand.’ She’s wrong in a number of illuminating ways.”

The precedent for the NYC mosque: "Muslim followers of Shariah law have long built mosques on the most cherished and sacred sites of the peoples they have conquered – on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, at Constantinople’s St. Sophia Basilica (now Istanbul), and in Cordoba, Spain, the capital of the occupying Moors’ Islamic kingdom. Many Hindu and Buddhist temples also were destroyed in Asia and now lay underneath prominent mosques. These are the “facts on the ground” of Islamic conquest and religious supercessionism."

Here we go again: "Innumerable arguments and research have been produced showing that government stimulus is useless. Despite what President Obama and his cheerleaders in the academy, like Princeton’s Paul Krugman, seem to believe (or at least say), there is no evidence that government stimuli do anything to restore market activities. Such policies merely take funds from the right pocket and put it into the left while most often the transfer entails wasting a lot of resources so the net effect is widespread economic loss.”

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)

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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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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Shana Tova to my Jewish readers

For non-Jewish readers, Rosh Hashanah is the main Jewish "New Year". It begins this year at sunset September 8. "Shana Tova" is a wish for the recipient to have a good new year.

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Why Islamic Moderates Are So Scarce

As past statements of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf continue to surface, many Americans have concluded that the would-be builder of a mosque at Ground Zero is lying when he calls himself a “moderate” representative of his faith. The more disturbing possibility, however, is that he’s telling the truth — that Rauf is indeed the voice of mainstream Islam.

One indication is the resounding silence from the rest of the Islamic community. If that community were truly moderate — as we in the West understand the term — one might expect it to distance itself from a man who blames the U.S. for the 9/11 attacks, says we have more innocent blood on our hands than al-Qaeda, and refuses to disown the genocidal agenda of Hamas.

A few brave Muslim individuals have indeed come out against the mosque, but they are exceptions. Where are the large numbers of Muslims who find Rauf’s statements offensive? Where are their organizations and institutions? Why aren’t they weighing in to repudiate Rauf and his apparent aims?

It’s a common problem. Each time some new offense is perpetrated in the name of Islam — whether it’s the latest suicide bombing in a public square or a woman’s being beaten and mutilated by her own family — it is mostly Western leaders and the press who voice their disapproval. The more one looks for the larger Muslim community to denounce the violence, the more “moderate Islam” seems to vanish like a mirage in the desert.

Why this is so — what happened to moderate Islam and what sort of hope we may have for it in the future — is the subject of Robert Reilly’s brilliant and groundbreaking new book, The Closing of the Muslim Mind. Reilly is a veteran of the Reagan White House, director of the Voice of America under George W. Bush, a board member of the Middle East Media Research Institute, and a frequent contributor to numerous national publications. He has made a deep dive into Muslim thought and history to discover the sources of the present Islamic condition.

The result is anything but dry. Closing is a page-turner that reads almost like an intellectual detective novel. It is among those few brave books on Islam — others would include Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations and Andrew McCarthy’s recent The Grand Jihad — that should be read by anyone who wants to understand one of the most fundamental causes of conflict in the 21st century.

Reilly does in fact locate the elusive moderate Islam — back in the 8th and 9th centuries, when the rationalist Mu’tazilites dominated Islamic thought under Caliph al-Ma’mun. The period is often referred to as the “golden age of Islam,” when that civilization produced some of its highest achievements in philosophy and science. It didn’t last. In 849, the second year of the reign of Caliph Ja’afar al-Mutawakkil, the Mu’tazilites were overthrown. Holding Mu’tazilite beliefs became a crime punishable by death, and the decidedly anti-rationalist Ash’arites soon came to dominate the faith, as they would continue to do, in one form or another, through the modern era.

What makes Closing so compelling is Reilly’s ability to tie seemingly arcane questions of Islamic theology to many of the characteristics of Islamic civilization that we in the West find so hard to fathom. Fundamentally, Ash’arism was a rejection of “natural law” and reason in favor of an all-powerful God of pure will and power. The idea of an ordered universe that behaves according to certain ordained laws — whether moral or physical — would have been understood by the Mu’tazilites. For the Ash’arites, this was blasphemy, an outrage against God’s omnipotence.

In the language of philosophy, this way of looking at the world is known, somewhat confusingly, as “voluntarism.” To quote Reilly, it “holds that God is the primary cause of everything and there are no secondary causes. There is no causal mediation. Therefore, what may seem to be ‘natural laws,’ such as the laws of gravity, physics, etc. are really nothing more than God’s customs or habits, which He is at complete liberty to break or change at any moment.”

While Christianity recognizes the possibility of miracles, when God intervenes to supersede natural law, in Islam every nanosecond is the functional equivalent of a miracle, the result of God’s divine act. Thus there is no law of gravity, only God’s will, determining moment by moment that the apple will fall from the tree. Neither is there any morality, no objective good and evil as we in the West would see it, only the arbitrary decrees of an all-powerful God. There is no “truth that is written in our hearts,” only the truths that are written in the Koran, which could just as well be otherwise if such were the whim of God. As Ibn Hazm pronounced in the 11th century, “He judges as He pleases, and whatever He judges is just. . . . If God the Exalted had informed us that He would punish us for the acts of others . . . all that would have been right and just.”

The problem, one might say, is obvious. In science, the repudiation of natural law meant the explicit denial of cause and effect. No wonder that the rise of the Ash'arites coincided with the decline of a once-vibrant Islamic intellectual culture after the 13th century. And no wonder that societies that exalt the power and arbitrary will of God to the exclusion of reason can hardly understand, let alone embrace, modern democratic institutions, which are founded, as our Declaration of Independence makes clear, in the self-evident and enduring truths of natural law.

Nor can we be surprised that such cultures endorse institutionalized domestic violence or rampant terrorism and the murder of innocents. As hard as it is for the secular Left to accept, Western culture is founded on and steeped in the Judeo-Christian assumption that our innate understanding of what is right is a direct reflection of God’s goodness and justice as reflected in His universal law, to which even He adheres. We make a mistake when we assume other cultures are necessarily speaking the same moral language.

Is there a possibility that Islam can find its way back to the root philosophies of its golden age? There are those within Islam who want to, but — like the voices raised in opposition to the mosque — they are lonely, even threatened, outposts within their faith. One thing Reilly’s account makes clear: Only when we move beyond the common platitudes of our contemporary political discussion and begin to deal with Islam as it really is — rather than the fiction that it is the equivalent of our Western culture dressed up in a burqa — will we be able to help make progress in that direction.

SOURCE

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Yes, we do need government: Just not as much of it as many seem to think

No, I've not read Tony's maunderings and no, I'm not going to. However, there is one interesting little story that's emerged:

The former Prime Minister describes how he supported pension reforms proposed by Adair Turner but these were opposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer at that time. Lord Turner recommended raising the State pension age and restoring some linkage with earnings – both changes now planned by the Coalition Government – but Mr Brown was thought to be against these reforms. Now we know just how much so.

Mr Blair’s book ‘A Journey’ says: “We had been having a huge set-to about Adair Turner’s pension proposals. John Hutton (the pensions secretary) and I both thought them right but Gordon disagreed.

“He was in a venomous mood and I can truthfully say it was the ugliest meeting we had ever had…the temperature which was already below freezing point went Arctic.”

Mr Blair goes on to relate how Mr Brown threatened to call for an inquiry into allegations that wealthy friends of the Prime Minister had gained seats in the House of Lords after making donations to the Labour Party. Mr Blair claims Mr Brown said he would expose what became known as the ‘cash for honours’ scandal unless Lord Turner’s proposals were dropped.

Government is needed because there really are some collective action problems that cannot be solved without the existence of government (sorry anarchists!). But that does not mean that all of the problems of the world are amenable to government action and that we thus require a government so large as to try and solve all such problems.

For, as we can see, those who actually make up government do not in fact attempt to solve those problems. They're far too much like the rest of us fallible human beings, willing to snit and scrabble for short term advantage for themselves while ignoring the large scale and long term problems.

No, I don't say this was unique to Brown: James Buchanan received the Nobel for pointing out that all politicians, all bureaucrats, are susceptible to exactly the same urges. They are, after all, just people and people everywhere react to incentives.

All of which leads us to he conclusion that while we do require government to solve those problems that only government can solve we really don't want them doing anything at all other than what only government can do. For the rest of it we'll make our own mistakes thanks very much.

SOURCE

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The AMA and central planning

Physicians of the Florida Medical Association recently sent a message on health care reform to America and the AMA: The FMA has "no confidence" in "the ability of the AMA leadership to effectively protect the Profession of Medicine in America". AMA leadership aided politicians with dark of night votes -- overcoming bipartisan opposition of a bill that had been rejected by the America people. The AMA provided political cover for a government and corporate takeover of medicine that breaks the trust between patients and doctors -- a betrayal of the finest medical care in the history of the world. Americans cannot trust the AMA leadership on health care at this time.

This expansion of power over patients by bureaucrats and corporate accountants is a threat to the lives of Americans. Technocrats are creating a rationing system in America to deny care to people who need it most -- and who paid for it. The AMA endorsed a bill creating panels that are deciding that cancer drugs decreasing suffering at end of life are "too expensive". Committees are coercing doctors to withhold antibiotics at 24 hours after surgery despite proof that this increases infection rates. Panels force doctors to inappropriately give beta blockers to some heart attack patients resulting in shock and accidental death. Arrogant and untouchable elitists are deciding what medical care patients receive -- not patients with doctors as their trusted advisor.

This is an example of a system that has failed throughout history: Central economic planning. Political committees decide the cost and availability of goods and services. Price controls and rationing are imposed, leading to shortages in physicians, medicines, and surgeries that have given Americans the best cancer survival, shortest waiting times and most patient satisfaction. The AMA endorsed a plan without tort reform that allows nurses and pharmacists to practice medicine. It also expands 16 million people into a failed Medicaid system where patients must go to the ER for care and bankrupts our country for our children. The future of waiting lines, rationing, lower quality and bankruptcy are writ large in its proto-type: Romney care in Massachusetts. Like Obamacare, doctors are put on a budget and punished if they spend a penny more on their patients. Medicare and other patients that would seek to escape from this system will lose all the benefits that they earned through a lifetime of payroll theft.

The original proposal at the FMA was to withdraw our delegation to the AMA -- a separate organization. But one doesn't withdraw Congressmen from Washington and the FMA now seeks to have the AMA once again stand up for the medical profession as a trusted servant of the patient -- not a servant of the state or insurance companies. FMA physicians echoed the sentiment of so many Americans today: we have "no confidence" in the ability of elite politicians to preserve medical freedom for our patients.

In an Op. Ed. In the Florida Times-Union, Brian Klepper and David Kibbe attacked me and the FMA as representing the "Old Guard" and fighting against "progressive" change embraced by AMA leadership. The hailed the ability of people like them (who don't practice medicine) to use computers to micromanage medical care and complain that doctors make money by caring for patients - even as these members of the elite special interest culture work as high priced medical industry consultants. Kibbe sold two health information technology companies and now stands to profit from government mandated computer records. Computer records that are more like Big Brother watching to make sure your doctor is "efficiently" saving money for state-run insurance. Big Brother medicine will actively penalize doctors if they don't ration care. No patient can trust their doctor in such a system.

As a member of the "old guard" that puts patients first and bureaucrats and insurance companies last, I am proud to lead the way to send a clear message to the AMA leadership: start standing up for patients. Like most doctors, I see the AMA leadership as betraying American medicine. I am working to repeal government run medicine and replace it with the great FMA plan that puts patients in charge, lowers costs, and increases quality so the best days of medicine will be ahead of us, and not behind us.

SOURCE

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ELSEWHERE

Petraeus: Quran burning will endanger American lives: "The US commander of the Afghan war has warned that troops’ lives will be endangered if a Florida evangelical church goes ahead with a planned burning of the Koran on Saturday’s 9/11 anniversary. General David Petraeus said the planned torching of Islam’s holy book would be a propaganda coup for the Taliban in Afghanistan and stoke anti-US sentiment across the Muslim world. The Dove World Outreach Center at Gainesville, Florida says it will burn copies of the Koran on this weekend’s ninth anniversary of the September 11 airborne attacks in protest at what it calls ‘the evil of Islam.’”

Taliban threaten to attack Afghan polling stations: "The Taliban vowed Sunday to attack polling places in Sept. 18 parliamentary elections, warning Afghans not to participate in what it called a sham vote. Meanwhile, two coalition troops, one British and one from the Republic of Georgia, were killed in fighting in the turbulent south, while a political rival of President Hamid Karzai questioned his approach to pending talks with rebels who might be persuaded to abandon the insurgency.”

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)

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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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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Muslims and Hispanic illegals: Can we judge the present by the past?

I originally wrote the comments below for my IMMIGRATION WATCH blog but I think they have a place here too -- JR

It is generally true that the past is the best guide to the future that we have but that is not to say that it is always a good guide. Does anybody seriously think that (say) America of 100 years ago is the same as the America of today?

Yet by far the commonest argument coming from the Left about immigration in general and about Muslim immigrants in particular is precisely that America of today IS just like the America of 100 years ago. You can read the latest such article in the NYT (by Kristof). It is an argument so hackneyed by now that he could almost have written it in his sleep. Maybe he did.

The argument is that the Irish, Italians and others who came to America in the 19th century were viewed with grave suspicion by many and suffered from discrimination but in the end blended in seamlessly with Americans of other ancestries: The melting pot.

From that Kristoff and others conclude that Muslims will eventually "melt" into a homogeneous American population also. And perhaps many will. But there are two crucial difference that will at least greatly hinder full integration:

1). In the 19th and most of the 20th century, immigrants were EXPECTED to assimilate whereas these days multiculturalism reigns and the very word "assimilate" is almost an obscenity to the Left.

2). The Italians, Irish and Poles came from CHRISTIAN backgrounds so had a considerable degree of common culture with Americans originating from earlier waves of immigration. More to the point they did not come from a culture that DESPISES Christian and post-Christian civilization, whereas Muslims do.

It is a basic imperative of Islam to attack and if possible conquer other civilizations -- and they have been doing it more or less continuously ever since the conquests led by Mohammed himself. They were even attacking Christian targets at the time of America's War of Independence and President Jefferson sent warships to combat them.

So the wave of Muslim immigrants is a wave of people whose basic teachings are hostile to America. That has never happened before and therefore makes comparisons with previous immigrant waves invalid.

The controversy over the "Ground Zero" mosque in NYC has of course brought to the fore the question of how Americans should react to Muslims in their midst. I myself, as an Australian living in the happy obscurity of a small Australian city most people have never even heard of, have no dog in that fight. I think the response to the mosque proposal is for New Yorkers and New Yorkers alone to judge. But I don't think it is unreasonable for New Yorkers to be hostile to anything Muslim given the hostility of Islam to the West.

But Muslims are still a very small immigrant group in America and the long-standing argument about immigration to America is about Latino illegals, not Muslims. And here we see the same argument from the Left: People who arrived legally from Europe a century or so ago eventually assimilated so people who arrive illegally from Mexico (etc.) will also eventually assimilate. And no doubt many will and in fact many have already done so.

But arriving legally and arriving illegally are two very different things and Europe is also very different from Latin America. Europe is the fountainhead of modern civilization whereas Latin America is a civilizational backwater (to put it kindly). So once again there are large differences between earlier arrivals and recent ones that create considerable potential for outcomes different from what we have seen in the past.

And the omens for Hispanic illegals assimilating are not good. The children of Irish, Polish, Italian (etc.) legal immigrants became indistinguishable from other Americans but that is not so with the Hispanics. That Hispanics have a notably higher crime-rate than non-Hispanic whites is concern enough but their children are even worse, even more prone to criminality. As well as black gang-bangers America now has a proliferation of Hispanic gang bangers. Far from assimilating into the mainstream, the children of the illegals have moved even further away from it.

So once again the complexities of reality upset the simplistic theories of the Left. Neither in the case of Muslims nor in the case of Hispanic illegals can we expect the universal assimilation of the past. Permanently hostile subgroups are instead to be expected. Americans are right to be concerned about that.

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More democracy needed

Yes, a divide exists. There are two Americas. Those who believe in the “wisdom of crowds” and those who believe in the wisdom of Washington elites. It is a much more meaningful dichotomy to examine than the two parties.

Pollster Scott Rasmussen seems to understand this best. His Rasmussen Reports polling company constantly asks questions the establishment polling outfits don’t. For one, he breaks down his poll respondents into the “Political Class” and “Mainstream Americans.”

Now, I’m not certain the three-question test he uses to separate folks into these groups is the absolute best way to do so, but one doesn’t have to buy into Rasmussen’s specific criteria to see that his general conception is an interesting prism through which to view politics.

Last month, by Rasmussen’s criteria, 67 percent of people in the “Political Class” said the country is headed in the right direction, while 84 percent of so-called Mainstream Americans said we’re headed the wrong way. Other Rasmussen surveys show similar massive chasms between the views of the Political Class and Mainstream Americans.

On Friday, Rasmussen Reports released polling showing that 71 percent of Americans support requiring a national vote to approve any changes in Social Security passed by Congress. When it comes to raising taxes 61 percent of us want a tax hike approved by Congress to go to a national vote to be approved or rejected by the people, with 33 in opposition.

A national vote? Those who believe “representative government” to be a device to get the unwashed masses arms-length or further from deciding any issue of governance will bemoan such a vote as unworkable and dangerous. Those who believe representative government is all about the people actually being represented will have no dilemma with allowing the people to represent themselves at the ballot box.

On the issue of a national vote there is again a stark difference of opinion between the Political Class, who oppose a public vote on changes to Social Security (60%) or on raising taxes (73%), and Mainstream Americans, who support a vote on entitlement changes (78%) and tax increases (72%).

Rasmussen Reports is ahead of the game in another way, too. He’s been tracking the key political question of all: Does our government have the consent of the governed?

The answer in July was that 23 percent of us feel the government has that consent; 62 percent believe it does not. That’s actually an improvement from February, when only 21 percent felt the government possessed public consent.

Obviously, we don’t trust our government. Just as obviously, we shouldn’t. Our government must earn our trust. Politicians can start this process by trusting the wisdom and common sense of the people.

Last January, I suggested a three-issue commitment all candidates worthy of support should have no difficulty embracing: support for term limits, ballot initiative and referendum, and transparency. Political leaders capable of representing Mainstream Americans must (1) agree to hold power only temporarily, with a departure date certain, (2) serve us by establishing a process where “We the People” get to vote and trump the political elite, and (3) provide the public the information necessary to judge the decisions made by government.

We want our rulers to become our servants. It’s history’s rarest achievement.

SOURCE

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The developing Obama depression

This week President Obama took to the White House press corps and by extension to the nation to claim that the nation saw job growth of 67,000 jobs in August. Even if this number was real it would be a pitifully tiny percent of the 14,885,000 who are both on unemployment (1 in 10 Americans) as well as those 23,768,000 who are underemployed (working but not earning enough for basic needs - 1 in 5 families).

The bigger problem for the president however is that the number isn't real. The fact is the nation saw 114,000 people added to the unemployment lines in August and the net jobs lost for the month sat at 54,000. In all the "summer of recovery"--as both President Obama and Vice President Biden pronounced it--saw 238,000 more jobs disappear.

Telling the nation that his plans have taken the economy in the right direction, and implying that the nation is seeing a recovery in the area of employment is either willfully dishonest, or painfully, even treacherously naive. At the rate of this "recovery" another 317,333 workers could be sitting on the sidelines before the end of the year.

Additionally we are now on track to see the single largest collection of tax increases ever proposed take the Obama economy even further into the tank. In less than 120 days President Obama's plan to add a collective 18.6% to the federal tax burden will continue the economic downward spiral into record breaking depression-era territory. And remember he repeatedly said--on the campaign trail--that he should be elected expressly to prevent the nation's economy from complete deterioration.

Instead unemployment that was growing in the transition from Bush to Obama has exploded to double what it was under Bush. Even worse this means that while 14,885,000 Americans are claiming unemployment assistance, some 23,768,000 families are presently struggling through work that they have but are unable to meet their basic needs.

And about the time we are belting out Auld Lang Syne this holiday season, President Obama will raise all five income levels of tax categories between 3-5%.

Ironically the President will be raising the rate on the category that is home to seventy-five percent of all small businesses in America by the largest increase. I call it ironic because it is the small business community in America that hires 2 out of every 3 new workers in America. Eventually it all adds up.

The president is not pushed on this issue by the press. The president's team pretends that these realities do not exist. The president himself is willing to perpetuate the false notion that the stimulus package set up a "recovery summer" that in truth ended up in greater pain than it began with.

None of this takes into effect the additional costs that will be incurred by taxpayers when the full implementation of President Obama's control of one-sixth of the economy through the manipulation of how we receive health care benefits kicks in. And not that it has great likelihood of passing this year, but if by some miracle it did, the Obama tax penalties that would be incurred by every citizen in the nation under the proposed "Cap & Trade" legislation would add even greater misery to the growing pile.

All of these pending tax increases will be put into effect against well more than 95% of American tax-payers. Speaking of which that certainly contradicts his most famous campaign line.

In 1929 Irving Fisher observed that a number of trends led to the worst depression of our nation's history. How many of these fit in today's scenario:

Debt liquidation and distress selling; Contraction of the money supply as bank loans are paid off; A fall in the level of asset prices; A still greater fall in the net worths of business, precipitating bankruptcies; A fall in profits; A reduction in output, in trade and in employment; Pessimism and loss of confidence; Hoarding of money; A fall in nominal interest rates and a rise in deflation adjusted interest rates.

President Obama is ignoring and misrepresenting the rate of growth (or lack thereof) in the job numbers, and his economic team has laid the groundwork for the harshest attack on small businesses and every family in America that pays taxes effective January 1, 2011.

By every indicator this pundit can see, we are poised for tragedy

SOURCE

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The Modern Left and Islam are both forms of political nihilism

It is the thesis of this commentary that both socialism and Islam are forms of political nihilism, and that both contend that the life of the individual has no intrinsic meaning or value outside of their systems. One ascribes meaning to the individual as a unit of society and its servant, and no more than that. The other ascribes meaning to the individual as a debtor to and servant of a supreme being, and no more than that.

What are the commonalities of secular statism (or socialism) and Islam? What premises do they share? What are their shared ends? Are those ends similar or dissimilar or radically divergent? The ends are demonstrably dissimilar and divergent. What unites them?

The chief commonality between socialism and Islam is the deep-seated hatred -- and I would say is the fundamental motive of both socialism and Islam, its desiderative essence -- of the West, specifically of capitalism, of individual rights, and of freedom of speech. And particularly of America.

What is it about those three hallmarks of Western culture that arouses the shared animosity? They are the requirements of an independent, unobstructed, free-to-act, selfish, value-driven, and life-affirming man. They are the descriptive attributes that cannot be permitted in a totalitarian society. They are diametrically opposite of what secular statism and Islam require to function. They are the unified, integrated nemesis of collectivism. They do not describe the “ideal” man in either ideology. Such a man must be eradicated, destroyed. And once destroyed, such a man in either system cannot be permitted to come into existence.

Much more HERE

There is a big new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc.

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)

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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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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The Revolutionary Mind: Nothing must stand in the way of utopia

Below are some excerpts from Olavo de Carvalho, a respected conservative philosopher and historian from Brazil. He says that for the Leftist, everything hangs on a vision of a future utopia -- and he points out where that leads and how. He writes at great length to make his points, however, so what I have offered below is a sort of Reader's Digest condensed version of his argument. Even so, the piece is rather long but the perspective he offers is I think well worth reading

* There are certain aspects of reality that revolutionaries, to a greater or lesser degree, perceive in a different manner, not only from that which mankind perceived before, but also from that which the ordinary people not involved in the revolutionary movement continue to perceive even today. The first of these aspects refers to the perception of time.

What I am saying is that all revolutionaries, all members of the revolutionary movement, from the fourteenth century until now, have had a perception of time that is different from that of common people, and of the rest of mankind.

This means that if human history, the ensemble of human happening, has been leading towards a privileged moment at which a new perfect society will emerge - a society where all human dramas and all human suffering will be overcome, and where stabilization of human order will take place - if everything converges to this end - so this end, being the objective of human history, is also the foundation for its explanation... So, in the revolutionary perspective, the advent of the perfect society is the objective and hence the reason for being of all prior history. Hence, a radical inversion of the sense of time can be observed

[To most people] the past is irreversible and the future is contingent. And the present is a certainty, but is a movable certainty, which is constantly vanishing before us. This is the normal experience of time: the normal, traditional, and universal experience of time. To a revolutionary, on the contrary, that which is certain is the future, and this certainty is what drives him. Now, the meaning of everything that has happened, and of everything that is happening, comes to depend on that future.

* A second inversion is the moral inversion. Why? Because it is supposed that this future to be accomplished represents justice and good. However, it cannot be accomplished by means of justice and good. It has to be accomplished through the usual political and military means, i.e., by employing every necessary cruel, malign, and violent means.

The idea of bringing about the future good through a deep immersion in evil that, carried to the extreme, will transfigure the situation and transform it into good in the future is also an idea inherent in the structure of the revolutionary movement. However, this ends up having much deeper consequences than one could imagine at first sight. This is because the good which is imagined in the future is defined according to a moral criterion inherited from the religious traditions, from Christianity.

The perfect society exists in order to bring about that ideal of justice, of love for one's neighbor, etc., which is found in the Bible. Nonetheless, it will not be produced through these means, but rather through war, violence, cruelty, dictatorship, etc. Thus mankind becomes divided into two types of people. The inhabitants of the future, who will live in a world of justice, love, charity, etc., and will usually practice those virtues, because they will be disseminated in the social environment. Everyone will be good. And people who, in the present day, living within the still corrupted and malign world, are fighting in order to create the future world. These people are revolutionaries.

Now, the people of the future are passive beneficiaries of the advent of a world that they did not help to create. This future will be the revolutionaries' work. Revolutionaries from all generations have always considered themselves better than other human beings. As Che Guevara said: "We are the first rank of mankind."

Within the revolutionary literature, there is an immense bibliography of self-glorification of the revolutionary as a superior human type. And particularly Che Guevara wrote eloquent pages of self-glorification. Now, if revolutionaries are superior types, they are still more superior to those who will benefit from their actions. A revolutionary is a person who sacrifices himself and others in order to create a better world. He does this through cruelty, violence, stealth, lying, and whatever it takes. In the future, no one will be obliged to do any of this because everyone will live in a just society. Everyone will be good. But if the revolutionary is the superior type, this means that the evil, sin, crime, violence, and lying that he commits today are morally superior to the general virtues of the inhabitants of the future.

The revolutionary moral inversion reaches its purest expression, I suppose, in a statement by Che Guevara. When asked why so many people had to be killed in order that a better society could be created, Che Guevara answered: "We have to make this sacrifice." (As though he was being sacrificed.) This means that he was the sacrificial victim and not his victims. The man who kills becomes the victim. This structure, this argument, this twist of language has been universally adopted in the revolutionary discourse.

The violence of revolution is always attributed to those who resist revolution and not to those who practice the violence. The idea is: "We are going to kill you because you are obliging us to do so. Since you do not accept our commands, we have to kill you. And you are evil because you do not want the marvelous future, so we will kill you. Therefore the guilt for killing you does not lie with me, but with you."

Thus, this reasoning is characteristic of the revolutionary inversion. This structure is permanently present in all revolutionary discourse throughout the centuries. In other words: "The guilt for our actions always lies with the others. And we are superior people when we cheat, kill, lie, etc. We are the first rank of mankind. Therefore we are also superior to those who will be beneficiaries of the future, and who will be able to live a life of virtue thanks to our sins."

* Automatically, along with this inversion, there also exists the inversion of logic between truth and error, truth and falsehood.

However, in the revolutionary perspective, the truth is not in the world of experience because the meaning of experience is mutable at each moment. That which has just happened may acquire a new and completely different meaning as the revolutionary movement develops the next day. So, what is the criterion of truth? The criterion of truth is the final revelation of the meaning of the whole process. The truth only appears at the end of the process. And what is the truth? The truth is the just society that the revolutionary movement has created. This is the sole truth. All the rest is a mixture of truth and falsehood whose meaning will be elucidated only at the end.

This means that the normal relations between factual premises and hypothetical conclusions are inverted. The hypothetical conclusion becomes the premise for judging the premises. And this is another structure of thought that is also present in every revolutionary discourse throughout time.

This structure can be observed in the theoreticians of the French Revolution, in the philosophes who laid the groundwork for the French Revolution, like Diderot and Voltaire. It is present in Marx, in Lenin, in the World Social Forum, in Emir Sader, it is present uniformly throughout this gang. What they understand by truth is the future revelation of the meaning of history. The meaning of history is the revolution and the creation of the just society. All the rest was nothing but preparation, disguise, and twilight.

* These are only three inversions. I do not know whether you have already realized it, but there is a fourth one, which is implied in the moral inversion, and that is the inversion between subject and object. If in the act of killing an enemy of the revolution, it is the revolutionary who is the sacrificial victim, then automatically, the victim who was taken to the execution wall becomes the executioner. Hence the subject of the action becomes the object and the object becomes the subject. And this is also present in all revolutionary discourse, independently of the huge ideological, political, strategic, and cultural variations that exist within the revolutionary movement.

It is important to highlight that wherever you see the idea of a just society in the future justifying malign actions in the present, there lurks the revolutionary mentality. The ideological contents matter little because they are only occasional and local variations in relation to this constant structure. For instance, if someone thinks that the future society is the elimination of the bourgeoisie, that all bourgeois must be killed, he is a revolutionary. But if he thinks that the bourgeoisie is not the problem, but the rather Jews, and all the Jews have to be killed, he is doing exactly the same thing. The reasoning is exactly the same.

And the structure of the argument will be the same as well, because the Nazis never considered themselves executioners of the Jews, but rather victims. Particularly Himmler, who was in charge of the concentration camps, wept every time he sent a convoy of Jews to a concentration camp, thinking: "Look at the cruelty that these knaves oblige us to commit. We could do without this, but they compel us to do it."

This is exactly how the communists think, and how Che Guevara thought. This means that the revolutionary mentality is this structure of perception, and not the content, because the content may vary indefinitely. The same political movement changes its talk each week. There is no ideological stability. For instance, until the First World War, the communist movement was internationalist and the radical enemy of all nationalism.

Later on, it becomes the greatest promoter of nationalisms in the Third World because they will be used as weapons against the colonial powers. But how can a movement be nationalist and anti-nationalist at the same time? The revolutionary movement can, because the content of the discourse is changeable.

Revolution means precisely a complete turn, a complete inversion. Therefore, the inversion of the perception of the world is the basis for the revolutionary movement in all of its versions. Precisely because of that, the revolutionary movement was capable of flooding the universe with an epidemic of psychotic mendacity over time, above everything that all liars, past and present, would ever be able to accomplish.

There is nothing that can check a revolutionary in his impetus to invert the perceived reality, to say things exactly to the contrary to how they really took place. And curiously, this is what gives the revolutionary discourse much of its attractiveness. Because its attractiveness is not an ideological one, and neither is it an idealistic one. Its attractiveness is very similar to that of drugs, to that of a hallucinogenic proposal. That is to say: one adhere to it not because of a conscious motivation or idealism, as people imagine, and by the way, the idea that youth is idealist is part of the revolutionary movement's ideology.

The revolutionary does this not out of idealistic motivation but because of a psychotic attraction to inverting reality. And the denial of the structure of reality would be an act superior to the creation of reality. It is the famous "No" uttered by Satan. "I do not accept reality as it is. It is not that I do not accept this social organization or that specific situation. No. I do not accept reality. I do not accept existence."

As soon as one has said that, one becomes imbued with a feeling of greatness, of aggrandizement, which is really satanic. Now imagine when this chance is given to any poor intellectual devil, to any intellectually damaged person, like Emir Sader. As soon as one has adhered to this denial, one feels aggrandized. And if this sense of aggrandizement also comes with a license to commit every sin, as with Che Guevara, and even so to be sanctified because of this then, it is absolutely irresistible.

However, it is clearly a psychotic hallucination. Schelling talked about spiritual disease, and this is also an expression used by Eric Voegelin. At the beginning, I thought this was so, but nowadays I see that it is a psychic disease in the strict sense. It is psychopathology in the strict sense, and it is a collective psychopathology. That is why Pope John Paul II was quite right in classifying our age as the age of collective madness. It is not only a disease of the spirit, it is a disease of the psyche. It is a disorder of the perception of time, the perception of reality, the perception of the relations between subject and object, of the relations between truth and error, etc. And it is precisely because it is a disorder, because it is something sick, that it spreads so fast and formidably.

More HERE

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Beware of the Obama tax increases

Listening to the Democrats this summer, you're unlikely to hear about an impending tax increase. In an effort to sanitize their historically irresponsible decision to raise tax rates in the midst of a struggling economy, President Obama and the congressional majority say they are merely "allowing the Bush tax cuts" to expire.

American businesses are sitting on top of a record $2 trillion in cash — money that could be spent hiring more workers, funding new projects or paying out dividends to investors. But right now these dollars remain stuck on the sidelines.

Already grappling with weak demand for goods and services, businesses of all sizes have five main costs and expenses that impact their bottom lines. Thanks to the agenda in Washington, all are going up, turning the White House's much-touted "Recovery Summer" into the "Summer of Uncertainty." Here's a look:

•Taxes will jump next year on everything from ordinary income, capital gains, dividends and estates. And with our national debt soaring, the prospect of even more tax increases in the future seems more likely.

•Health-care costs are growing as a result of Obamacare's mandates and inflationary impact on premiums.

•Energy costs remain in limbo as leading Democrats, led by Sen. John Kerry, float the idea of passing cap-and-trade during the lame-duck session of Congress.

•Credit is becoming more expensive and is increasingly out of reach for most small businesses, partly because the 2,300-plus page financial regulatory bill encourages banks to horde their capital rather than lend it.

•Labor costs also threaten to climb higher as labor unions dig in their heels and gear up for another push to pass card check.

During last night's Oval Office address, President Obama vowed that America would "nurture the ideas that spring from our entrepreneurs." But if government doesn't stop penalizing hard work and discouraging risk taking, there won't be any entrepreneurs left.

In this environment, it's understandable why businesses — which have pared their expenses by laying off over 2 million workers since Congress passed the stimulus in February 2009 — would be reluctant to start hiring again. Hence the disappointing 71,000 jobs created by the private sector last month — a figure too small to keep up with the growth of the workforce, let alone take a bite out of the 9.5% unemployment rate.

No matter how much money President Obama borrows and spends, our economy simply will not recover until small, medium and large businesses have the confidence to put Americans back to work.

More HERE

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)

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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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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The authoritarian nature of the political Left never changes

Sorry, but I can't allow Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius' statement that "we have a lot of re-education to do" slip by without comment. It's amusing when avowed leftists don't even recognize the Marxist buzzwords they're sputtering.

Sebelius is attributing the public's vehement opposition to Obamacare to "misinformation given on a 24/7 basis. ... Unfortunately," she said, "there still is a great deal of confusion about what is in (the Obamacare law) and what isn't." She is especially peeved about the vulnerability of seniors, who "have been a target of a lot of the misinformation." (The target of Obama's misinformation, perhaps.)

The most remarkable thing is that Sebelius didn't actually use the term "re-education" accidentally or out of school. Perhaps unwittingly, she's quite comfortable using a term long associated with tyrannical regimes. As one of Obama's chief lieutenants, she obviously believes this administration knows better than the public what is good for them.

Indeed, one of the ongoing ironies of liberalism is that it holds itself out as open-minded, democratic and representative of the common man, when it is more comfortable dictating to and indoctrinating the masses. Just look at our universities alone if you need quick, verifiable proof. But let's consider a few other examples of this administration's employing that mindset.

When an audience member at a forum at the Kennedy School of Government told Obama adviser and close confidant Valerie Jarrett that Obama's ideas are too complex to be digested by the unwashed, she didn't protest. The participant affectionately proposed that the White House express its ideas in an easier-to-comprehend form, such as printing simple booklets -- I assume replete with large print and colorful pictures.

Unflinching, Jarrett agreed it was a jolly idea. "Everyone understood hope and change," she said (NO, THEY DIDN'T), because "they were simple. ... Part of our challenge is to find a very simple way of communicating. ... When I first got here, people kept talking about 'cloture' and 'reconciliation' and 'people don't know what that's talking about.'" Then, the kicker, "There's nobody more self-critical than President Obama. Part of the burden of being so bright is that he sees his error immediately." How lonely it must be for these people at their perch high above the masses.

Then there's Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who, in gloating that he is part of a "transformational administration," intends to "coerce people out of their cars." Does it bother him that he's basically using government to dictate to people how they should behave? Are you kidding? When asked about such unseemly government intrusion, he cavalierly replied, "About everything we do around here is government intrusion in people's lives." He continued, "I think we can change people's behavior."

Then there is the president himself. After his policy agenda was soundly repudiated with the victory of Scott Brown in the Massachusetts U.S. Senate race, instead of showing contrition or promising to modify Obamacare to more closely align with the people's will, he became further entrenched. He said, "I want everyone to take another look at the plan we've proposed." He also said he just hadn't talked enough about his plan, which left me wondering where "Saturday Night Live's" writers were.

With this administration, what we're seeing is not just an arrogant contempt for the cognitive ability and will of the American people but also a cynical determination to manipulate its will through indoctrination, selective suppression of speech, and trickery.

Obama's regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein, wrote a Harvard Law Review article advocating "cognitive infiltration," which amounts to the government's use of phony websites and 501(c)(3) groups to masquerade as independent supporters of government policies and trolling opposing websites to pepper them with pro-administration posts. In this way, the government can manipulate public opinion surreptitiously, all for the greater societal good, as defined by Obama/Sunstein liberals. Even certain fellow liberal journalists have described this suggestion as "truly pernicious."

And let's not forget recent Obama Supreme Court appointee Elena Kagan's advocating the government's "unskewing" of speech that she and her fellow liberals believe harmful, i.e., conservative speech.

I truly hope people understand that Kathleen Sebelius' comment was neither offhanded nor out of line with the administration's MO; it was right in line with the administration's Orwellian approach to top-down, autocratic governance.

SOURCE

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Low-grade abuse of Sarah Palin offends even some liberal feminists

Yesterday, Vanity Fair released yet another long hatchet job piece about Sarah Palin. But what this piece has generated — well, besides incredulity that a magazine of Vanity Fair’s caliber would run a character assassination piece almost entirely based on anonymous sources — is a bipartisan backlash. Not against Palin, but against Vanity Fair.

Politico’s Ben Smith has already debunked two of the stories told in the piece. Clara Jeffery, editor of Mother Jones, tweeted that she was “annoyed by [Palin] being called to task things normal for any male pol. Like using cute kids as props.” Later, in response to Roger Ebert’s approving tweet, Jeffery sarcastically tweeted back: “Also bumming me out: That @ebertchicago would think Palin profile is ‘devastating.’ Uh, yeah, to journalistic standards.”

Fellow Mother Jones editor Monika Bauerlein was also annoyed, tweeting, “‘Sarah, these aides say, seemed comforted by having the children around, and she seemed lonely when they were gone.’ Truly a monster.”

And, via Ben Smith, former John Edwards aide and feminist/progressive blogger Melissa McEwan wrote:

"Gross’ article, however, amounts to very little but “Sarah Palin is the worst because she’s in politics…and is A WOMAN.”

Sure, it’s covert sexism. Gross doesn’t talk about her boobs or use identifiable misogynist epithets to describe her, but it’s sexism nevertheless, as the (frequently dislikable) habits of many major politicians, of both parties, are used to build the case that Palin is remarkably awful. But there is nothing particularly remarkable about a politician who requires family members get permission to grant interviews. Nor about a politician who ambitiously trades favors and ruthlessly gets people fired who cross [him]. Nor about a politician who acts like an entitled a**.

What makes this article the worst thing I’ve read all day is the fact that most of what’s in it is the sort of s*** that is considered (rightly or wrongly) the mundane business of doing politics, and yet is somehow ZOMG SHOCKING when done by Sarah Palin. …

I will continue to defend Sarah Palin against misogynist smears not because I endorse her or her politics, but because that’s how feminism works. But I’d prefer not to be obliged in the first place.

For those who weren’t satisfied by 10,000-plus word screed against Palin, VF also published an online-only bonus article going over (again!) how much the McCain campaign spent on clothes for the Palin family. But when you’ve got even Meghan McCain — who’s admitted to being “conflicted” over what she thinks about Palin — taking Palin’s side on the wardrobe malfunction, that says something about how way overblown the hysteria is. From Jay Newton-Small, blogging for Time about McCain’s new book:

But McCain also sympathizes with the wardrobe debacle. “That’s what it costs to outfit seven or eight people in designer clothes,” McCain wrote. “Other candidates had spent just as much, or more, but kept those kinds of expenses under wraps – sunk into promotion and advertising costs. What surprised me was that our campaign couldn’t do the same.”

The debate over Palin’s policies and role in the Republican party will no doubt continue. But when you’ve got liberal feminists defending her, it’s clear that the level of vitriol toward her is long past acceptable boundaries.

UPDATE: Over at Slate, blogger David Weigel just posted an e-mail from Shannyn Moore (described by VF as “a green-eyed blonde who, like Palin, was once an Alaska beauty queen, albeit a few stripes more self-aware,”) regretting that she trusted the piece’s writer, Michael Joseph Gross.

In the e-mail directed to Gross, Moore wrote that his depiction of her thoughts was “so completely wrong, and put me in such a completely inaccurate and unfavorable light.” She concluded with a harsh reprimand: “Shame on you. You’re not a writer … you’re a climber.”

SOURCE

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Some very recent history

Most Americans welcomed the announcement that US-led combat operations in Iraq were over, and that the last combat unit was to be sent home. Last night, when President Obama addressed the nation via live television, he obviously counted on the short memories of the American people in his attempt to garner credit.

At the same time, officials at the public-interest group Move America Forward congratulated these brave troops and greeted them as heroes. They also also called on the Obama Administration to do the right thing, and give credit where it is due.

"He [Obama] should thank George W. Bush for enabling victory in Iraq, in addition to the troops who and won the war, despite Obama's opposition to the successful war strategy," stated a press release from the group.

"In 2007, the War on Terror was raging worse than ever in Iraq, the outlook for the American public was grim, and too many of our precious troops were hurt or being killed in battle. Politicians on the left began piling on their attacks on both President Bush and the mission, putting their own political gain ahead of the lives of our troops," their statement said.

In his re-election campaign, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is hoping Nevada voters forget that he personally surrendered to the terrorists and gave a huge morale boost and symbolic victory to the enemy when he said, "I believe this war is lost. The surge is not accomplishing anything."

Then-Senator Barack Obama himself predicted that the surge would not help in Iraq. “In fact, I think it will do the opposite” he said, predicting that our troops would make matters worse! Later he would say "The surge is not working" and believed our efforts in Iraq would fail.

Officials at Move America Forward are doing what the lap-dancing news media won't do: Point to the politicians -- like Harry Reid -- who hope Americans forget their foolish statements, as they now join President Obama in taking credit for the victory that was made possible through the sheer determination of President George W. Bush, along with the courage and dedication of our brave troops who called him Commander-in-Chief.

What has become clear is that politicians stand ready to denounce the troops the moment things get tough, and then rush in to claim victory after the shooting stops and the battle is won.

"I recall Senator Dick Durbin calling our troops 'stormtroopers' and terrorist detention centers 'gulags.' And Senator John Kerry accused our military of terrorizing women and children in the dark of night. But I'm not expecting Katie Couric and the rest of the Obama water-carriers to remind Americans of this outrageous duplicity," said former intelligence officer and police detective Mike Snopes.

"Now our great Lecturer-in-Chief Obama is trying to claim victory for a mission he actively opposed, and many in his administration now have attempted to take credit for victory in Iraq," added officials from Move America Forward.

What is angering many is Americans is Vice President Joe Biden calling the outcome of the Iraq war “one of the great achievements of this administration.” trying to argue that Obama and his administration deserve more credit than President Bush or even the troops who fought the war!

Yet when Bush was making the hard decisions to stay the course in Iraq, it was Biden who said "The whole notion that the surge is working is fantasy."

The truth is that if Obama and Biden had been in charge, America would have already lost the Iraq war, and suffered dearly the consequences.

More HERE

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ELSEWHERE

I rarely post to my Scripture blog these days but I have just put up a study of Ecclesiastes 10:2 which might be of some interest. It asks whether the text is an endorsement of the political Right.

U.S. Economy Lost 54,000 Jobs in August; Unemployment Rate Rises to 9.6%: "Job losses continued to mount in the U.S. economy last month, though at a more modest pace than expected, putting further pressure on policy makers to take action to spur growth and employment. A separate report indicated the U.S. nonmanufacturing sector expanded at a much slower pace last month. The U.S. economy shed jobs for a third straight month, losing 54,000 non-farm jobs, but the losses were half as bad as expected. The unemployment rate rose to 9.6%."

The Revolt of the Bourgeois: "The much-analyzed speeches at the Glenn Beck Lincoln Memorial rally weren't as notable as what the estimated 300,000 attendees did: follow instructions, listen quietly to hours of speeches, and throw out their trash. Just as stunning as the tableaux of the massive throngs lining the reflecting pool were the images of the spotless grounds afterward. This was the revolt of the bourgeois, of the responsible, of the orderly, of people profoundly at peace with the traditional mores of American society."

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)

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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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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The left wins… rhetorically

The article by Melanie Phillips excerpted below gets it pretty right but doesn't quite get back to the basics. There is a very clear reason why Leftist oratory tends to sound good: Sounding good is all that the Leftist aims for. His own personal self interest is all that he really cares about so if the policies he advocates sound good now, but lead to ruin and destruction in the future, he shows a psychopathic disregard for such future consequences; While the poor old conservative is left in the position of pointing out all the negatives

Both Obama and Hitler are prize examples of sounding good to their chosen audiences. Hitler's oratory and eloquence led Germans down a path that killed millions of them (and others) whereas Obama so far has simply signed a law that will eventually make healthcare more costly and less available to most Americans -- but the lack of caution about the future is the same --JR

Someone I met recently posed what I thought was an interesting question.

Like me, he had read and admired the moving interview in last Sunday’s Observer with the Israeli novelist David Grossman, whose son Uri was killed when his IDF tank was hit by a rocket in the final hours of the aborted war with Hizbollah in 2006.

Grossman, whose new novel apparently owes much to that terrible experience, talked simply and poignantly about its effect on him. One does not have to agree with his politics to be touched by his refusal to give in to despair and even to find ways to grow from such a tragedy.

My acquaintance, however, asked why it was that the most articulate voices tended to be found on the left. Why was there no equivalent to the soaring voice of David Grossman on the right?

One possible reason is that the left and the intelligentsia are more or less synonymous: or as the left so offensively puts it, that the ‘right’ — ie everyone who is not the left — is stupid.

On that basis, the left seems to have a monopoly of eloquence simply because of its dominance of the chattering classes.

But there may be another reason. I think it boils down to a matter of perception; and perception, as so often, is influenced by ideology.

What, after all, does eloquence do? It moves us. It provokes an emotional identification and sympathy with the speaker or author. Today’s left privileges emotion over reason, in direct contrast to the non- or anti-left which champions objectivity over subjectivity. And emotion and eloquence go together.

Prose that gives expression to personal grief or yearning for peace is thus almost inevitably bound to soar far more eloquently than stolid attempts to present objective factual evidence and arguments for law and morality against their antithesis.

More HERE

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Simplistic pacifism won't help Afghans

Andrew Riddle (a retired soldier in the Australian Regular Army and a political moderate) points out what a Nazi-like regime the Taliban were and how they have not gone away

As I sat through another politics lecture the other day, I felt a slow rage building inside me. "Counter-insurgency," this particular lecturer declared, "is all about winning hearts and minds. We've heard all this before – in Vietnam!"

It's always easy to oppose war. War is awful. Awful, however, is not the same as simple. Simple is what the anti-war movement wants; it wants the war to be about American imperialism and stealing Third World resources, crowded with war crimes and founded on lies. It wants Afghanistan, in short, to be Iraq.

But Afghanistan is not Iraq, and never was. Long-forgotten is that terrible period of hand-wringing concern over the horrific abuses of the late '90s. Back then, we were all shocked by the brutality of the new jihadist rulers of Afghanistan. When the Taliban took almost complete control of Afghanistan in 1996, it massacred surrendered enemies and the minority Hazaras, stripped women of education and healthcare, and publicly executed civilians for a vast array of crimes, real and imagined.

The Revolutionary Association of the Woman of Afghanistan went to great lengths to smuggle out footage of these atrocities, while Physicians for Human Rights said in their 1998 report, "no other regime in the world has methodically and violently forced half of its population into virtual house arrest, prohibiting them on pain of physical punishment from showing their faces, seeking medical care without a male escort, or attending school".

The Taliban were one of the most horrific regimes in recent history. They were worth overthrowing, and they are worth fighting.

There were serious mistakes in Afghanistan, the most important of which was abandoning it in favour of the Iraq war. While the half-baked neo-conservative adventure in Mesopotamia unfolded, the scattered Taliban reformed, the fragile new government faltered and fell into corruption and vice, and the initial respect in the region for America's white-hot rage was replaced with contempt. Most discouraging, however, was watching Afghanistan's role in the antiwar narrative gradually expand from an afterthought to the main event.

Certainly the case for Afghanistan has been done no favours by the right-wing commentariat. "Clash of civilisations" rhetoric about "global Islamofascism" and sound-bite arguments about "safe havens for terror" serve to tarnish all support for the Afghanistan campaign.

Sadly, however, just because an argument is made by priggish partisans does not necessarily make it wrong. Afghanistan really was a safe haven for terrorists; it was used to build a global network of anti-American jihadists, which resulted in the most devastating terrorist attack in history.

We should fear terrorism, not least because of the consequences for democracy. After 2001, Western governments explored torture, indefinite detention without trial, and "extraordinary rendition", and any questioning or opposition was coloured as collaboration and appeasement. We had almost leapt head-first into the trap al-Qaeda had created. And as Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen fall into chaotic lawlessness, it could happen again.

Opponents of the Afghanistan war suffer from a most acute form of confirmation bias. Every soldier or civilian killed, every misdirected bomb, becomes yet more indisputable, conclusive proof that the military effort is an atrocity. Hair-splitting arguments, such as the distinction between al-Qaeda and the Taliban (because the two were merely very closely interwoven, rather than identical), become mantras supposedly proving poor faith, and the big picture vanishes.

War is an incredibly complex business, and the war in Afghanistan one of the most complex. Brilliant men like Stanley McChrystal and David Kilcullen spend their entire lives seeking to understand it, yet every armchair chardonnay-swiller thinks they know better.

Perhaps the Afghanistan campaign is not worthy of unqualified support. Indeed, the tenacious culture of Pashtun resistance may make a staged withdrawal the best possible solution. Military strategists are already gearing their efforts towards salvaging the best result from a truncated mission, in the knowledge that public tolerance for the war is draining away.

However, with the break in the bipartisan grip on power, and more than half of the electorate now opposing our contribution to Afghanistan, it's important to take the debate seriously, rather than choosing the feel-good option of simplistic pacifism. All I ask is that, before adopting a position, people seriously consider the moral, political, and historical implications of abandoning Afghanistan.

The decision to leave 38 million Afghans to sort it out themselves should not be easy or simple. It seems that at some point it's going to happen, but when it does it should not be done lightly.

SOURCE

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The Dragon & the Elephant: Five myths about China versus India

By Dr John Lee

Myth 1: China’s authoritarian system sacrifices rights for social order

In fact, there is far more chaos and unrest in China than there is in India. According to the latest available official figures, there were 124,000 instances of ‘mass unrest’ (defined as 15 or more people protesting against officials) in 2008 in China. India has fewer than 5,000 such instances. Beijing spends more on ‘internal security,’ which does not include the normal police forces, than it does on the People’s Liberation Army.

Myth 2: India enjoys more freedom but at the price of economic inequality

In fact, using the commonly accepted standard of the GINI coefficient, China’s score is around 0.55–0.60, while India’s is around 0.33–0.36 (‘0’ is perfect income equality and ‘1’ is perfect income inequality. This makes China the most unequal society in all of Asia and the trend is worsening.

Myth 3: Given China’s spectacular rise, its private sector multinationals are due to dominate Asia, and then the world

True, there are 34 Chinese companies in the Fortune 500 list – all state-controlled except for one – compared to India’s eight. Size is one thing. But by ‘return on assets’ (to measure profitability) and ‘number of patents filed’ (to assess innovation), Indian firms do significantly better. Tellingly, the Indian firms spend about 5% of revenues on R&D on average while Chinese firms spend about 1% of revenue.

Myth 4: China is leaving India behind in the urbanisation stakes

China is definitely ahead of India: about 48% versus 35%. But the rate of urbanisation in India is actually neck-and-neck with China at about 1.5% per year.

Myth 5: China and India are making Western models of political-economy obsolete

There is a saying in both countries about their own respective developmental approach: Western knowhow with Chinese/Indian essence. But even Beijing and New Delhi admit that they are still speculating what this actually means. China and India are still outside the world’s top 100 for GDP per capita. The jury is well and truly still out on this one.

The above is a press release from the Centre for Independent Studies, dated Sept. 3. Enquiries to cis@cis.org.au. Snail mail: PO Box 92, St Leonards, NSW, Australia 1590.

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"Openness" about political donations may serve to entrench power -- by inhibiting donations to out-of-power parties

The comment below by Andrew Norton refers to the Australian situation but the principle is the same in any democracy

With the Greens and independent MPs both pushing political donations reform, this looks like one certain outcome of an inconclusive election.

There are many proposals for change, but most observers support more disclosure of political donations. A $1,000 threshold for donations disclosure is commonly suggested, including in the Green-Labor pact signed this week. Under the current system, donations below $11,500 need not be disclosed.

It is widely assumed that more disclosure increases the integrity of the political process. But it is not at all clear that this is the case.

If we assume that politicians are inclined to favour their financial supporters, it follows that they will also be inclined to disfavour the financial supporters of their opponents, by denying them access to ministers, appointments to government bodies, funding for their associations, and contracts with government agencies.

Disfavouring is much easier to hide than overt favours. Whether there is a donations trail or not, favours are usually easily detected. We know who receives government appointments, and which organisations benefit from government grants and contracts. But silently overlooked people, requests and applications generate no public evidence.

What donations disclosure does is give governments a convenient list of people who support their opponents. The disclosure regime doesn’t just apply to political parties but also non-government organisations that comment on political matters. So spending just $1,000 opposing the government on only one issue could put your name on a ‘do not assist’ list.

If we had a small government that confined itself to a few core services, this may not matter much. But when we have a big government that spends more than a third of national income, and which cannot resist meddling in almost every activity, it creates real risks. So many people need to interact with government that numerous potential political donors may be deterred by the fear of future political disfavour.

The secret ballot was a great Australian democratic innovation, designed to let people express their views free of political intimidation. We should reject any law that gives the federal government more scope to inhibit its opponents.

The above is a press release from the Centre for Independent Studies, dated Sept. 3. Enquiries to cis@cis.org.au. Snail mail: PO Box 92, St Leonards, NSW, Australia 1590.

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Tony Blair speaks highly of GWB in his memoirs

I have always had a similar view of GWB so it is rather pleasing to have it confirmed by someone who came to know him well -- JR

Former U.S. President George W. Bush was a "true idealist" who displayed "genuine integrity and political courage," former British prime minister Tony Blair reveals in his memoirs.

Detailing the close professional and personal relationship which developed between the two leaders in the wake of the 2001 terror attacks in the U.S. and during the build-up to the Iraq war in 2003, Blair writes that Bush was "very smart" while having "immense simplicity in how he saw the world."

"Right or wrong, it led to decisive leadership... he sincerely believed in spreading freedom and democracy," he writes in "A Journey;" which hit book stores in the UK on Wednesday....

Blair said the key to Bush's political success was his "appeal as a normal guy." "You might not agree with him, but if you're a voter, you would never think you would be uncomfortable or feel inadequate if you met him socially; you would think he'd be nice and easy with you," he writes.

Bush had also displayed the most integrity of almost anyone he had met in politics, Blair says. "I was asked recently which of the political leaders I had met had most integrity. I listed George near the top. He had genuine integrity and as much political courage as any leader I ever met," he writes.

SOURCE

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)

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

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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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