Saturday, April 12, 2003

ISLAMIC FANATICISM MAY GET WORSE, NOT BETTER

Australian political scientist, David Martin Jones has a long article on Islamic fundamentalism that points out that it is primarily a PRODUCT of modernization and affluence -- with its most dedicated members being largely Westernized and often living in Western countries. Thus modernization and democratization is not going to cure it -- the reverse if anything. Apparently, modern-day, skeptical Western civilization with its lack of any certainties is profoundly alienating for many not born to it and fundamentalist Islam is something that such people turn to as a more satisfying alternative. Thus the Islamic enemy will always be nearby hating us and endangering us unless we become intolerant enough to exclude or crack down on him in some way

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MUSLIM "CIVILIZATION"

We hear a lot about the contribution of the Arabs to the maintenance of civilization in the Middle Ages when Europe had become relatively backward compared to how it was in the days of the Roman Empire. Most of the story is a pious myth, however. It is true that ancient civilization was better known among Muslims at that time but the Muslims did NOT invent or originate any significant part of the knowledge concerned. They borrowed it from the Greek Christians of the still-thriving Eastern Roman empire centred on Byzantium (in what is now Turkey), and from peoples that they conquered, such as the Persians, the Northern Indians and the Assyrians. There is a good summary here showing that most of the famous "Moslem" scholars of the Middle Ages were in fact from the Assyrian Christian community, though not all were very religious. Note also this summary:

The next great luminary of the Islamic world is Abu Ali Sina, known as Avicenna in the West, his "major contribution to medical science was his famous book al-Qanun, known as the "Canon" in the West. The Qanun fi al-Tibb is an immense encyclopedia of medicine extending over a million words. It surveyed the entire medical knowledge available from ancient and Muslim sources. Due to its systematic approach, formal perfection as well as its intrinsic value, the Qanun superseded Razi's Hawi, Ali Ibn Abbas's Maliki, and even the works of Galen, and remained supreme for six centuries. This book was taught as the textbook to the students of Medicine in the University of Bologna until the 17th Century.

Avicenna's philosophy was based on a combination of Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism. Contrary to orthodox Islamic thought, Avicenna denied personal immortality, God's interest in individuals, and the creation of the world in time. Because of his views, Avicenna became the main target of an attack on such philosophy by the Islamic philosopher al-Ghazali and was even called apostate.

There is also Al-Ma'arri, (973-1057) the greatest Syrian poet. He referred to religion as "noxious weeds" and called it a "fable invented by the ancients", worthless except for those who exploit the credulous masses.

Other examples are Omar Khayyam and Ibn Rushd an important philosopher and scientist, known in the Western world as Averroes.These great men upon whose shoulders rests the glory of the golden age of Islam were not Muslims and even were critical of it..



(Crossposted on Israpundit)


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SELECTIVE OUTRAGE SHOWS RACISM

In response to my posting yesterday about the lack of Leftist outrage over vast atrocities in Africa, Marc Miyake emailed me this comment:

They're not just Leftist but also racist. It's the same racism you refer to in your anti-racism as a sham post. Leftists probably think to themselves, "Africans don't know any better, so who cares?" Mutatis mutandis for Iraq: "Arabs are hopeless, so let 'em die." But bring up Israel and America, and suddenly the standards get raised sky-high. Why? Because only Israeli and American oppressors are responsible for the 'evils' that they allegedly do. Of course Europeans hold the moral 'high' ground and are beyond reproach. All others are just subhuman animals of color, useful for a protest now and then, but otherwise expendable.


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ELSEWHERE

Today’s most amusing headline: “Anti-War Groups Fear Loss of Momentum”

Textbooks widely used in New York's Islamic schools contain passages that are blatantly anti-Semitic, condemning Jews as a people

I suppose it is worth mentioning that the Iraq war was another defeat for the Palestinians too. The Ps have long had a love-affair with Saddam so after the first Gulf war the Kuwaitis kicked out over 100,000 Ps who had been working in Kuwait. Now the Ps will have the enmity of the Iraqui people as well, who loathe anything to do with Saddam..

Jeff Jacoby says that the USA should now topple the Castro regime in Cuba. It would certainly be acclaimed by the Cuban people.

Chris Brand pities the Kurds of Iraq for the way political correctness is set to betray them.

Michael Darby has a post that pities Iraq if the U.N. get to “help” with their reconstruction.

The Wicked one points out that GWB was quite a Greenie when he was Governor of Texas -- at great cost to Texans.

In my academic posting of April 10th here I point out that there are alternatives to the very loose ways in which Leftist psychologists customarily use the term “authoritarian”

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Friday, April 11, 2003


THE "ANTI-RACIST" and "HUMAN RIGHTS" SHAM EXPOSED NOW

In the first half of the 20th century, many Leftists were enthusiastic racists -- making it probable that their anti-racist hysteria in the second half of the 20th century was just a self-promoting sham. The antisemitism we now see among Leftists on college campuses was beginning to expose that sham but their support for Saddam Hussein makes the case pretty conclusive -- for there have been few people more racist than Saddam. But the Left just ignored well-known facts in that regard. As the National Review says:

The left's neglect of Saddam's lengthy track record of hate and intolerance is baffling. Indeed, Saddam is a racist by the truest definition of the word: He hates certain groups, and even tries to murder people in those groups, precisely because of their mere race. Saddam is not a bigot because, say, he opposes racial profiling at airports. He is a bigot because he tries to exterminate entire groups of people based solely on their race. Some of his frightening actions constitute genocidal racism. Nowhere has Saddam's racism been more apparent than in his actions against Iraq's Kurdish minority, where his personal hatred of Kurds achieved horrific dimensions.


And, as Richard Pollock says:

Embedded reporters have filed stories of Iraqi soldiers shooting civilians and forcing teenagers at gunpoint to fight the war. Also, there are published reports of Iraqi women and children being executed by the Saddam-loyal Fedayeen. Such evidence (and more) reveals Iraq's human rights violations and continual breach of international laws that govern warfare. But you wouldn't know it if you listened to the "mainstream" human rights groups. They apparently can find abuses everywhere except in Iraq.


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MORE SELECTIVE OUTRAGE

Below are two headlines from Agence France Presse which came up juxtaposed recently:

Media deaths spark outrage

AFP - The killing of three journalists in two separate attacks by US forces fighting for control of Baghdad triggered a torrent of criticism from international media watchdogs and officials.

Congo war claimed 3.3 million lives

AFP - The war in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has claimed 3.3 million lives and was "the deadliest documented conflict in African history," a US-based refugee agency said.


An accident or misjudgement of war is an outrage if the U.S. is responsible for it but blacks can do ANYTHING without it being an outrage. Much of the media seem to be moral imbeciles. They would not be Left-leaning by any chance, would they?

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ANTI-WAR DREAMING

An "anti-war" advocate wrote to me:

We have undermined international law in pursuing this war without allowing time for due process within the UN. The ramifications for the future in an increasingly nuclearised world is alarming and you don't have to be of the "left" to believe this


I replied

I think the resolve of GWB offers a lot more safety in a nuclearized world than a paper tiger like the UN does. Remember: The predecessor of the UN did no good because the dictators ignored it. We could not let Saddam do the same. And don't forget that it was the resolve of Ronald Reagan that caused the Soviets to give up and thus remove the biggest nuclear threat of all.

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ELSEWHERE

World's most improbable headine in yesterday's Brisbane "Courier Mail": Iraquis topple dictator. Who did? Were there any Americans there? Media bias anyone?

The WSJ points out that the U.S. army in Iraq IS a multinational force -- in that people of many national origins serve in it.

The US plan to end the Israel conflict “calls for a cease-fire, a Palestinian crackdown on militants, an Israeli troop withdrawal from Palestinian towns, an Israeli settlement freeze and a Palestinian state in provisional borders”. What a joke! Hell will freeze over before any of that happens. Walling off the Palestinians (already in progress) is the only solution.

New Zealand did NOT join Australia in sending troops to Iraq. Anton Kelly notes a good proposal for a new N.Z. flag: “I suggest a bright yellow flag with a red and green jellyfish in the centre. The yellow represents our cowardly Members of Parliament, the red and green represent the Government of the day and the jellyfish represents the spineless individuals who are meant to represent us...”

The Wicked one has another joke about the French military.

Michael Darby has a post with lots of good news about genetically modified crops.

Chris Brand is disappointed at the Bush administration’s support for affirmative racism.

In my academic posting of April 9th here I point out that much of the basis of political psychology is founded on a mistake -- identifying as “authoritarian” people who are simply old-fashioned.

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Thursday, April 10, 2003


AND THE WORLD SAID “NO” TO THIS?

Describing the scenes of jubilation in Baghdad after the entry of US troops as "breathtaking", Rumsfeld today compared the events to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the ensuing collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. "Saddam Hussein is now taking his rightful place alongside Hitler, Stalin, (Vladimir) Lenin and (Romanian dictator Nicolae) Ceausescu in the pantheon of failed, brutal dictators," he declared. "The scenes of free Iraqis celebrating in the streets, riding American tanks, tearing down the statues of Saddam Hussein in the centre of Baghdad, are breathtaking. "Watching them, one cannot help but think of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Iron Curtain

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RESOLVE REWARDED IN AUSTRALIA

THEY clapped and cheered and held out their babies for him to kiss. There could be no doubt who was the hero of the hour when John Howard met Australian Defence Force families in Brisbane yesterday. The latest meet-and-greet exercise for relatives of Gulf service personnel turned into a love-in with the Prime Minister - and yet another pointed reminder to Simon Crean that he is struggling in the battle for hearts and minds on the home front. Even Mr Howard seemed taken aback by the enthusiastic reception at Government House. After cheering him on arrival, people stood five deep to shake his hand and queued to have their photograph taken with him.

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THE ARAB MIND

Arabs watched in disbelief on Wednesday as Iraqi President Saddam Hussein lost Baghdad to U.S.-led forces without a fight. Three weeks of war in Iraq have sparked anger across the Arab world. Protesters at hundreds of rallies have chanted praise for "beloved" Saddam and held his picture aloft. Rabat perfume shop owner Lahoucine Lanait described Saddam as the Arab world's "best dictator."

In Oman, some said Saddam, whose fate is unknown after he was targeted by U.S. planes, symbolized resistance. "It is irrelevant whether Saddam is dead or not. His memory will live on to inspire many Arabs to stand up against all the injustices committed by the U.S. and its friends in Israel," Belqees Hamood, a university student, said.

Adel in Beirut disagreed. "So he was the only Arab leader to stand up to the Americans. Look what happened, no one else will dare try that again." Fahd Saleh of Saudi Arabia expressed equal dislike for President Bush and Saddam. "Saddam is a terrorist but he's not alone. Bush too is a terrorist but Saddam is weak and Bush is strong. That's why he has won, because no one opposes a strong person," said the 33-year-old Saudi government employee.


All they understand is the “big stick”.

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COULDN’T HAVE SAID IT BETTER MYSELF

THE UN had failed its mission in the lead-up to the war on Iraq, the Australian federal Government said yesterday, and that failure would reverberate as the world tackled other despotic regimes after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Defence Minister Robert Hill said the UN Security Council had failed the world badly. "They passed 12 years of resolutions (on Iraq) but it wasn't prepared to enforce them," Senator Hill said in Brisbane. "That sends a very unhelpful message to dictators who develop weapons of mass destruction and are prepared to use them on their own people and on their neighbours."

But Prime Minister John Howard maintained the UN would play an important role in the reconstruction of Iraq, particularly in delivering humanitarian assistance.
Speaking in Brisbane, the Prime Minister repeated a US-led interim administration was the only "practical" option. Mr Howard said the UN would have a "major role" in post-war Iraq, but it would not be leading the administration of the country.

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ELSEWHERE

I found this amusing: “As Saddam’s statue fell in Baghdad, some Iraquis threw shoes and slippers at the statue — a gross insult in the Arab world”. I guess it is noisy cats and dogs you normally throw shoes at.

I particularly liked this report from Baghdad: “Cheering crowds earlier sacked U.N. headquarters in the Canal Hotel and drive off in U.N. cars. The building had housed U.N. aid workers as well as arms inspectors, who were withdrawn shortly before the war began on March 20.”

The crew of the British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal are switching off the BBC. I wonder why? People HAVE been referring to the BBC as the Baghdad Broadcasting Corporation lately. Leftist bias anyone?

The Carnival is up again -- more legible this time.

Chris Brand has a posting about a book that explains how sexual attraction works.

Michael Darby has a post about the evil Zionist oppressors in Israel.

The Wicked one shows us why we should love bureaucracy.

In my academic posting of April 8th here I show that people who like and identify with the community in which they live do not do so out of a need to be loved.

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Wednesday, April 09, 2003

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MANY LEFTIST TENTACLES

A reader writes:

It seems to me that the common core of beliefs for ARM Republicans, most Greens, the Big M Multiculturalists is really "democratic centralism". That is why these three views (anti-monarrchy, environmentalism and multiculturalism) , logically independent, usually are batched together, along with 'liberal' views on gay rights, gun control etc.

I think it was Alexis De Toqueville who highlighted the risk to liberty from democracy and argued that there were two rival strands of democratic thought. What we can call a Jeffersonian strand with an emphasis on breaking up power centres ('decentralisation of power') and a Jacobin strand that sees the common will as the ultimate goal to which all must bow.

I think the main streams in the contemporary left certainly have a Jacobin impulse but it is elitist not populist. They only recognise a popular desire as authentic when it goes along with their ideology, otherwise they call for government 'leadership' to overcome the popular demand.


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FALSE MEMORIES AND FALSE ACCUSATIONS

This (Australian) ABC News Radio "Health Minute" has a summary of recent research on False Memory Syndrome. This is a controversial field and goes to the heart of recent public concerns over child abuse. It shows the urgent need to develop protocols to take account of FMS in cases of child abuse so the accused's rights are protected. Without these protocols in place all child abuse charges, true or false, will be subject to increasing skepticism.

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PINE TREES CAUSE ACID RAIN!

What a dilemma for the Greenies this must be: Even pristine forests can contribute to air pollution. In fact, researchers now say that northern pine forests exude a family of nitrogen oxides and do so in quantities that may rival those produced worldwide by industry and traffic. Nitrogen oxides can react with hydrocarbons to yield nitric acid, a primary ingredient in acid rain. They can also help produce smog-causing ozone. Scientists generally peg automobiles as the prime source of nitrogen oxides. Trees, on the other hand, are usually credited with sopping up air pollutants

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ELSEWHERE

US President George W. Bush pledged the United Nations will play a vital role in post-war Iraq, offering reassurances that Washington will not act unilaterally in rebuilding the country. The USA must be the most generous and forgiving nation in history.

The Australian government has positioned a small group of federal officials in Kuwait as part of the government-in-waiting of occupied Iraq. The Bush administration invited the federal government to supply specialists to the staff of the US-run Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, which will govern Iraq after the war until an elected Iraqi government is in place.

The silent majority again: Sometimes we think only lunatics live in the San Francisco Bay Area, but the San Francisco Chronicle has a poll that suggests that's not true. Sixty-three percent of Bay Area residents support the liberation of Iraq

Peter Hitchens argues we need to return to the idea of punishment if we are to avoid both the continued escalation of crime and the Big Brother surveillance state the popular reaction to out of control crime will produce.

Prominent Australian historian, Geoffrey Blainey has reviewed Windschuttle's book on Tasmania and credits Windschuttle with demolishing a Leftist myth about the “genocide” of Tasmanian Aborigines by early British settlers. Speaking of the Leftist historians, Blainey says: But many of their errors, made on crucial matters, beggared belief. Moreover their exaggeration, gullibility, and what this book calls “fabrication” went on and on.

Matt Ridley has some good things to say about GM technology and criticises Europe's techno-pessimism, which is now HURTING the environment

China Hand has just had a shot at Australian school-teachers -- asking whether such government-cosseted people can really be called "professionals"

Chris Brand points out that Political correctness has made SARS pneumonia much more dangerous than it might otherwise have been.

Michael Darby has a few notes on the history and thoughts of Daniel Pipes -- the man who more or less predicted the 9/11 events.

In my academic posting of April 7th here I look at a claim that Rightists have been shown as opposed to human rights. I point out that the result arose because “human rights” were defined in a Leftist way.

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Tuesday, April 08, 2003


POSTWAR IRAQ

My nomination for the stupidest headline about Iraq in Australia’s Left-leaning press: Time to stand up to America. What hate-filled Leftist nutcases like this forget to mention is that Australia would have no influence at all in Iraq if we had not done our bit to help the USA put down a brutal madman.

As it is, it is good to see that Australians will likely be part of the US-led post-war administration in Iraq, although not in key roles, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says. Mr Downer has just returned from the US where he discussed with President George W Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell US plans for the reconstruction and administration of Iraq.

Australia’s foreign minister Alexander Downer also says that the UN should supervise eventual elections in Iraq. I agree with that but cannot see any other justification for having the U.N. there.

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MILITARY HELICOPTERS

The U.S. has lost a few helicopters in the Iraq war. But:

Gibson and other helicopter experts say, it should be a very different story if the U.S. is unfortunate enough to have to return to this or any other battlefield in the future. There's a new generation of copters coming on-line in the next five years that can fly lower, faster and more stealthily than anything deployed in Iraq. New night vision and radar technology will help pilots identify their targets from four to five times farther away than is currently possible. They also promise to be easier to maintain, cutting down on crashes. By the end of the decade, some helicopters will even be capable of flying more like fixed-wing aircraft


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OSAMA AND SADDAM

There is a very interesting summary here of the links between the Iraquis and Osama bin Laden. It all seems to be well-documented -- insofar as one can document what would be closely-guarded secrets. The home page of the article has a whole lot of other documentation on Iraq and Saddam as well.

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LENIN ON THE STATE

“Essentially the state is the power exercised over the masses by a group of armed men separated from the people.” From the April Theses See here

“The state is a special organization of force: it is an organization of violence for the suppression of some class” From The state and revolution. See here.

That makes the Leftist position pretty clear, I think. The State exists to suppress people. No wonder power-mad people such as Leftists like big government!

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ELSEWHERE

Arabs throughout the Mideast were dismayed by television images of American tanks rolling through the heart of Baghdad and some rushed to sign up for holy war against U.S.-led forces. "As Arabs, we cannot see this and not move," said a man in his early 30s.. It seems clear that it is the Arabs who define us as the enemy rather than vice versa. They sure love suicide.

Good: Oakland police fired rubber bullets and wooden pellets on Monday to disperse hundreds of anti-war protesters in what was believed to be the first such use against U.S. protesters since the American-led war on Iraq began. Demonstrators were seeking to block access to American President Lines, a shipping company they claimed was profiting from the war in Iraq when police said they used the pellets and bullets to disperse about 750 protesters.

Great news! Britain is going to deport “Captain Hook” -- their pro-terrorist Muslim leader. Is British justice finally beginning to target the dangerous ones? About time!

And even the U.S. Justice Dept. seems to be overcoming their political correctness long enough to get some terrorist-supporting Muslims convicted! Is sanity breaking out everywhere?

Claims that man-made pollution is causing "unprecedented" global warming have been seriously undermined by new research which shows that the Earth was warmer during the Middle Ages

Michael Darby has an article that reminds us that Muslims think they should still own any territory that they once controlled.

Chris Brand has a post on the psychological reasons why women no longer need marriage.

In my academic posting of April 6th here I look at a claim that working class people are particularly authoritarian and show that some are and some are not -- with no overall trend one way or the other.

Mike Kerrigan, a Canadian university student, obviously has a lot of fun. He has created two big posters which he uses to taunt the Leftists around him about the Leftist policies of Hitler and Mussolini. I alluded briefly to them yesterday but if you missed them you can see them here.

The Wicked one has a joke in the “oldie but goldie” class.

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Monday, April 07, 2003

A LEFTIST HITLER AND RIGHTIST NEO-NAZIS?

I have just put up here an interesting email about the historical Hitler and modern-day Neo-Nazis. The writer makes several good points which question my own formulatuion that Hitler was simply the most nationalist of the extreme Leftists. I would like to look here therefore at his three main points. Firstly, though, readers here might like to read what I am replying to, as it does embody some common misconceptions and assumptions.

1). I have previously pointed out at some length that Hitler’s eugenic ideas were in fact typically Leftist for his times and were supported in America by “progressives” of the day. My correspondent then asks how I square that with my general support for Chris Brand today -- who also has some eugenic ideas. Am I being inconsistent?

For a start, although I support some of Chris Brand’s ideas, I do not support them all. I assist him to circulate his ideas mainly out of free-speech considerations -- as there have been great efforts made (sacking him from his university job, pulping his book) by Leftists to suppress him. And I myself have never commented on the eugenic ideas he occasionally raises. Nonetheless, I do think it is absolutely stupid to condemn an area of science or scholarship just because it has been misused in the past. One might as well condemn all dog-lovers because Hitler loved dogs. So just because Hitler and the American “progressives” of the interwar era had the perverse and ridiculous idea that Jews were genetically inferior does not mean that all and any genes are therefore equal in any sense. The rise of genetic engineering -- with its capacity to filter out genetic defects in children -- has in fact really made the matter a non-issue. Genes are ALREADY being selected for and against by medical science in today’s world with little controversy. And Jews, ironically perhaps, are one of the major beneficiaries of that, with the recent virtual elimination of Tay Sachs disease.

2). The second point made is a common one: That the Fascists of the 1920s and 1930s were opposed in their day by other Leftists and admired by many mainstream politicians in Britain and America. Mussolini in fact achieved the remarkable feat of being admired not only by Hitler but also by Winston Churchill and F.D. Roosevelt! All that, however, is really no more than an illustration of how radicalized interwar politics had become in Europe. If Hitler and Mussolini were seen as moderate and reasonable by nervous Anglo-Saxon politicians and businessmen, how radical must have been the alternative? And the alternative was very radical indeed. Stalin’s Russia was to the forefront of everyone’s mind with the unprecedented challenges it presented to almost the whole of society’s traditonal arrangements. And Stalin’s Russia had extensive support throughout Europe. So it is no wonder that slightly less radical Leftists (Nazis and Fascists) were gladly greeted for their apparent capacity to prevent the Communists from taking over the whole of Europe. And the Communists, of course, were not oblivious of the effective opposition provided by their Fascist rivals. So Communists and their symathizers did indeed hate and oppose the Fascists. Mainstream democratic Leftists -- such as Germany’s Social Democratic Party -- however were much less opposed to Hitler and in fact voted with the Nazis in critical Reichstag votes. For a fun poster that makes crystal clear how Leftist Hitler’s ideas were see here.

Interestingly, the basic economic policies of the Fascists and the Nazis -- permitting private business to continue but only under tight State controls and supervision -- were radical in their day but are now the staple of Leftist political parties worldwide. The greatest affinities of the Fascists and Nazis were then not with the Communists but with parties like the Democrats of the modern-day USA and the Labour Party of modern-day Britain! The Fascists were in fact the first of the modern Leftists -- something that I have already set out at great length here.

3). The third major point is that Hitler's few remaining admirers in at least the Anglo-Saxon countries all seem to be on the political far-Right. If Hitler was a socialist, how come that some modern-day far-Rightists admire him?

In considering this, the first thing to ask is whether the description "Far-Right" is an accurate one for the people we are talking about. I think it is. The American far Right do share important basic values with mainstream "conservatives": They are independent, individualistic, suspicious of big-government and find great wisdom in traditional American values and arrangements. But they seem to be much more doctrinaire about it all and sometimes carry their independence and individualism so far as to become "survivalists" -- trying to live as independently of government and of what they see as a corrupted society as they can. But the far Right is a broad church with many opinions within it and it must be noted that only some of them have added pro-Hitler and antisemitic attitudes to their gospel.

So although support for antisemitism was in Hitler's day widespread across the American political spectrum -- from Henry Ford on the Right to "Progressives" on the Left -- it has lived on during the postwar era mostly on the extreme Right. (Though recent upsurges of "Anti-Zionism" among Leftists on university campuses seem to be a harbinger of big changes in that situation). Why?

The pro-Hitler, antisemitic orientation of some modern Rightist fringe groups goes back to the fact that Marxism and Leninism were internationalist. Marx and Lenin despised nationalism and wished to supplant national solidarity with class solidarity. That this was the best way to better the economic position of the worker was, however, never completely obvious. The Fascists did not think so nor did most Leftists in democratic countries. Nonethless, it did have the effect of identifying Leftism with skepticism about patriotism, nationalism and any feeling that the traditions of one's own country were of great value. The result of this was that people with strong patriotic, nationalist and traditionalist feelings in the Anglo-Saxon countries felt rather despised and oppressed by the mostly Leftist intelligentsia and sought allies and inspiration wherever they could. And Hitler was certainly a great exponent of national pride, community traditions and patriotism. So those who felt marginalized by their appreciation of their own traditional values and their own community tended in extreme cases to adopt Hitler and blot out of their minds or otherwise rationalize the fact that he was also a socialist. And the Leftists also blotted out of their minds or otherwise rationalized Hitler's socialism for exactly the same reason -- because Hitler was also a nationalist. The Rightists liked Hitler's nationalism and the Leftists did not but it suited neither to acknowledge his socialism. It did not suit the Leftists because it would have associated them with a failed and condemned figure and it did not suit the Rightists because socialism was no part of the traditional independent culture that they wished to preserve.

So antisemitism lived on in the postwar era among the extreme Right for two reasons -- firstly because such people are traditionalists and antisemitism had been traditional in European societies for roughly 2,000 years and secondly because it was a central part of Hitler's doctrines. Their liking for Hitler's national and ethnic pride led to their adopting his antisemitism too.

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ELSEWHERE

Chris Brand has some rather amazing revelations about the role of sex in the Russian revolution.

Michael Darby has a post on how the African AIDS epidemic could be beaten.

The Wicked one has a heartening report about resistance to anti-war tyranny.

In my academic posting of April 5th here I look at a claim that drug abuse in young people is caused by their “authoritarian” parenting. I point out that the authors concerned did not really know how to measure authoritarianism and that they were treating as significant a relationship which was in fact negligible.

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Sunday, April 06, 2003


A MEMOIR OF SCOTLAND

My post about Scotland yesterday got me thinking about my various visits to Scotland. A few recollections:

The most beautiful scenery I have ever seen was Scotland's Western Highlands. I have never been much of a one for scenery but this even got to me. The only thing in Australia that I know of which comes close is the road from Cairns to Port Douglas.

My wife and I made a detour to visit the Isle of Skye. I was glad we did. It too was really beautiful. One morning I looked out the window of the bed and breakfast place in which we were staying and literally saw "a bright golden haze on the meadow" there.

After Skye, we drove further up the coast and eventually took a Caledonian McBrayne ferry across to Harris and then drove straight up the island to Lewis. When my wife and I got to the main centre on Lewis it was 11pm but still broad daylight and we had no trouble getting accommodation at a bed and breakfast place (i.e. a private home).

At the Northern tip of Lewis was a nice white sandy beach and I decided the next morning that a swim in Sub-Arctic waters would be worth a try. By the time I got in up to my knees I could not feel my toes so thought the better of it. Nobody else tried. I later did the same thing off a beach at Herm in the Channel Islands -- with similar results. I felt rather at home on Lewis. Everyone seemed to have skin that was as fair as mine.

On our way back South we stopped in Glasgow, where my wife had relatives. I got to know a fair bit about Glaswegians and really got to like them. I particularly liked their sense of humour. Billy Connolly’s humour is in many ways simply an exaggerated form of typical Glaswegian humour. They are incredibly status-conscious, however. My being a Doctor went down exceedingly well! Education is, of course, the thing Scots most respect.

The most notable thing about Glasgow was that it looked as if it had just been heavily bombed. Whole suburbs were in rubble. But it wasn't the Luftwaffe that did it. It was smart-alec town-planners and Leftist social engineers. They bulldozed the "slums" such as the Gorbals. Beautiful old stone terrace houses which would have been snapped up for renovation in Australia were witlessly destroyed. They moved the slum-dwellers out to new estates such as Easterhouse which then also became pretty slum-like. I know. I later did a social survey there and saw for myself.

I did the social survey on my second trip to Glasgow. On that occasion, one thing I noted was that Scots are great lovers of ritual and "the done thing". They seem to love rules. They have a custom for every occasion. I went to a party in Glasgow at one stage and it was some occasion (Halloween?) on which "Apple Dooking" was practiced. You have to grab an apple with your teeth only while it is bobbing in a pail of water. Being a rather dour sort, I did not think much of the idea so said "No thanks". To an English person that would have been it. They would have been embarrassed to press me further. Not the Scots. In the most friendly way they simply insisted. They just did not understand the idea of not doing something that was customary.

That aside I felt very much at ease among the Scots. Australians are popular there. Scots see Australians as being "enemies" or "victims" of the English --- which is also how they see themselves. As I moved around Scotland it was interesting to see how my reception changed when Scots discovered that I was not English. It was a transformation: From correct formality to warmth. I think I slightly prefer the Scots to the English. I like their greater spontaneity. Though I appreciate English reserve too.

The only thing I dislike about the Scots is their ingrained Socialism. When Mrs Thatcher came to power in a landslide, Scotland actually at the same time swung away from the Tories. Still, Edinburgh is a lot more conservative than Glasgow (where 50% of the Scots live), so maybe I would enjoy living in Edinburgh if I could hack the climate. Glasgow has a reputation for ugliness which is undeserved. There are quite a lot of nice places in Glasgow.

When I was doing my social survey in Glasgow (mainly concerned with Scottish nationalism) I tried to look up various books on Scottish nationalism in the various libraries there. One I could not find anywhere. No library had bought it, I gathered. Because of funding limits, a lot of books are hard to find in British libraries, even University libraries. When I got back to Australia the book I had been seeking was just sitting there on the shelf at my own University of N.S.W. library! They could afford a book on Scottish nationalism that the Scots themselves could not. Wealth and poverty do make a difference and socialist Scotland certainly was poor when I was there.

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POSTWAR IRAQ

Stanley Kurtz has a long and learned article in Policy Review about what America should do with Iraq once Saddam is ousted. GWB and many others think that an effort should be made to set up democracy there but since the last effort to do just that led to Saddam Hussein’s rise to power, the critics are skeptical that Iraqui democracy is possible.

Kurtz relies heavily on the way the British Empire gave birth to modern Indian democracy out of a traditional society and also argues that short term control by America worked well in setting up Japanese democracy after WWII. He does however see huge difficulties and a long haul ahead in Iraq.

I am inclined to think everybody is being too pessimistic about postwar Iraq. I think that after Saddam, ordinary Iraquis will be dead keen to try the American way. I know that there are important cultural differences between Iraq and Europe but I still think that the example of central Europe and the Baltic States is instructive (Poland, Estonia etc.). After they all escaped from Soviet rule there is no doubt that America was thenceforth the model that they have all tried in various ways to follow. Saddam has obviously been as bad for those he ruled as the Soviets were so I think the response of Iraquis too will be keenness to try everything that is opposite to the Saddam regime.

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ELSEWHERE

Chris Brand documents some fairly astonishing ignorance about autism by someone who is supposed to be an expert on it. Apparently all that naughty evidence about genetic factors must not be mentioned. Even blaming mothers is apparently preferable to that.

Michael Darby has a post pointing out that science and technology is CREATING resources all the time.

The Wicked one takes a swipe at Canadian wimpishness.

In my posting of April 4th here, I have a bit of a laugh at how some Dutch colleagues were completely unable to understand their own research results because those results contradicted their Leftist expectations.

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Saturday, April 05, 2003


POSTMODERNISM DECONSTRUCTED

To most people the ideas of postmoderrnism -- that truth is nonexistent etc -- simply seem too bizarre to be worth further consideration. They are just a sort of intellectual masturbation for Leftists. Life goes on BECAUSE we recognize some statements as true and others as false. If I ring the WRONG telephone number I will not speak to the person I want to speak to. A recent article by Simon Blackburn makes a similar point at much greater length and thoroughly dissects the theories of Richard Rorty -- one of the chief postmodernists. Warning though: The first two thirds of the article sets out the postmodernist position. You may want to skip straight to the final third of the article to get to something worth reading.

Simon Blackburn is the professor of philosophy at the University of Cambridge and appears to be something of a Leftist himself. He is however thoroughly within the tradition of British empiricism in philosophy. The British have always seen the purpose of philosophy as being to clarify and EXPLAIN whereas French philosophers (and France seems to be the prime source of postmodernism) from Descartes, through Sartre to Derrida have always seen being clever as the prime role of philosophy -- and they have generally equated being clever with an ability to CONFUSE any issue they touch on.

In the circumstances, it is no wonder that the Anglo-Saxons are so much more influential in the modern-day world than are the French. Someone recently said that the French are basically a Chihuahua that wants to be a bull-terrier. The Ango-Saxons really are that bull-terrier. And, as a former bull-terrier breeder, I can asssure you that, despite their power, bull-terriers are extremely good natured.

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SCOTLAND

Freedom & Whisky continues to put up good postings about ongoing socialist idiocies in Scotland. Paradoxically, getting their own parliament seems to have been the worst thing that has ever happened for freedom in Scotland. One explanation for it is that most of the sensible and enterprising Scots left Scotland long ago leaving behind a preponderance of envious no-hopers. Emigration may have been even more dysgenic for Scotland than for Ireland. It was mainly the best and brightest who left Scotland for England and the colonies whereas anybody who could left Ireland. I have ancestors from both so I do have some personal interest in the matter.

Genetics, however, is clearly only one part of the story -- as the great economic success of equally Celtic Ireland in recent times demonstrates. The Irish have been independent from the English since 1922 so have had a long time to work through their political follies. And in the 1980s they finally got around to a real embrace of capitalism -- with tax cut after tax cut after tax cut. They even outdid Mrs Thatcher and a very great Irishman -- Ronald Reagan -- in that regard. So Ireland has now clearly outstripped England in prosperity. Given my continuing great affection for Scotland, I can only hope that it does not take them 60 years to learn the same lesson.

In my academic days I had quite a lot published on Scotland:

References:
Ray, J.J. (1978) Are Scottish nationalists authoritarian and conservative? European J. Political Research 6, 411-418.
Ray, J.J. (1979) How different are the Scots and the English? Contemporary Review 234, 158-159.
Ray, J.J. (1979) Authoritarianism in Australia, England and Scotland. J. Social Psychology 108, 271-272.
Ray, J.J. (1979) Opposition to the Common Market in England and Scotland. British J. Sociology 30, 218-221.
Ray, J.J. (1979) The Scottish paradox. Quadrant 23(10), 27-29.
Ray, J.J. (1981) English attitudes to Scottish nationalism. J. Social Psychology 115, 141-142.

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KINDNESS CAN BE HATED

In a post here of 23rd March I noted:
“Anyone who has read Helmut Schoeck's book on envy will understand very well why America is hated. Paradoxically, their kindness probably gets them hated even more than they otherwise would be: Because it too shows them up as being so much better than most other people.”

Lileks has recently made a related point, saying: “Sometimes I think the reason America is so despised in some quarters is that we fail to live up to other peoples' worst expectations.”

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ELSEWHERE

China hand has a rather alarming report about attitudes to the Iraq war in China. Apparently most Chinese see it as nothing more than naked American aggression. China Hand himself however sees as ridiculous the current Leftist proposition that we should never militarily intervene in the affairs of other nations.

This U.S. Christian site notes that Saddam has become “chic” on many college campuses. He is the modern-day equivalent to Che Guevara in the 60s -- a vicious butcher who is revered simply because he is seen as a “rebel”. It does show what a dangerous ethical vacuum exists inside many Leftists despite their usual protestations of “caring”. That they almost all rose up to defend a Fascist butcher such as Saddam shows once and for all how much they “care”!

Chris Brand takes on the arguments of the libertarians who are against the war.

Michael Darby has a post that argues that the U.S. was too soft on Islamic militancy in the past and that 9/11 was the outcome of that softness.

In my posting of April 3rd here I look at the poor state of research that combines both medicine and psychology to investigate heart disease.

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Friday, April 04, 2003

LEFTIST NONSENSE ABOUT SUPPORT FOR THE WAR

A reader writes:

Contrary to leftist claims that the current war is a big business conspiracy, the CEOs of the largest corporations are actually quite reluctant to support the coalition war effort. At least according to Slate. Their practical globalism promotes caution, the exact opposite of the viewpoint that criticises this war as a war for globalization. Thomas Friedman goes somewhat further and says no two countries with Big Mac franchises have ever gone to war! See here .

As far as the real war is concerned... This BBC site has some statistics providing a brief history of Urban Warfare There are reports that the Iraqi government has been distributing copies of the movie "Black Hawk Down" as a training guide for his forces. This could mean that we shall soon see another example of "life (or more accurately, death) imitating art" but there of course major differences between the relatively small scale operation in Mogadishu and Iraq. The US forces in Somalia lacked armour and had no fixed wing air support. Also the US will probably make use of the Apache, armoured attack helicopters that were not used in Somalia. Of course the urban combat environment will be dangerous even with these advantages. The US military is developing new urban warfare technology including "thermobaric weapons" for the infantry and even robots. These won't be ready before 2006 at earliest.


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WAR CAUSUALTIES

Before the Iraq war, the Left were very big on predictions of many casualties and claimed that nothing could justify such casualties. And of course there have been casualties but the supreme prowess and humanity of the modern American military has been shown by how few there have been. Just for perspective, a reader has sent in these comments -- focusing initially on the casualties Saddam himself inflicted on his fellow Muslims when he invaded the Ayatollah’s Iran some years ago.

Here is what the Federation of Atomic Scientists site says about casualties in the Iran / Iraq war in the 1980s. Casualty figures are highly uncertain, though estimates suggest more than one and a half million war and war-related casualties -- perhaps as many as a million people died, many more were wounded, and millions were made refugees.

Iraq's “victory” was not without cost. The Iraqis suffered an estimated 375,000 casualties, the equivalent of 5.6 million for a population the size of the United States. Another 60,000 were taken prisoner by the Iranians. Iran's losses may have included more than 1 million people killed or maimed. The war claimed at least 300,000 Iranian lives and injured more than 500,000, out of a total population which by the war's end was nearly 60 million.

Without diminishing the horror of either war, Iranian losses in the eight-year Iran-Iraq war appear modest compared with those of the European contestants in the four years of World War I, shedding some light on the limits of the Iranian tolerance for martyrdom. During the Great War, German losses were over 1,700,000 killed and over 4,200,000 wounded [out of a total population of over 65 million]. Germany's losses, relative to total national population, were at least five times higher than Iran. France suffered over 1,300,000 deaths and over 4,200,000 wounded. The percentages of pre-war population killed or wounded were 9% of Germany, 11% of France, and 8% of Great Britain.

I have found it a bit difficult to find figures for the casualties in the various Israel Arab wars over past 50 years but there are figures on the Intifada here and here. Iraqi casualties alone in the Iran/Iraq were about 170 times the total Palestinian casualties in the Intifada. (Close to 500 times if both Iran Iraq deaths are accounted for.) It is common for the US to be criticised as having double standards for supporting Israel but opposing Iraq. The arithmetic suggests double standards are not the exclusive property of one side.

Gulf War 1 casualty figures are here and are, by comparison with other wars, very minor
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As every military man will tell you, every casualty is to be regretted but the present war is as nothing compared to what Saddam himself has inflicted on the Iraqui people and compared to what we inflicted on ourselves by our past follies. Removing Saddam is undoubtedly the best thing we could have done to PREVENT casualties among the people of Iraq. Many more would have died had we left him to carry on as usual.

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ELSEWHERE

If you think that the French should not get off scot-free for their hatred of America, see here

Progress of the war: "Our special forces, working closely with anti-Saddam Iraqis on the ground, are very actively preparing the Baghdad battlefield for collapse from within. Casualties are low. Finally, pockets of resistance in Iraq, Manhattan and Paris have been contained and will turn out to be of no strategic significance." Via The Federalist

Michael Darby has a vivid memoir of the Australian military involvement in Vietnam to remind us that the Iraq war is not the first time that Australians and Americans have fought together.

Chris Brand reviews the “Individual psychology” of Alfred Adler -- a Freudian “rebel”

The Wicked one has some good advice about how to deal with the speakerphone menace.

In my posting of April 2nd here I deplore the way Leftists psychologists just refuse to give up old and failed ideas.

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Thursday, April 03, 2003

Carnival of the Vanities is up again. You might need a microscope to read the font, though.

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IT REALLY IS A NEW WORLD ORDER THIS TIME

There is an article in Tech Central Station by Lee Harris under the title “Our world-historical gamble” that is so long that the editors of the journal even apologized for its length and suggested that people spend several days reading it! It is however a very insightful and important article about what the Iraq affair means for the future so I have pulled out below what I regard as the key quotes from it:

This gives a sense of tragedy to what has been unfolding in the Islamic world. If they continue to use terror against the West, their very success will destroy them.

If they succeed in terrorizing the West, they will discover that they have in fact only ended by brutalizing it. And if subjected to enough stress, the liberal system will be set aside and the Hobbesian world will return - and with its return, the Islamic world will be crushed. Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad. And the only way to avoid this horrendous end is to bring the Islamic world back to sanity sooner rather than latter.

Nothing but force can break them from their illusion. Not because there is something wrong with them as a race, but simply because they are acting like any other individual who has been permitted to live in a dream world - they continue to fantasize. And who can blame them? It is only brute fact that shakes any of us from the single most cherished of our illusions - the myth of our own grandeur and omnipotence. And this is as true of a culture as of an individual.

The motivations of those who want to murder us are not complicated: To watch an American city go up into a fireball is its own reward.

This is the lesson that 9/11 should teach us in dealing with the fantasists of the Islamic world. A fantasy does not need to make any sense - that is the whole point of having one.

if a nuclear device were to be detonated in downtown Chicago tomorrow, from an unknown source, could we really count on being able to find its "return address" if in fact it was the work of a "rogue" state?

Here we have the heart of our historical impasse, and the only way out of it is to cut the Gordian knot. And this is precisely what the current United States administration has elected to do, beginning with its post-9/11 declaration of the Bush doctrine which unapologetically asserts that states sponsoring terrorism are legitimate targets - the first of the basic, and vital, negations of the concept of national self-determination.

What the critics of this policy fail to see is the simple and obvious fact that if any social order is to achieve stability there must be, at the heart of it, a double standard governing the use of violence and force. There must be one agent who is permitted to use force against other agents who are not permitted to use force.

Our aim is simple. It is to make the Islamic fantasists respect the dictates of reality. If they wish to compete with us, if they wish even to be our enemies, we will accept that, as we accepted this situation with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. But they must be made to accept the basic rules of play - rules that are accepted by the rest of mankind, from the U.S. to Communist China.

And that is why, in order to achieve our end of heightening their grasp on reality, no means should be ruled out. We must be prepared to use force "unstintingly," as Woodrow Wilson declared on America's reluctant entry into World War I. On this count, we must have no illusions. Until they are willing to play by our rules, we must be prepared to play by theirs



His basic point is that we can no longer respect a nation just because it IS a nation. If we do we will just give safe havens to Muslim fantasists who hate us and who will harm us further if they can.

I personally think that with both the Taliban and Saddam out of the way ALL Muslim regimes will get the message loud and clear that they give safe haven to terrorists at their peril. It is notable how quiet Libya’s once very radical Gaddafi became after Ronald Reagan bombed him. The big stick is the only thing some people understand.

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MAKING IT SIMPLE FOR LEFTISTS

A couple of days ago I reproduced an email that I had sent out to a lot of Leftists which makes a similar point to the Lee Harris article: The fate of the Taliban and Saddam as a warning. Only one Leftist replied at length and I excerpt below his two main points:

The difference now is that the US is clearly saying that what they think is more important than the UN. And that's the very catastrophe of this war. In democracy you may disagree with the majority, you have all the right to do so, but if you impose your will through force, that's not democracy anymore, and that's what the US has done in the UN. It's not a matter of opinion regarding the war, it is the core of any possibility of democracy among nations that has been destroyed.

From that perspective this war is telling the whole world: You must obey the US, specially if you have something important for us (like oil) if you don't do so, we may attack you one day.

Saying terrorism is the worse thing possible is just what people in well developed countries may say as they have a couple of accquaintances killed and are unable to see the silent massacres and suffering that the international order brings to poor countries.


Note the usual Leftist failure to come to grips with reality. It is the corrupt rulers of their own countries that keep the third world poor, not George Bush! And to view the collection of tinpot tyrants and undemocratic regimes that make up the U.N. as anything like a democratically elected world parliament is to substitute fantasy for fact. He does however get my basic point that this war is definitely a warning to others. But he thinks it is so nasty of us to give such a warning! He seems to think that we should WELCOME more 9/11 type events!

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ELSEWHERE

Michael Darby defends cosmetics from spurious Greenie claims that they are dangerous.

Chris Brand notes that new 500 page book from Harvard that attempts to explain low black IQs as the result of anything but heredity ends up admitting itself that it does not make a very convincing case!

In this article from my academic past, I reply to a claim that people who avoid AIDS victims are “authoritarian”. I point out that the author concerned does not know how to measure authoritarianism in the first place.

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Wednesday, April 02, 2003


"LIMITS TO GROWTH": DISCREDITED BUT STILL DAMAGING

A reader writes:

This article (PDF format -- summary here) is a little long and the first half may be a little dry, but it provides a very comprehensive treatment of the Limits to Growth scare from the 1970s that has essentially underpinned "environmentalism" ever since.

Marxsen discusses many of the weaknesses of the model and, turning to the real world, argues that it may have become a "self fulfilling prophecy" for all the wrong reasons. Marxsen details how economic growth and prosperity are now being undermined by green tape. His conclusion packs a punch.

"....Environmental catastrophism has driven a massive expansion of the regulatory state, and environmental regulations may have proved sufficient to wipe out almost fully the U.S. multifactor productivity growth that comes from technological progress. Unfortunately, our now stunted productivity growth was theoretically all that stood between modern civilization and the inexorable decline and deterioration that population growth and natural-resource depletion themselves might theoretically bring about. Paradoxically, the otherwise dubious prophetic vision of The Limits to Growth remains potentially akin to a self-fulfilling prophecy, threatening to help usher in a slow-motion version of the very scenarios of collapsing modern society that its models portray..."


The Limits to Growth report was in many respects the brainchild of computer systems pioneer Jay Forrester and was based on his "systems dynamics" ideas which he ambitiously applied to everything from businesses and schools to cities and the whole planet. See here. It was published by the prestigous international think tank "The Club of Rome" founded in 1968 by FIAT industrialist Aurelio Peccei (a brief history is here) and in vulgarised fashion become the Bible of the growing environmentalist movement (even if like the Bible, most followers hadn't actually read it!).

Marxsen mentions some of the work of the late, great economist Mancur Olson. Olson is little known outside of the economics profession but he deserves a wider audience. This article on the sluggish economic performance of Japan and Germany discusses one of Olson's themes, how consensus among powerful vested interests harms national prosperity ("economic barnacles on the hull of society").

This author also mentions to Olson and provides a neat discussion of the popularly repeated myth that big corporations have economic power in excess of whole nations.

By the way here is a great site (in quality of content, if not presentation!) by Stanford computer scientist Jim McCarthy, a technological optimist who addresses dozens of doomsday scenarios.


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ELSEWHERE

A summary of the peaceniks from Wounded Blog:

They stand in the cold and their faces get red, they spend minutes creating these signs and they yell and scream and hold hands all without knowing anything about who Saddam Hussein is, without being able to see the simple logic of why a pre-emptive war makes the most sense.

Hello Bloggy uses the Arnett sacking as a starting point for a thoughtful discussion of how Leftist bias in the media works. He thinks the bias only works when it is subtle. That Arnett was immediately hired by a famous British Leftist rag shows, however, that journalists are safe with even far-Left views.

Always right has an excellent post on the latest court manouevring over affirmative action in university admissions. (Post of April 1st, permalinks not working)

This article from my academic past should not be too hard for the general reader to follow. In it, I put together all sorts of evidence to show that activist Leftists are people who are driven by narcissism to seek extreme power. Their "idealism" is simply the necessary cloak over their own lust for power. It is also suggested that they are basically intellectuals who lack creativity -- theologians rather than philosophers. And they cloak the shallowness and impracticality of their thinking by a constant reliance on lies and on denial of reality.

The Wicked one has what he thinks is an April fool’s joke

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Blogger.com has been really bad in the last 12 hours.
THE INSANITY WE ARE DEALING WITH

"The Muslims of Australia join with the many hundreds of thousands of Australians to condemn the illegal and immoral invasion by the world's most powerful nations against Iraq which stands no chance of defending itself and its people from the impending massacre."

This statement, issued in the name of Australia's Muslims, invokes racial and religious animosity of the most unrestrained form. It offers not a hint of criticism of Saddam Hussein, whose regime has murdered Muslims on an industrial scale for 30 years. It endorses the combustible allegation that the United States has embarked on a religious and race war against Islam, despite going to the aid of Muslims in recent wars in Bosnia, Albania and Kuwait.


More here. How America is hated for its success and its decency!

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SADDAM AS THE LEFT’S NEW STALIN

The silent endorsement of Saddam's war crimes by the fake peace movement is fortunately highlighted by the indiscreet George Monbiot. This Marxist academic not only accused the US of being a war criminal, meaning Bush, but also claimed that "The five soldiers dragged in front of the cameras this week should thank their lucky stars they are prisoners not of the American forces fighting for civilisation, but of the 'barbaric and inhuman' Iraqis"

A regime that beats and murders POWs, uses civilians as shields, fakes surrenders, beheads women, shreds opponents, shoots down protestors and shells refugee is not barbaric and inhuman according to Monbiot. I always tell people who are rightly outraged by the lying likes of Monbiot that we should nevertheless be grateful to them because they inadvertently tell us what the left is really thinking. And it ain't pretty.


From BrookesNews. Nothing has changed among the Left. They are as “humane” and as “compassionate” as they were in Stalin’s days. What they support shows what sort of people they are.

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REALLY ADVANCING THE CAUSE OF WOMEN

Here is a story that would make any feminist not motivated by hate rejoice. I doubt that we will ever see it reproduced in any feminist source, however. Why? because it is the hated America that is fostering female equality. America is probably the most feminist large nation on earth but when does it ever get credit for that?

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A “CENTRIST”?

Fluffy-Wuffy sums up an Australian politician who allegedly represents a centrist political party. The alleged centrists are in fact Australia’s most Leftist party. Excerpt:

Surreal simpleton Senator Andrew Bartlett doesn't like the idea of liberating Iraq, because "Australia is now diplomatically and militarily handcuffed to the United States. We will be unavoidably now part of Mr Bush's new world order."

Yeah, a world order that involves the removal of children-gassing, women-raping, dissenter-shredding brutes. Sounds like a damn fine thing to me.


In his further comments on Senator Bartlett, he continues to refer to the Senator, with some justice, as “Fartlet”.

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ELSEWHERE

I referred yesterday to the anti-American hate-speech of a Columbia university professor. In his latest “War Room” newsletter, David Horowitz summarizes what the speech concerned shows:
The war in America's streets is not about "peace" or "more time for inspections." It is about which side should lose the war we are now in. The left has made crystal clear its desire that the loser should be us.
For information about the newsletter plus access to older issues see here

A fool and her money are soon parted: Australian human shield Donna Mulhearn is expected home within two weeks after fleeing Baghdad, her relieved family has said. The group arrived in Jordan on Sunday night, after paying a driver the equivalent of $A1,250 to drive them out of Iraq - a trip which would normally cost less than $A16.71 on a bus.

Australia’s major “Leftist” (Labor) party is normally pretty conservative but its leader, Simon Crean, has recently come out against the Iraq war. Result: SIMON Crean's approval rating has plummeted to a record low and Labor's support has slumped to a disastrous level

Michael Darby has an anguished cry from a white African about black inhumanity to blacks.

Chris Brand reports that, despite great efforts to be non-racist, British police are still locking up black youth at an enormous rate.

The Wicked one has a very funny story from India.

In this article from my academic past, I review an enormously silly book by one of the gurus of American “political science”. The nitwit concerned is a TV pundit and author of a textbook widely used in American universities. The review was published in a major academic journal so if you want to see how a Leftist academic can easily be torn to pieces in good academic style, you might find this an interesting read.

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Monday, March 31, 2003


ANTI-AMERICAN HATE-SPEECH

Does anybody really think that a hate-filled abomination like this guy is fit to be teaching kids at a university?

A Columbia University professor told an anti-war gathering that he would like to see "a million Mogadishus" -- referring to the 1993 ambush in Somalia that killed 18 American servicemen. At Wednesday night's "teach-in" on the Columbia campus, Nicholas De Genova also called for the defeat of U.S. forces in Iraq and said, "The only true heroes are those who find ways that help defeat the U.S. military." And he asserted that Americans who call themselves "patriots" are white supremacists.


This has been extensively reported but The Wicked one has put up a copy of an email that gives you the means of registering your protest.

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DU (DEPLETED URANIUM)

DU is one of the favourite scares of the Greenies. In their simplistic way, they seem to think that anything to do with uranium MUST be bad. So the fact that US troops use DU in their ammunition really suits the Greenies: Two demons in one! But a reader writes:

This article on the Depleted Uranium myth is pretty good. Considering the well known post-war post-battle risks of land mines (see here ), unexploded ordnance (see here) and lost weapons (see here) DU would have to rate as one of the great all time non-problems:

"....It is called "depleted" because most of the lighter uranium isotopes, U-234 and U-235, are removed from natural uranium, leaving behind uranium consisting of 99.8 percent of U-238. The result is 40 percent less radioactive than natural uranium...."

"..What happens to DU if someone eats it? According to a European Union study released in 2001, "most of the ingested DU (between 98% and 99.8%, depending on the solubility of the uranium compound) will be rapidly eliminated in the faeces." The vast majority of any remaining uranium will be "rapidly cleared from the blood" in a few weeks. Similarly, the majority of inhaled DU dust will also be cleared via the bloodstream and kidneys..."


It's a shame fear mongering stories cannot be cleared so easily. It would be better if the energy expended on mythical fears like DU were invested in promoting innovative solutions to real problems like this one about new ways of mine clearing.


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ELSEWHERE

Disgraceful: Some families fear that their brave soldiers will return home to face discrimination, while others are too scared to tie yellow ribbons in their yard for fear of repercussions from anti-war supporters

We should weep! The biggest anti-war rally in Pakistan to date saw Islamic leaders call for a Muslim economic boycott of the United States and for the Islamic world to sever ties with countries in the US-led assault on Iraq.

More evidence of Islamic civilization: KASHMIRI Muslims described the horror yesterday of having their noses chopped off by Islamic militants who accused them of spying for the Indian Government.

Ridiculous! AFTER months of bitter recriminations on both sides, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac have put their differences aside to unite in a dual push to place the UN in a central role in the running of post-war Iraq.

Good show: MOTORISTS in Johannesburg who tooted their car horns outside the US consulate to demand an end to the war against Iraq were slapped with 100-rand ($20) fines, the Sunday Times reported today

Jeff Jacoby compares Arafat with Saddam and agues that we should use the same standards in evaluating both. We clearly do not so far.

In this article from my past academic writings I look at a claim that conservatives come from “authoritarian” families. I point out much evidence to the contrary that the authors concerned ignored.

Chris Brand has some thoughts on how the politicization of psychology and alled disciplines has made it irrelevant.

Michael Darby has an email from France with some ideas about how we might effectively show our displeasure with France.
There are SOME decent Frenchmen.

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Sunday, March 30, 2003


WAR FOR OIL

A reader writes:

About the 'war for oil' argument: We (the USA) are already expecting to pay 75 billion dollars on this war. It is going to go up if the Iraqi's don't start a popular revolution soon (I expect it, once the brown shirt thugs who are intimating people to stay in line, are put down). So, if this drops world oil prices a dollar a barrel (below where it was before it all started) how long is that going to take to pay us back? I have not done the math, but, I'm guessing it won't add up as a good investment.

Anyway, the leftists want it both ways. They want to point out that Bush is an oil man and doing it for his friends in the industry. Well, if they have oil wells, they make more money when prices are high. So, keeping Iraqi a police state with international sanctions is in their interest. It reduces the amount of oil on the world market, thus keeping prices higher....


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FROM A CELEBRITY WHO REALLY IS OUTSTANDING AT WHAT HE DOES

It's rather a surprise coming from a "celebrity", but here we have a very well-balanced comment on the war from a decent man, Tiger Woods:

Obviously, no one likes war. Our Congress and President tried hard to avoid the use of force, but ultimately decided it was the best course of action. I like the assertiveness shown by President Bush and think we owe it to our political and military leaders, along with our brave soldiers to be as supportive as possible during these difficult and trying times. I just wanted to take this opportunity to let our forces know that I am thinking about you and wishing you and your families the best.


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MISUSE OF SCHOOLCHILDREN BY LEFTISTS

In response to this article in "Spiked", a reader writes:
Instead of teachers' unions, principals and governments getting all high and mighty about students rights, they should just say that attendance at demonstrations is unauthorised absence from school. Period. If their parents bring a note, there is probably not much a school can do about it. Although I know of an anthropology professor who used to make himself unpopular in the 1970s by scheduling spot exams during Vietnam protest days. This issue has nothing to do with students rights. If they really feel strongly about an issue they can demonstrate on the weekend. The trouble with that weekend demos, as organiser know, is that they are less disruptive to the working city and that the teen turnout on weekends is poor . Kids would rather be doing something else. The "children's crusade" is cannon fodder tactics. I heard a radio interview with one of the organisers of the Wednesday demo in Sydney this morning (Friday). He said they ran mid-week demos to encourage "civil disobedience" (i.e. skipping school) by school kids.


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DARWINISM AND SYMBIOSIS

A reader writes:

Matt Ridley is an excellent commentator on Darwinism. In this NYT book review he discusses symbiosis in evolution, an oft neglected part of the whole evolutionary story. Some commentators (including left anarchist Kropotkin) see symbiosis and mutualism as justifying 'socialist cooperation' versus ' capitalist competition'. In fact symbiosis is actually closer to the "positive sum game" (mutual advantages) of free trade than is traditional Darwinian competition.


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LEFTIST CAMPBELL BLAMES THE VICTIMS

A reader writes:

Beatrix Campbell retains a regular paid slot as UK commentator on ABC Radio National's Late Night Live program hosted by Phillip Adams. Apparently no other English leftists are available for the role.

When Campbell is not out witch hunting "paedophiles" she offers her views on international affairs. For a noxious example see the verbatim quote reproduced here.

"...In Australia, the English radical feminist Beatrix Campbell, a resident commentator on the ABC's Late Night Live radio program, claimed "the victims of September 11 are also the architects of a mess of their own making and that's what has to be sorted out". In other words, those killed by the terrorists -- including the women and children -- brought their deaths upon themselves. This grotesque piece of blame shifting brought not a murmur of dissent from the host of the program, Phillip Adams...."

I heard the original broadcast and in order to verify what was said, caught the repeat broadcast the next day. I sent a letter of protest to the ABC and the Minister. The producer of the show in an insipid reply tried to argue that she meant the US government, not the NY victims, and that 9-11 was all 'blowback'. This is not what she said and it is not what is usually meant by the term 'architect'.


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ELSEWHERE

Chris Brand considers what Britain might do about its troublesome Muslim minority.

Michael Darby reminds us of the less brueaucratized and less troubled age in which many of us grew up.

In this academic paper from my past I once again point out how unscientific modern-day academic psychology is. The theory was at one time put out that people who are chronically busy are more likely to get heart attacks. There is now a large amount of evidence that shows that theory to be entirely false but some psychologists still write as if it were of some importance. I suppose it is some comfort that my paper did at least get published in a prestigious medical journal.

I have just put up HERE a collection of fun photos showing bureaucracy at work and my Picture Page has some very pretty new pictures too!

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

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Saturday, March 29, 2003

PEACENIK VIOLENCE

One of the most revealing evidences of the dishonesty and hidden agendas of the Left is the way that “peace” demonstrations commonly erupt into violence (e.g. here). Leftists are clearly such violent people that they cannot restrain themselves even when it makes a mockery of what they claim to stand for. They truly are Stalin’s heirs.

I have my own personal recollection of this. In the Vietnam war era I was a student at the University of Queensland and one of the very few students who outspokenly supported Australia’s involvement in the war. As in Iraq so in Vietnam Australians fought alongside Americans. The Australian conservative government came up for re-election in the midst of the affair and the peaceniks made a huge effort to have it defeated at the polls. There were huge anti-government demonstrations of all sorts. When Prime Minister Harold Holt came to Brisbane I was one of his party members and so was invited to attend his Brisbane campaign launch. Various university Leftists known to me, however, forged entry tickets to get into the hall in which the rally was held and created such a din that the meeting was severely disrupted.

We few pro-war students decided to take our revenge for this. Next week the leader of the Australian Labour Party (A.L.P.) came to Brisbane for HIS campaign launch and we were there in the hall. As the party leader (Arthur Calwell) stepped up to the microphone and before he could open his mouth I shouted out in a very loud voice “All at sea with the A.L.P.” Pandemonium erupted. The Special Branch of the Police had been tipped off that there would be disruption and were there to protect our freedom of speech but otherwise we would have been murdered. Half the hall jumped up and tried to get at us -- thus thoroughly disrupting their own meeting. Whenever they settled down we would just shout something again and restart them at enraged shouting back at us. The meeting became a shambles. The police pointed out to them that they had disrupted our meeting the week before but the Leftists saw no justice in that of course.

Anyway, after the meeting, the police escorted us across the road to the police station for our own safety while a mob of Leftists gathered outside waiting to get us as soon as we emerged. I don’t know how long they waited, though, as the police let us out after a while through a back entrance that the Leftists obviously did not know about.

When the Leftists disrupted the government meeting they did so in no fear for their own safety and thought that they had a perfect right to do so but woe betide anyone who tried to do the same to them! In good Stalinist fashion their resort to violence when faced with opposition was immediate. Can anyone doubt that it is hate and not compassion that is their real motivation?

Incidentally, in the subsequent election, the conservatives were returned with a landslide majority.

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