FRAUDULENT ATTEMPT TO POLISH THE IMAGE OF JOURNALISTS

"Recent research by Wilkins and Renita Coleman of Louisiana State University may provide some vindication for members of a profession that's taken a beating in recent years with high-profile blunders. Wilkins and Coleman surveyed journalists for the first time using a decades-old model for assessing one's morals, a test given to more than 30,000 people representing numerous professions. According to the researchers, journalists are significantly more ethical than the average adult - eclipsed only by seminarians, doctors and medical students. "We did not really think that journalists would come out as high as they did," said Coleman.

Wilkins and Coleman traveled to newsrooms across the country for two years interviewing a sampling of 249 journalists. Using a version of the Defining Issues Test, developed in the 1970s at the University of Minnesota, the professors offered participants six ethical dilemmas, each followed by a dozen questions that seek to determine what motivated a journalist's decision..... "What we're measuring is an ability to work out what ought to be done when you're in a dilemma," said Mickey Bebeau, executive director of the Center for the Study of Ethical Development at the University of Minnesota.

The findings conflict with public perception of journalists. A Gallup poll of 1,015 people taken in November showed that only 23 percent of the public rated the ethical standards of TV reporters as high or very high. For newspaper reporters, it was 21 percent."

The above bit of nonsense depends on you not knowing exactly what their test of moral development does. It is a test deriving from the work of Kohlberg -- who observed stages in the moral reasoning of children as they grow up. His "higher" stages, however, are not observable in normal child development. They are simply Kohlberg's (Leftist) opinion of what a "higher" morality is. All that the research above really showed, then, was that on moral questions, journalists think like Leftists -- which is no surprise at all! It is the public opinion of journalists that was right, not this bit of deceptive "research".

Reference:
Modgil, S. & Modgil, C. (1985) (Eds.) Lawrence Kohlberg: Consensus and controversy Lewes, E. Sussex: Falmer.

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

ELSEWHERE

There is a fairly good article here on the Flynn Effect -- the fact that average IQ test scores have been rising for about a century. The explanation that the effect arises from "cognitively demanding leisure" (such as computer games) is quite a good one but is unduly narrow. The effect is best seen as the result of modernization generally. Lots of things have improved over the years -- such as safety and health care (particularly perinatal care) and many barriers to people realizing their full genetic potential have thus been removed or reduced. I note that Jim Flynn is referred to as an American philosopher. He is in fact a New Zealand political scientist.

Donald Luskin on the economy: "We libertarians don't like to think of the government taking even more of our money, yet it seems like good news when he hear that tax collections are running way ahead of estimates, and that therefore federal budget deficit projections are going to get trimmed way down. Oh, and of course we take some perverse delight in imagining Jonathan Weisman's chagrin in having to report this in the Washington Post this morning. He didn't come right out and admit that maybe some of the Bush administration's economic policies are working better than he expected -- but it's the inescapable conclusion of his story."

Media bias in economic news: "Accusations of political bias in the media are often made by members of both political parties, yet there have been few systematic studies of such bias to date. This paper develops an econometric technique to test for political bias in news reports that controls for the underlying character of the news reported. Our results suggest that American newspapers tend to give more positive news coverage to the same economic news when Democrats are in the Presidency than for Republicans. When all types of news are pooled into a single analysis, our results are highly significant. However, the results vary greatly depending upon which economic numbers are being reported. When GDP growth is reported, Republicans received between 16 and 24 percentage point fewer positive stories for the same economic numbers than Democrats. For durable goods for all newspapers, Republicans received between 15 and 25 percentage points fewer positive news stories than Democrats. For unemployment, the difference was between zero and 21 percentage points.... "

The Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) that is up for ratification by the U.S. Senate seems like a pretty bad deal for America and a big gift for the world's most corrupt organization (the U.N.). Nathan Tabor has more.

Free market justice is in the cards: "Nearly everyone takes it for granted that if government did not protect consumers from fraud, no such protection would be provided. The free market, however, protects consumers in countless ways, all without any government intervention. In fact, it does so more efficiently and effectively than the government can. One of the most impressive examples of free-market justice involves something that might be in your pocket right now: your credit card. Through voluntary contractual arrangements -- motivated by nothing more than a desire for customers and profit -- credit-card companies provide an entirely private means of recourse when a merchant wrongs a customer."

What used to be a free country: "A gasoline price war erupted in St. Mary's County last week after one station slashed its price for regular to $1.999 a gallon and spurred three others to follow suit, giving drivers some hope of relief at the pump. But the price dip proved fleeting. Maryland regulators quickly stepped in and told the stations that their prices were too low. They needed to go up by 5 cents."

Shrink-wrapped has a thoughtful post about the vast distortions of what is happening in the world that have now become routine among Leftists. He sees the delusions concerned as providing an excuse for serious Leftist violence and civil disorder: "When your enemies are evil, dangerous fascists who are dedicated to destroying your country, your civil rights, and enslaving and/or killing various innocents, it becomes incumbent on right minded people to act to prevent further horrors. This is the logic of the left, aided and abetted by large parts of the MSM, Academia, and the Democratic Party".

Cafe Hayek mentions just part of the the enduring folly of New York's rent-control system.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald

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

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

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"

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

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

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS ON THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT

I suppose many people will be replying to the Hitchens diatribe about Christian conservatives in the WSJ. But since Hitchens ventures into both history and New Testament exegesis -- topics that I presume to think I know a bit about -- I am inclined to make a few observations.

His NT quotation is one of the allegedly "Leftist" quotations from Jesus and I have already dealt with them on my Scripture Blog -- see here and here. Briefly though, what Hitchens and the Left get wrong is mistaking Jesus's spiritual guidance for guidance about how to run this world -- an elementary mistake. Jesus was interested in the next world, not this one. As he said to Pilate, "My kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36).

The rest of what Hitchens says is also just standard Leftist stuff so its only real novelty is its appearance in the WSJ. His argument simply is that the religious Right is tyrannical and that secularism is needed to avoid tyranny. That is absolute rubbish. For centuries -- including the early 20th century -- Britain was both an almost universally Christian country and also a great beacon of individual liberty and tolerance. Britons in fact had more rights 100 years ago than they do now -- the right to own a firearm for personal protection, for instance. There were of course some restrictions flowing from Britain's Christian assumptions at that time -- such as Jews being barred from Parliament -- but so tyrannous were those restrictions that Britain's Conservatives at that time actually made a Jew (Disraeli) their Prime Minister! He had to profess Anglicanism to observe proper form but he at no time made any secret of his Jewishness and in fact flaunted it repeatedly and floridly! Those nasty old intolerant Christians! The secularist Hitler sent millions of Jews to the gas ovens. The nasty intolerant Christian Conservatives made a Jew their Prime Minister! Which would you prefer if you were a Jew?

And the U.S.A. too has always been a great beacon of liberty and tolerance by world standards and it too was created by men who overwhelmingly were devout Christians. Like the Leftist he once was, Hitchens doesn't let the facts get in the way of a simplistic theory. And is the theory simplistic! In accord with Leftist custom, Hitchens equates Christian fundamentalists with Muslim fundamentalists -- quite ignoring what the two groups are being fundamentalist about. I suppose that to Hitchens Satanic fundamentalists and Christian fundamentalist would be the same too. Christian fundamentalists want to bar homosexuals from marrying. Muslim fundamentalists want to stone homosexuals to death. No difference, Mr Hitchens?

Christians have certainly not always in their history been perfectly tolerant but the God of Love they follow has certainly made them more tolerant than any other major group in the Western world that I can think of. I certainly prefer their record to the record of atheistic Communism.

(A shorter version of this post appeared on Blogger News yesterday)

Update

I have just posted on my Scripture Blog an excellent Catholic commentary on the scripture that Hitchens quotes.

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

FROM BROOKES NEWS

US economy: jobs shift and recession Figures don't tell us very much in themselves. For example, interpreting economic data without the use of a theory not only can be misleading, it can be downright dangerous for economic policy.
Australian economy: dismissal laws and unemployment Once again there has been much misleading talk about the job-destroying effects of wrongful dismissal laws.
The Pope, Donald Rumsfeld and Bunny Champers' secret mission to Rome Dashed good to see that the Micks up at the Vatican have done the right thing and elected a Catholic pope. Now for my secret mission.
US economy: Bush did not accelerate the recession Democrats are still trying to blame President Bush for the recession. Their behaviour reminds me of what a senior fellow and Democrat at the Brookings Institute said.
Why did the Wall Street Journal publish lies about social security? The most liberal front page in America is astonishingly the 'Wall Street Journal'. It quotes more liberal think tanks than any other publication.
Media lies and corruption The agitprop reporters churned out against the pope and President Bush reminded me of the Lionel Murphy scandal that leftist journalists covered up.

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

ELSEWHERE

It looks like the Gramscian "long march through the institutions" has invaded Google. This latest story about Google accepting abusive personal advertisements from Leftist advertisers (in breach of their own stated policy) while refusing anything similar from conservative advertisers is not the first evidence of Leftist bias at Google -- as I noted on March 26th.. Google are of course denying bias but Leftists are always trying to pull that skein of wool over people's eyes. The latest episode, however, is a very precise demonstration of how biased they in fact are. In good Leftist fashion, they are being self-defeating about all this, of course. If they become known as GOOGLEFT they risk losing half their users (the conservative ones) to Microsoft's excellent new search facility.

Thomas Sowell's latest version of his "black culture" theory is less contentious than the version he had in the WSJ. He does mention that Southern whites had lower IQ scores than Northern whites in the early 20th century but does not explicitly say that the gap has now closed, which to my knowledge it has. The gap was originally observed with the very early tests ("alpha" and "beta") used in conjunction with U.S. Army recruitment during World War I. Both tests were however essentially the work of Northerners and were biased against Southern culture. Later, less biased tests eliminated the gap for whites but not for blacks. Many have tried to find tests that eliminate the black/white gap but it is always there and is always large.

Reliapundit notes the big lurch to the Left going on in Latin America. New waves of refugees flooding towards the USA soon I guess.

Personal Independence Day seems to be posting fairly frequently again. He is particularly good on political history, something that we normally get a very distorted view of from the educational system.

Carnival of the Vanities is up again with much to read.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald

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

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

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"

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

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

CONSERVATISM, WAR AND JOHN PAUL II

A British moral philosopher has claimed that Pope John Paul II was not very conservative because he greatly disliked war and capital punishment, even though he did not rule out either altogether. Ed Feser has some wise and relevant things to say about that claim but I am inclined to be a bit more abrupt. I would hope that nobody in his right mind wants war and any reasonable person must be very reluctant to inflict the death penalty -- if only because miscarriages of justice do occur. And John Paul II was a very compassionate and kindly man so it is certainly to be expected that he would recoil from inflicted death in war or otherwise. But to say that recoiling in that way is not conservative is a great affront to conservatives. It is Leftists who do not recoil from death. Even mass-murder does not bother them -- as we repeatedly saw in the 20th century. It is VERY conservative to defend the rights of the individual and no right is more basic than the right to life. Conservatives and Catholics alike do see occasions where war and capital punishment may need to be turned to but to imply that conservatives LIKE either or are enthusiastic about either is Leftist projection.

And any idea that John Paul's criticism of the Iraq war means that he was not conservative is the height of absurdity. Or is Patrick Buchanan not a conservative either? MANY conservatives are critical of the Iraq war -- though I am not one of them. Conservatives (and Catholics) can and do reasonably disagree among themselves about WHICH war is justifiable but if they ruled out ALL war they would be very odd conservatives indeed. Conservatives are people who can face reality in all its messy complexity and the reality is that war is sometimes needed in a world where tyranny and aggression exist. My own defence of John Paul II as a great conservative is here.

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

ELSEWHERE

Britain goes to the polls today with Tony Blair looking like a shoo-in. Harold Wilson looked like a shoo-in back in 1970 too. He lost.

Moral equivalency was the great "liberal" doctrine of the Cold war -- claiming that the stifling and brutal Soviet tyranny was "equivalent" to Western democracy. The implosion of the Soviet Union gave the lie to that but the Left are again polishing up the same tired old act. This time it is Islam and Protestant Christianity that are equivalent. See an example here. A few superficial similartities are seized on by some writer and then the rest of the Leftist lamebrains can proclaim that bombers and beheaders are the same as builders of schools and hospitals. Brilliant! It shows how bereft of ideas the Left are.

More moral equivalence: Interview with evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins: "Bush and bin Laden are really on the same side: the side of faith and violence against the side of reason and discussion. Both have implacable faith that they are right and the other is evil. Each believes that when he dies he is going to heaven. Each believes that if he could kill the other, his path to paradise in the next world would be even swifter. The delusional 'next world' is welcome to both of them. This world would be a much better place without either of them."

David Limbaugh: "If I didn't know better, I would think liberal politicians and columnists were out to prove the thesis of my book -- that there truly is a war being waged against Christianity and Christians in the United States..... The war against Christians has intensified with the recent controversy over ending the Democrats' (nearly) unprecedented filibustering of judicial nominees. Senate Democrats and their enablers apparently see the Christian right as the main bogeyman in the effort to restore majority rule to the judicial confirmation process.... the overwhelming majority of our Founding Fathers formed this government on Christian principles. Most of our laws, civil and criminal -- from trespassing, to stealing, assault, rape and murder -- are grounded in morality, and it is an astonishing deception to suggest otherwise. This idea that Christians must keep their views to themselves, and that politicians must keep their Christian worldview in a lockbox has caught on even among many Christians. But a Christian inhibits his Christian walk if he places his religion on just one "shelf" of his life. His worldview must inform his politics, just as everyone else's does. What the secular Left wants to do is marginalize Christian conservatives by suggesting they are hell-bent on reserving religious liberty (and presumably other types of freedom) only for themselves. But all we have to do to refute that lie is to point to the history of this great nation, which owes its freedom largely to the religious liberties enshrined in the Constitution by Christians."

Dominionist domination: "There is, in fact, a fringe Christian group of 'Dominionists' or 'Reconstructionists,' who really would like to see an American theocracy, and a return to the death penalty for blasphemy, adultery, sodomy, and witchcraft. The dystopian political program of this utterly marginal, extremist sect has absolutely no traction with anyone of significance. But that hasn't stopped conspiracy mongers on the Left from imagining a murderous Christian plot to destroy America."

Capitalism at work in Brazil: "In an age when airlines are going bankrupt faster than you can say Chapter 11, some might say that starting one in a developing nation like Brazil was a brave decision. But since taking off in January 2001 with just six planes and seven destination cities, Gol Airlines has proven itself a worthy successor to the US and British discounters that founder Constantino de Oliveira Jr. used as templates. The youthful Mr. Oliveira sought to create affordable travel by "taking a bit of Southwest, a bit of Ryanair, a bit of JetBlue, and Easyjet and tropicalizing them for the Brazilian market," he says. The result has been nothing short of the democratization of Brazil's friendly skies, helped out by a partnership with US aircraft-maker Boeing - the first of its kind for a Latin American carrier. "Around 10, 11 percent of our passengers are flying on planes for the first time in their life," says Oliveira, a former race-car driver and onetime head of one of Brazil's largest bus companies. "People think a low-cost airline is for poor people, but it isn't; it's for people who have an eye for competitive prices," he says. The company whose name means "goal" now boasts 31 planes, travels to 41 destinations, and has 22 percent of Brazil's domestic passenger market. It turned a profit of $145 million last year. In a nation where even the 50-minute flight from Rio de Janeiro to Sao Paulo on the major carriers costs more than the country's $120 monthly minimum wage, Gol charges just $79".

Ratty rabbi rages at Ratzinger: "Liberals can always be trusted to see God in Mumia Abu-Jamal and the devil in the Pope. As if on cue, they launched a rash of appalling attacks to mark the beginning of Benedict XVI's pontificate. Rabbi Michael Lerner, the editor of TIKKUN, a befuddled, New-Age magazine, emphasizing interfaith activities, wasn't persuaded by good manners, or by the Holy Father's brilliant mind and beatific smile -- the whole holy package, really -- to withhold his insufferably sanctimonious sermon. Lerner, in whom delusions of grandeur and an atrocious lack of decorum combine, claims to speak (boy, is he windy!) for the entire universe, which is apparently agreed that, 'The New Pope [is] a Disaster for the World and for the Jews.' But then, the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics are not the only people Lerner lectures. A regular busybody, the Rabbi is always poised to remind Israelis, whenever their civilians are blown to smithereens by suicide bombers, to take the blame and turn the other cheek."

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald

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

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

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"

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

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

TUESDAY ROUNDUP

(Tuesday in America -- Wednesday in Australia)

On Dissecting Leftism I argue that it is Leftist culture, not black culture that is responsible for black under-achievement

On Political Correctness Watch I note where a school used police to enforce its homosexual agenda

On Greenie Watch I note that major academic journals are refusing to publish any findings that question global warming

On Education Watch I note a rebellion in France in favour of traditional teaching.

On Socialized Medicine I record the vast irresponsibilty in Queensland government medical services

On Leftists as Elitists I show that Leftists don't want people to think

On Gun Watch I note that gun freedoms are still very limited

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

ELSEWHERE

I noted on April 28th. the recent big academic study showing that lower income for black males is mainly (76%) due to lower black IQ. There is an excellent summary of the same study here which notes a point in the study that I had overlooked previously: That black females actually do slightly BETTER than their IQ would lead one to expect -- showing that ability deficit is the main problem for black females and that affirmative action does help them. With black males, however, there are attitudinal problems in addition to the IQ problems so affirmative action does not get them earning at even the low level their abilities would indicate. There are several possible reasons why black women do better than black men and I have mentioned what some of the black male problems are previously in connection with another study that reported similar findings.

Most racial "hate crimes" are now fake: "But hypersensitivity, far from dissolving racial barriers, acts to reinforce them. Racial prejudice will never entirely disappear from college campuses, any more than sloth, lust, greed, envy or any other human vice will ever be eradicated. But when phony hate crimes become more of a problem than real ones, it's time to obsess about something else".

More on British academic antisemites: "British academic moonbats recently decided to declare "academic boycotts" against two Israeli universities... The "boycotters" are motivated by hatred for Israel and Jews, not any desire for peace. They are the pseudo-academic equivalents of pogromchiki. The Moonbrits claim they are simply using the same tactic that was employed effectively against the apartheid regime in South Africa to bring it down. And that is why they are now using it against the only state in the Middle East that is not an apartheid country, against the only country in the Middle East in which academic freedom exists. Professor Mina Telcher, a leading mathematician, was denied the opportunity to put the Israelis' side of the story before the AUT ("the trade union and professional association for over 48,700 UK higher education professionals") ahead of the vote. A bit of pre-boycott boycotting.... Not since 1930s Germany have Jews been the targets of an official boycott in a civilized country.... But no doubt, the most incredible aspect of the affair is the unambiguous condemnation of the boycotters of Israeli universities by... (drumroll) ...a pro-terror Palestinian university! Yes, Al-Quds University in Israeli-liberated eastern Jerusalem has come out against the British academic boycott of Israel.

More Leftist hate-speech against Christians: "Understanding and answering the "religious far right" that propelled President Bush's re-election is key to preventing a "theocracy" from governing the nation, speakers argued at a weekend conference. "The religious right now has an unprecedented influence on American politics and policy," said Ralph White, co-founder of the Open Center, a New York City institution focused on holistic learning.... The United States is "not yet a theocracy," Joan Bokaer, founder of TheocracyWatch.org, said Friday night... She compared the Federal Communications Commission's threatened crackdown on indecency on television with the Taliban, the repressive Islamic rulers of Afghanistan who harbored Osama bin Laden's terrorist network until toppled by a U.S.-led invasion". [Do these fruitcakes think they are going to get the Christian votes they need this way? They are so hate-filled that they are shooting themselves in the foot. Do they think Christians can't read all these hateful things they say? Maybe they do -- their opinion of Christians is so low]

"The poor" are in fact overfed: "The poor are most likely to be fat, but the more affluent are closing the gap. Obesity is growing fastest among Americans who make more than $60,000 a year, researchers reported Monday. 'This is a very surprising finding,' said Dr. Jennifer Robinson of the University of Iowa, whose study was presented at a meeting of the American Heart Association. But it 'underlines the whole complexity' of the obesity epidemic, she said. For years doctors have known that the people most likely to be overweight have the lowest incomes."

There is a big article by David Pryce-Jones (PDF) called "Jews, Arabs and French Diplomacy" detailing the long history of official French antisemitism. (See second article listed).

Britain's IEA has now put online the famous Reader's Digest condensed version (PDF) of Hayek's Road to Serfdom

Jack Wheeler has two novel ways of solving the Social Security problem: Sell some of the huge amount of land that the U.S. government owns and work out a way to use American oil sands to produce oil.

One of my readers has written his own interesting analysis of Leftist motivations. See here

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald

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

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

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"

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

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

FOUR GOOD BOOK REVIEWS

Review of Chomsky book: "The Anti-Chomsky Reader is a polemical broadside intended to slam Chomsky into oblivion.... Collier and Horowitz understand well the manufactured reality of political fame, and to dismantle it requires not contrary vitriol or clever rejoinders but direct, fact-based assertions that undermine the authenticity of the image. To that end, the contributors follow a simple procedure: Quote actual statements by Chomsky and test them for evidence and logic. The best contributions to the volume add the effective and timely tactic of citing Chomsky's progressive virtues and revealing how smoothly he abandons them..... Nichols points out that Chomsky's footnotes are red herrings, his numbers exaggerated, and his facts tendentious. For instance, a footnote in Chomsky's World Orders Old and New that purports to demonstrate a point in fact leads only to an earlier Chomsky title, and in that text the relevant passage footnotes still an earlier Chomsky title. But his most damning discovery is broader: that Chomsky lacks a historian's openness to fresh evidence. All historians know that understanding history is an unfolding enterprise, ever subject to revision. And yet not one revelation of the last 20 years has led to a moment's reassessment by Chomsky. The fall of the Berlin Wall, the opening of KGB archives, testimony by dissidents and ex-Communists-nothing alters his outlook."

Keith Windschuttle has a good review of Jim Bennett's book: The Anglosphere Challenge: Why the English-Speaking Nations Will Lead the Way in the Twenty-First Century. Excerpt: "Whatever the outcome, The Anglosphere Challenge is one of the important books of our time. It establishes the centrality of British culture to the economic, technological, and political prospects of the world. The ancient traditions of the British - individual rights and responsibilities, minimal government, and a strong civil society - constitute the most reliable formula for a future that works. Even if that future turns out to be less confined to countries of British descent than Bennett predicts, it is highly likely still to be dominated by their cultural values and traditions."

There is a book review here showing that the envious French hatred of America goes back a long way. Excerpt: "During the German occupation, when French anti-Semitic collaborators had no reason to disguise the real roots of their hatred, it had seemed that a ne plus ultra of crazed invective had been reached: it was then that America's addiction to jazz was explained by "the Negro character inherent in the Jewish race". It would be funny, except that similar obscenities continue to our day. Some are casual, such as a recent film review in Le Monde that, commenting on the ambition of the American film industry to dominate the planet with its images, concluded: "Goebbels said the same thing about German images in his day." And some are sick, like the huge sales of the French book alleging that the Americans had blown up the Twin Towers themselves. Sicker still was the admission by the philosopher Jean Baudrillard after 9/11 of "the prodigious jubilation in seeing this global superpower destroyed... Ultimately they [Muslims] were the ones who did it, but we were the ones who wanted it.""

Jared Diamond's book Guns, Germs and Steel: A Short History of Everybody for the Last 13,000 Years tries to explain history in terms of environmentalism but it twists the facts: "Another instance of forcing the facts to fit the theory is Diamond's "law of history" asserting that agricultural societies will inevitably come to dominate their non-agricultural neighbors. He ignores the multitude of instances where settled farmers were conquered by nomadic horsemen: the Hittite conquest of the ancient Middle East, (possibly) the invasion of Greece by the Dorians, the successive movements of the Celtic and Germanic people across Europe, the Aryan migration into India, the Turkish conquest of much of the Moslem world that began in the 11th century, and the vast Mongolian conquests of the 13th and 14th centuries. In fact, such examples led both the political theorist Albert Jay Nock and the economist Murray Rothbard to suggest a typical pattern in history nearly the opposite of Diamond's. They hypothesized that states arise when some nomadic people, who have been repeatedly raiding a nearby society of relatively peaceful farmers over an extended period, come to realize that it is more profitable to settle right in the farming community as rulers"

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

ELSEWHERE

"Liberals" still like Communists: "Molly Ivins' current argument against John Bolton is that the North Koreans don't like him. To recap: the North Koreans are what we call "Communists," or, "the enemy." Great sentience is not required to grasp that point-unless of course you happen to have served in the Clinton White House.... The election is over, but apparently the affection for Communism hasn't quite subsided. At least that's what Molly Ivins seems to indicate. "After dealing with Bolton," she writes, "the North Korean government called him `human scum' and `a bloodsucker,' and declined to recognize him as an official of the United States." And if any group can judge character, it's the government of axis-of-evil nation North Korea!.... I think it would be useful to figure out where liberals draw the line when it comes to supporting the enemy. We see from Ivins' column that some people think it's okay to let our sworn enemies help formulate our foreign policy. Fine. But what about terrorists? If Osama didn't like Bolton, what would Molly Ivins say? When will liberals map out exactly which enemies they like, and which they oppose? It's not incidental to my point that just as Ms. Ivins was writing her column, North Korea was publicly asserting its nuclear prowess. Liberals get huffy when some guy in Montana buys a pistol for the shooting range, but a Communist nation expanding its nuke arsenal doesn't faze them".

Davids Medienkritik has a big coverage of the moronic propaganda coming from the German Left at the moment. Their chief villain? Global capitalism! Ironic in view of the fact that Germany is one of the chief beneficiaries of global capitalism.

The rubbish that some so-called "scientists" talk! Note this: "The new data, released by the government two weeks ago, confirm that obesity can kill, even if the numbers are squishy, said Dr. David Katz, a Yale University obesity researcher. "Clearly it isn't a license to gorge yourself." The same figures show that only GROSS obesity reduces lifespan. Moderately overweight people live LONGER than slim people!

Readers may note that I rarely say anything about the Social Security debate. One reason is that we already have in Australia roughly what GWB is proposing and it is a non-issue here but the main reason is that Dick McDonald does such a good job of covering all the bases from a U.S. point of view. If you are at all interested in the subject, you should be logging onto Dick's site regularly. He is an accountant by trade so knows what he is talking about.

Right Wing News has the results of a poll to see who the favourite columnists of right-wing bloggers are. My no. 1 pick (Sowell) was way down the list. I guess economists can be a bit specialized but I was once a High School economics teacher so I speak the lingo, as it were.

No Speed Bumps is a new conservative blog with lots of interesting posts.

My latest quote on MARXWORDS is a final summing up of what made Marx tick by Gary North.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

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"

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

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

LOTS OF ECONOMICS TODAY

Imports? Never! "Late in 2001 and early in 2002, America's economic mercantilists (who tend to ascribe domestic economic difficulties to all things foreign) were complaining about cheap foreign steel in the U.S. economy. No sooner had the Bush administration slapped higher tariffs on foreign steel than the mercantilists started spinning sky-is-falling tales about Asians selling computer software and medical technology to Americans at bargain basement prices. The latter spawned a media cottage industry around the term, "outsourcing." So what's the mercantilists' 2005 cause celebre? Believe it or not, it's high-priced imports! Oil imports to be specific. Not low-priced imported oil, mind you, but high-priced oil. Apparently, low import prices and high import prices both pack a damaging economic punch, at least for the mercantilists. An economic contradiction? Yes. One of the scenarios has to be wrong.

A powerful case for free trade: "Protective tariffs are as much applications of force as are blockading squadrons, and their object is the same-to prevent trade. The difference between the two is that blockading squadrons are a means whereby nations seek to prevent their enemies from trading; protective tariffs are a means whereby nations attempt to prevent their own people from trading. What protection teaches us, is to do to ourselves in time of peace what enemies seek to do to us in time of war. Can there be any greater misuse of language than to apply to commerce terms suggesting strife, and to talk of one nation invading, deluging, overwhelming or inundating another with goods? Goods! What are they but good things-things we are all glad to get?"

The British decline: "After years in which the UK actually managed to restrict the growth of government, a period not coincidentally that created the conditions for the best economic performance in a couple of generations, the tax take is set to rise sharply. Within three years, taxes will account for more than 40 per cent of gross domestic product, the highest level in 25 years, and beginning to close the gap again with the levels in sclerotic Western European countries. It will get worse. The Government now backs a more or less open-ended commitment to pouring ever more resources into the demonstrably inefficient bureaucracy of the NHS. Pensions, welfare benefits and education will devour tens of billions more even than current projections suggest."

An excellent response to the customary Leftist ignoring of the facts about poverty here. Excerpt: "Official statistics rely on income data that are misleading. Some low-income households earn money "off the books" either through illegality or because reporting it would cost them taxes or giveaways. Other households go through income droughts, perhaps due to layoffs or college attendance, and tide themselves over with savings or gifts from family. Finally, income data do not count the value of non-cash government benefits, such as Medicaid, public housing, or food stamps. Far more useful are data on consumption, which is one's standard of living. Research has shown that for the households in question, average consumption is as much as 40 percent higher than reported income".

Chinese currency issue is a red herring: "How determined is Congress to make China inflate its currency? Earlier this month the Senate, by a margin of 67 to 33, voted to consider a proposal to impose a 27.5 percent tariff on all imports from China unless it does. While the tariff proposal is not law -- yet -- its consideration bodes ill for U.S. trade policy. Misconceptions have spawned misgivings about trade in the Congress, where too many policy makers view it as an adversarial, zero sum game. The country either wins or loses, and the trade balance determines the score. According to this view, our growing trade deficit (search) means that we are losing, and our record bilateral deficit with China is proof that our toughest opponent is cheating. But this obsession is a fool's errand."

The mouse and the market: "Our society holds up invention as the spearhead of progress. Those who first discover an idea are the ones who receive the Nobel Prizes and earn their places in the history books. But in Man, Economy and State, Rothbard shockingly argues that technological invention is relatively unimportant in the progress of civilization. Instead, capital is the far more important, and limiting factor. In fact, he claims, 'there is always an unused shelf of technological projects available and idle.' Why idle? '. . . in order for the new invention to be used, more capital must be invested.'"

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

ELSEWHERE

There is a NYT article here about the Constitution in Exile movement -- which is working to get America's constitution taken seriously, instead of it being it "interpreted" into non-existence by Left-leaning Supreme Court judges. If you can ignore the Leftist slant to the article, there is a lot of detailed information there.

Leftists distort the views of those who want the constitution back: "Professor Rosen makes it appear that the Constitution in Exile folks are dogged absolutists about the US Constitution, whereas in fact they aren't or, more aptly put, need not be. They can insist that certain fundamental principles are stable and lasting (enough) and need only small modification and adjustment as human understanding grows (e.g., about human nature, how children should be understood, the facts of homosexuality or when human existence comes into being during pregnancy). The dogmatism or absolutism charge is, thus, quite unfair. What is objectionable from their viewpoint is to think of the Constitution as entirely malleable, not so much living (which is always guided by principles of the life in question) but cancerous (living out of control)."

Half of practicing Jews voted Bush in '04: "Mellman's study found that Americans of all stripes who attended religious services regularly tended to vote Republican far more often than they voted Democratic. His findings among Jewish voters was not as lopsided as that among Christian voters but still the Jewish vote was split down the middle between GOP and Democrat voters. That split is still an amazing new trend in the Jewish community. In fact, George Bush made advances in every Jewish voter category to one degree or another. Of course, many in the chattering classes on the left have been yelping about the evil "religious right" dominating the Republican Party for a decade now. But they must have been taken aback by this rise in GOP voters among the left's favorite and most reliable voting block, the US Jewish population.... religious Americans are increasingly finding themselves uncomfortable and unwelcome among the lunatic fringe in the Democratic Party"

A ex-Marxist gets one thing right about Britain: "The belief in people having the capacity to come together and change the big things was once a principle on the left. But the right also had a sense of destiny and a belief that history was worth fighting for. Politics was centred on the figure of the active human subject. Now it views us more as passive objects to whom things happen. There are no longer any political parties or movements with roots in society, that could give people a sense of greater things being possible. This is often seen as a shift from the collective to the individual. But it is more than that. The decline of the old collective institutions has not been matched by the rise of any robust self-assured individualism. Instead, the typical citizen of our age is seen as an overwhelmingly vulnerable individual, insecure and in need of ever-greater protection from all manner of supposed threats, a victim waiting to happen".

My latest quote on MARXWORDS is from a contemporary of Marx -- the anarchist Bakunin -- who correctly foresaw the evil that Marx's thinking would lead to.

More amazing government malpractice in my home State of Queensland revealed on SOCIALIZED MEDICINE today.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

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"

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

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

THE LEFT WERE ONCE MORE CONSERVATIVE

I pointed out at some length a week ago that the further back you go in history the more "Rightist" Leftists appear to have been. Below are some excerpts from a recent essay on the history of the British Labour Party that bear that out. Leftists will use for their own aggrandisement whatever attitudes they see as popular at the time -- from revolution for an angry and much put-upon Russian working class in 1917 to mere sound-good crisis management for the calm and practical British -- though both may be against the long-term best interests of the people concerned. If you think long-term, you are a conservative.

"Patrick Diamond, editor of the recent book New Labour's Old Roots, argues that the germ of New Labour existed from the start. There has been a strong pragmatic streak in the Labour Party, with a succession of modernisers who, like Blair, freely adapted their politics to the needs of the times. The Labour Party was never a hotbed of theoretical analysis, preferring instead those British values of practical application and common sense.

There weren't many hotheaded radicals among Labour's old leadership, most of whom preferred a go-slow, God-fearing version of 'socialism'. 'Socialism.is an excellently conceived and resolute effort to Christianise government and society', judged Labour leader Ramsay MacDonald, during the party's radical, formative years in the early twentieth century

Even Clement Attlee's 1945-51 reputedly Labourist 'golden age' was pretty prosaic at heart, playing the primary role of restoring profitability in the British economy. Attlee maintained rations, introduced wage restraint in 1948, sent troops to break strikes and imprison militants, and devalued the pound in 1949. ....

When it came to foreign policy, Labour ministers were at least as gung-ho in defending British interests as were the Tories. The recent speeches made by Labour members in parliament about the party's long-standing anti-war tradition have little basis in fact. Attlee was in power in 1945 when Britain's ally America dropped the A-bomb on Hiroshima, and he ordered the development of the British bomb without consulting the cabinet, never mind parliament....

(I have corrected the author's spelling of "Attlee" above. She gave it as "Atlee")

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

ELSEWHERE

Surprise, Surprise! I said from the beginning that the "Hobbits" were just pygmies: "Indonesian scientists have found a community of Pygmy people on the eastern island of Flores, near a village where Australian scientists discovered a dwarf-sized skeleton last year and declared it a new human species, a newspaper says. The latest discovery will likely raise more controversy over the finding of homo floresiensis, claimed by Australian scientists Mike Morwood and Peter Brown in September last year. They dubbed the new species "hobbits". Kompas Daily reported yesterday that the Pygmy community had been found during an April expedition in the village of Rampapasa, about 1km from the village of Liang Bua where the "hobbits" were found. The newspaper quoted Koeshardjono, a biologist who discovered the Pygmy village, as saying that 77 families had been found living in the village. Eighty per cent of the Rampapasa villagers were of small stature, with most male adults under 145cm and female adults about 135cm". (A few more details here)

There is a type of deadpan Jewish humour that I really love and Arlene Peck is a very Jewish lady so I enjoyed this snippet from the unexpurgated version of her latest column (which I have just posted here): "Today, we are lazy and without a clue about the subjects that make a real difference. I remember when I lived in Israel and the men there, unlike most of the ones I meet here who are gay, married or dead… sometimes all three, were sexual beings. If they woke up at three in the morning, it was to make love. Today, they’ll get up at 3:00 A.M. to watch a Lakers game". The thought of someone being at once gay, married and dead really cracked me up.

Methodists consult everything but the Bible: "A Methodist court Friday reinstated a gay minister who had been defrocked for declaring to her congregation that she was in a relationship with another woman. The United Methodist Church appeals panel voted 8 to 1 to set aside the December decision by another church court to oust Irene "Beth" Stroud for violating the denomination's ban on "self-avowed, practicing homosexual" clergy. The panel said the ban was "null and void" because the church procedures were not followed when it was adopted."

Franklin Delano Mussolini "So, taking a few pages from Mussolini's fascist reforms in Italy, Roosevelt began to group American industries into cartels. These cartels, called Code Authorities, operated under government supervision and had immense authority. They could set quality, prices, and output quantities for the industry. Lower-priced competition was effectively outlawed. This program's failings are too many to elaborate on here, but John Flynn's book The Roosevelt Myth would be a good start for someone wanting more on this topic. In brief, the cartelization scheme was economic nonsense. ... "Mercifully, this program (run as the National Recovery Administration) was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1935.... What Roosevelt had created, Mr. Flynn brilliantly foresaw in 1948, was "that kind of state-supported economic system that will continue to devour a little at a time the private system until it disappears altogether." In a word: fascism (an economic term the appropriateness of which is in no way refuted by the absence of goose-steeping storm troopers in the streets)"

The socialist who admitted he was wrong: "Robert Heilbroner, the bestselling writer of economics, died early this month at the age of 85. He and John Kenneth Galbraith may well have sold more economics books than all other economists combined. Alas, their talents lay more in the writing than the economics. Heilbroner was an outspoken socialist... He was not entirely impervious to new evidence, however. In 1989, he famously wrote in The New Yorker: "Less than 75 years after it officially began, the contest between capitalism and socialism is over: capitalism has won... Capitalism organizes the material affairs of humankind more satisfactorily than socialism." .... Alas, in that same article he went on to say that while socialism might not in fact produce the goods, we would still need to reject capitalism on the grounds of...let's see...I've got it-environmental degradation..... On the big issue of capitalism vs. socialism, though, he did continue his rueful acknowledgment of error. In 1992, he explained the facts of life to Dissent readers: "Capitalism has been as unmistakable a success as socialism has been a failure.... He also noted then that "democratic liberties have not yet appeared, except fleetingly, in any nation that has declared itself to be fundamentally anticapitalist."

There is an unusual retrospective on the Vietnam war Here that points out important gains for the USA from the Vietnam war. The second biggest lot of criminals (after the Communists) in that war was the U.S. "peace" movement that harried the U.S. Congress into cutting off all support for the South -- thus ensuring a Communist victory. Hundreds of thousands who had fought bravely for their liberty lost their lives as a result.

There is a rather awful story up on Strange Justice at the moment about government child abuse in New York City.

In my latest quote on MARXWORDS I note that even Karl Marx's kindly father thought Karl was a bad egg.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

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"

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

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

MORE FUN WITH THE ANGRY LEFT:

I noted yesterday on LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS how Liberal Avenger has put up another of his fact-free streams of abuse -- this time in response to a critical article by Debbie Schlussel about Marla Ruzicka, the Leftist "martyr" recently killed by the Islamic nutjobs in Iraq. The avenging one has also added a link to the bottom of his post recommending an article by Raimondo which he recommends as a good "fisking" of the Schlussel article. Here are some choice comments from early on in the Raimondo article:

"Yeah, Debbie, Marla was a real blonde – unlike your haggish self. And she was young – again, unlike yourself, in spite of the few pounds of makeup you slosh on your tired old forty-if-you're-a-day face. But recognizing the roots (if you'll pardon the expression) of Schlussel's schadenfreude would require a "reality check" on Debbie Dye-job's part, which is not about to happen. Apart from outright envy, however, what exactly is Schlussel's beef?".

With irrelevant ad hominem garbage like that masquerading as an argument I certainly felt no need to read any further at that point. Coming from someone as messed-up as Raimondo, however, the hate-speech did not at all surprise me.

I have not myself taken any interest in the life and times of Ms Ruzicka but from the extensive and detailed information provided by Debbie Schlussel, I suspect that, far from being a martyr, she was just another self-promoting bigmouth hiding behind a front of "compassion" in the usual Leftist way. There is a picture of her on Raimondo's site which could almost have been designed to portray a self-promoting bigmouth.

Update

The Avenger wrote to me in response to the above and asked how I could condemn what he and Raimondo said when I also came to derogatory conclusions about Ruzicka and Raimondo -- which is a fair question. I replied: "I have no difficulties at all with derisive judgments about people. I make them about Leftists all the time. It is abuse AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR facts and argument that leaves me cold -- and which I deride. In the case of both Raimondo and Ruzicka, I linked to fact-filled articles to give the sources of information on which I based my conclusions."

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

"BLACK CULTURE" REVISITED

On Wednesday I posted a brief critique of Thomas Sowell's theory about black culture being responsible for black under-achievement. Yesterday I put up two further comments on the subject by Steve Sailer and Star Parker. A reader has however reminded me of what is probably the most important factor:

"Sailer's comment that today's behavior is "an African thing" is just as much of a "stretch" as Sowell's saying it was a "Redneck thing". Neither has had serious influence for over 200 years. Blacks were long past the "Redneck thing" and the "African Thing" at the time our "welfare state" began. Their behavior is an "American thing", brought on by welfare state".

In fact, that comment reminded me of an earlier post harking back to something that most Americans have probably now forgotten: That characteristic black behaviour in America was up until around 50 years ago roughly the opposite of what it is now. See here. So where was the "African" and "cracker" culture then? Did it have opposite results then to what it has now? My correspondent is clearly right: Objective circumstances (to use a Marxist term!) matter most and current self-destructive African behaviour is not the result of ANY long-standing culture but rather the result of the perverse incentives that American Leftists have created with indiscriminate welfare policies, affirmative action, anti-American education, racial quotas on policing and the promotion of a "victim" mentality among minorities generally. And I think it is clear that even the influence of genetics pales into insignificance compared with the effect of the positive and negative incentive systems that society sets up for people.

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

ELSEWHERE

Unbelievable self-deception and reality-denial. Just listen to what Elizabeth Edwards, wife of the recent Democrat vice-Presidential nominee, has to say about free speech and compare it with the constant attacks on anything conservative that occur almost daily on Left-dominated American university and college campuses: "Democrats are simply good and decent people. And good and decent people want everyone to do well -- those who agree with them and those who do not. We fight for the right of voices with which we disagree to speak out, for the right of people to say things we don't believe to be true, even for the right to be malicious and mean-spirited." Just look at today's post on EDUCATION WATCH for starters.

Dennis Prager has compiled a list of "liberal" opinions of the sort that commonly appear in America's mainstream newspapers and suggests that few Americans would agree with most of them. They are pretty absurd when spelt out and I think he is right that they are very much minority views. I wouldn't mind designing a survey to test out properly how popular they really are if anybody living in the USA feels like helping me with that. I live just a bit too far away to do it all myself. People willing to go doorknocking or able to pay others to do so would be what I would need.

Canadian ignoramuses: The CBC has recently broadcast a programme comparing neo-conservative philosopher Leo Strauss with the Islamic fundamentalist Sayyid Qutb -- a very stretched comparison indeed. They could make a much better case for saying that Islam and Judaism have a lot in common but that would have no propaganda value, of course.

Islamic "scholar" convicted of urging holy war on US: "An Islamic scholar who prosecutors said enjoyed 'rock star' status among a group of young Muslim men in Virginia was convicted Tuesday of exhorting his followers in the days after Sept. 11 to join the Taliban and fight U.S. troops. The convictions against Ali al-Timimi, 41, carry a mandatory minimum sentence of life in prison without parole. But the judge left open the possibility that she will toss out some of the counts. The jury reached its verdict after seven days of deliberations and convicted al-Timimi of all 10 counts."

Leftist antisemitism in Britain: "Although egalitarian, cosmopolitan, and internationalist principles are common to all variants of socialist doctrine, these have not immunised the Left from antisemitism.... The shift from the politics of class to the politics of identity has meant that the Left's main imperative has been to express solidarity and seek out alliances with those groups opposed to the dominance of the United States. In this worldview, America is regarded as the main foe. Any concerns about the political ideas and affiliations of such groups have been subordinated to the larger goal of anti-Americanism. A wide range of organisations have, therefore, been branded as worthy of support, from Latin American populists like the Frente Sandinista (FSLN) in Nicaragua to Arab nationalists, of both conservative and radical hues, in Syria, Iraq, Libya and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). In recent years, this comradeship has been extended by large sections of the Left to the Islamist movements and their followers in Europe. As the old Arab proverb would have it, 'My Enemy's Enemy is My Friend.' The contemporary alliance between the western Left and nationalist and religious radicals in the Middle East is of special concern here. Arab and Muslim radicals have always denied that Israel, uniquely among the states in the international system, has the right to exist. That position is shared by a large proportion of western Leftists."

Jonah Goldberg takes a good swipe at the "Iraq as Vietnam" kneejerk that is so common on the Left.

There is a very pointed article here by a professor of criminology showing the extensive similarities between Leftists and juvenile delinquents.

In my latest quote on MARXWORDS we see that Engels advocated war between Germany and France.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

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"

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

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

ANTISEMITIC BRITISH LEFTISTS

In the universities, of course

Below is a letter sent on Thursday to Sally Hunt, the secretary general of the AUT, the UK teachers' union, by Dr Emanuele Ottolenghi, The Middle East Centre, St Antony's College, Oxford University (emanuele.ottolenghi@sant.ox.ac.uk):

"Regarding the AUT recent decision to boycott Haifa University and Bar Ilan University in Israel, I am shocked to learn that, in addition to a call for boycott, the AUT is ready to offer a waiver to scholars on condition that they publicly state their willingness to conform to the political orthodoxy espoused by the academics who sponsored your motion.

Oaths of political loyalty do not belong to academia. They belong to illiberal minds and repressive regimes.

Based on this, the AUT's definition of academic freedom is the freedom to agree with its views only.

Given the circumstances, I wish to express in no uncertain terms my unconditional and undivided solidarity with both universities and their faculties. I know many people, both at Haifa University and at Bar Ilan University, of different political persuasion and from different walks of life. The diversity of those faculties reflects the authentic spirit of academia. The AUT invitation to boycott them betrays that spirit because it advocates a uniformity of views, under pain of boycott.

In solidarity with my colleagues and as a symbolic gesture to defend the spirit of a free academia, I wish to be added to the boycott blacklist. Please include me. I hope that other colleagues of all political persuasions will join me."

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

FROM BROOKES NEWS

US economy, deficits, taxes and Democrats: The truth about Clinton's tax hike, interest rates and deficits
The anti-Catholic Professor Quiggin gets blasted for sliming Pope Benedict XVI: Leftwing Professor John Quiggin, who called Pope Benedict XVI an "arsehole", is taken to task for his anti-Catholicism. We can be sure of one thing when it comes to Quiggin - he'll never call the sadistic Castro an "arsehole"
"Bay of Pigs, 40 years After" conference, Fidel Castro and the lying media : Forty years after the Bay of Pigs mainstream journalists are still shamelessly lying for the murderous Fidel Castro
Social security: Dreaming the impossible dream: Is Tom Friedman so selfish that he wants to retain 30 cents out of every dollar at the expense of the "world peace" Republicans are working for?
US economy, tax cuts and Paul Krugman's Keynesian ideology: That Krugman is unable to comprehend the consequences if his own economic nostrums doesn't say much for his critical faculties, though he is never short of criticism when it comes to Republicans

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

ELSEWHERE

Steve Sailer too has some skeptical comments about Sowell's view that black culture is "redneck": "Yet, when we talk of "redneck culture" today, such as country music and Nashville, we are largely talking of Scotch-Irish culture. And the Scotch-Irish generally stayed away from the blacks. They went to the Appalachian and Ozark highlands where disease was less of a problem for Europeans than in the lowland South. Moreover, the Scotch-Irish disliked having to compete with slave labor and tobacco and cotton slave plantations were uneconomical in the highlands. Today, the state with the least educated whites is the prototypical hillbilly state of West Virginia, which had so few slaveowners that it seceded from Virginia and joined the Union during the Civil War. Other Scotch-Irish redneck states like Tennessee and Oklahoma have limited black populations, too..... Of course, the least-discussed cultural influence on African-Americans is also the most obvious: Africa.... Perhaps the biggest social problem of African-Americans, as reflected in the very high illegitimacy rate, is that the culture they brought with them from Africa is one of low paternal investment. America's dominant culture had largely succeeded in inculcating monogamy and bring-home-the-bacon norms in blacks by about 1960, when it suddenly lost its self-confidence and began funding, via AFDC, the traditional African tendency toward mothers supporting their children without much support from their fathers....."

Star Parker on black disadvantage: "The National Urban League recently released its "State of Black America" report for 2005.... Few will be surprised to learn that blacks earn less, own less, are unemployed more, live shorter lives, attend worse schools and are more likely to be convicted of a crime and be sent to prison. How, according to the League, should blacks handle this deficit in equality they continue to experience? .... The report lists 10 "prescriptions" for change. Eight of them are government programs. Of the other two, one suggests blacks should tithe and volunteer more, and the other admonishes blacks to "focus on savings, investing and estate planning." .... There is barely a hint in the League report that black problems might have anything to do with things other than politics. Here are some gaps between white and black America that the study does not see relevant to report: 48 percent of black families vs. 82 percent of white families are headed by married couples; 43 percent of black families vs. 13 percent of white families are headed by a woman with no spouse; Black women are three times more likely than white women to have an abortion; 70 percent of black babies vs. 23 percent of white babies are born to unwed mothers; Whereas blacks represent 13 percent of the U.S. population, they account for more than 50 percent of new AIDS cases. The gaps that the National Urban League reports are gaps in symptoms and results. These gaps show the causes"

Sowell on judges: "The future of the legal and political system of this country may be on the line when two judicial nominees that the Democrats refused to let the Senate vote on in the last Congress are being again submitted for a vote.... This is not about two people being nominated to be federal judges. It is about the whole role of judges in a self-governing republic. The voters' votes mean less and less as time goes by, when judges take more and more decisions out of the hands of elected officials and substitute their own policy preferences, all under the guise of "interpreting" laws. Judges who decide cases on the basis of the plain meaning of the words in the laws -- like Justices Brown and Owen -- may be what most of the public want but such judges are anathema to liberals. The courts are the last hope for enacting the liberal agenda because liberals cannot get enough votes to control Congress or most state legislatures. Unelected judges can cut the voters out of the loop and decree liberal dogma as the law of the land.... An independent judiciary does not mean judges independent of the law. Nor is the rule of judges the same as the rule of law. Too often it is the rule of lawlessness from the bench."

The furious cries of the American Left about perfectly legal and routine conservative appointments to the Supreme Court ring very hollow when one rembembers that the great hero of the American Left -- FDR -- tried to do far worse: "FDR's revolutionary New Deal plan encountered two big problems: The Constitution and the U.S. Supreme Court. When cases challenging the NIRA and the AAA reached the Supreme Court, it held both laws in violation of the Constitution. During Roosevelt's first term, the Court ruled that other parts of his radical economic scheme were unconstitutional as well. Elected by a landslide in 1936, Roosevelt did not intend to let those "nine old men" on the Supreme Court interfere with his transformation of American life.... he came up with a shortcut plan designed to circumvent the constitutional-amendment process and the Supreme Court decisions against his New Deal.... FDR's plan requested Congress to permit the president to appoint an additional Supreme Court justice for every justice over 70 years of age, thereby expanding the size of the Court. By enabling him to appoint new justices who were committed to his economic philosophy, Roosevelt figured that the newly aligned Court would start voting in his favor. Despite his enormous popularity, the American people, to their everlasting credit, rose up in arms against Roosevelt's "court-packing scheme" and, as a result, the Congress failed to enact it. Americans didn't like their president tampering with their constitutional order."

And as Reliapundit says: "Powerline has done a great job of exposing a major MSM flip-flop about the utility/advisability of the FILIBUSTER. Viking pundit adds a link to another NYT whopper. And Powerline gets a Senator. Michelle Malkin has a list of other folks who conveniently change their values when it suits their narrow partisan aims. Bottom-line: Filibusters are NOT protected by - or even mentioned in the Constitution, and they were once scorned by the Left. The Left cannot get away with lying about this."

Carnival of the Vanities is up again with its usual big range of select reading.

In my latest quote on MARXWORDS we see that Engels welcomed world war.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

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"

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

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