NOAH'S ARK RUNS AGROUND

Maybe I have an overdeveloped sense of humour but one of the funniest columns I have read recently is this one by Timothy Noah. Our Tim just cannot figure out why so many working class Americans vote GOP. With typical Leftist condescension, he is amazed that they are not just animated cash-registers. He goes through the explanations for conservatism put forward by Leftist psychologists -- summarized in the absurd "Berkeley study" -- but in the end concedes that the explanations concerned are indeed absurd. His ark just ends up high and dry with nowhere to go.

He really should read Disraeli -- that great Conservative friend of the workers of over a century ago and one of Britain's greatest Prime Ministers. Dizzy could have told him that the workers are perfectly capable of seeing that what is bad for their country is bad for them too and it takes no great insight to see that the shifty characters who infest the Democratic party are bad for America. Most of them don't even LIKE America! Taranto had a laugh at poor Tim too.

Update

I suppose I should have mentioned that have done a fair bit of academic research into working-class conservatism. Some of the articles concerned are here and here and here and here

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

ELSEWHERE

Taranto has updated his comments on the way Chrenkoff was treated by Australia's major public Broadcaster (the ABC). It appears that the ABC DID seek prior clarification about some of the issues they mentioned but were dumb enough to try dealing with Dow Jones rather than with Opinion Journal. Dow Jones own an excellent newspaper (The Wall St Journal) and its associated websites but they are absolute corporate shitheads and I believe every word the ABC said about how Dow Jones ignored them. It took Australian mining entrepreneur and Lubavitcher Joe Gutnick 4 years and 27 court appearances to get Dow Jones to retract a libel against him! Their arrogant attitude in that matter ended up costing them around a million dollars all up in the end.

You can trust government employees to care for kids: "Broward Sheriff's Office employee assigned to help protect children was suspended Monday, accused of leaving a 2-year-old unattended in her vehicle for about five hours. BSO said that last Wednesday, Community Service Aide Maribelle Martinez was transporting a 2-year-old child as part of her duties with BSO's Child Protective Investigation Section. Investigators said that Martinez left the child unattended in the vehicle outside the CPIS building in Plantation for about five hours. The child was immediately taken to nearby Plantation General Hospital to be examined, and was determined to be uninjured and in good health. Martinez was suspended pending the outcome of an investigation by the Plantation Police Department and the Department of Children and Families. BSO's Office of Professional Compliance is also conducting an internal investigation". In Australia she would have been taken to the police station and charged immediately

Some little-known truths about WWII: "Stalin was ruthless in rallying support for the war effort. Surrender was declared to be treasonous. Anyone suspected of defeatist or counterrevolutionary sentiments was shot or sentenced to hard labor. During the siege of Stalingrad alone, 13,000 were executed. Though a million inmates were released from prison camps for military service, many more were consigned to the gulag during the war. Millions died at the hands of NKVD secret police. The Red Army eventually showed considerable skill in mechanized warfare, but right up until the end its commanders were profligate with their men's lives. The Soviets suffered 350,000 casualties in the battle of Berlin in 1945. The butcher's bill could have been lessened by going slower but that would have risked letting the German capital fall into Western hands. After V-E Day, Stalin was true to his dictum, "We do not have prisoners of war, we only have traitors." Most Russian soldiers liberated from German captivity were sent to the gulag; some were shot outright".

Uncle John's Cabin: "Considering his much-lauded penchant for what passes for 'populist' rhetoric theses days -- 'Let me say this in simple right and wrong, black and white terms,' [John] Edwards bravely told one New Hampshire crowd during primary season. 'I say no to kids going to bed hungry in America. I say no to kids not having clothes to keep them warm' -- one might be tempted to assume that the former senator put his Georgetown house on the market for an asking price of $6.2 million dollars as a prelude to finally joining a commune. Alas, another progressive hero is about to bite the dust. The sale is not a precursor to Edwards liquidating his worldly possessions for redistribution among the proletariat, but, rather, simply a fundraiser for the country estate currently being constructed for him on a 100 acre plot in Chapel Hill, North Carolina."

Julie Burchill on the antisemitism of British academe: "A couple of weeks ago, on April 22, Britain's Association of University Teachers - an organization representing over 48,000 professional swots - voted to ban all contact with two Israeli universities, and asked its executive committee to consider a boycott against a third, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Israel was accused of being "a colonial apartheid state" worse than South Africa, a "regime" worthy of "removal," and its universities of repressing academic freedom. Needless to say, this show of spite received rapturous applause; well, Britain is currently playing host to the biggest ever annual number of violent anti-Semitic attacks, both on people and on property, since the 1930s. Who can blame the teachers, so conscious of their uncoolness, for wanting to get "down wiv the kidz"? They're too respectable to daub swastikas on a synagogue - but it sure feels good to band together and bully them Israeli academics! .... In one way this turn of events is as unexpected as it is cruel - after all, in this country it tends to be academics who react to anything from mild censorship to book-burning with "That's how Hitler started!" That they are now doing something Hitler would thoroughly approve of, and did - barring contact with Jews - seems to have escaped them.... "

This is almost a matter for intervention by the Holy Father. DePaul University is run by the Jesuits, is America's largest Catholic university and is frantically pro-Islamic -- so pro-Islamic that it suspended its professor Thomas Klocek for defending Israel. The Jesuits have a special oath of obedience to the Pope and the present Pope is known for a favourable attitude towards Israel. DePaul administrators have been particularly arrogant about the matter and the forthcoming court case is not going to do their reputation any good. I don't suppose the Holy Father will intervene so in the meanwhile Marathon Pundit is keeping track of what is happening. Update: A reader tells me that DePaul is NOT run by the Jesuits. As the name indicates, it is theoretically a Vincentian university.

Brendan O'Neill (Can you get a more Irish name than that?) has some amusing comments about lapsed Catholics. One snippet: "First and foremost, to be a Lapsed Catholic is to make a virtue of being a lazy git."

Peg Kaplan explains why Leftists hate Wal-Mart. Leftists hate other people's success, mainly.

John Kenneth Galbraith is THE old warhorse of Left-leaning economists. Newmark has a few good shots at some of his empty assertions.

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.

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

FROM BROOKES NEWS

US economy: is another recession on the way? The Fed has once again laid down the foundations for a recession by generating another unsustainable monetary boom. As I said years before the last US recession: "It's not if but when"
The Australian economy: is a recession approaching? If figures for incomes are correct and Australian Industry Group & PricewaterhouseCoopers' previous reports are accurate then we may very well have reached the peak of the boom
John Sweeney and the AFL-CIO v. America Now that China has dropped Marxism Castro-loving socialists like Sweeney suddenly discover human rights abuses in the country. My, my, what a coincidence
We Need A 'Pension Revolution' - not social security Business is hated by the left in academe, in media, in Hollywood and the the Democrats. The latter live only to tax and spend. They haven't had a good idea since Truman dropped the bomb
Aboriginal stockworkers and our lying left The social devastation that the Commission's ruling caused to aboriginals is being flushed down the Orwellian memory hole by the journalists and leftwing agitators masquerading as academics
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

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

ELSEWHERE

Christopher Pearson has an article noting how young Australians are taking more of an interest in Australian traditions than ever before. I think we are seeing the first signs both in the USA and Australia of a youth reaction against all the Leftist propaganda that young people get from the schools and universities. Youth is rebellious and hates being preached to so the Leftist propagandists who infest the educational system are in fact shooting themselves in the foot and creating conservatives by their constant droning hate-speech. It is Leftism the youth are now starting to rebel against, not conservatism.

UCLA brain mappers track down IQ and find it is highly genetic: "UCLA brain mapping researchers have created the first images to show how an individual’s genes influence their brain structure and intelligence. The findings, published in the Nov. 5 issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience, offer exciting new insight about how parents pass on personality traits and cognitive abilities, and how brain diseases run in families. The team found that the amount of gray matter in the frontal parts of the brain is determined by the genetic make-up of an individual’s parents, and strongly correlates with that individual’s cognitive ability, as measured by intelligence test scores. More importantly, these are the first images to uncover how normal genetic differences influence brain structure and intelligence. Brain regions controlling language and reading skills were virtually identical in identical twins, who share exactly the same genes, while siblings showed only 60 percent of the normal brain differences. This tight structural similarity in the brains of family members helps explain why brain diseases, including schizophrenia and some types of dementia, run in families. “We were stunned to see that the amount of gray matter in frontal brain regions was strongly inherited, and also predicted an individual’s IQ score,” said Paul Thompson, the study’s chief investigator and an assistant professor of neurology at the UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging."

Religiousness too, is highly hereditary: "A study published in the current issue of Journal of Personality studied adult male monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins to find that difference in religiousness are influenced by both genes and environment. But during the transition from adolescence to adulthood, genetic factors increase in importance while shared environmental factors decrease. Environmental factors (i.e. parenting and family life) influence a child's religiousness, but their effects decline with the transition into adulthood. An analysis of self-reported religiousness showed that MZ twins maintained their religious similarity over time, while the DZ twins became more dissimilar. "These correlations suggest low genetic and high environmental influences when the twins were young but a larger genetic influence as the twins age" the authors state"

Arizona Hispanic boycott fails: "An immigrant advocacy group asked Hispanics to boycott businesses and to stay home from work yesterday to protest legislation by Arizona lawmakers targeting illegal aliens, and said it was a trial run for a full-scale, three-day economic protest planned for July. "This is a test so people can see and feel the power we have and the actual stranglehold we have on the economy of this state," Elias Bermudez, executive director of Centro de Ayuda, an immigrant advocacy group in Phoenix, told reporters this week. Although advertised extensively on Spanish-language radio and television stations, most community and civic leaders agreed that yesterday's boycott was a failure because many potential participants could not afford to lose a workday or business income."

Nat Hentoff sets out the total misrepresentations being used in an attempt to discredit one of GWB's judicial nominees (Justice Brown). But misrepresentations are normal for Leftists. The truth is just too inconvenient for them.

There is a detailed article here on the destruction of U.S. immigration law by Congressional Leftists -- which resulted in the 9/11 terrorists entering the USA without the slightest difficulty.

Good news on the U.S. economy. It's surging ahead despite high oil prices.

Germany lurching back to the 1930s: "The unholy anti-free market alliance between labor unions, the SPD and large segments of the CDU fits well within the emotional state of affairs of contemporary Germany. With Germany's economy, its welfare programs and the job market in a serious crisis, people are beginning to loose their entrepreneurial spirit. Optimism about one's personal future is at a historic low point. The perceived and actual outlook for the country's economy is bleak. Depression as a mental issue has been rising steadily. To many, the current mood among the population in Germany resembles the late 1929-30 period. Now as back then, with overall conditions like these, it is not surprising that rosy, warm, get-something-for-nothing rhetoric of anti-capitalism rears its ugly head."

I have just put up on LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS some comments about the supercilious and obnoxious Garrison Keillor. Taranto also skewers Keillor, as does Peg Kaplan.

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.

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

SOCIAL JUSTICE, HUMAN RIGHTS AND PUBLIC POLICY

I have just been reading a book with the title given above. It is written by a Scotsman named Hugh V. McLachlan, at Glasgow Caledonian University. He looks at the usual Leftist claims about social justice and human rights and applies relentless logic to them. And he covers what could be fairly abstruse philosophical questions in a remarkably clear and simple way. It would be a very good book for people who want to get their thinking clear on many of the usual Left/Right issues.

He starts out trying to makes sense of postmodernism but rightly concludes that it is self-refuting. To simplify a little, postmodernists claim that no statement is true but if that is so then all statements made by postmodernists are also untrue. So why should we heed them? Fun! Applying logic like that to postmodernists does not bother them at all of course. They only aim to sound clever, not to clarify or explain anything. They would only be bothered if everybody laughed at them and since lots of people seem to take them seriously, they are happy with their "ideas".

McLachlan devotes a fair bit of space to the concept of "rights", "fairness" and "justice" but he also applies his conclusions to things like health care, inequality, education, unemployment, affirmative action, poverty and taxation. His approach is as a philosopher rather than as an economist so his views are "moderate" rather than being outright conservative. He does for instance think that Britain's nationalized health service is justifiable in some form. But that perspective probably helps if one is going to take any of his arguments into discussions with Leftists.

There is more about the book here. Prof. McLachlan can be contacted on h.mclachlan@gcal.ac.uk

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

ELSEWHERE

Quite right too: "The US Congress has passed legislation that creates thousands of working visas for Australians and their spouses in what is seen in Washington as a sign of the special relationship with Australia. "I don't think any other country at the moment would have been able to get this sort of visa concession in the current climate," an official said. Some 10,500 E3 visas will be issued annually to Australians with tertiary qualifications who have job offers from American employers, including universities, government departments and businesses. There is no age limit. Until now, Australians have had to compete for one of the 65,000 work visas issued worldwide by the US each year. Last year, 986 Australians received an HIB visa, which does not allow spouses of visa holders to work and has a time limit of six years. Once President George Bush signs the legislation, Australia will become the only country whose nationals are issued special work visas."

I must say that the constant talk about "Blair's bloody nose", Blair being a "lame duck" and the like is yet another proof of how divorced a lot of media commentators are from reality. Tony Blair has just won an unprecedented (for Labour) third term in office with a substantial majority of 66 and that is supposed to be some sort of defeat??? If he had OPPOSED the Iraq war and got a majority of only one, the selfsame whiners would have been describing it as an "historic achievement" or the like. The Soviet Union may have fallen but the Western media seem determined to keep the old lying Soviet press and its distortions alive and well and more pervasive than ever. If they were criticizing Blair for getting only 36% of the vote I would understand that but only the opposition parties seem to be bothered by that. What the mainly Leftist commentators are gloating about is that Blair lost 50 seats -- but coming off the huge majority he had before, his present 66 seat majority is just a return to normal.

England getting restive: "The gap between the amount of public money spent per head in Scotland compared with that spent in England has grown despite devolution. The situation will particularly anger Tories, who won about 60,000 more votes in England than Labour. They secured 92 fewer seats although the South voted overwhelmingly Tory.... According to this year's Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses published by the Treasury last month, 5,593 pounds will be spent on each person in the South East while 7,786 pounds will be spent per head in Scotland. In Wales, the figure is 7,312 pounds and in Northern Ireland 8,566 pounds ..... However, the outcome of the election will renew calls for England to be given its own parliament to campaign for a more equal share of public money or for excluding Scottish MPs at Westminster from English business."

Good to see Taranto skewering one of Australia's puffed-up Leftist public broadcasters. In their best supercilious manner, they tried to diss Brisbane's own Chrenkoff but got their facts wrong. And it was in a TV program where they purport to correct errors of fact. What a laugh! Chrenkoff is certainly laughing about the whole thing. By the way, I love this post by Chrenkoff. No wonder he has such a big readership (2 million hits in one year!).

Another instance of where we have the internet to thank for corrections that we otherwise would not hear is the Oreskes fraud. A sociologist named Naomi Oreskes did a "study" which arrived at the hilarious claim that there was total consensus among scientists about global warming. Despite the falsity of that claim being widely known, the "study" was published in a serious scientific journal. When an article from a science professor (Peiser) giving the actual facts was submitted to the same journal, however, they refused to print it -- giving grounds for their refusal which were also falsehoods. This should have been a major scandal of the sort that the media love reporting but we have heard not a whisper of it from them so far that I can tell. You can read Peiser's unpublished corrective article plus the whole of Peiser's correspondence with the journal here. There is a also a big discussion of the matter here. I reported the matter on GREENIE WATCH on December 9, 2004 and on May 2, 2005

Mike Adams is a genius. His latest hilarious shot at feminist bigotry is here. The feminist sourpusses won't be laughing, of course.

Carnival of the Vanities is up again with much good reading

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.

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

BRAIN SCIENCE NOTES

People realize that blacks are more dangerous. How amazing! "Negative feelings about black people may be subconsciously learned by both white and black Americans, suggests a brain imaging study. The research is among the first to test the brain physiology of racial biases in both black and white subjects. The new study showed that both white and black people had increased activity in an area of the brain called the amygdala - which responds to fearful or threatening situations - when completing a matching task with images of black faces". Logical Meme has more.

Homosexual brains respond like female brains: "Using a brain-imaging technique, Swedish researchers have shown that men and women respond differently to two odors that may be involved in sexual arousal, and that homosexual men respond in the same way as women. The two chemicals, one a testosterone derivative produced in men's sweat and the other an estrogen-like compound found in women's urine, have long been suspected of being pheromones, chemicals emitted by one individual to trigger some behavior in another of the same species. The role of pheromones, particularly in guiding sexual behavior, has been well established in animals but experts differ as to what importance, if any, they have retained in human mating. The new research may open the way to studying human pheromones as well as the biological basis of sexual preference. The study, by Dr. Ivanka Savic and colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, is being reported in Tuesday's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences..... The report by Dr. Savic and her colleagues recalls a 1991 report by Dr. Simon LeVay that a small region of the hypothalamus was twice as large in straight men than in women or gay men."

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

SOME MEDICAL NOTES

A sane verdict: "A jury took less than three hours yesterday to throw out a prosecution which threatened to extend the crime of manslaughter to carers who fail to prevent suicides by people who have repeatedly made it clear that they wish to take their own lives. Jill Anderson, 49, who told police she and her pain-racked husband, Paul, had exchanged the phrase 'I love you' at least 17 times a day in his final weeks, was cleared after admitting that she had failed to dial 999 when he took the last of many overdoses at their Yorkshire country cottage .... Lawyers are assessing the implications for the use of manslaughter by gross negligence as an alternative to the Suicide Act, which applies only to people who actively assist someone to die. The prosecuting QC was the Treasury counsel David Perry, who represented the Home Office in the Diane Pretty case, arguing against her right to die, and there have been suggestions that the government has been looking for ways to tighten things up."

Organ sanity needed: "Let's put some perspective on the 'ethics' of money in transplant situations: The surgeon who performs the transplant is paid. The nurses, anesthesiologists, medical technicians and aides who assist the surgeon are paid. The company which transports the organ from its point of origin to its point of use is paid. The lady behind the counter at the hospital coffee shop who serves up a cuppa joe to the patients' families while they await word is paid. Only one party to this whole process is expected to forego payment for 'ethical' reasons -- the donor (or, if the donor is dead, the donor's estate). The result? Only 30% of Americans register to donate their organs. Hundreds of Americans die every month awaiting a transplant organ which never arrives. Thousands of transplantable organs are buried or baked every month. Nobody wins. The exclusion of market values from the organ transplant process results in death after death -- in the midst of an abundance of potential life."

Freedom and the organ shortage: "Governments cause lots of problems. Individuals solve lots of problems. When individuals try to solve a problem caused by government, they face an uphill struggle. The organ shortage is an interesting example, and since April is National Donate Life Month, the subject is worth reviewing in detail. There is a large and growing shortage of transplantable human organs in the United States. Over 88,000 Americans are now on the national waiting list, and about 40,000 more join the list every year. Over 6,000 Americans died waiting for transplant operations last year. But these deaths are not the result of any real scarcity of organs. In fact, Americans bury or cremate about 20,000 transplantable organs every year. Rather, the federal government has caused the organ shortage by bureaucratic meddling in the transfer of organs from people who no longer need them to people who do."

Good thing they found out eventually: "The nitrous oxide gas used in most general anaesthetics is unsafe and should be discontinued, say Australian doctors who have found it doubles the rate of serious vomiting and pneumonia after surgery and raises the risk of wound infections. Their study of 2050 patients also showed that those who had undergone surgery were slower to recover and likely to stay in hospital longer if gases used to keep them unconscious included nitrous oxide as a base, rather than oxygen alone or oxygen and air. Paul Myles, director of anaesthesia at The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, said: "This is going to really surprise people ... nitrous oxide is used in 80 per cent of anaesthetics. It's the stock in the stew. It's the foundation of anaesthesia and has been that way for 160 years."

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

ELSEWHERE

The Australian government has just brought down a tax-cutting budget for the year ahead.

Another fabricated "hate crime" in California: "A 17-year-old top wrestler at an area high school here faked a series of gay-bashing incidents that prompted a police investigation, authorities said. The rash of gay-bashing incidents at Tamalpais High School was the work of a student gay leader who claimed she was the victim of hate crimes, according to Mill Valley Police Capt. James Wickham. The teen, who heads the school's Gay-Straight Alliance, admitted to authorities that she was the perpetrator of the incidents, which included vandalizing her own car with derogatory graffiti, police said. Other incidents involved teachers who received threatening telephone messages. ``It has been determined that all the incidents have been committed by a single individual,'' Wickham said. The student was not identified by police. The girl has been suspended and could face expulsion, said Bob Ferguson, district school superintendent. ``She confessed to everything,'' Ferguson said. ``She did admit to police that it was basically for attention.''"

I have just added some more material to my reference article on Hitler. One of the things I look at is to what extent Hitler was a Christian. Most of what I have to say about that, however, is in a separate article 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.

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

TUESDAY ROUNDUP

A brief version of my roundup again today

On Dissecting Leftism I argue that Christians are more tolerant than secularists

On Political Correctness Watch I note evidence that boys at school are hopelessly incorrect despite all the Leftist brainwashing they get

On Greenie Watch I note a scientific report that suggests that we need MORE air pollution to fight global warming

On Education Watch I note that economists have discovered that parenting style has little influence on how well a kid achieves but how intelligent the parent is matters greatly.

On Socialized Medicine I note cases of bureaucratic murder in Britains National Health system

On Gun Watch I note that Alaska is making life easier for gun owners

On Leftists as Elitists I reproduce some obnoxious comments from an atheist elitist

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

ELSEWHERE

Blair depends on Scottish and Welsh votes: "The Conservatives won England in the general election, in votes but not in seats. Both the Conservatives and Labour gained more than eight million English votes, but the Conservatives finished more than 50,000 ahead. This trend is worrying for Labour. In 1997 they had a majority in England over the Conservatives of more than 3.5 million votes. In only two elections the whole of that lead has melted away. If the trend is not reversed, the Conservatives will have their own large lead in English votes at the next election. This time, the first-past-the-post system has worked in Labour’s favour, against the Conservatives and against the Lib Dems. In 2005, although they were behind in votes, Labour led in seats by 286 to 193. But there will be comprehensive boundary changes in the course of this Parliament; Labour will not again enjoy such an excessive advantage"

Islamic terrorism draws on European and American thinking: "We know that not every political movement has created a terrorist splinter group, or served as an excuse for terrorism. Actually, terrorism has been the favourite method of extreme socialists only - both of the (left-wing) international, and the (right-wing) national varieties. Since the Jacobins of the French revolution held a "Reign of Terror" in 1794, the international socialists (communists) and national socialists (fascists) have shared a common tendency to use terrorism. Modern terrorism was born within a year, 1967-1968. International socialists (communists) started the fashion all over the world simultaneously, which should make us suspicious about the common roots. National socialists followed suit, turning Marxists of Muslim origin into Islamists of Marxist origin".

David Brooks on "Global governance" nonsense: "The people who talk about global governance begin with the same premises as the world government types: the belief that a world of separate nations, living by the law of the jungle, will inevitably be a violent world. Instead, these people believe, some supranational authority should be set up to settle international disputes by rule of law. They know we're not close to a global version of the European superstate. So they are content to champion creeping institutions like the International Criminal Court. They treat U.N. General Assembly resolutions as an emerging body of international law. They seek to foment a social atmosphere in which positions taken by multilateral organizations are deemed to have more "legitimacy" than positions taken by democratic nations.... We'll never accept it, first, because it is undemocratic. It is impossible to set up legitimate global authorities because there is no global democracy, no sense of common peoplehood and trust. So multilateral organizations can never look like legislatures, with open debate, up or down votes and the losers accepting majority decisions. Instead, they look like meetings of unelected elites, of technocrats who make decisions in secret and who rely upon intentionally impenetrable language, who settle differences through arcane fudges. Americans, like most peoples, will never surrender even a bit of their national democracy for the sake of multilateral technocracy".

Home-ownership should be a GOP priority: "The issue is the proposed transformation of the Federal National Mortgage Association and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, commonly known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Those Republicans who say that they wish to "reform" Fannie and Freddie put their party at risk, their own careers at risk, and the American Dream at risk. Yet amazingly, their effort to destroy the ownership-expanding function of Fannie and Freddie is gaining momentum. Their argument is that Fannie and Freddie, as private institutions with implicit public support, are interfering with the pure private free market in home mortgages, because they deliberately subsidize low- and moderate-income home buyers. Greenspan, Baker, and Shelby see such ownership-fostering as the devil's work of too much big government and also as a distortion of the housing market. Beyond those concerns -- to the politico-historical reality that home ownership is public good as well as a private good -- they simply cannot see. Some Republicans, happily, defended the pragmatic idea of widespread private ownership against the onslaught of ideologues. Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky, for example, declared, "We must make sure the institutions are financially sound, but we must also make sure that we do not do anything to jeopardize the American dream of homeownership." The American Dream: that's the key idea here".

You lose money when you save: "Today, a typical money market yield (I use the figure for Merrill Lynch Ready Assets Trust) is 2.13%: if you invest $1,000 at 2.13%, you will get $21.30 in interest over the course of a year. But you won't receive the full $21.30. You'll have to pay taxes on that amount. Currently, the marginal federal income tax rate is 35%, which reduces the yield to $13.85. But thanks to persistent inflation, the value of both the interest you earn and the money that you saved declines. Currently, the Consumer Price Index stands at 3.0%, which means that the $1,000 you invest at 2.13% will be $970 at the end of a year, and the $13.85 after-tax income you receive amounts to $13.43. So the $1,000 you saved, with the interest that it nominally earned, has purchasing power at the end of a year of $983.42. Your actual yield is -1.66%. That's right: you lose money when you save."

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.

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

CHRISTIANITY AND TOLERANCE REVISITED

A couple of days ago I commented on the preposterous claim by Christopher Hitchens to the effect that Christianity is intrinsically intolerant and that secularism is the path to tolerance. One only needs to point to the wonderful "tolerance" of atheistic Communism to see how absurd that proposition is. What PID says about Christianity and politics set me to thinking about the topic again, however. PID points out that for around a century now the theologically "modernist" churches -- which mostly means the established churches -- have been supporters of the political Left -- including such unsavoury and intolerant Leftists as Communists. So I think one could in fact argue the opposite of what Hitchens does. I think it is the LEFTIST churches that are most intolerant. Like all Leftists, they are would-be dictators and they support authoritarian and control-freak policies with great regularity. For more details, see today's post on LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS.

And when we look at history, who is the most raving Christian fundamentalist who has ever had significant political power? I think it would have to be Britain's Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658). And what did he do? Did he ruthlessly destroy all who disagreed with his doctrines? What did he do about the Jews in particular? No group could be a bigger challenge to Cromwell's theology than the Jews. They didn't even accept Jesus as the Messiah, let alone any of the other doctrines of Protestantism. You know what I am going to say, don't you? Far from persecuting the Jews, it was Cromwell who allowed them back into England -- for the first time since Edward I expelled them all in 1290. That nasty intolerant old fundamentalist Protestant!

Cromwell was no saint. He massacred those who opposed him militarily (such as the Irish) but after the holocausts unleashed on Hamburg, Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki under the aegis of FDR and Truman, I don't think the Left have much room to condemn Cromwell for that.

The basic point I am making is once again the perennial conservative warning about the complexity of human affairs. Simple generalizations (such as "secularism leads to tolerance") just will not do. Those who preach tolerance are often the most tyrannical and those who want to impose minor restrictions -- as Christian conservatives certainly do on things like homosexual marriage -- may nonetheless be the most tolerant overall.

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

ELSEWHERE

LOL: "Planned Parenthood has launched a campaign to motivate all of its members and supporters, nominal Catholics and non-Catholics, to send letters to the editor, requesting that Pope Benedict XVI reconsider his "backward views" and change his opinion on sexual morality."

GWB has called the Democrats' bluff: "By embracing the progressive indexing of Social Security benefits, the president has asked us to make a shared sacrifice for the common good. He's asking middle- and upper-class folks to accept benefit cuts so there will be money for the people who are really facing poverty. He has asked us to redistribute money down the income scale. Why should programs for children and families be strangled so Donald Trump can get bigger benefit checks? He has made the hard choices.... So how has the St. Francis of Assisi wing of the Democratic Party responded to Bush's challenge? Does it applaud him for doing what it has spent the past years telling him he should do? Of course not. The Democratic leadership has dropped all that shared sacrifice talk and started making demagogic appeals to people's narrow self-interest. ... For two decades they've been courageously saying we need to means-test Social Security, so we can focus our resources on those who need it. Now Bush has embraced their view. Are they saying that since Bush has moved so far in a redistributionist direction that perhaps the Democrats should budge slightly, too? Of course not. They're inventing lame reasons to explain why they shouldn't be for the policy they have been for over the past 20 years."

Democrats discovering free speech: "Something remarkable is happening as a Republican Congress and president move to crackdown on 527 groups like the MoveOn.org Voter Fund and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth: Liberals are realizing that something's fishy. Three years after the passage of McCain-Feingold (a.k.a. the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, a.k.a. the End of Free Speech As We Know It), a smattering of Democrats and liberal activists are slowly coming to the conclusion that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to let the government decide who can and cannot engage in political speech."

Conservative law schools growing: "In the past few years, religious conservatives have realized what their liberal counterparts saw long ago: The place where the culture wars are won or lost is in the courtroom. Some religious leaders, including Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, have set up schools to train their own battalion of lawyers..... the students at these schools were very bright and they were turning down good, well-known -- sometimes Ivy League -- schools to attend these instead..... Both schools seemed determined not to turn into religious ghettos. Rather, they wanted their graduates to really go out into the culture and change it from the inside... schools like Patrick Henry and Ave Maria [are] growing at a very rapid pace (Evangelical college enrollment grew 60 percent between 1990 and 2002, while enrollment at other private and public schools remained stagnant)."

Immigration: Sowell sums it up: "Social Security used to be called the third rail of politics but illegal immigration is the real third rail that both political parties are afraid to touch. Cops who find illegal aliens are under orders not to turn them in to the feds. And the federal government's own border guards have their hands tied by the higher-ups as well. Now that Hispanics are the largest minority in the country, and with the country closely divided politically, neither party wants to risk alienating the Hispanic vote by enforcing immigration laws. Many other Americans may be outraged at the way illegal aliens are handled with kid gloves -- and, in some places, even given rights normally reserved for citizens -- but so long as this outrage is directed at both parties, neither party wants to be the one to risk losing the Hispanic vote."

The Left don't want the poor to get rich: "In recent years, the idea of development - in the sense of economic modernisation - has come to be seen as not feasible, or even desirable. A landmark here was the United Nations Brundtland Report of 1987, which promoted the idea of 'sustainable development' - defined as giving overriding priority to 'the essential needs of the world's poor'. In other words, the sole focus should be on the most basic needs of the poor. Even worse, the report argued that technology and social organisation put limits on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs - so suggesting that the environment places natural limits on development"

Attacks on McDonalds are really attacks on people who eat there: "Some people aren't very sensible or conventional. But of course, the people making a federal case of the McDonald's enthusiasm will not accept this as fact. They need an American villain, some typically American institution, like big business, so they can then denounce not the stupid or peculiar people who are overeating of their own free will but the McDonald's big business people who are, you guessed it, coercing them all to come and eat there."

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.

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

ONE CHEER FOR MR. BLAIR

Now that Tony Blair will be in charge of Britain for a few more years, perhaps it behooves us to see where he fits into political history. His situation certainly seems a curious one: His party seems as Leftist as ever but he has always been to the Right of his party. So to what extent is he a conservative?

Many people have pointed to pragmatism and compromise as characteristic of conservatives and that is undoubtedly true as a statement about British political history (Norton & Aughey, 1981; Gilmour, 1978; Feiling, 1953; Standish, 1990) but it would seem to lead to the view that democracy is inherently conservative -- in that any political party wishing to gain power in a democracy has to keep pretty close to the centre.

And a man who hews very much to the centre in his rhetoric is the electorally very successful Tony Blair. So much so, that the chief opposition to many of his policies seems to come from his own Labour party rather than from the opposition Conservatives. This has led some people to describe him as the best Conservative Prime Minister that Britain never had. And that, in a way is the point: A pragmatic centrist is rightly seen as conservative. But the reason why he is in fact the leader of a historically very Leftist political party is instructive. Note his own summary of his thinking here:

"At the heart of my politics has always been the value of community, the belief that we are not merely individuals struggling in isolation from each other, but members of a community who depend on each other, who benefit from each other's help, who owe obligations to each other. From that everything stems: solidarity, social justice, equality, freedom. We are what we are, in part, because of the other. I apply that idea here in Britain. I try to apply it abroad."

I cannot help compare that statement with a similar statement by a very different Socialist:

"The activities of the individual may not clash with the interests of the whole, but must proceed within the frame of the community and be for the general good."

And contrast both statements with this summary of historic British Conservative party thinking:

"They distrust general notions such as "the community" and would argue that the despotism of reason may cloak as much sinister self-interest and self-deception as any other tyranny."

The summary of Conservative thinking is by Feiling, an historian of the British Conservative party. The second quote above is from Adolf Hitler.

I have no doubt that Mr Blair is a genuinely compassionate man (something I would say of few Leftist leaders, though it is true of many Leftist followers) but, in good Leftist fashion, he is in love with the community rather than with the individual and that endears him to his party. From the rest of his speech we also note that, also in good Leftist fashion, he sees government as the best way to accomplish his goals, though he also acknowledges the limitations of government -- a rare thing on the Left and something again that marks him out as unusually conservative for a leader of his party.

That a Leftist party can give birth to conservative thinking is probably most clearly seen in the Australian case. Neville Wran, a Queen's Counsel of working class origins, was Labor party Premier of Australia's most populous state (New South Wales) from 1976 to 1986 and during his tenure introduced his party to conservatism (though not under that name of course). The electoral success of his approach was noted on the Federal level and was put into practice on the Federal level with the accession to power of Bob Hawke. Prior to his career in Parliament, Hawke was known as the king of compromises in the field of disputes between unions and business. As Prime Minster (1983-1981) he of course continued that approach and was in addition remarkably pragmatic on economic matters -- largely traceable, no doubt, to his degree in economics. It was he who initiated large scale privatizations of government enterprises in Australia -- very much akin to what Margaret Thatcher did in England.

So whether any given government can be identified as conservative or not is clearly a matter of degree -- a matter of how much the individual person is respected, a matter of how much government is trusted and a matter of how much compromise and pragmatism is resorted to -- but broadly conservative government can clearly arise from parties that are either nominally Leftist or nominally Rightist. In the Australian case matters have progressed to the point where the major choice on offer is between two conservative parties -- though there are of course also various minor parties (Greens, Democrats) that lean well to the Left. In the case of Tony Blair one would have to say that his conservative inclinations have generally led to little in the way of conservative results because of his trust in bureaucracy as a way of achieving his goals.

References:
Feiling, K. (1953) Principles of conservatism. Political Quarterly, 24, 129-133.
Gilmour, I.H.J.L. (1978) Inside right. London: Quartet.
Norton, P. & Aughey, A. (1981) Conservatives and conservatism. London: Temple Smith
Standish, J.F. (1990) Whither conservatism? Contemporary Review 256, 299-301.

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

ELSEWHERE

V.D. Hanson has just written another first class article. I have put up a few excerpts on LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS and here is another: "The problem with Democrats is that Americans are not convinced that they will ever act in any consistent manner. We can argue about Afghanistan, but if one were to go back and read accounts in October 2001 about hitting back, the news reflected liberals' doubt about both the wisdom and efficacy of taking out the Taliban. Would Al Gore have invaded Afghanistan less than a month after 9/11? If John Kerry were President and China invaded Taiwan, what would he do? What would an administration advised by Madeline Albright, Barbara Boxer, Joe Biden, Jamie Rubin, Nancy Pelosi, or Jimmy Carter do if Iran sent a nuke into Israel, or North Korea fired a series of missiles over the top of Japan? Or, if al Qaeda, operating from a sanctuary in Iran or Syria, took out the Sears Tower, how would a Kennedy, Kerry, or Gore respond? Six cruise missiles? A police matter? Proper work for the DA? Better "intelligence"? Let's work with our allies? Get the U.N. involved? Whatever we think of George Bush, we know he would do something real - and just what that something might be frightens into hesitation - and yes, fear - many of those who would otherwise like to try something pretty awful".

Good for the church: "An American Jesuit who is a frequent television commentator on Roman Catholic issues resigned yesterday under orders from the Vatican as editor of the Catholic magazine America because he had published articles critical of church positions, several Catholic officials in the United States said. The order to dismiss the editor, the Rev. Thomas J. Reese, was issued by the Vatican's office of doctrinal enforcement - the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - in mid-March when that office was still headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger... In recent years America has featured articles representing more than one side on sensitive issues like same-sex marriage, relations with Islam and whether Catholic politicians who support abortion rights should be given communion. Church officials said it was the publication of some of these articles that prompted Vatican scrutiny.... Catholic scholars and writers said in interviews yesterday that they feared that the dismissal of such a highly visible Catholic commentator was intended by the Vatican as a signal that debating church teaching is outside the bounds".

Christianarchy? "Can a person be a Christian and also an anarchist? A friend of mine who has been reading my STR columns posed this to me recently. While answering his query, I realized that many of my readers might be wondering the same thing, so it seemed as good a time as any to lay out the biblical case for anarchy."

Amusing that a bloggers' conference is now reported in the mainstream media (MSM). Bill Hobbs's blog is 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.

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

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.

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